Its been quiet.....

Well, it has certainly been quiet over the last few weeks and due to one unfortunate thing, we have had to put storm chasing on the back burner until I resolve this issue.

Meanwhile the Plains are lighting up quite frequently.  Kelly and I have created a Facebook fan page to keep up with short, daily updates.  If you are a member of Facebook, feel free to "Like" our fan page at Erik & Kelly's Storm Chasing Page.  Here we will highlight a few of our partner chasers as well as what is happening in the Plains.

When we do get back up and running, we will be sure to blog our latest chases in detail here!

Two Days and......

Certainly we came out to do some storm chasing but Mother Nature is holding out on us!! We have done a lot of driving and we have been through 6 states at this point. So what comes next?

It appears that tomorrow will be our best day. The set up shows a very narrow corridor of 50* dew point air from north central Kansas up through Nebraska, and South Dakota. It looks the the highest potential is in central Nebraska into south central South Dakota.

So we staged a little too far north today but that was based off of earlier forecasts. So, we have about 5 hours to our staging for tomorrow. That means it is time for the group catch some shut eye for a early drive out tomorrow.

Preliminary look at the first full day in the Plains, April 12th.

This is called "Dreamcasting".  Looking at models that are far out in the meteorological future.  I usually do not look more than five days out but with a trip Kelly and I have been planning for months, I just cannot help myself!!

Certainly in planning a trip to go storm chasing, the one thing you cannot plan is the weather.  People have asked us, "Where are you going?"  The best answer we can offer is, "We don't know.  Somewhere in the Plains."  So now that we are only two weeks out, we can start planning our daily target areas.  But we will not really be able to pin point our target areas until the immediate days before.  So therefore, no hotel reservations will ever be made!

I pulled this image from Twisterdata.com this morning.  It shows a low over SW Kansas / SE Colorado.

The lifted index tells us how unstable of an environment we have.  Here, our April 12th target area in Kansas, shows a lifted index of -6.  This tells me that thunderstorms are likely with some reaching sever limits. 

Another component of severe weather is moisture.  This shows the amount of precipitable moisture that the atmosphere contains.  In this forecast it will hold a little over and inch.

In order to get thunderstorms to rotate, which will assist in developing possible supercells and tornadoes, we need shear.  This depicts the surface level winds and the winds.  Surface winds over northern Kansas are coming from the east and the upper level winds are coming in from the SSW.

All in all I am quickly learning the models and what part they play in storm prediction.  At this time range anything could happen.  We may have sunny weather or we may have conditions more favorable for significant severe weather development. 

I will continue to review the models to get a more firm idea where we want to target on the days of our trip.  Certainly three full days in the Plains will not give us much room for error. 

The Beast's Shake Down Run

On Thursday, the 11th of April, Kelly and I ran our first unofficial chase together. It was a shake down run for the Chase Beast for the 2010 season. Also it was time to get Kelly acclimated to something other than arm chair chasing!


The day promised some pop up showers and possible storms. We are within the 2% risk for tornadoes as well. We started by sitting a while watching the radar and noted a line of developing showers heading north along Rt 59 from I-55. These were developing pretty quickly so we set our target and headed off for the "Chase". These showers were developing pretty quickly and training up Rt 59 through Plainfield. As they reached Plainfield they started to dissipate but still gave us some awesome photo opportunities. We spent a little time watching the system pass from a cemetery on 127th which gave us a great vantage point and another potential spotting location!


Unfortunately, I had to head off to work for about an hour for a meeting. While there Kelly watched the storms and the radar. Luckily nothing really developed during that time so we didn't miss much. After I got out we headed off to eat and then back out for further shake down.

Before eating we noticed this one cell over Byron that just kept blowing up over the same spot and sending its weather to the north like it was a smoke stack. I was interested but did not know if it would be worth the hour drive to get there. But we headed west anyway.


When we got near Oswego on Rt 30 there was a lone cloud that looked like a small cell with a wall cloud, but it wasn't. It was just how the cloud was shaped. It gave us some great photo opportunities and we shot up several pics of the crepuscular rays. It was beautiful!!


We headed up Rt 30 and into Sugar Grove. We were keeping our eye on three cells progressing northward over LaSalle County into DeKalb. Even though they were nothing we targeted them for the practice. Shortly we ended up on a highway access road just south of I-88 on Dauberman Rd. We set up camp there.


We were there for a couple of hours and shot some video and a lot of photos. We watched one cell form and collapse before hitting a mature state. We then watched another low topped cell form and stay intact for over 30 minutes as it lumbered along to the north.

We hung around until close to 8:00 updating Facebook and just having a good time just sitting there out in the middle of nowhere. It was a chance for Kelly to get use to the chase and a chance for us to bond more. We are both very excited and looking forward to our trip to the Plains for some real chasing starting April 11th. We plan on taking as many runs like this before hand to ensure the equipment is tip-top.

Stay tuned for regular blogs coming up! Especially during our trip, April 11 through the 15th!!

Getting close to 2010 Chase Season!

Well, a lot has changed since my August post!

• First off I have met someone who has dreamed of Storm Chasing for a long time. She friended me on FaceBook early in the season last year and has been following me since. We talked back and forth every now and then. But, recently we started talking more! We finally met up this past Sunday after chatting on IM for hours. Now our first date was a Ham Fest!!! I know, not quite a first date but it was pretty much the happiest day of my life. Kelly has really brought joy and happiness to my life and will make this chase season even more special!! She brings an element of self taught forecasting that will pair up well with my intuition!! We are planning an April vacation to the Plains for some real chasing. For her, it will be baptism by fire, as long as the weather gods smile upon us!
• Secondly, I just received my Amateur Radio License, KC9RGS. Couple this with joining the Kane County ARES! I can't wait to make my first call on the radio that just came today!
• The Chase Beast is getting prepped for the season. I have added new interior warning lights all around. Add this with the new Ham Rig I feel that I will be a communications hub while out in the field! Additionally I am working on a passive EVDO/1X repeater for my NetBook. In theory it should get my signal outside of the Chase Beast and give me better reception. Some other field items have been added as well.

All in all this year will be a great year. I have a new chase partner and girlfriend, Kelly. I have my ham ticket. And, I have money to seek out a monster in the plains!! I cannot wait for this season to get started!!! Meanwhile Kelly and I will beef up our computers and prep for the trip. We will also review a forecasting and reading of the radar. She will be attending the DuPage Advanced Seminar with me to become certified as a spotter.

Happieness has been a long time coming for me! This year is the first year of the rest of my life!!