Just finished up editing lightning photos from the chase night before last across West Texas and Eastern New Mexico.  Fun, but long day, despite the lack of anticipated severe weather and flooding rains.  It was nice to finally get a shot at some local lightning photography!

You can view all the photos and the chase story here. All the photos there can be clicked on for a larger size!

Just a quick post. Wanted to share the beautiful harvest moon currently shining over Texas tonight.  You can click on it and see it even bigger!

I’ve been covering a lot of wildfires on the Southern Plains this year, in the absence of much severe weather to chase.  This day was certainly one of the bigger fires I covered this year so far.  I was returning from a storm chase in Oklahoma the previous day, and as is often the case after a storm system passes the area in the spring, the winds were howling across the plains. Combined with dry air, this was an explosive combination.

Arriving in Wichita Falls, Texas, there was already a large fire in progress on the north side, moving in to residential areas.  That one was already well covered by media, and I knew there was another fire in progress to the SW near Iowa Park that I assumed was getting little, if any coverage, so I headed for it.

Thanks to some local law enforcement, I was able to get right up near the fire line, and was even shown a safe place to ride it out as it passed by.  This turned out to produce great photographic opportunities of course.

Sadly, I watched and documented as people scrambled to shove as many possessions that they could in their vehicles and rush out of there in the very short time before the fire arrived.  Winds were howling over 50 mph and the fire was coming fast and furious, through mostly mesquite trees and overgrown brush.  Imagine trying to shove as much of your things as you can (or even to think of everything you want to save first) in 30 minutes and get out of there.   I then watched in horror as those same folks’ homes burned to the ground in minutes!

While these are quite scary to watch, document, and even be in close proximity to, they do present incredible photographic opportunities to document the event, both in photo and video.  I shot video for hours, was there from just after noon until well after dark, and I shot a couple hundred photographs as well.

The photograph above was of a local volunteer Fire Department truck that had mechanical troubles while fighting the fire, and had to be abandoned for their safety.  You’ll actually see this truck working in some of the clips in the video below.

Here is a video of some of the best of the event.  It’s a little long for a news type video, but I cut out as much as I thought possible and still tell the story.  First you’ll see the fire coming in, then coming through the area I was at, and then some aftermath.  Some of the area was just barren. It was like being on another planet!  Finally, in the end we get to see some of the day’s heroes at work.

I’m planning to eventually get a fire gallery going on the main website, but right now I have a gallery from this day you can find here:

http://daviddrummond.com/wildfires/2011-wichita-county-tx-wildfire.html

Short, backyard chase yesterday around the Lubbock area. Thanks to Steve Miller of Amarillo for the heads up, as I was working my side job yesterday and not expecting much after the models downplayed everything.

I have posted the full chase report on my website, with a few more images as well!

What I did learn was that I have a lot to learn and a lot of practice ahead, so there is much room for improvement.  That said I did catch one of the brighter meteors and got one other star trail image that I liked, so I thought I would share those with you here.

You can click on the images to get a bit larger one.

Another potent day on tap for most of Western OK and down in to parts of North Central Texas as a dryline will move to along the eastern TX Panhandle/OK state line, and a warm from is lifting north across Oklahoma.

The warm front is currently situated along the I40 corridor with what we call a triple point (where the warm front intersects the dryline) currently in the vicinity of Wheeler County, TX.

The northward extent of severe weather will be tempered by the eventual location of the warm front by mid-late afternoon, but even farther south along the dryline, isolated monster supercells capable of extreme size hail larger than baseballs, strong tornadoes and damaging winds will still be possible.  Storms following the warm front in particular should be especially dangerous!

Today has the potential to be yet another tornado outbreak for much of Oklahoma and even parts of North Central Texas.  Everyone have your weather radios on today and pay attention to local media sources.   Storms will be moving much slower today than they did during the last outbreak on Monday, which means you may have more lead time on warnings, but this unfortunately also means that giant hail and tornadoes will have more time over a given area to do more damage.

