I have resigned from being Tech Admin at StormTrack.  I have been on staff there either as a mod or Tech Admin for ages in Internet time.  I won’t go in to all the reasons why on a public forum, but it’s mostly to reduce some work load on me.  StormTrack became a large time sink for me, there were many times I spent entire days over there handling something.   Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate charity work, but quite frankly it was cutting in to my paying work and stressing me out beyond belief.  I have always had a rule that paying work came first, and I am getting back to that.  No doubt things will continue on just fine without me there, I just won’t be stressing over it any more.  I expect my contributions there now to be drastically cut back.

In fact, I may cut back drastically on the storm chasing all together.  I have mixed feelings about that, and I will continue to evaluate things when we approach next spring.  I expect I will still chase locally for the TV station.  How much I chase beyond that is what is in question.

A lot of factors in regards to that.  One of which is just the growing costs to keep doing it, most notably fuel costs. Assuming it’s going to keep going up or stay near what it is now, even one chase day locally can cost over $100 in fuel.  Couple that with all the stress of dealing with some of the B.S. that goes on within the chase community, the ever increasing numbers of chasers to deal with on the road (some days there are approaching 200 chase vehicles around storms), and the fact I am not getting any younger and those very long trips really wear me out, it’s just frankly taken a lot of the fun out of it.

As a result, I am losing interest in something I have always enjoyed.  I guess part of that is that elements of it I really enjoyed are hard to come by these days.  Like the solitude out on a country road while you watch the storm, or being able to share what your doing or what you captured with others on the Internet without having to worry about getting slammed for something you did, or because you had a successful day, had an amber lightbar on your vehicle while you did it, or god forbid, you committed the most unholy of chaser sins and made some money off of it to help recover expenses.

The storm chasing world is full of these (mostly ridiculous) issues and more on almost a daily basis.  I miss the days I could post a pic or a video, without worrying about having to do some sort of damage control because someone wanted to attack you, but rather receive wonderful comments back on what you shared.  Sure the nice folks and comments are still there, but the negative stuff sure takes away the fun of it.  I am working on trying to ignore and purge that sort of stuff from my life.

The silliness of it all is that the majority of it would just go away if folks would just practice “live and let live”, go out and chase and enjoy themselves, and stop trying to worry about and police what everyone else is doing.  I absolutely do not know how they even have the time to worry about whether Chaser A had a lightbar on that day, or Chaser B sold some video, or Chaser C had too many antennas.  I really don’t.

When I am out chasing I have my hands full during the chase and am totally focused it.  About the only time I really ever notice all the other chasers is during the big chaser convergences, and even then I am paying too much attention to the storm and how to navigate the traffic to even notice who the heck had what piece of equipment on their vehicle.

I really didn’t intend on this post turning into a rant so I will stop there and move to another note, and along the same lines of redistributing my attentions, I want to spend more time further developing and expanding Dryline Hosting and some other Internet Marketing stuff I have been getting in to.  With continued positive work on that, I can certainly improve my overall life situation dramatically over the next year or two.  Storm chasing the last few years has gotten in the way of that.  Mostly because I lived and breathed it nearly to the exclusion of all else.

I think perhaps it’s time to move storm chasing into much more of just the “hobby” category and enjoy a lot more of life than condensed water vapor.  I am starting to work on getting myself back in shape. I love hiking and have tons of hiking trails I want to conquer, but need to get in shape for that first.  I love the exploration of hiking.   I also realized a while back I haven’t taken a real vacation since 2000.  Eight years.  There are tons of fun things I would like to go and see and do, that never will if I continue the storm chasing on the level I have been.  There is also the remodeling of my current house that certainly would be accelerated if I drastically cut back on the chasing.

So yeah, storm chasing has been a passion for most of my life.  I don’t think I would ever stop completely, but I do think I need to severely moderate it, and most definitely need to remove myself from some elements of it for my own stress reduction and peace of mind.  I think maybe I am starting to realize now why many of the more veteran storm chasers my age and older have withdrawn from the storm chasing “community” as a whole.  I think I will just stick with the parts that are fun about it, and remove myself from the parts that aren’t.  I have to, because continuing to allow all the negative stuff into my head is changing me as a person, and I don’t like who I am changing in to, so it has to reverse.

Now, in hindsight, I could not be happier that I did get out. While I didn’t experience much in the way of severe weather, I got yet another fantastic opportunity to work on my lightning shooting skills. As those that read regularly know, this was something new I was trying to learn this year since I finally got a digital camera capable of doing what I wanted to do.

I have always wanted to take lightning pics like those fantastic photographs some of my storm chaser friends have taken. I was originally inspired on lightning photography by some of the fantastic shots Warren Faidley has. But over the years, many a great storm photographer has come to light with some incredible lightning images.

