I actually was heading east to intercept a cell in Bedford county when I noticed a lowering over the southern Roanoke Valley that was vacuuming up scud. I watched it for a while and then decided to continue toward Bedford, but before I had gone a half …

On a day with little or no severe weather expected I headed out anyway because I felt the shear and instability were sufficient to create something worth chasing. When a small area of showers lit up radar over western Bedford county I headed out and wo…

Yes, I do admit to having busted chases and the first of August was one of them. There wasn’t a lot of hope for severity (a 5% “See Text” by the SPC) and I wound up traversing parts of four counties – Bedford, Campbell, Pittsylvania, and Franklin – bef…

In advance of an approaching cold front a lee trough fired convection over the Rte 29 corridor. I spent most of the afternoon and evening bouncing back and forth across Pittsylvania and Halifax counties chasing different cells. I saw several nice storm…

I started out heading toward Bedford – on a day with little wind shear – until the cells I was interested in rained themselves out. Heading back home I noticed more storms moving south from Lexington and this one went severe as it approached the Roanok…

I wound up on the southern “Tail-End Charlie” cell of a line segment crossing Pittsylvania and Halifax counties on this chase. This cell was a prolific hailer but I managed to stay south of the hail shaft via Rte 57 between Chatham and Halifax. The bes…

This chase resulted in playing “Dodge ’em” with a squall line. Starting out in Bedford I maneuvered southeast to Brookneal along Rte 501, east to Phenix, and then north to and thru Charlotte Courthouse. The coolest feature of this chase was the lightni…

Didn’t have to go too far for this one, but I did have a great ringside seat as this storm crossed the Roanoke Valley!  This is a video frame grab as a lowering crossed over the airport:

There wasn’t much hope of severe or discrete storms this day but I went out anyway.  Did a “static core punch” of this shelf cloud just west of Halifax.

Another Moderate Risk setup ended in yet another BUST on 13 June. Starting in the Appomattox vicinity I selected a severe-warned cell in a break between two convective line segments. That storm weakened and I wound up with no radar updates in the cell …