I’ll be heading out the door shortly for far western Oklahoma, and will be streaming LIVE this afternoon on the LIVE ChaseCam, with AUDIO!

Very potent severe weather day is shaping up for the Texas Panhandle and South Plains area with the possibility of tornadoes and hail to the size of softballs!

Morning surface analysis shows dewpoints in the upper 50s across the area, which is more that sufficient moisture in the higher terrain of West Texas up on the caprock to get good storms going and forecast models show this increasing into the 60s by late today.

A dryline should tighten up near the Texas/New Mexico state line by afternoon and provide a focus for storms to initiate.  Additionally, some old outflow boundaries from previous convection could also provide a focus, especially anywhere those intersect the dryline.

Wind profiles should increase favorably for supercell development as the day wears on. RUC forecast model shows more than sufficient instability for tall, strong storms of the type to produce very large hail,  and the low level EHI (Energy Helicity Index) has a nice bullseye just west of Lubbock by 22z.  Any supercells today that interact with any of these  boundaries will certainly be capable of producing tornadoes, maybe even a strong one.

From a storm chasing perspective, at least the storm motions will be relatively slow so they should be easy to keep up with.

People living in the area should have your weather radios on today, and tune in to KCBD 11 for up to the minute information if you are on the South Plains in the Lubbock viewing area.

I will be out in the field by early afternoon streaming live on the LIVE ChaseCam page!  Be safe today everyone!

I had no time to get a forecast posted yesterday as I had to get on the road. Initially targeted Wheeler County, TX for storm initiation but got tempted by the triple point up on the OK/KS border and incredible cape, and was concerned about the cloud debris inhibiting heating further south.   Short story was, I bailed from the outflow dominant storm at the KS border and caught the tail end charlie storm at Clinton, OK just in time to get the tornado in the video above crossing over I40.  When things finally settle down I will post more in-depth recaps of the better days.

Today will take me to the Permian Basin, Trans-Pecos region, one of my favorite chase areas because of the photops the terrain provides with the storms.  Warm front is hanging out down there and shear is sufficient for a couple of supercells and perhaps a tornado or two.  In fact, there is already a Severe Thunderstorm Watch out for the area north of where I am going for the elevated hailers underway currently, north of the front.

I will of course be streaming live this afternoon on the LIVE ChaseCam page.

No time to post much of an update from yesterday.  Chased the central part of Oklahoma and ended up on the Moore tornado that is all over the news, so you probably already know what happened there.  Last stop was the massive damage on I40 east of  Tinker Air Force Base.  When things settle down I have a ton of pics and video.

Today presents one of my favorite chase opportunities that involves a nice slow moving boundary, ample moisture and heating and slow storm speeds.  While there is a stout cap that could prevent storms from forming, should one form near the boundary it could be a repeat offender in the tornado department.  Since I am already near the target area and planning to be out here chasing tomorrow too, might as well give it a shot.  I’ll be live streaming later this afternoon on the Live ChaseCam page.

Today is one of those days when it’s hard to be excited about chasing. Storm Prediction Center has issued a high risk for a large portion of Oklahoma and southern Kansas, and more than one long track, violent tornado is a distinct possibility. Hail could be larger than baseballs.

While I’m certainly excited by what Mother Nature may have to offer for viewing, I’m equally apprehensive about the fact that someone is likely to lose life and property today. If you live in these areas, be certain to have your weather radios and to be paying attention to live news sources, because once storms fire, things are going to be happening quickly and storms will be moving fast. Have your plan now, because warning times are going to be short and you may not have much time to react.

I’m heading out to Oklahoma today to chase this set up, of course. But I expect it will be difficult to due to fast storm motion and what is sure to be a very large amount of storm chasers on the road.

Shortly after noon, I will be live streaming video for the remainder of the day on the LIVE ChaseCam page.