With a strong autumn cold front blasting across the nation I have – admittedly faint – hopes for a chaseable setup late Friday afternoon (10/3). The instability doesn’t look robust but the shear is decent so I’m hoping something similar to this occurs:…
Sept 17 2004 Fauquier county tornado from Ivan’s remnantsI’ve been fortunate enough to be asked to provide storm chasing presentations at several venues lately. The first opportunity came at the request of Robin Reed of WDBJ7 (TV station here in Roanok…
I deliberately didn’t chase on Sept 11th for two reasons: (1) I had been to and from Blacksburg that day to provide a chasing presentation to a VT meteorology class and (2) It was my birthday and I didn’t want to …
A tropical airmass ahead of a strong cold front led to an early round of downpours followed later by a sunset shelf cloud. The chase started from Gretna where we were visiting family. I slipped south toward Chatham, stopping along the Climax Road to sn…
I did go out “hunting” storms this afternoon to no avail. I had followed the progress of a seemingly long-lasting complex moving northeastward toward Rocky Mount and decided it was worth intercepting. Alas, by the time I made my way to that vicinity th…
The Virginia chase season tails off considerably after the end of August, coinciding with the beginning of meteorological autumn. The intermittent chases available here in the Old Dominion during the fall typically center around either strong cold fron…
After several days of processing events – and having watched the video and listened to the podcast – I’ve gained some perspective on what it was like being a guest panelist on “WeatherBrains” episode #447. Mostly it was a bit intimidating being on the …
Finally got a chance to go thru at least one video from yesterday’s chase. This clip – sped up 4x – was recorded looking north from a parking lot ~2 miles NE of Goode VA (west of Lynchburg):Along with the shelf cloud came a lot of cloud-to-ground light…
I headed east to Appomattox this afternoon to position for what looked like a good chance of storms. Several short range models indicated that convection would fire along an old frontal boundary in that area as an upper level impulse pushed east across…
This is my personal preference / bias coming out but I continually find myself doing a doubletake when I see a severe thunderstorm warning graphic posted somewhere with red shaded polygons. To me the color red represents worst case scenarios and thus s…
