Thursday, August 14, 2008
Just wanted to pass along the link to Dann's first tornado report! The pics and vids are all on his blog to which you can view here.
Art Monk said it best the inght he broke the all-time career catches mark.. "I think its a bigger deal for my teammates and the media." Not sure he feels exactly that way, but those of us who've chased with him for a few years were very hopeful this was going to be the season he'd finally get his first. And after the week in May, including the close-to-home Windsor tornado, it wasn't looking good for him. And here it is, one an August day without a watch, a weak CYA SPC 2% tornado prob, and no warnings on the storm prior... and what happens? They score!
For Michael, this was his first Colorado tube! Lots of virginity popping yesterday! This was a pretty cool catch for them considering they were pretty much out there on their own. Good proof that sometimes all you need is your eyes. Again, congrats to them both!
Ed Grubb and myself met them down at an Outback near DIA to toast their accomplishment! Always nice to have one of those days you can call "yours". For Michael and Dann, August 13, 2008 will be their tornado!
Dann, you're finally cool like the rest of us now! Hahaha!
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Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Big news today from the Colorado gang as Dann Cianca scored his very first tornado of his career today along side Michael Crlson in Elbert County, Colorado! Dann has been chasing for several years, and with me for a couple, so this has been a long wait! He wasn't able to get out much this year and missed all of the Kansas action in May, so to have nailed this was awesome! I was working at the station and heard of the warning only to call in time to realize the warning was base don their report! Those boys nailed this storm all on their own! Mega congrats to them! I'm gonna cut this short as I am going to join them for their celebration steak dinner and buy them both a beer!
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Tuesday, August 12, 2008
An isolated storm popped up and moved across the metro area earlier this afternoon bringing with it a quit spat of rain and pea-sized hail. After hearing this from my buddy in Wheat Ridge and seeing its look on radar, I decided to stroll down the street a bit to get a look. The coulds with the sunset were the main show until an area of broad and weak circulation gave way to an impressive psuedo-funnel. The white cone did have some motion to it but was extremely high based and very weak in its motion. Here are a few pics..
A couple of other smaller cells have started to develop and may lead to a lightning venture within the hour if they hold together. I've activated the lightning net just in case.
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Sunday, August 10, 2008
Woke up this morning to see us under a FLASH FLOOD WATCH already. As far as I can recall, this is the first time in the string of rainy days (since Wed) where one of these was issued before the 11:00am HWO went out. Guess they are pretty confident in today's setup. FWIW, Friday was suppose to be the last day, yet we've held on to the moisture through now. With that said, another day to be armed and ready in the event we are able to get ourselves under one of these 2-3" per hour storms.
In the days ahead, SPC has put a slight risk over eastern Colorado for Tuesday. The evolution of how that will unfold will be interesting, but at the very least, its safe to say we're in a much more active pattern than we've seen all summer. Thank God!
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Saturday, August 09, 2008
An isolated storm popped up shortly after 9pm just west of Greeley and looked pretty impressive as it moved south. Jon Van de Grift activated the lightning net to which I responded on my way back from the pool. I picked up Jenn and we headed out to Ft. Lupton to get in front of the storm. Unfortunately, the storm did squat for lightning, never seeing a CG and me nabbing one of the only crawlers of the night.
You'll notice at the bottom of the picture a bright orange glow. This seemed to explode out of nowhere not long after a very bright lightning flash (to which we never saw a bolt). Here's a close up..
It was obviously a fire to which we could see the flames from our vantage point. Immediately, we thought a house had been struck and exploded cause it was bright. Practically lit up the entire northern sky.
Once the storm died and what lightning there was went with it, we decided we had to check this out. Figuring us striking out on lightning was inevitable, we thought we could get some shots of this structure fire. We mazed our way through a series of county roads northeast of Ft. Lupton to get close to this. Finally, we found a northerly road that looked to have the best shot at getting us to this flame. We peaked the hill...
