04/03/06
The Super Outbreak of 1974
Today is the 32nd anniversary of the Super Outbreak of 1974, and the first tornado I ever saw, I was 12 years old. See my account at: What Got Me Started.
Since that fateful day, I have been fascinated with the phenomenon of tornadoes, and have probably seen 40 since then, and will chase until physically not possible any more. Maybe it was fate that I ended up working at the Xenia Daily Gazette while going to school in Dayton, Ohio. This day 32 years ago yielded 148 tornadoes, 315 people lost their lives in this storm and over 5,000 people were injured.
Hopefully the watch and warning systems will keep getting better but the force behind tornadoes is so strong and unpredictable, we may never be able to get warnings down to a predictable science.
03/31/06
Well the day started out with a few showers, but cleared off with some really good heating. I finished work at 4:30 and headed out west to the Ohio/Indiana border with TV videographer Paul Kwapich, from WTOL TV channel 11. Paul was shooting some footage of me for an upcoming severe weather 30 minute special which will run in the middle of April. He had hoped to get some stuff of me with some dark clouds, driving etc. but we did much better, quite well in fact for Ohio in the month of March! First we had a good chat on the way out to the border about what a chase is like, and when we arrived, we got some nasty looking clouds, and chased north and east once I found some wireless in a small town in Michigan.
We chased east through Hillsdale, and into Jonesboro, MI. Leaving Jonesboro to the east, we saw the hugest, most beautiful, horizon to horizon rainbow I have ever seen in Ohio. Paul was in heaven. We left after the rainbow dissipated and continued on SR 12 towards Ypsilante, MI.
We went through the little town of Chelsea, MI, and as we were exiting the town, the tornado sirens went off, and looking south from the road we saw a funnel cloud and some scud, that was going down to the ground. I think this is why the sirens were going off, but no touchdowns.
We continued east and was hail shafts, which was confirmed by Chris Howell as said hail covered the ground in Ypsilante, MI. near his home. Lightning was intense, and we also saw mammatus, which is really rare up here.
Overall it was a good chase for this time of the year and will makes some good footage for the TV segment, I will let you know later when it is scheduled to run, and link to their site. There was one confirmed tornado in Ohio today, in or near Van Wert, Ohio, supposedly 300 yards wide, short lived, and some damage to barns and silos. This near the scene of the F5 tornado on November 10th, 2002.
03/13/06
May 11th and 12th have kicked off the 2006 tornado season with a bang. Last night there were 113 reported tornadoes. I was cyber chasing with Chris Howell on the 11th and Nancy Bose on the 12th. I watched the supercell that trekked NE across Missouri, through Illinois and towards Indiana, dropping tornadoes the entire length of its path, it was an amazing sight. Ohio started the day (the 13th) under a moderate risk and had a hatched tornado probability. We had a lone late afternoon series of storms roll through the Fremont, Ohio area and I had a few interesting shots. Nothing that compared to what Missouri got the day before. It looks like it might be an active storm season.
03/04/06
Our MESO group has made some great strides this year, we converged on Denver and the National Storm chasing convention and made quite an impression in the chasing field.
We made great contacts with Dr. Greg Forbes, of the Weather Channel and Dr. Charles Doswell of Oklahoma State.
We are moving out ECHO project from Kentucky to Austin, Texas. The chase truck will be rebuilt and hopefully road-ready for the 2006 chase in May.
We have several MAJOR media outlets that are interested in riding along with us this year. We are also working on some major sponsors also.
The Storm Prediction Center is talking about a major severe weather through the next week, from the Plains and Texas through the Ohio Valley - Stay tuned.
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