GoBoB Chasing

You’ve no doubt noticed the lack of storm chasing updates. That’s because I haven’t had any. I got exactly two chases this year and one of them was on birthday in February. I’ve had an enormous project to move two data centers in Dallas and Columbus. I won’t bore you with the gory details, but 65+ hour weeks and working in the middle of the night wear you out.

Four days on two lakes was exactly what the Dr. ordered. Four days on the lake poses some logistics problems when you are known as the “Lobster Bobster.” Normally, one day of SPF 35 and I am baked. Continued application of SPF fifty evaded eminent doom. Being able to sleep on house boat with two air conditioners blasting out frosty goodness didn’t hurt either. Being able to shower off the aforementioned sun block in the aforementioned house boat: PRICELESS!!!

Thanks to: Steve, Andrea, Matt, Heather, Steve, Norma, Aaron, Aaron, and Tiffany.

I won’t go in to the details, but there was a fairly large amount of Bud Light processed into Coors products. If you are a Coors drinker; I’m sorry, but you need to find a better barley beverage.

Fireworks this weekend proved problematic. We had differing accounts on where they would be in Skiatook. Turned out they were at the airport and we weren’t. Saturday we were on Keystone and Mannford shot about a $5,000-$10,000 show: not bad, but not big either. They had some nice 6” or 8” shells that went way too low. The mortars were either too large in diameter or too short. (I suffer from both of these two problems.)

Tulsa suffered the opposite problem of a shell stuck in the mortar and some sympathetic detonation. Back in the day, the mortar “tube” was made of cast iron and could safely contain most of a stuck shell. Cardboard somehow just isn’t as resilient. In college, I worked on this failure mode and the resulting consequences.

I was privileged to have dinner with Mr. Zambelli (Sr.) at the International Festivals and Events Association in Las Vegas as part of my OktoberFest duties. http://www.zambellifireworks.com/ His warning about “qualified shooters” is eeerrrie…..
You do get what you pay for.

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I’ve been on the provider side of virtual chasing since APRS. Today I decided to be a consumer and follow Steve Miller (OK) and Aaron Cunningham. The following images will automatically get watermarked as part of my posting software. All images and technologies are property of their respective owners. At about 7:45 PM CDT their chase got interesting. Special thanks to ChaserTV.com and Spotter Network for making these technologies available.

About 30 minutes worth of daylight left and so far I’m not regretting chasing. The chaser convergence as seen on the second graphic from Spotter Network show how many people are on these storms, No stories of a bunch of chasers getting hit by the hail cores (yet).

A couple of tornado warnings issued so far hail is most impressive. Looks like quite a convergence circus on Spotter Network.

So far the event is playing out as forecast. One very small spin-up noted by some folks in Texas but not on SPC yet. I have not seen anything tornado warned either,

Ultimately, I was unable to convince myself that I’d be able to chase a tornado until after dark. Storms should start to fire in western Oklahoma/Texas panhandle between 5:00-6:00 CDT, but I don’t anticipate tornadoes until after dark. The fact that I chose to sit this one out virtually assures that I will be wrong and everyone will capture stunning photos and video. There should be plenty of baseball sized hail.

After an enjoyable day on the lake, I’m trying to decide if Saturday is a chase day. Saturday is looking like the first real chase day of the 2009 season. Models have come into better agreement. Deep layer sheer looks reasonable with effective shear 0f 40-45 knots. Mixed CAPE looks good between 1500-2000 J/Kg. More impressively the 0-1km storm relative helicities of 150-250 m^2/S^2 before 7:00 PM CDT. The problem is the lower level jet stream doesn’t really kick in till after dark. There will be strong tornadoes but nobody may see them; and let’s not forget lots of hail. Every chaser in the world will be out there so this will just add to the fun.

Bob is tired after a day of intense php development to integrate gobob.com and his facebook account.

Further refinement of our chaser reports bear out that Lone Grove, OK was the epicenter of hell. Lone Grove is four miles due west of Ardmore, OK (our 7:00 AM Target).