The SPC and the local Sterling forecast office didn’t hold out much hope for storms this afternoon, but after I reviewed the models around lunchtime and saw enough instability and an approaching cold front to trigger storms I headed out at 1300. Sur…

The SPC convective outlook for tomorrow shows a probability of thunderstorms just east of I-95 in Virginia, and a slight risk of severe weather closer to the Chesapeake Bay. I’ll be keeping my eyes (and my options) open in case the chasing potential l…

Not to beat a dead horse (I’m already looking forward to the next chase) but here are a couple of maps of our location and viewpoints for the 8 May events courtesy of Mapquest.com. The top map shows our southern Palmyra location (white dot and yellow …

Here are a few vidcaps from yesterday’s chase. The later (darker) two are from video taken north of town where we witnessed at least one tornado. They seem to indicate touchdowns on the left and right of the main funnel…possibly a very broad circu…

We left home around 5:45 pm to creep through rush hour traffic and head for Thornburg to get our bearings as conditions for storms were looking better to our SW. Once we checked out current conditions and forecasts we proceeded from there down Rte 208…

Yep, we bagged another Virginia tornado this evening. We headed south into some riper conditions and wound up in Fluvanna county in the vicinity of Palmyra filming a wall cloud that dropped at least one tornado northwest of town as we watched. I wil…

What’s the deal with the timing of the cold frontal passages through the Mid-Atlantic in 2008? So far the vast majority of cold FROPAs have been at night, far from the time of peak heating that helps fire convection and produces thunderstorms and some…

Here’s a link to a video from the 28 April tornado outbreak in the Suffolk VA area. I love to chase storms, but I’d much rather see them in rural areas with no property damage or injuries.

Well, it’s Monday and there was no chasing under today’s crapfest of low ceilings and no instability. The only part of Virginia that had any CAPE was at least three hours from here in the southeastern corner of the state, and of course that’s where th…

Since SPC had us under a “See Text” 5% chance of severe storms, and since the models indicated decent instability and little cap, I had my eyes on the sky. When radar indicated a line of storms moving northeast toward Culpeper and Warrenton (here) I …