Lubbock July 4th, 2009 Fireworks

Very long day in Lubbock Saturday for the 4th of July.   My day started around 3 am.  I needed to be in Lubbock by 7 am and pick up storm chaser friend  Steve Miller down from Amarillo who was going to ride with me in the parade. My son was also up from Odessa for the events.

We arrived to queue for the parade route with the rest of the Channel 11 bunch around 8 am, and threw on some quick decorations.  Channel 11 had 4 vehicles total in the parade, one pulling a float with the anchors/reporters on it.

We streamed the crowd live as we went through the parade which took about an hour, and because we were near the front, we were able to get back around and catch the tail end of it. Steve was really getting the crowd going!  “You guys seen any tornadoes?” LOL   Then we spent a couple of hours checking out all the food and music in the 4th on Broadway celebration.

As it began to heat up, we decided to retreat to air conditioning for some rest for a few hours, then had dinner and headed out to the American Wind Power Museum where they had allowed us in to their VIP private area on the museum grounds to view the fireworks.  This area is on a hill overlooking McKenzie Park where the fireworks and other evening festivities were taking place and was an awesome place to take photography.

Before the official fireworks even began, we were treated with a good 2 hours of non-stop fireworks from people living next to the museum, and increasingly more for people arriving for the evening in the park.  Despite a large police presence, it didn’t stop tons of fireworks from being shot illegally in the city limits there. We didn’t mind at all.

As is began to get dark, the Lubbock skyline began to light up from one side to the other as everyone across town shot off their fireworks. I have never seen so many in my life!  We could then see the official show out at the country club to our north, and then finally the official show, which we streamed live on the ChaseCam here on the website.

Despite the fact we had virtually no wind and that was keeping the smoke in place, I still managed to get quite a few photos I am pleased with, and of course the video.  One lesson learned…  next year I will be putting out a remote mic so I can just get the firework sounds and not everyone talking around me too (including myself!).

The video is here below, and you can find the rest of the photos here.

My apologies for the lack of posts lately.  The difficult chase season this year, combined with the explosion, destruction of the old chase vehicle, building of the new one, etc etc etc  finally wore me down and I had to disconnect a little while and do some other things.

I wanted to post an update about the status of the explosion video for those that inquired about getting a copy.

First, because of a contractual arrangement with a production company, I can’t release it until a certain program airs, so that is the reason I haven’t had it available as fast as I thought I would. It will be as soon as it airs. (No, I can’t say which one yet either).

Secondly, the cost of getting a copy…

I had full intentions of making this freely available on a DVD for any official fire department who wanted it.  What I didn’t take into account and completely underestimated was the sheer amount of requests I would receive.  Well over 500 at this point.  This basically makes it economically impossible for me to give them away free of charge.

My alternative is a minimal charge that covers cost to produce them and shipping. With that in mind, that is the best I can hope to do and still be able to get a copy to everyone that wanted one.  I don’t have the final cost yet, but it will be very minimal and should easily be within reach of anyone (think less than $10). My apologies now that I am unable to do a free one are in order, but as you can see, the postage alone would be a significant amount.  This wasn’t a decision I wanted to make or take lightly.  But it had to be done nonetheless.

Once I am able to release it I will make a big deal about it here and do my best to let everyone know that emailed about it that it is available.  The fire departments that were involved in the fire still will get free copies.

A potent June setup for severe weather is underway across the Texas Panhandle and South Plains today.  Very high instability will be in place by late afternoon, as well as an old frontal boundary and a dryline with a triple point intersection setting up around southwest Swisher or perhaps northern Hale County.  Wind shear throughout the atmosphere levels is more than sufficient for supercell formation, even though we are lacking a more potent upper air setup, the extreme instabilites with CAPEs approaching 5000 this afternoon should make up for it.

Right now it looks like isolated supercells across the entire area east of the dryline are a definite possiblity, and with them winds possibly exceeding 80mph, hail larger than baseballs, and even tornadoes on or near the previously mentioned frontal boundary.  Any storm that can latch on and ride down that boundary could be cyclic and produce repeated tornadoes.   In my opinion, the greatest risk for that happening right now is in Swisher, Hale, Floyd and Crosby counties, although risk is there for that anywhere a county either side of those counties, as well as any supercell could produce a tornado today.

I’ll be heading out here shortly for an initial target of Plainview, TX and adjust later as needed.  I will of course be streaming live again both on the internet on my site here on the LIVE ChaseCam page and you can watch the coverage on KCBD 11.1 over the air.  If you live in the area, be sure to tune in to keep on top of the developing weather situation today, as well as have your weather radios on!

The new chase vehicle is finished and is on its maiden voyage today in southern Kansas!

Long lived supercells and strong tornadoes possible.

Surface warm front, dryline, and outflow boundary are coming together west of Wichita, KS in an environment  characterized by extreme instability, ample wind sheer and high dew points. This concoction should produce long lived supercells with possibilities of strong tornadoes as we go into the evening.

I am currently enroute to Pratt KS and will be live streaming video here shortly on the Live Chase Cam page.

Yesterday turned out to be mostly uneventful for chasing. Ended up first on a potentially tornadic storm with a hook showing on radar in southeast Garza County out by Lake Alan Henry, but we couldn’t see the biggest area of interest because there are really no roads going east there and it was blocked from view by rain.  That storm started dying out so we dropped south due to a huge outflow boundary killing off the northern storm with cool air.

