3/23 Storm Chase

I don't have a lot of time to post, as always. Darin, Jordan, Doug and I hesitated, then eventually committed to a developing supercell south of Junction City near Herrington. This thing left us in the dust thanks to the Flint Hills road network and I believe it is the same storm that produced an EF-1 tornado in Nemaha County. Saw Mike Hollingshead (who has a great picture of this storm) not once, but twice...once near Herington, then later on south of Yates Center on some bumfuck road. What are the odds I wonder?

Anyways, below are a couple of photos of the storm and of a beautiful sun halo I witnessed yesterday afternoon.







Kansas City is currently under a Winter Storm Watch with crazy snow numbers being thrown out during the first full week of Spring...we'll see what happens!

Las Vegas, Upcoming Severe Weather

I had a very good time in Las Vegas this past week. I watched Devin's sister, Rachel and her husband, Jeff get married in the "Valley of Fire" state park about 40-50 miles outside of Vegas. It was spectacular to say the least.

On Saturday, Darin and I will be selling Storms of 2008 Charity DVD's in Lawrence, Kansas this upcoming Saturday for the DCEM Severe Weather Symposium. Some speakers I'm looking forward to seeing speak will be Shawna and Jon Davies, and Dave Floyd.

All eyes of storm chasers, including myself, are to this upcoming Monday across the High Plains, with the potential for a significant severe weather outbreak to occur. There are still a lot of details to be worked out between the models between now and then, but at the very least, it looks like a decent, widespread wind event, if not a major tornado outbreak (at most). Timing of the system and moisture recovery are two major concerns...but we'll see.

Also, I'm slowly updating my archive to flickr, and have been using a neat place to view all of my photos on flickriver.com here. It continually scrolls all of my photos by order of "most interesting."

I have soooooo many pictures to process these days, I doubt I'll have much time to do any other than severe weather. I'm also pretty sick of this Sigma 17-70 lens for nothing more than the autofocus, which seems to be a major bitch these days. I'm so spoiled with the HSM motors on my Canon L glass and Sigma 10-20, these USM motors are trash...and I desperately want the Canon 24-105 f/4 L in the near future.

Below are a few pictures I took this past Sunday of Rachel and Jeff.

Storm Chase Photos + Firenado Pictures

I don't have a lot of time to go into detail...as I'm heading to Las Vegas on Thursday and have very little time. Darin, Lexi and I intercepted the supercell near Hutchinson, Kansas early on and followed it for a few hours. There were brief spinups beneath high-based, rotating wall clouds on several occasions. The first we could see was several miles west of Hutchinson, then on the south side of Hutchinson, then about 5 miles NE of Hutchinson. The storm soon took on a shelfy appearance, but re-organized quickly and spun up yet another south of Hesston. Below are a few pictures of the chase (all shot with the 10-20 mm ultra wide angle lens). Met Michael Carlson and Dann Cianca briefly and it was good to finally meet them! Not a bad chase for early March!



You can see the dust on the horizon left of center here (looking west from South Hutchinson) :









Then near Hesston:





On Friday, I was lucky enough to see several firenadoes up close, below are a couple of pictures. Hopefully I have more time later tonight or tomorrow to process more photos.