Chase report 3/30/06

Chase report from Thursday (crossposted from Storm Track":



No tornadoes today for me -- and not much of photogenic anything due to the persistant cloudcover. But a really fun chase, nonetheless, especially considering it was in my back yard. I started out by driving west a bit on I-80 and waiting at a rest stop just east of Goehner, between Lincoln and York. I got the impression that the dryline storms out west were going to be completely linear, and I noticed that convection was trying to pop from an area basically overhead to points south into Kansas. So I dropped south. Eventually, a supercell formed south of Beatrice, so I headed back east to HWY 103, then dropped south to Crete. As I was doing this, the Beatrice cell was really getting wound up, and given the fact that everything was tearing along at 50+mph, I only just barely got NE of the cell on HWY 33 before the core could catch me. This was actually pretty cool, as CGs were dropping left and right around me about once every 2 or 3 seconds -- and they were really, really close, close enough to get the 'radio hum' before the strike. I stopped about 2 east of Roca to watch the 'meso' (not too impressive looking) roll by and to get in position to try to close in on it (briefly) once I had a clear shot at the inflow area. Unfortunately, the storm started falling apart at around this point. Still, it was the only game in town at the time, so I tailed it by taking the grid roads to the north. While I was doing this, I noticed another cell forming to the south. To be honest, I didn't have a lot of hope for it, as it had plenty of crap convection surrounding it, but the original cell I was on was limping into Lincoln like a wounded deer, so I decided to "try" to get east before the core of the new storm overtook me. Drove east on Hwy 2. No luck, but at least I only caught the blinding rain and wind part of the core, not the hail part. It seemed pretty clear, though, once I got to Syracuse, that the storm I was positioning for wasn't going to make the cut. I munched out on Slim Jim's & Strawberry milk as disorganized storms marched overhead. Once it was clear the the squall was going to march in and finish the day, I decided to go and try to meet it somewhere picturesque, so I took HWY 2 back to Lincoln. Got to the outskirts of Lincoln just before the squall did, and let me tell ya -- it was one of the more visually frightening things I've ever seen. I knew I wasn't in danger, but it looked like something out of one of those Apocylpse movies. I sat in my car with my jaw dropped as I watched a massive, impenetreble fist-like curtain of rain sweeping across the horizion towards me. I mean you could really see it coming. I parked next to HWY 2, and boy was it was making the traffic on HWY 2 freak out! Once it got right on top of me, I could literally see the power of the downdraft -- the rain flying horizionally several thousand feet overhead, and then whoosh! The car rocks as the gust front hits and the visibility goes from 5 miles to 5 feet in just a couple seconds. It was all over in five minutes, but wow! I'll never get the image of that squall coming in out of my head. It's one of those things that's so surreal that you wonder if you're dreaming.



Now, I saw no tornadoes today, but I still had an awesome time. Between the wondergul squall and the challenge of getting in position (even though the storms died), I had a good chance to shake down my equipment setup and have fun doing it. Plus, the usual chase magic was following me around. For example, at the gas stop in Syracuse, the clerk who was ringing up my Slim Jims seemed really distracted... and then she suddenly got this huge smile and blurted out to me that her sister, who has had cancer for the last 3 years, just called her and told her that her cancer was in remission. Outside, the last storm had just rolled through and the sun was poking through the clouds for the first time of the day. Yeah, it was a pretty cool chase.

Tomorrow

Things are still looking good for tomorrow, storm-wise. Heck, I doubt I'll even need to leave Lincoln until late morning. A fairly potent cold core low is still set to drift out of Colorado and across Nebraska tomorrow. There should be some convection in Nebraska tonight (hasn't fired yet, but it should), so I hope that all clears out in time to get things hotted up here tomorrow. That, and any lingering outflow boundaries could really toss in a wild card. There really isn't a terrible amount of energy in the atmosphere, but the largescale forcing dynamics are there.







Storm motion is going to be truckin; 35+kts to the NE. I'm not really used to chasing stuff that moves that fast, so hopefully I can keep up or at least position myself where I can close in. That probably means going well north of here so that I'll be ahead of the storms, as there's no way in heck I'll be able to catch up with them from the south.

Thursday

Thursday looks like it might have some chase potential, with a fairly strong cold core low ramming it's way through Nebraska. HPC seems to think that it'll go quite far north, further than the models hint. The models show a pretty strong LLJ up here. I don't know if all the snow will be off the ground by Thursday -- I suspect not -- so the temps may be a bit depressed. Elevated storms? I have the day off, so here's to hoping we get some action.

Grand Canyon

Today's picture du jour comes from the Grand Canyon. This shot is, if you can believe it, not posed. At least not by me. I had hopped over the guard rail and was climbing down a bit when I saw this guy doing this. Josh talked to him later; he was posing for a photo that his friend was taking, though I doubt that his friend got a picture this cool. ;) Click to enlarge.

Cranes, part deux

I went out shooting with my sister tonight so that she can learn more about photography. Thought I'd pay the cranes a visit, even though I don't have my telephoto back yet. Surprisingly, I didn't really require a telephoto for good shots -- though it would have helped! :) All photos get way bigger when ya click 'em.








I let my sister use my old EOS-3 film body. Dunno how the pictures turned out yet, but I'm betting they'll be good.













After the sun set, I thought it'd be fun to revisit an old spot near Kearney high that I like to shoot bulb shots in. I tried to make my sister look like a ghost with my flash. Not perfect, but it didn't turn out half bad!








All in all, a great time, and she had a great time too.

