Ice Storm? Corona and Sunset Pics Pt. II

From the NWS in KC's AFD:

TIMING OF ONSET OF PRECIPITATION
IN WESTERN CWA HAS BEEN FAIRLY CONSISTENT...08Z-10Z SATURDAY SO WILL
GO AHEAD AND HOIST THE FLAG FOR AN ICE STORM WARNING FOR FAR
NORTHWEST MO AND NORTHEAST KS WHERE PERIODS OF MODERATE FREEZING
RAIN AND SLEET MOST LIKELY. ALSO ISSUED A FREEZING RAIN ADVISORY FOR
KC AREA DUE TO LIKELY START OF PRECIPITATION PRIOR TO 12Z SATURDAY.

MAX TEMPERATURES MAY VERY WELL OCCUR AT 00Z SUNDAY OR EVEN LATER
INTO THE EVENING HOURS. WENT THE CONSERVATIVE ROUTE ON ICE AMOUNTS
ACROSS NORTHERN MO DUE TO UNCERTAINTY ON TIMING OF CHANGEOVER TO
RAIN. SHOULD MY WORST FEARS COME TRUE AND THE MODELS END UP SCOURING
OUT THE COLD AIR TOO FAST THERE COULD CERTAINLY BE HALF AN INCH OF
ICE ACCUMULATIONS. TO COMPOUND MATTERS THE MARKED TIGHTENING OF THE
PRESSURE GRADIENT AND INCREASING LOW LEVEL JET WILL RESULT IN STRONG
EAST TO SOUTHEAST WINDS TOMORROW...RESULTING IN THE POTENTIAL FOR
SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE TO ICE COVERED POWER LINES AND TREES.

I haven't had a chance to look lately, but it looks like it could get bad further north of there.

Some more pics of a sunset last night and a corona, which there hasn't been a short of lately.

Sunset Pics in Olathe

I was on my way to work, when I noticed one of the most spectacular sunsets I have ever seen (non storm), so I turned around and got my camera, and subsequently, was late to work about 20 minutes. It was worth it!

Trains, trains, trains, always waiting on trains in Olathe!

A Greensburg Resident's Blog

I stumbled on this blog today, a resident of Greensburg who seems to write in this blog nearly daily. This entry really bothers me a lot, because it's told by your average resident.

His wife had called last night to tell him that on CNN they said the rebuilding was going well.
He looked at me, hands out to his sides, palms up and shrugged his shoulders.

"Where?" he asked me. "Where is the rebuilding? They don't even have a single building on main street. You don't have a place to eat. Your only "grocery store" is the convenience store. The only stop light in town hasn't even been replaced. I see a few houses around the perimeter, but where is the TOWN?"

All I could do was shrug my shoulders in answer. Someday, maybe we will have a town. Someday.

It's good to know that our leaders are letting everyone know that the rebuilding process is "going well." Still, no grocery store in the town. Kwik Shop was barely up and running as the town's source of a grocery store back when we were there on July 4th. So what is going on? Many residents are still angry that FEMA left one day, after the story slowly fizzled out of the headlines, and without warning. Speaking of FEMA, read this entry she wrote about what FEMA has demanded of them! Are you fucking kidding me?

Where is the funding? Where are these god damn politicians at that promised to help Greensburg? I'm doing my part as much that is within my power, why aren't they? Who is going to tell the real story about Greensburg?

Who is going to tell the stories of suicide that happened because someone lost their entire world? No one will. They want everyone to think that Greensburg is okay; America does not like cater to bad endings or stories that aren't either 1. Heroic or 2. Absolutely horrible, despicable. There is no in between.

Our friend Daniel has decided to move to New Mexico, due to finances, his employment, and the house he was loaned, was not his. I think that night still terrifies him quite a bit, and I don't think he wants to live there any more (although he says the move might be temporary, I think it's permanent). Things are not going well in the town, there is still debris there nearly 7 months later. 7 months!

What's going on in Greensburg? Obviously, you can't rebuild an entire town overnight, but progress should be further along than what it is now. Drive down there yourself someday, at night even, and see what these people wake up to every day. It's a war zone. It's a nightmare, and it's there every day to remind them.
Tis the season.

May 22nd Photos

I turned off the KU-Mizzou game and decided to process some photos I had forgotten about for awhile.

Here is the beginning of the first supercell south of Gove, KS on May 22nd. It's pretty high-based at this point and had just begun to get a little precip underneath it. For those who have never been down highway 23 south of Gove, it is absolutely stunning, with nothing but prairie grass, big hills, draws, and no civilization whatsoever.



This storm is now taking on supercell characteristics as we narrowly avoid the core and get a little east and south of it on dirt roads. This is south of Gove a little bit, and a few miles east on CR-H road. We thought about going into Gove first, then east, but would have ended up in the developing core of the storm. I'm glad we didn't.



We move further east, then north up a county road where several chasers are now present.

Another storm firing up, which IIRC, was the one that would produce the tornado later on.



A few looks at the meso on the storm to the north. It was funny, at one point, a guy was mowing his grass on a hill, with this view to his west, and I don't think he ever noticed.









