Thread: Storms in area

Here are some radar images from my software I use for chasing storms. I sat this one out because of the game, I wish now I had went out. Lots of action in Chris' (Webracin) neck of the woods.

See those green areas? Those are sings of rotation. See the pink triangle? That is a TVS signature, which means there is likely a tornado forming or at the very least a funnel cloud.

That is some pretty cool software you have Scott

Comes in handy when Im out there in the thick of it trying to chase them suckers down.

id love to go storm chasing with you someday. its something i have always wanted to do.

One of these days we'll have to hook up and do that. It has a lot of boring aspects to it until you are on the storm and then it can get really fun in a short period of time depending on the severity of the storm.

Scotty, if only you lived here today. Tornado touhed down 6 miles away from my house, and went wild!!!!!! went through 3 towns here, dads car is looks like a golf ball from the baseball size hail.

I walked into work....no one there, then I hear the tornado alarm and says to head to lower level. low and behold...day shift and night shift personel.....kinda funny. what a week to have the wiper motor take a crap....

thankfully no one was killed...quite a few injured though. It has been a long time since I have seen the sky that DARK...it was 62 today(WIERD)...almost sunny. driving down the road it was like a wall of DARK DARK black clouds....it was wild!

dad got up and close with the tornado...he was on his way to his dentist appointment when ....hey...up ahead...tornado. from what he describes it. today was a wierd day, now they are calling for more snow here in 2 days, when we are at close to 60 right now. something funny is going on here.

Ive been chasing storms for a long time and the weather patterns have definitely shifted dramatically in the last few years, so Im not surprised anymore by it being 70 one day and 40's or 50's the next if not cooler.

I can remember a time when I was so sleep deprived from chasing storms throughout the week and working full time that I would just show up at work a little early and take a nap out in the car in the parking lot just to get some rest.

Last year, if I chased 10 storms I'd be surprised.

we normally get 2-3 good size storms with a boat load of rain(flooding) but it has ben a long time since a tornado touched down up here. normally happens way down south

Thats pretty sweet Scotty! I wish we lived closer to your area to follow storms, we both love it lol. We had tornado warnings here last night and it was storming pretty good for a while. I guess it is supposed to hit again tonight but we will see. No tornado touchdowns close to use but I think there were a few sightings mid state between here and Chicago.

LOL. See, you come down here and fix everyones tranny and I'll treat you to the ride of your life in a GP, sound fair?

To make a short story long, I took my wife out chasing with me once to try and get her interested in it and maybe gain a back up driver for the really long chases. Well I get on location near the storm and it is super super active. I would say easily a couple strikes a minute if not more.

Well Im looking for a place to set up and get some pictures so I slow down to look for a clear area to pull off the road and still have line of site with the action. Most of the strikes are happening within a 1/2 mile radius.

Well I see a spot and I kinda point to it and its maybe 50 yards from us. About that time the biggest most beautiful strike hit near there. So close it was the thunder was instantaneous. I thought my wife was in an ejection seat she came so hard and fast out of her seat and had it not been for the roof I think she may have went past the roof line of the car.

She hasnt chased a storm with me since.

i wish i could chase storms i think it would be fun.

It is, but most are VERY uncomfortable being as close as I get. I have personally had a strike hit within 100ft or so of me while I was set up taking pictures. It was just outside the field of view of the camera, but I caught the sucker on the audio recording I was doing at the time.

You dont want to know how close I get to cell and TV towers. I have long accepted the risks of such actions. I have been so close to them that I can hear them sizzle as they pass through the air. Ive even heard the static discharge off towers before as a strike tries to initiate but never fires.

StormStrikes Lightning Photography

those pictures are amazing

Thank you. What you dont see there are the hundreds if not thousands that Ive taken that I just didnt like, LOL. Im pretty picky about my storm pictures and I get close to satisfy my perceptions of what makes a good lightning strike picture.

Originally Posted by SyntheticShield

One of these days we'll have to hook up and do that. It has a lot of boring aspects to it until you are on the storm and then it can get really fun in a short period of time depending on the severity of the storm.

i may just have to take you up on that offer this spring!

Originally Posted by SyntheticShield

Ive been chasing storms for a long time and the weather patterns have definitely shifted dramatically in the last few years, so Im not surprised anymore by it being 70 one day and 40's or 50's the next if not cooler.

Yeah here in St. Louis last Monday it was 12 degrees with a -2 wind chill affect. And then yesterday, week later Monday (obviously ), it was almost 70 degrees. Man it is going to be another one of those jacked up winters.

Not that I am complaining to much. I was able to get my car hand washed and I got a new layer of "ICE" on her before the bad weather hits again!


Hey Syn that is really cool about the Storm Chasing thing. I know the movie Twister was BIG over dramatazation of how Tornados react, but was any of it remotely close to being true? Just curious.

Originally Posted by MTXGTP

those pictures are amazing

^^^^^X100000000000000000000000

I was looking at the StormStrike picutres in 2006 around that one radio tower. Its simply amazing how all the strikes centered around that tower. I almost dare ask how close you get to those towers? Obviously from those 2006 photos you were a bit off, maybe a mile or so (totally guessing here)?

And what has been your closest encounter with ever being struck or hit by flying debri*?

If you care to share that information? If not? I shall certainly understand!

Oh sure. There are really storm chasers and they really did try and deploy probes in the path of twisters. They still try and do that today. The rest was mostly Hollywood hype. I can just about promise you that if a F5 (Well now they use the EF scale) twister were to go directly over you, not only would you not be able to look up at it, I dont think you would remain in the same spot.

Warning: Short story Long

As a kid, I remember a twister coming near our house I dont remember exactly how close, call it a near miss if you want to. However, we had not been there long and it was built from the ground up. 40 acres of land, all of it fenced in with 5 strand barb wire fence which I had the fine (read sarcasm) pleasure of running that barb wire and digging many of the post holes. We, of course put an interior fence up to close off the area around the house, also 5 strands of barbed wire.

We also had a fairly huge barn maybe 100 meters behind the house. Its roof was those Tin sheets if you know what they look like, how big they are and so on. Well that near miss twister took several of those sheets off the barn. One of them ended up in the yard of the house. Wrapped around the barb wire fence. But it was wrapped around only the top strand and none of the lower strands were damaged and it was wrapped around tightly enough that we had to cut it off the strand with tin snips that took like forever.

I wish, even at that age, understood what I was looking at seeing that sheet wrapped around that barb wire and had the foresight to get or have someone take pictures. I have a hard time convincing anyone I tell that to that it really happened.

Tornado Warnings for 8:00 pm est here in Louisville, KY. Hop on a plane and enjoy the landing here!