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

Severe Weather Risk in South Texas

10 May 2012 David Reimer 0 Comments

Chance of severe weather occurring within 25 miles of your location on May 10, 2012

This graphic shows the chance of severe weather occurring within 25 miles of your location today and tonight. The Storm Prediction Center has issued a standard “slight” risk of severe weather, shown by the yellow shading, for areas along and south of Interstate 10 from Fort Stockton eastward to San Antonio, then southeast to El Campo, Texas. Within this yellow shaded zone, there is a 15 percent chance of experiencing severe weather within 25 miles of your location. In the brown shaded zone, there is a low chance of severe weather, meaning a 5 percent chance of experiencing severe weather within 25 miles of your location.

Brown Shaded Zone: “Low” chance of severe weather (5 percent chance of severe weather occurring within 25 miles of your location.)

Yellow Shaded Zone: Standard Risk of severe weather (15 percent chance of severe weather occurring within 25 miles of your location.)

Primary Hazards with the strongest storms: Golfball size hail and damaging straight-line winds over 60 MPH

Second Hazards with the strongest storms: Brief tornadoes

The risk of Flooding will increase later this evening with a Flash Flood Watch already posted for much of South Texas.

April 20 Severe Weather Outlook

20 April 2012 David Reimer 0 Comments

The Storm Prediction Center has issued a standard risk of severe weather for much of South and Southeast Texas for this afternoon and evening. Shaded in orange, areas in the standard risk of severe weather have a 15% chance of experiencing severe weather within 25 miles of any given point, such as a house. This risk generally extends along and south of a line running from Laredo, San Antonio, Austin, College Station, to Lufkin. Areas outside this standard risk and located in the green have a low risk of severe weather this afternoon. The primary severe weather threats today will be from large hail and downburst winds around 60 MPH.

Across the Rio Grande Valley in Deep South Texas, we are a tad more concerned about the possibility of more significant severe weather this afternoon and evening with the potential for a few supercells. Within ths region, generally south of a Laredo to Corpus Christi line, very large hail and a few tornadoes will also be a concern. Folks living in this region are used to these supercells that usually roll in out of Mexico around sunset. We’ll be monitoring for this possibility and post updates as necessary this afternoon and evening.

Video: Large Tornado southwest of Cherokee, Oklahoma

15 April 2012 David Reimer 1 Comment

Texas Storm Chasers’ David Reimer and Jenny Brown filmed multiple tornadoes from a cyclic supercell in extreme northern Oklahoma during the April 14, 2012 Tornado Outbreak that affected Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska. This was one of the first tornadoes produced by the supercell that would go on to produce tornadoes in Southern Kansas and WIchita, Kansas. Be sure to check out the zoomed in shot as the tornado moved over the road with debris clearly visible! This is only a short portion of nearly an hour of tornado footage shot from multiple high definition cameras. All this footage will be included in the Texas Storm Chasers 2012 Storm Footage DVD.

This video is available for immediate media licensing. Please see our media contact page for more information under ‘David Reimer’.

April 11 Severe Weather Outlook

11 April 2012 David Reimer 1 Comment

The Storm Prediction Center has placed all of Eastern New Mexico, West Texas, and the Texas Panhandle in the standard “slight” risk of severe weather for the afternoon and evening hours. The strongest thunderstorms today will be capable of producing tennis ball size hail, damaging outflow winds around 60 MPH, and a tornado or two. Thunderstorms should begin forming by 4 PM along the Texas/New Mexico border and along a boundary oriented along Interstate 40. Thunderstorms will be slow moving and capable of producing heavy rainfall, so keep that in mind if you end up being under one for a while.

A significant outbreak of severe weather still appears likely on Friday and Saturday with the possibility of significant tornadoes. Please see our Facebook page for a video explaining the severe weather risks for the upcoming days.