Refinery... it was a damn fire pipe thingie... completely fell for it. It literally popped up while we were shooting, so our best assumption was that something had exploded. Nope... we both laughed pretty hard at ourselves on the way back to Denver. Total booolshit! LOL
So with that, 61 miles tonight adding to last night's 73 miles. Quiet weather looks to move in after tomorrow for the better part of next week, however, a few models are hinting at a good change in the pattern which will bring about the return for some stormy weather. The only cavate in things is I start school again on Monday. However with evenings off every day, nighttime lightning should work out.
So there's my funny story for the night... Jenn and I laughed ourselves pretty good and tried to come up with a few "made up reality" stories to cover our goofiness, but figured the truth was better than fiction. At least that's my opinion, and why you just read that! LOL
Goodnight!
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Third day was certainly the charm for flooding rains as southeast Denver took quite a wallop! 7News here in Denver got some excellent footage from the aftermath near Parker Road east/southeast of downtown. Check out the story and video here. I was focused on the west side of town on the cell as it moved off the foothills over the Green Mountain area in western Lakewood. It came over and dumped some pretty good rains, penny-sized hail (maybe a few bigger stones), and minor street flooding.
Most of the areas I ran around in had anywhere between 6 inches to a foot of rain, including Simms/Union Street north of Jewell in west Lakewood.
I ventured over through Belmar and documented some water over Garrison Rd. south of Alameda between Kipling and Wadsworth.
An outflow boundry from severe-warned cells north of I-76 came down and briefly intensified the western cell as it moved into the city. About 15 minutes earlier as I was crusing into Green Mountain, I texted a friend saying the southern part of town was about to go. It pretty well did as some areas east of me picked up almost 4 inches of rain which prompted flash flood warnings. Definitely a crazy night! Wished I hadn't committed so soon to the western cell as I would've allowed myself plenty of time to get east. By the time I had deduced what was upcoming, I was going to have a hard time getting out there.
But, for what its worth, this was my first urban flood event in Denver for the summer... goes to show how dreadful this has been. Fortunately this week has given some much needed rain to the area. But in true Colorado fasion, we get it all in 30 minutes. Tomorrow, while not as high, holds potential again for more heavy rainers. I think tomorrow will lack the upper level forcing, so we'll see. Lastly, with today's spotter chase, I have now chased at least once in every month of the year so far.
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Friday, August 08, 2008
Geesh, it's late. I just spent the last 3 hours and change sorting through my ballcard collection. After my Hall of Fame weekend and all the amazing events within, I decided the time had come to go through all my cards and offer them some organization from the random boxes they were scattered in. I went down to Black Gold Sports Memorabilia and picked up a helmet display case, a large five-row card holder box, and a couple of smaller boxes for the various movie and Redskins cards I had lingering around. Three some-odd hours later, that mission is complete! For what its worth, I only wrote that to explain what I am doing up at this hour.
Thursday had hopes of a Wednesday repeat with a Flash Flood Watch issued by noon and storms expected by early evening. I had a ton of errands to run, so I was hopeful for one of three things; if storms went, they went in an area I happen to have found myself in; they went AFTER my errands were done; they didn't go at all and save me the trouble all together. Nature chose option 3. No forcing and a small cap prevented the black skies over the mountains from doing anything at all. Either that or it was known that I had my camera with me. Either way, today was just an all around nice mild summer day with a night worthy of the open windows.
Tomorrow is the last real chance at rain before things dry out. Forcing seems a bit more promising as there will be a cap to contend with. Storm motions will be closer to 10kts as opposed to the 0-5 over previous days, but good moisture still resides over the region. May need to warm up a few degrees in order to break what cap there is in the event the forcing doesn't arrive or pushes further north. We'll see... again, I'll have the cameras armed, but less errands will free me up a bit more.
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Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Am currently on an RTD bus heading back home only to be welcomed back by blaring tornado sirens. Several funnels and a possible weak tornado in the northern Denver area have prompted the NWS to issue a TORNADO WARNING for the northern suburbs of Denver, including my apartment. While the humor in me landing shortly before all hell breaks loose fits perfectly to what was an amazing trip, I likely will not make it back and be ready to chase in time to do anything with it. If the bus route lands me in the right place at the right time, awesome! Otherwise will just enjoy scoping the radar with my Sprint card along the way home.
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