One in particular is one of my more recent inspirations, lightning lady Susan Strom. She has some unbelievable photographs thanks to the unparalleled opportunities presented during the Arizona monsoon season.

Inspiration and some mentoring closer to home would be my best friend Graham Butler. He’s an outstanding photographer outside of lightning even, and could easily have a career in it, even though he doesn’t believe me when I tell him that. He got me started on the right foot when I got my Canon Rebel XTI and I took it from there.

Tonight presented me with one of the most outstanding and longest lasting presentation of nature’s fireworks I have seen in a very long time. Initially I sat just NE of the Lubbock International Airport and shot 67 images of CGs crashing down into the City of Lubbock. All but two of them had at least one CG in the shot. Of course, some were better than others. The lightning show lasted the nearly hour drive home and then almost another hour after that. The only thing that stopped me from shooting more was the rain.

I finally got to the point tonight I am satisfied that I am ready to move on from the kit lens that came with the camera to something much better. I am still not on the level of those I admire, but I am making significant progress I think.

I don’t know, what do you guys think? These are just 5 of my favorites from tonight. I also have a couple from the other night I need to get up too when I get the chance. Click on the image to get the full size one. My blog scrunches them down for some reason.

Chasing today northeast of Lubbock, Texas.  Quick synopsis: we have a low in the Texas Panhandle between Lubbock and Amarillo, with a boundary extending off to the east, and a drylline extending back to the south/southwest.  While temperatures across the area are at or around 100F, dewpoints in that area have managed to stay in the upper 50s F.  Towers are already building in that general vicinity, and while wind profiles throughout the atmosphere aren’t as strong as I’d like, there is significant directional shear.  While I’m expecting mainly high-based storms with hail and high wind potential, a tornado/landspout or two isn’t out of the question, given the directional shear and boundaries in the area.

The LIVE ChaseCam will be active here within the next hour or two.

So earlier today I looked at things, though the potential was at least a little better than yesterday for a supercell in the SE TX Panhandle, but elected to save the gas and stay home and get some much needed work done on some other paying projects. Believe it or not, my target WAS actually Clarendon, because of a NW to SE boundary across there and the more backed surface winds.

A little later, some stuff started popping up around home area, and I decided the decision was a good once, because I might have to go out and chase for the TV Station. Turned out to be nothing but summer thundershowers, which had the nice effect of cooling it off here at my home, down now to 92F from 104F earlier!

Meanwhile, I am watching the big honkin’ supercell up by Clarendon with a wicked hook on it (in the radar image above), probably dropped at least one tornado already and appears to be cycling…and I would have been there. I know Steve went NE, I hope maybe Jason is on the storm so I can at least see some pics later. If you are Jason, when you read this…you need a streaming cam man!

Meanwhile I sit and watch and listen to the fire department run on lightning started grass fires in the area. *sigh*

As expected, not a whole lot came from the storms yesterday.  Even though I tried, I couldn’t even find a single piece of hail.  The big show was the mammatus as the sun was setting, which made for some striking contrast.  My friends Steve Miller of the Texas variety and Jason Boggs where out in the area too and got some great mammatus shots of their own from different perspectives.

You know, the funny thing about this year, some of the pictures I have been most happy with and want to make prints to put up on the walls haven’t been tornadoes at all. In some cases, weren’t even severe storms.

Things look interesting for a chase in the eastern TX panhandle this Father’s Day, but I really have a lot of work I need to get done, so I am going to pass on it today and watch it from Steve’s Live ChaseCam.

Wasn’t really planning on getting out today, as I have a lot of work to get done, but it appears a severe threat in my area is underway so I need to get out and chase for the TV station.

Wind fields throughout the atmosphere are weak, but directional shear is good and moisture isn’t bad for this time of year on the Caprock, with dewpoints in the 50’s west and low 60s off the Caprock.  With a dryline and boundary across the area.

Initiation is already underway near Amarillo and trying to get going along the dryline on the TX/NM border.  I am headed out the door for areas northwest of Lubbock, in the Parmer/Castro/Bailey/Lamb county areas, see what gets going.

I’ll have the LIVE ChaseCam up when I get in the area.  Not expecting much in the way of tornadoes, but rather some high based supercells with some gorilla hail possible and probably some damaging winds. However, with supercells in play, you never know, we may get a spinning surprise.  I’ve had good days before out here on similar setups.

A major severe weather event is set to unfold today across a large portion of the center of the country. I’ve been debating about chasing today since last night. Why a debate? Storm speeds. Expected 50-60 mph in fact. Extremely difficult, even impossible to keep up with, even in best of terrain and road networks.

I am going to go out on a limb here with my forecast and downplay the widespread significant tornado threat forecast by the SPC and some NWS offices. From what I have read, they expect a great potential for long track, violent tornadoes. My gut feeling is screaming at me SQUALL LINE, which generally isn’t conducive to that type of tornadic activity. I hope for the sake of those living in the risk area, I am right.

