GoBoB Chasing

The “Big Easy” is in Big trouble.

I hope all residents are heeding the warnings. This will be destruction on a biblical portion. While many consider New Orleans, LA the equivalent of a modern Sodom and Gomorrah, I think few would have conceived a week ago that it would be wiped off the map. This storm will compromise the levee system. This is a disaster of unprecedented destruction in the United States.
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I would not even think about chasing this one. There is simply no place in th US that a hurricane could cause a greater loss of life. LSU experimental models are so scarry. I am seriously impressed with the Mayor of New Orleans. Get Out!!!! I greatly appreciate that many people simply don’t have the means to evacuate. Anyone intentionally intercepting this storm has some serious issues in my mind. The will be no infrastructure left after the storm and you better have a lot of gas. I can’t believe the desperation of using the Super Dome as a shelter. The loss of life here is could easily exceed 25,000 casualties.

This will drive gas prices to well over $3.00 per gallon.

I find it interesting that you can pay your parking ticket online in New Orleans. A parking ticket will be the least of anyones worries.
URGENT – WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA
1011 AM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005

..DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED

HURRICANE KATRINA

A MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED STRENGTH…RIVALING THE INTENSITY OF HURRICANE CAMILLE OF 1969.

MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS…PERHAPS LONGER. AT LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL…LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY DAMAGED OR DESTROYED.

THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL. PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE…INCLUDING SOME WALL AND ROOF FAILURE.

HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY…A FEW TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT.

AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD…AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY VEHICLES AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS…PETS…AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK.

POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS…AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING…BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED. FEW CROPS WILL REMAIN. LIVESTOCK LEFT EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL BE KILLED.

AN INLAND HURRICANE WIND WARNING IS ISSUED WHEN SUSTAINED WINDS NEAR HURRICANE FORCE…OR FREQUENT GUSTS AT OR ABOVE HURRICANE FORCE…ARE CERTAIN WITHIN THE NEXT 12 TO 24 HOURS.

ONCE TROPICAL STORM AND HURRICANE FORCE WINDS ONSET…DO NOT VENTURE OUTSIDE.

Justin Teague joined Steve Miller and me in an enjoyable 153 mile chase. It was one of those days where all the professionals were noting nothing, and yet we had a feeling.

It was a pretty dynamic situation and we were using our eyes, intuition and the 18Z models that came out while we grabbed food in Sand Springs, OK (McDonald’s of course). We ended up chasing a Blackburn to Hominy, OK line. As we got on US 412 a cell immediately became a “storm of interest.” We exited at Hallett (home of Hallet Motor Speedway) and took pursuit North. Steve was the ever competent wheel man and absolutely owned the gravel roads we were forced to travel. Justin was in my usual position as Navigator. It made more sense for him to be there with the computer as he is a far better forecaster than I and we were actively diagnosing this situation.

I made the mistake of plugging the USB cable into the wrong port before the chase. With windows this is an absolute disaster. All of our chase technology was now rendered useless. I repaired the T-Mobile wireless Internet before we picked Justin up. I was also able to get our XM satellite radar working. This required two complete shut downs after plugging in to the correct port and reconfiguring. GPS was dead and not cooperating.

We had a gorgeous wall cloud and nice structure. We made pursuit and realized we were in bad shape without navigation. We were temporarily lost, had a strong storm that we were now being chased by, and not real sure of our exact road options. Steve did a great job of driving, Justin did an excellent job of navigating via dead reckoning, and we were in no danger, but we also needed to figure out where we were and how to cross the Arkansas river so we could continue pursuit.

I am trying to talk Justin through reconfiguring the GPS to get DeLorme Street Atlas to work from memory. Windows is now showing nine different COM ports and all we can do is try one after another. As usual 3 times is a charm. There was a collective sigh of relief in the Jeep. We were in great shape and only 2 miles from where we though we were and a river crossing was only 5 miles away.

We continue pursuit and see a beautiful shelf cloud, torrential rain, and a beautiful municipal lake in Hominy, OK.

I left my still camera at home like an idiot so there are not any pictures. I’ll try to pull a few captures off of the HD video and post a couple of short clips as well.

I am hoping for an active fall and it was so fun to chase in Oklahoma!!!
GREAT DAY!!!!

Ever the gluttons for punishment, Steve, and I are heading out.

From SPC 11:30 CDT (16:30 Z) Update:

…KS/OK INTO MO/NRN AR…
LOW LEVEL BOUNDARY EXTENDS FROM SRN MO INTO NERN OK THEN WWD NEAR THE OK/KS BORDER. AIRMASS IS ALREADY MODERATELY UNSTABLE WITH MLCAPE OF 1500-2000 J/KG…AND CONTINUED HEATING /ESPECIALLY SOUTH OF THE BOUNDARY IN OK/WILL CONTRIBUTE TO VERY UNSTABLE CONDITIONS WITH MLCAPE OF 2500-3500 J/KG LATER THIS AFTERNOON. LOW LEVEL CONVERGENCE ALONG THE BOUNDARY WILL PROMOTE DEVELOPMENT OF NEW UPDRAFTS THIS AFTERNOON AND EVENING. ALTHOUGH VERTICAL SHEAR ACROSS THIS AREA IS GENERALLY WEAK…THERMODYNAMIC ENVIRONMENT WILL BE SUPPORTIVE OF LARGE HAIL AND DAMAGING WIND GUSTS WITH STRONGER CELLS. SEVERE THREAT IS EXPECTED TO DIMINISH AFTER SUNSET.

What a difference a day makes.

I still have a little hope for western Oklahoma action this afternoon, but not very much. What bugs me is that the SPC is using the same graphic from 20 hours ago.

I think the SPC guys aren’t trying too hard on this one. They chose to reuse the same graphic from this afternoon.