We move to east of Collyier as the first tornado warning goes out to someone who reported a funnel cloud which was not attached to the base. (Looked like one, but wasn't). Probably warranted however, because a few minutes later, the storm was more organized, and started to pull in scud, with a nice tail cloud to the north of it.




It produces a nice wall cloud, with a weak funnel, but it never does it to our knowledge. We find a parking spot with the chaser circus now everywhere and watch this meso get rained on by the developing supercell to the south of it.



Our meso is done to the west, and this is our view to the SW.




We're getting about 1-1.5 inch stones at this point, and the supercell is now on top of us, and literally breath taking. I wish I could wake up to this everyday.





And a last look at it before it produces a tornado about 20 minutes later.



I had a nice Thanksgiving with my family, including grandfather on Thursday, then with Devin's family that night. Then, another Thanksgiving at my uncle's in Lawrence yesterday! I still have one more to go tomorrow at Devin's aunt's house, which usually is huge.

This deer was in my backyard on Thursday! I have literally dozens each night that just casually walk through my backyard.





On another note, I have received an email from a member on that "list," who told me an email was circulating around about my blog with the "original" comments and posts. Unfortunately, a quick check on statistics on this blog, revealed he and another person were the ones that saved the entries and have been circulating them. He also wished for me to shut down the website (which I had nothing to do with), that listed all members of CFDG. Sorry, but I have no idea who put it up, nor do I have any control on the person who did. I sure as heck don't care who is on that list, now why would he? Geesh, let it go. My argument is the death wishes on others, not the list.

May 5th Revisited

Darin and I went to a small chaser party the other weekend, and I tried to round up some video to show at the last minute, and ended up chopping up May 4th, 5th and 22nd. We missed out on Rick Schmidt and Doug Nelson's Greensburg tornado footage, but we saw the stills. Absolutely incredible stuff they had. We also missed Scott Currens' Protection Video which I've been dying to see in HD, but we got to see probably, hands-down, the best tornado footage I've ever seen. Jon Davies had some incredible footage from June 9th 2005, near Hill City. I'll leave it at that. It was good seeing everyone again, and meeting a couple of new people who I had not met but did know via the internet, and we all stayed to watch the KU game after the videos were shown.

Anyways, here is May 5th, from the beginning to near end (no footage of the nighttime Seward wedge that the TIV supposedly drove through). We ran out of tape on the merry-go-round tornado, thanks to 4 tapes being used between the two days. Derek didn't do that bad of a job, on May 4th or 5th, considering he never had picked up a camera in his life!

It's hard to see on the first Pratt storm video (not time lapse), but you hear Derek talk about a spinup, and me calling it RFD, well seconds later, it was clear it was under the cloud base, and clearly rotating. I noticed on some chaser's report logs, that they said they missed it due to whatever, well we were up close and personal!


I've posted this timelapse before....

*Disclaimer* This video is
rated *CFDG* and is not suitable for those not accustomed to "yahoo" like behavior. lol



Then slowed down......with two weak spinups and a gorgeous white funnel that never touched to our knowledge.



Then the beginning of the first "Radium" cone/stovepipe.


Then end of Radium and Macksville beginning. For some unknown reason, I noticed that I loop the same footage twice, sorry about that!



And then the ending of Macksville


I think Derek and Darin slept for an hour from about 9- 10 a.m. (after we all stayed up all night assisting victims in Greensburg) the night before. Meanwhile, I couldn't sleep, and had to help navigate a friend from Lawrence to our hotel, and shortly after the long day had begun.

If both days could have had just 1 more hour of daylight, it would have been a blast, but fast storm motions on tornadic storms and dark do not mix well.


I'll probably take these down in a week, so enjoy!

I Think it's About time

For Chuck Doswell, Roger Edwards, Brian Curran, Joel Genung, and many of their colleagues of CFDG to remove their death wishes off of their websites of certain chasers they "deem" yahoos.


Not only is this unprofessional of them, it serves as a double standard for the rules Chuck set forth for his proclaimed "Storm Chasing Ethics." Hmm, I wish for you to die, but don't put yourself in danger out there or hurt others. I get it, Chuck D.

Children, read these websites, and a young chaser should never be wishing death upon others (nor should grown men with children). You're exposing kids to violent behavior, as if there isn't enough of that in this world already. Do us all a favor and drop the childish behavior, before Karma steals the limelight.

No one cares about old grudges. It's time for apologies to be made, or lines will continue to be drawn (forced more like it), and segregation will keep happening. Your days are up, there are a new generation of chasers out there, who don't give two shits about your rules, or what you've done. We're all the same out there, and we're here to help each other, as there aren't a lot of people out there who enjoy this "strange" hobby, labeled by the outside world.

So drop the egos, pull that crap off your websites, and apologize to those who you've forced into hiding, and have forced banishment upon. I hope someday you can look back on all of the stupid bullshit you've pulled, and realize what you have done to other human beings. But I'm guessing your narcissistic egos won't allow you to. This topic will continue to flare up more often than not, and it's your reputations that are in the cross-fire. Just consider yourselves lucky to be alive, and let others chase as they wish.