Oh, I think there will be plenty of tornado reports, but I just don’t see the long track, long lived tornado potential, despite the huge amount of shear today. Generally speaking, those sorts of tornadoes come from deviant moving, discrete supercells. There could be some embedded supercells in the squall line, that may produce some, maybe even some violent, tornadoes, but I think they will be relatively short lived.

What I really expect to see is the dryline light up all the way down through Oklahoma nearly all at once. I think the shear is so significant, any storm will have an extremely difficult time to get rooted enough to turn right and slow down. I expect individual cells in the line to rapidly (50-60 mph!) move NNE , training within the line, and the line progressing eastward much more slowly.

I actually feel like the greatest threat today is widespread, straight line wind damage. There could be some very significant damage occur from this today in many locations, and may end up making the bulk of severe weather reports today.

All in all, don’t let my amateur forecast dissuade you from paying close attention to the weather situation for today, it’s a doosy, and demands a close eye. Any severe storms out there will be on you before you know it, heed the tornado warnings with immediate action.

As for me, most likely I will sit this one out. The cost of gas, and the fact I am sick of fast moving storms this year, really make it a deal breaker for chasing today. Watching storms fly by and getting a 5 minute view of them, isn’t really appealing.

This wasn’t the first time I have been struck, but it’s the worse. I managed to pull myself together and tried to continue chasing, but I just couldn’t keep going and stopped on the east side of Perry, OK.

While I was sitting in the parking lot there, there was a metal sign about 6 feet high just about 20 feet in front of my vehicle. I had just turned off my dashcam a few minutes before when lightning struck the sign in a shower of smoke and sparks. Evidently a leader from the stroke also hit my vehicle, as the engine immediately died and would not turn over. Fortunately, the remainder of my electronics seem to be fine.

As luck would have it, my chaser friend Steve Miller TX was in the same town chasing, and he as well as Dennis Sherrod came to my rescue. One of the local guys ended up pulling my vehicle down to the local GM dealership, but it would be Tuesday before anyone could look at it being a holiday weekend.

I ended up running for a couple of days with Steve chasing and as luck would have us, we ended up back close to where my vehicle was, and he ended up dropping me off Tuesday in Stillwater, OK to pick up a rental car. So right now I am driving a nice, new Dodge Charger!

Hopefully I will get to pick the chase vehicle back up again tomorrow and can get back to normal again. I just haven’t felt much like posting after getting struck. I’ve had some physical issues, including headaches, short term memory loss, anxiety to name a few.

Fortunately, my other storm chaser friend Steve Miller OK (yes, there are two Steve Millers) let me crash at his place to spare me the agony of a few days in a motel, as well as the expense. I slept so hard the first night I think I could have been legally declared dead at one point. Very comfortable bed!

So I am not exactly sure what chasing in the near future holds for me right at the moment… I’ll keep you posted.

This day was a mixed bag of great chase success and massive fail.  Managed to catch at least 3 tornadoes and yet a couple more MASSIVE rapidly rotating wall clouds.  That was the good part.

While shooting that last tornado above along I35, I was struck by lightning and thrown to the ground.  I don’t recall exactly what happened during a few minutes there (luckily I had the camera on the tripod and wasn’t touching it), but on the video I said a few choice words apparently.

I felt very odd afterwards and later passed an ambulance out spotting and got them to check my vital signs.  Blood pressure was a bit low as was blood oxygen, but I was still operating so that was good.  I felt very anxious for a long time, in fact I still do to some degree, and the headache is setting in.  Last time I was struck in 2004 I had a horrible headache for a week.

Continued on the chase to east of Perry and finally decided to give up as storm looked outflowish, and went back to the east of town to a parking lot to look over some data and decide if there was something else to chase or if I was done.

While sitting there, lightning stuck a metal sign not 20 feet in front of my vehicle, and my engine immediately died and would not start.  Everything electrical appeared to be working, but it wouldn’t crank over.

Luckily Dennis Sherrod and Steve Miller TX were nearby and came to my rescue.  A local guy ended up dragging me down the local GM dealership where I abandon my chase vehicle since they won’t be open until Tuesday with the holiday weekend.  This is quite depressing, as now I have to find a way back to northern OK to pick it up.

So I will be chasing with Steve Miller TX the next couple of days.  I am hoping it’s nothing too serious or expensive with the chase vehicle.

Real quick as I need to get on the road. Tornado Watch issued for northern OK. I am just northeast of those storms and I see one just went tornado warned.  There is a triple point of sorts right in that area which is the intersection of two fronts.  Doesn’t look like I will be going far today.  LIVE ChaseCam should be active within the hour.