…SRN PLAINS THROUGH LOWER MS VALLEY…

RESIDUAL OUTFLOW BOUNDARIES ASSOCIATED WITH ONGOING STORMS ARE EXPECTED TO PERSIST ACROSS PARTS OF OK AND KS INTO THE MIDDLE MS VALLEY DURING THE DAY. SURFACE HEATING DURING THE AFTERNOON WILL CONTRIBUTE TO MODERATE INSTABILITY WITH MLCAPE FROM 2000 TO 2500 J/KG POSSIBLE. HEIGHTS RISE AND MID LEVEL FLOW WEAKENS IN WAKE OF UPPER TROUGH MIGRATING THROUGH SRN CANADA…AND THESE COULD SERVE AS LIMITING FACTORS TO THE OVERALL SEVERE THREAT IN THIS REGION. STORMS MAY REDEVELOP IN THE VICINITY OF THE OUTFLOW BOUNDARIES AS THE ATMOSPHERE DESTABILIZES DURING THE AFTERNOON. WEAK VERTICAL SHEAR WILL SUPPORT MULTICELL STORMS WITH ISOLATED STRONG TO DAMAGING WIND GUSTS AND SMALL TO MARGINALLY SEVERE HAIL THE MAIN THREATS THROUGH EARLY EVENING.

Can you find the outflow boundary (Warning 400K file is slow to download on dial-up)?

Ten years ago Micro$oft release Windows 95 with the Rolling Stones singing “Start me up.” Now the Stones are pimping a mortgage/trading company. There will be a rant on this one if we don’t choose to chase tomorrow.

Hot, Sticky, Moist, and Juicy.
At 11:00 PM temp is 80° F, dewpoint is 74° F.

It looks like tomorrow will be a chase day. Models are not handling this well along with the ongoing convection further complicating things. I have a feeling I will make another trip to Wooward, OK and visit a certain Days Inn for the fourth time this year. The trip will then take a northern turn to a Meade to Pratt, KS Line.

This is preliminary so subject to modification.

I’m glad to be back in Tulsa and looking forward to a chase tomorrow. I was traveling to Dallas for work this week, so I missed the Wed the 17th storms in Kansas and Nebraska. My chase partner Steve Miller called yesterday as I was racing to the airport that Saturday looked to be chaseable. The day two is showing a slight which is probably warranted. I’d really like to wake up tomorrow and see a moderate risk. Stay tuned for updates…

I was listening to the NOAA All Hazards Radio this morning as I do just about every morning and there is a funny that I need to capture. We are experiencing very hot conditions and the heat advisory recommends limiting exposure to the Sunday. This is because the text to voice software has been coded with a rule to expand the abbreviation SUN to Sunday.

Don’t tandem jump or tandem chase!

A woman in Ogden Utah was killed on her first skydive yesterday as her family watched. There are two approved approaches to get a class A USPA/FAA sports license. Both will start with a 5-6 hour ground school and a progressively more challenging series of tasks that must be accomplished before you move to the next task. Instructor Assisted Deployment (IAD) is basically the same as the old static line that you have probably seen on TV and is popular in the military. For civilians, it is considered a bad idea to tie people to planes. For the first 3 or 4 jumps, the instructor will toss the small deployment chute into the wind stream as the student is commanded to jump. Usually this is around 4,000 feet AGL. Advanced Free Fall (AFF) uses the same ground school with some addition training on exiting the airplane as the student has to leave the plane with two instructors simultaneously. The student has a special jumpsuit with handles all over the place. AFF instructors are highly trained and guide the student through freefall from 10-13,000 feet AGL. The student is guided to deploy her own chute. And the instructors let go and break away. I went the IAD route as AFF instructors where rare at the time and it requires more cash initially as you have to pay for the instructors. IAD requires 25-30 jumps and you get to freefall at jump five or so if you are an average student. AFF gets you freefall on jump one, but costs more, but you only need 10-12 jumps to get licensed.

There is a third approach considered experimental by the FAA. It is called tandem jumping. The woman who was killed was tandem jumping. What is tandem jumping you ask. A customer approaches the drop zone and says, “I want to skydive.” The above spiel is recited to the customer and the customer is dismayed. “I really don’t want a license or go to school, I just want to do this once so that I can say I did it.” “Tandem is just what you want.” “Sign this waiver and we will get you hooked up with slim.”

• Slim is not required to have any special training.
• Slim has purchased a special harness that allows him to be strapped to your back.
• Slim has purchased a large parachute that is designed for big guys like me not two people.
• Slim is slim because his weight, the special harness and the customer must be under the load limit of the chute.
• Slim and the customer are mated in the harness in what looks like a porno scene (it really looks goofy to me).
• Slim and the customer jump out of the plane, and the customer goes on their way (yeah you have to pay before the drop).

Can you tell I don’t like tandem jumping. It removes all of the training and redundant safety devices that all other sky divers must have. Each student has their own altimeter, main chute, reserve chute and even Automatic Assist Device that will deploy the chute even it the student is unconscious. It is a very safe sport that has lots of safety built-in for those willing to invest.

I recommend AFF as you get to experience all of the skydiving sensations on your first jump. This is how the first President Bush jumped on his 75th birthday. Unfortunately the president then turned around and did a tandem jump on his 80th because he wanted to jump on his birthday he had 5,000 paying “friends” watching (the winds were above those allowed for students). I’ll cut him some slack as his first jump was as a Navy pilot shot down over the Pacific during World War II. The photo above is of his 80th birthday jump.

There have become a lot of tandem “chasers” recently. I define tandem chasers as those who want to be able to say they chase without investing. If you want to chase, but don’t want to make the investment, a chase tour from a reputable operator is for you. I consider this the equivalent of AFF chasing. IAD chasing is most of have learned to chase.