Got south of I20 on a nice storm that rotated a bit, but didn’t do much else.  Decided to give it up and jet on down to San Angelo for what turned out to be some EXCELLENT Mexican food. We ate so much we hurt, and then decided to do some lightning photography across the lake there.  Of course as we got in position, mother nature decided that cloud to ground lightning was over and started raining on us.

On the way back home a little unassuming storm that wasn’t even severe provided the highlight of the day with some excellent cloud to ground lightning, and both Graham and I got several nice pictures out of the deal to save the day.  The first one here is my favorite!

Quick forecast as we are already on the road.  With the primary chase vehicle still behing built, we are running in the Tahoe today.

Storms in west Texas have formed along an outflow boundary moving south through the South Plains.  All modes of severe including some tornado potential.  We are currently live streaming the chase right here on DavidDrummond.com!

I finished up the roof work yesteday on the van.  Everything up there is mounted, wiring brought down to where things will be hooked up, and the headliner is back in (quite a chore in itself, seriously Chrysler!)  So we’ll call that phase 1 complete.  Attention now turns to getting the new console build where a lot of things will come together.

As you can see, the process can be quite a mess.  Amazingly enough, it’s all organized to me!

Mother natures is also starting to get my attention on some severe weather potential upcoming.  There could be some stuff roll in to our area from eastern New Mexico late this evening, but there is potential for the cap to suppress convection.  We could use the rain but I need the outdoor work time, so I am hoping the cap holds this time.  Even if stuff does develop, nothing too serious expected.  Perhaps some marginal severe hail and winds.

Sunday actually holds better potential for severe weather across western Texas, with a dryline taking shape near the New Mexico state line.  Again, the cap is an issue here as well, but there should be better moisture to work with.  As such, a bit more intense severe weather is a possibility for Sunday, and even again on Monday.

Beyond that, models are still having trouble getting a firm take on what appears to be a favorable pattern change for severe weather on the plains.  While they have gone back and forth on the details, it appears some form of a trough will set up in the western part of the US, and this usually has implications for severe weather somewhere on the plains.  I always say mother nature will eventually balance things out, and this could be one of those times, after an unusually inactive May.  We’ll see what happens, but it definitely needs to be keep a close eye on for storm chasing potential, perhaps even several consecutive days of it.  I gotta get this vehicle finished!

My blog has been void of weather discussion of late. Ever since that last storm (the night of the explosion), the plains have been under the influence of a summer like high pressure ridge in the upper air that has effectively put us into late June/July like weather instead of the usual stormy May. There have been some very isolated and very marginal severe events, but not much to write home about.

For me however. this could not have come at a better time. As you read in my last blog entries, the other chase vehicle was significantly damaged by debris from a tank battery explosion. I’ve spend the last week and a half working out the details of all that. In the end, the trucking company that owned the facility offered to pay the vehicle damage estimate. Evidently they are a great company from what I have been hearing from all the employees and even the fire department there in Lamesa.

Been also busy dealing with production companies.  Looks like the explosion story will be on a couple of cable networks in the near future as well.  More details on that when they are finalized.

The place I was buying the vehicle from let me pay them the damage, and they rolled me into a 2008 Town and Country, and transferred what I had paid so far over to the new one! So after gathering supplies the last couple days, I started converting it over to a chase vehicle today. This new van is awesome and very high tech.

This will be the most high tech and safe chase vehicle I have ever owned.  5 star front and side crash rating, with not only dual front airbags, but full length side curtain airbags as well.  All of the rear seats fold down into the floor which I love and when they are up the wells make huge storage space for things like tripods and whatnot.  The van abounds with little storage spots all over it which will be quite handy.

All of the interior lights are LED and it has indirect theater style lighting as well that is pretty cool.  The in dash stereo is one of the new MyGig units that has a touch screen, built in hard drive to load your MP3s on, a DVD system, backup camera, Sirius Satellite radio…the list just goes on.  There is even a built in 110v power inverter in the back!

The gas tank isn’t quite as large as the one on my previous vehicle, so I won’t get quite the range, but it’s supposed to get better mileage though.

I started gutting it today to prepare to get everything installed.  These pics will probably disturb some people to see a new vehicle disassembled and half the interior parts in a pile!

I’m taking this opportunity to upgrade most of the equipment as well. I’ll try to do more updates and progress continues.

I have had an overwhelming number of requests for the video that I said I would make available for free to any official Fire Departments. I have received all your emails, I just haven’t had time to respond to all of them yet, but I have read them. I will respond to all as time allows, I promise I am not ignoring them. Remember I am also in the middle of changing out chase vehicles here as well since the old one was damaged in the explosion.

I’m not expecting to have the DVD available for fire departments completed for about 3 weeks. I’ll post updates here on the blog as I have them. It will be approximately an hour long and includes some aftermath video I shot a couple days later.

Again, I am making this available for free to OFFICIAL Fire Departments only! For control purposes, I am asking you either email requests to me from your official department email, or by regular postal mail on department letterhead.

For the rest of you who asked for one, I’ll be making a different version of the DVD available for purchase after I get all the fire department folks taken care of! As this video has the potential to save many lives through training, that takes priority right now.

I just wanted to make this update since I haven’t had time to personally respond the the overwhelming number of requests. Some have been from as far away as Alaska and Canada, and as big as DFW Airport and Washington DC Fire and Rescue and New York State Fire!

Media and commercial interests can contact me to obtain licensing for your uses.

I posted a new video of some of the aftermath footage of the explosion I posted the other day. This includes a walkthrough of where I was during the explosion.

The other videos of the explosion in case you haven’t seen them yet:

And in slow motion: