Nature's Fireworks Not Impressive

What was thought to be a decent couple of days this weekend pretty much fizzled without much fanfare. Yesterday's storms were pulse-type storms that did okay for a short time before moving east. Today, another round of storms kicked off from the foothills and moved east/southeast across the urban corridor, but nothing stayed severe long enough to make much impact. In fact, heavy rains did little as storms were moving pretty quickly. A couple of tornado warnings were issued, including on a funnel sighting over Castle Rock, but nothing amounted to much close to home. A possible tornado was reported near Sterling earlier, but that's been about it.

Fortunately, I did get out today thanks to my van being back up and operational. I took a spin around Commerce City on the severe warned cell that moved out of Thornton, but it was more of a wind maker than a hail maker. Dinner plans this evening kept me from chasing it out east of town, thus my chase ended shortly after it began.

The weather calms down a bit for the early week and my chasing will be on vacation as I'll be in Maryland enying some down time with family. I'm due back around the 14th and will probably pick back up again sometime shortly thereafter.

A Busted Chase

Attempted to get out today, but electrical issues in the van left me stranded for a couple hours in Ft. Lupton. Fortunately with some help, I was able to the van back up and running and limped myself back home. By that point, most of the storms moved well east and I was well out of position to attempt to get back in the game, thus am home after calling it a day and waiting for the Rockies game to start after being delayed by the weather as it moved through Denver. Going to a BBQ tomorrow for Independence Day, thus no major chasing planned. However I am going to bring a camera with me in the event something does fire up locally.

June 17 Aurora Tornado Log Online

I have just completed the basics of the June 17 Aurora tornado chase, including documentation of the various tornadoes/circulations I witnessed that day. You can view the log here or using the link below..

June 17 Aurora, Nebraska Chase Log

There are links to the various videos I have uploaded from that day, so you can go give those a look! I still have some documentation to include on the log, including the storms we intercepted earlier in the day in northeast Kansas. Thus there are updates to come!

Meanwhile, there are plans to chase over the next couple of days as the weather pattern shifts into a more active mode through the weekend. Last night after the front moved through, some storms formed in the mountains and moved over the I-25 corridor. I attempted some lightning photography, but there was little in the way of photogenic lightning to be had. Thus I wasted a gallon of gas running around positioning for what ended up being a dud show.

Today and tomorrow look best in terms of chasing for me as I have weekend plans to celebrate Independence Day this weekend. However I will have a camera with me in case that elusive lightning verses fireworks happens to shape up for me.

Stay tuned, it'll be an active next few days!

Placeholders Up, More Coming

I finally got the chase log section updated with placeholders from most of the June chases that had some imagery. A few won't make the page, and about three are unpublished due to lack of images at this time, but I have the jist of them online.

Right now, I am currently working on video editing and pulling stills from the June 17 Nebraska chase. I hope to have at least a handful of video clips online here shortly, plus stills of the various tornadoes of the day. That log will have quite a bit of work on it before its all said and done, but its getting a good start today.

I have returned to work two weeks earlier than I planned, thus am here on campus now working on the website. I won't really return full time til after my Maryland trip, but am going to try and work mornings mostly to allow for free afternoons to spot chase. I'll get back to full time on July 16th.

Meanwhile, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday hold chasing potential here in Colorado. Obviously I did not venture out today, but figure to be on the road for at least one of those setups. With Saturday being the fourth, I don't figure on doing anything more than a city chase, but am crossing my fingers for the lightning/fireworks shot I've attempted for several years. Right now, I like Firday the best, but both Thursday and Friday have some decent potential. Will see how it all shakes out.

There's Alot Of Work To Do

I just went in and updated my stats to include the last few chases and realized I have nearly three-dozen chase logs to update, two-thirds of those still just need a placeholder. Yeah, there's a lot to do! Fortunately I return to work on July 16th and figure to start knocking out all web/video updates over the weeks following that. Most of this coming from chasing nearly non-stop through most of June. In fact, including travel days, I have been on the road everyday since May 31 except for June 12 where I was home. The 21st I technically didn't chase, but I arrived home just after 3am the morning of, thus I was technically on the road. Just over half my 2009 miles were logged during that time (11,675), so it's easily the busiest stretch of chasing I have done in my career.

I have no hard set plans to chase this week, but am eyeing Wednesday as a potential day in Nebraska and I think that may come to life if I can muster up a few people to head out with me with plans for an overnight stay afterwards. There are chances for severe weather for the rest of the week, but given the small potential in Colorado and the history of the season, I may opt to stay close to home for those days to allow myself somewhat of a break. I'll still keep tabs on it just in case something does look good further from home, but I think I'll bank longer setups on having a few people on board with me. July historically hasn't been terribly amazing in terms of big setups far from home (aside from Canada), thus I am climatologically figuring on sticking closer to home.

As mentioned above, I return to work on July 16th after returning from my vacation from my vacation in Ocean City, Maryland. I will continue to do spot chases as my schedule will allow for the usual flexibility to head out as needed, but the time has come to get back to a semi-normal life after 10 plus weeks of unemployed bliss!

KCOS Crud

Perhaps that's a bit harsh, but its the reality of chasing tornado-warned storms coming off the mountains. They typically won't survive the trip thanks in part to adding several thousand feet to their bases as they come off the higher terrain. Still, I managed to get on a tornado-warned storm today, but it quickly died as it moved over Colorado Springs. I thought I'd muster some flooding or hail, neither of which occured. I returned north to Parker where I originally set up camp and waited out a boundary that was sitting along and just north of I-70 in hopes that maybe a storm would fire, but it never happened. I returned home after 180-plus miles. Thanks to Dann Cianca for the communications during our trip, and sorry we didn't cross paths. He was more generous with his time out east than I was! LOL

TWISTEX Concludes

After a wildly successful 2009, TWISTEX has concluded for the year in Norfolk, Nebraska. Unfortunately the goodbyes were quick this morning as a member of our crew needed to be rushed to Lincoln, Nebraska to catch an early afternoon flight back home, thus myself along with Tim are adding a few extra hours to our trip home today to accomodate him. None-the-less, we're expecting to return to Denver this evening.

Currently, we're southbound out of North Bend, Nebraska enroute to Lincoln, then will take I-80 to I-76 and eventually back to Denver. Ed and Matt should be enroute to Denver now while the other folks in the remaining vehicles will return to Iowa and Minnesota.

The list of things to do is huge; website updates, chase logs, video cataloging, and DVDs are all pending for me over the next few months. The first thing I'll try and do is catalog all the video I have taken this year. After a much needed REAL vacation (Ocean City, MD) the second week of July, I'll return to work and likely begin websites updates and chase logs. DVD productions will likely begin in August with hopes of completion by Halloween. My personal DVD has yet to be named, but will be the next in the Lubacca series, "Lubacca 2009 - To Be Determined". The public release of this DVD will likely occur after the "Storm Chasers" series has aired for obvious reasons, but hope to have a finished copy ready to roll out as soon as the season concludes.

So that's all for this update. The remainder of the 2009 season will focus on Denver-area spotting and obviously the lightning ventures for the rest of the summer. A few spot chases will sneak their way in as always, but figure to be pretty close to home from here on out.

Ciao from Prague, Nebraska enroute to Lincoln...

Nebraska Was A Bust

I'm waiting as the hotel room slowly drops to a comfortable temperature, so I thought I'd drop a quick update on today's non-event. Storms never really fired in an isolated nature and thus we ended up with garbage from minute one. We backtracked through South Dakota back into Valentine, Nebraska and followed highway 20 east for quite a ways before stopping in O'Neil for dinner and ultimately here in Norfolk for the night. Not the way we were hoping to wrap up TWISTEX operations, but we gave it one last hurrah.

Tomorrow's setup looks far from enticing and given the amount of road time we've put in this month, I think its safe to say we'll be homebound tomorrow morning. Earlier in the season, I would be all over this, but given how late it is and burn out starting to fall in, I feel the time has come to close out the major chases for the season and head home. Some long-term R&R would be nice with a few local chases mixed in. I personally have been on the road and/or chasing everyday since May 30 with the exception of two days, and its catching me fast. One more road day to get home tomorrow would suffice for me to close out what's been an absolutely amazing 2009 season.

Goodnight from Norfolk...