May 16 Website Updates

16 May 2012 David Reimer 0 Comments

Good morning,

It’s been over a month now since I’ve filmed any tornadoes. There have been chases, there have been cool photography, but no major tornado events since April 14. There are indications that severe weather may return to portions of the Plains by the weekend and next week, but that’s just speculation at this point. I’ve been using this downtime to catch up on some other hobbies and finally have time to add several items to the Texas Storm Chasers website. I’ll go ahead and put them in bullet style.

* May 6 and May 11 photography posts added to the “Latest Chases” box on the homepage.

* Chase logs for February 28, March 18, and March 21 have been added and are available by accessing the Storm Chase Logs tab in the linkbar.

My next goal is to add my chase log for April 3. That may sound simple enough, but I’m going to spend extra time writing out every single detail of that chase. I’m going to try and do that today and I have no doubt it’s going to end up being a short novel. There are a few items I’m going to address in that (driving on highway shoulders in grid-locked traffic, the overall mindset of the day once it became apparent that was happening, and a secret I haven’t revealed about April 3.) The 28 second video we uploaded to our YouTube channel was from my new camera. What folks don’t know is that I had a HD camcorder running on the dash. I’ll reveal some of that video in the April 3 chase log as well. I’ve chased many setups over the years and up until April 3, the scariest day for me was my near death experience on April 24, 2010 out in Mississippi. That changed on April 3, not because of danger to my personal self, but the overall situation.

I’ll detail all of that in my April 3rd log.

~ David

February 28, 2012 Storm Chase

16 May 2012 David Reimer 0 Comments

Chase report by David Reimer

Chase Recap: While it was evident the highest severe weather threat would be across Missouri and the Southeast United States overnight on February 29, there was potential for this event to begin across Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska. Tornadoes did occur in Kansas and Nebraska, but due to time constraints, I chose to place myself in Northern Oklahoma with the goal of lightning photography. Storms were slow to develop, but finally began forming along a dryline/cold front combination just after 7 PM in Southern Kansas and Northern Oklahoma. With my goal in mind, I placed myself just west of Blackwell, Oklahoma. This was my first real opportunity for severe weather/lightning photos while in a situation where the storms were coming at me. Sadly, my photos aren’t that good since this was my first time to take structure photos. Inflow winds into the storm were close to 50 MPH (measured on my weather station on the chase car) and the Cloud to Ground strikes were few and far between at this point in the storm’s cycle

Chase Gallery:

Another Day; Another Risk of Severe Weather

06 May 2012 David Reimer 0 Comments

This graphic shows the probability of experiencing a severe thunderstorm within 25 miles of your location today and tonight. The brown shaded zones are what we consider a low risk, or a 5 percent chance. Within the yellow zone, the Storm Prediction Center has issued a standard risk of severe weather which means there is a 15 percent chance of experiencing severe weather within 25 miles of any given point. Thunderstorm coverage will be isolated across South Texas with a slightly higher coverage expected across North Texas.

The strongest storms will be capable of producing golfball size hail and damaging winds in excess of 60 MPH. However, all storms will be capable of producing cloud to ground lightning. As it is a Sunday and numerous outdoor events are planned, please keep that in mind. Thunderstorms should begin firing by 4 to 5 PM to the west of Interstate 35 and begin approaching Interstate 35 by 6 to 9 PM. Remember, expect the unexpected when it comes to thunderstorms and have a way to receive weather warnings later this afternoon, especially if you’re planning to be outdoors. When thunder roars, go indoors!

We’ll be chasing northwest of Fort Worth this afternoon and plan on following the storms back into the metroplex. We’ll have live video available after 1 PM.

Severe Thunderstorm Watch for the Hill Country until 10 PM

05 May 2012 David Reimer 0 Comments

A relatively small severe thunderstorm watch has been issued for portions of the Texas Hill Country until 10 PM. Thunderstorms are beginning to develop in an environment with extreme instability values but relatively weak windshear. This means that significant severe weather, such as tornadoes, are unlikely, but some hail and damaging downbursts are possible.

THE NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER HAS ISSUED A
   SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH FOR PORTIONS OF 

          CENTRAL TEXAS

   EFFECTIVE THIS SATURDAY AFTERNOON AND EVENING FROM 505 PM UNTIL
   1000 PM CDT.

   HAIL TO 2 INCHES IN DIAMETER...THUNDERSTORM WIND GUSTS TO 70
   MPH...AND DANGEROUS LIGHTNING ARE POSSIBLE IN THESE AREAS.

  REMEMBER...A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH MEANS CONDITIONS ARE
   FAVORABLE FOR SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS IN AND CLOSE TO THE WATCH
   AREA. PERSONS IN THESE AREAS SHOULD BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR
   THREATENING WEATHER CONDITIONS AND LISTEN FOR LATER STATEMENTS
   AND POSSIBLE WARNINGS. SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS CAN AND OCCASIONALLY
   DO PRODUCE TORNADOES.

  DISCUSSION...A CLUSTER OF THUNDERSTORMS IS EXPECTED TO DEVELOP NEAR
   AND JUST E OF A DIFFUSE DRYLINE IN CENTRAL TX.  FLOW ALOFT IS
   RELATIVELY WEAK/ANTICYCLONIC...BUT SURFACE TEMPERATURES NEAR 100 F
   AND DEWPOINTS IN THE MID 60S ARE CONTRIBUTING TO STEEP LOW-LEVEL
   LAPSE RATES AND MLCAPE NEAR 4000 J/KG.  THE WEAK VERTICAL SHEAR
   SUGGESTS THAT INDIVIDUAL STORMS WILL NOT BE LONG-LIVED...BUT THE
   STEEP LAPSE RATES/LARGE CAPE WILL SUPPORT A RISK OF BOTH STRONG
   UPDRAFTS WITH LARGE HAIL...AND STRONG DOWNDRAFTS WITH DAMAGING WIND
   POTENTIAL THROUGH LATE EVENING.

Isolated severe storms expected in the Hill Country

05 May 2012 David Reimer 0 Comments

After a somewhat busy weather day on Friday, we’re expecting a more localized, isolated severe weather threat for Saturday. The Storm Prediction Center has issued a standard risk of severe weather, shown in yellow, along and about 50 miles east of a dryline expected to be located from Del Rio, to San Angelo, to Vernon line. A strong cap will help to limit overall thunderstorm coverage and wind shear is going to be a tad less then Friday. Still, any thunderstorms that develop will have the potential to become severe with large hail and downburst winds possible. The most likely zone to see isolated thunderstorms will be between Interstate 10 and Interstate 20 in the yellow shaded zone, but one or two storms cannot be ruled out north of Interstate 20.