I can think of about 1,000 things you could do for the "community" instead of the childish hate you keep spreading on this hobby. Educate, help, and share are just a handful.

It's your choice, do the right thing.

Please feel free to comment below, and put other names on here that I have left out, so that justice is served, or to voice your opinion on the matter.

Photo Thief

Pictured above is a screen capture I took not 20 minutes ago off of Sean Wilson's website. For those who do not know what is wrong with this picture...it is my picture. I never gave Sean permission to use this photo, nor did he ever ask me, and as you can see I received no credit. Sean also chases for NBC41 in Kansas City.

Here is the link to the page, I fully expect compensation for this photo, as he owns a business which nets him income and my photo is used to promote this business.

News about the Old man in Greensburg...

DICK,

THE PERSON IN YOUR PICTURES IS MR. W.E. STEWART, MR. STEWART IS DOING WELL AND CURRENTLY LIVING IN PRATT. HE IS WORKING WITH THE KANSAS WORKFORCE DISASTER RECOVERY PROGRAM AND HELPING THE GREENSBURG AND KIOWA COUNTY RESIDENTS BY DELIVERING TWICE WEEKLY PUBLIC INFORMATION NEWS UPDATES. YOU MAY BE INTRESTED TO KNOW HE MAINTAINS A KEEN SENSE OF HUMOR AND IS A VERY ENJOYABLE PERSON TO HAVE IN OUR PROGRAM.
THANKS FOR YOUR INQUIREY.


RON WHITE
GREENSBURG, KANSAS
NATIONAL EMERGENCY GRANT
PROJECT COORDINATOR

It's good to know that he's doing okay, and that he is real! Hopefully they will let me contact him, or give him my contact information.

5 Years! and Weddings, Weddings and more Weddings

Today marks the 5th year anniversary for my girlfriend, Devin and I. She has put up with a lot of my crap over the years, including the relationship killer...storm chasing. I don't think I've ever tried for a female harder than her, and after a YEAR of me trying to go out with her in 2002, when I was 22 and her just 19, she finally gave in! It was a roller coaster ride for her the first 4 years, but I think we are starting to balance out the relationship. I'm very proud of her, as she has a degree from the university of KU, specializing in juvenile justice. She works for a local social services place in Lawrence, and helps families that are struggling to keep their kids. I don't like to put up a lot about personal life on the net, but this is a deserved post.

Being the good girlfriend she is, she cooked me breakfast in bed, and bought me a bunch of stuff that I like, so tonight and this weekend, I'm gonna have to outdo her. She is the most down to earth, sweet, loving girl, that I am glad that I found her! Everyone calls her the "All-American Girl." If you met her, you would know why. Thanks for putting up with me for so long, Devin!

Some pics of her, some old, some recent....







Also, my friend Chris, who resides in OKC, recently proposed to his girlfriend Tara, and their wedding is set for April in Lawrence. Congrats! A couple of pics I took in recent years, including the Texas-Ohio State game in 2005, and the "Widespread Panic concert in 2005." He'll be up here this weekend again, so it will be good to see him again. A busy weekend, with chaser parties, chili feeds, old friends, school, and an anniversary!





And I almost forgot, my friend Greg, who also lives in the 405 (OKC), is getting married also! I don't have a picture of his woman, but here is the bastard I call "80's Greg Wooderson." Congrats Greg!


Chris and Greg have been best buddies since they were like 5! I'm gonna get murdered if I show this pic, but who cares! Owned!



I'm holding out on marriage for awhile, as long as I can, because my storm chasing days will be over! haha. Seriously though, I'm holding out.

Uninvited Guests, Greensburg ghost?

Darin and I picked up this gentleman (below) the night of Greensburg. We never thought about it at the time, but he let us know where people were that needed helped, and that were trapped. Considering there were no communications that night after the tornado hit, and we picked him up about 1 mile west of where he knew a lady was "trapped," I find it interesting how calm he was, in fact, he never told us what happened to him, or where he came from, and was completely fine, not a spec of dirt, mud, blood, nothing on him. He rested in my car for awhile, got out occasionally and I checked on him 2-3 times before we left to check houses, and he just sat in there looking straight ahead. On the way into town, he kept telling us the history of Greensburg, sort of like a tour guide, and he said it as though he remembered just yesterday. He disappeared sometime, not sure when exactly. The whole night is a blur, and I am still trying to piece together what went on, and that I remember. It's weird watching us in the video that night, it seems as if someone else is controlling me, I don't even remember some of the stuff.
I put out a request to identify him, as I'm sure someone knows him, so hopefully it will stop freaking us out, after piecing everything he said and did that night. But if you listen to his voice in the video, you'll know where we are coming from. He was wearing a vintage suit, similar to those worn back in the 1950's, which we thought was odd too.




I left the door cracked, and this little guy snuck in. I kept trying to help him get out, and he kept swooping at me, so I took a yardstick and coaxed him out of my room, and finally got him to go back out, after about 30 minutes.

Interesting stuff, I know. But sort of like breaking a mirror, or throwing
salt over your shoulder, getting a bird in your house is known for "Chaser" bad luck. Just ask Mike.....

I wonder what can be done to reverse this curse. His curse is officially lifted.