Golden Gate

Today's photo of the day is from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Hoofing it across the Golden Gate bridge is well worth the worn soles. :) Click = bigger.

Leprechaun sighting

One of the most amusing local TV news stories I've ever seen. The drawing is priceless.

San Francisco

Today's photo of the day comes from the archives. I've been having some incredible fun with the negative scanner that I got from Josh. :) This is the San Francisco skyline at sunset as seen from the top of the Coit Tower. Yessir, the very same tower that Bill O'Rielly invited Al Qaieda to blow up. Fortunately for me, they didn't decide to blow the thing while I was up there! :) This photo gets a lot bigger if you click it.

Alley

Today's photo of the day is something that I recently rescanned with the Nikon Coolscan IV that I traded a lens to Josh for. This was shot with Velvia 50 on the EOS-3 using the lens that I just traded to Josh -- a Tamron 17-35 2.8-4.0. :) Clicking makes this photo much larger.

Waiting for m' lens

Went out shooting with Josh today, but because I have no telephoto and no wide angle, I haven't had much luck. When in doubt, take pictures of cats. ;) Click to make them really, really big in a new window.

Holy crap, it snowed!

Sorry these aren't the best photos -- it was 1AM and I wasn't highly motivated to spend lots of time composing. :) (Not to mention, I had to send my superwide lens back because it was defective; I was stuck shooting with a 50 prime & a crappy Sigma 28-105). But getting back to the subject at hand -- holy crap, it snowed! 14-17 inches according to the Omaha NWS, though that seems a bit on the liberal side if you ask me. Maybe it compacted or something -- this is some seriously heavy snow! If you look close, you can see my Honda buried under the tree in one of the photos. Is it really Spring?!



As always, clicking the photos makes 'em much, much bigger in a new window.

New lens

I've been playing with a new lens that I bought -- a Sigma 10-20mm f4-5.6. Pretty slow glass, and not as sharp as the Tamron 17-35 f2.8-4 (which I won't have much longer), but it's a ton of fun and I'm hoping that all the new crazy shots I can take will make up for the few shortcomings. :) Here, Josh's neighborlandlord trys to get Josh's cat to play with a cat toy at a party over at Josh's tonight. The cat's sayin' "Hey! Not interested!"

Look, ma!

I had a few friends kindly point out that, living a bajillion miles away, they don't have access to the Journal Star, so, here ya go: (clicking makes them larger in a new window)

UPS

Today's photo of the day is from last week's crane shoot. I saw a plane flying overhead, so I took a snapshot of it. It blows my mind that the lens was able to pull this much detail out of something that was flying at least 35,000 feet overhead.



I asked some plane buffs on the internet, and they tell me that this is a UPS package-hauling jet. The rear fin is actually brown and yellow, but I guess the 6+ miles of atmosphere between me and the plane made the brown appear brown blue.



Clicking this one makes it a LOT bigger in a new window. :)

Speaking of cranes...

If you live anywhere near Lincoln, make sure you pick up a Journal Star tommorrow (Saturday). :)

Cranes, cranes, cranes!

Still plowin' through my crane photos. Click 'em to make 'em much bigger in a new window. Here goes!





Josh setting up in the blind. That monstrosity of a lens to his left is what I rented.







The sun sets on the Platte River as cranes fly overhead.







Here they come!










The MOMENT the disc of the sun was completely gone, a bajillion birds started funneling down to the river. It was uncanny how accurate they were with the sunset.







This is just a very small fraction of them. The whole sky was filled with these guys.







I like how the guy on the right looks like he's lookin' up. :) In actuality, he's just gulping down some water.







Another from the sunset.







This is from the next morning, as the cranes fly under the somewhat stormy skies.







We spent most of the next day driving around the fields looking for dancing and flying cranes. Here, it looks like he's coming in for landing, but he's actually dancing. :)







The cranes here in the fields were doing this weird thing where they'd pick pieces of stalk off the ground and toss them into the air. I had no idea what they were up to, though Josh had a hunch that maybe it was part of their dance. Sure enough, when we asked one of the conservatory employees, it turned out that it was part of their socializing, and that we were very, very lucky to have seen it.







Here's a parting shot of Puffy Pufferton, the coolest Eastern Meadowlark ever. "Hi, I'm Puffy Pufferton, and when people are looking, I like to say "tweedle-dee-deet!"



I'm still digging through stuff, so I should have some more photos to post tomorrow. :)

Meadowlark

This is a photo of an eastern meadowlark singin' on a branch. These guys seem to love singing more than most birds love flying. I have a few more of this guy that I'll probably post later once I get 'em toned up.



Photo info: 300mm f/2.8L with 1.4x teleconverter, 1/1000 sec, f/4. Click to enlarge.

Just got back

I just got back from shooting the cranes. I have a bajillion pictures to go through, but as you can see, I had a great time. (Click for a much larger version in a new window.)

Compass

Josh called today and told me to bring over some stuff that I wanted to shoot. I brought this old WW I compass, which has a tremendous amount of sentimental value to me. He was doing this cool stuff with his macro lens where he'd put drops of water on a pane of glass and then place an object under it -- this would cause the object to reflect in each of the droplets. When it came to be my turn, while I was setting stuff up, he decided to mess around by trying to blind me with my flash. ;) However, this caused some really cool shadows to form off of my hand, which gave me the idea for this photo. This was shot at ISO 200 at f8 on 17-35mm 2.8-4.0 Tamron lens zoomed in to 35mm. The light source was a radio-controlled 550EX flash set up at ground level. Click to open it larger in a new window.

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