The GOES-14 (GOES-O) satellite was launched on 27 June 2009, and is undergoing its Post Launch Test. The first calibrated full disk visible image (above) was received by the SSEC Data Center beginning at 17:30 UTC on 27 July 2009.
I don’t know what is more thrilling, when you intercept a tornado – or when one of your long-time friends and past tour guest intercepts a tornado. The latter happened today when I received a text message from Nicole saying there was a wicked storm in the Denver area and she was going to head out an “see what she could see”.
Overnight (June 7th, 2009) a rare atmospheric phenomenon occurred in south-central Oklahoma. No it wasn’t a tornado, it was much more rare than that – even during 2009! Suddenly at about 3am CDT in Jefferson County the air temperature became very hot and dry, the temperature shot up to 97 degrees F, literally within minutes. The event that happened is called a Convective Heat Burst, it happens when a parcel of very cold and unsaturated air within a dying storm descends very rapidly and warms due to compression (at a rate of 9.8C per 1,000 meters) and overshoots its equilibrium level and reaches the surface.
22:02Z 3D radar image from KCYS Cheyenne, WY Radar. Notice the yellow lines (precip) wrapping around the updraft. The image below was taken 8 minutes after this radar scan. The tornado was on the ground for over 20 minutes.
Spring-like weather has returned to the Central Plains, but it’s June – not May!
Conditions are finally becoming a bit more favorable across the High Plains for severe weather. However, the past few weeks have been extremely limited due to lack of flow, lack of moisture and you guessed it – lack of quality storms. We had been reduced to being extremely happy with rainbows lately – it’s not what we’re here for, but they still make a great photo!
So what do storm chasers do when the weather is horrible (that is sunny with a light breeze)? They drive around and take artsy photos of anything that they can pass the time with. I snapped a few shots of a wind turbine in NE Kansas last week and made this composite image from them.
We started the day off in the southern portion of the Texas Panhandle and drove all day without much stopping to get back into Oklahoma. We witnessed convective initiation on the southern end of the boundary, just north of Watonga and stayed with this cell all evening long.
You know how you can tell when your tour customers are happy? They smile! And, these guys should be smiling after witnessing awe-inspiring storm structure in none other than the roadless Nebraska Sandhills on May 20th (Tour 4). Not too mention we just drove through that dark precip area in the background a few minutes before this was taken.
Tour 4 was a rough week for storms, we only had a single chase day – Wednesday May 20th. We intercepted a supercell near Hyannis, NE that is otherwise known as the “Mullin Storm”.
It seems that storm chasers and musicians pretty much live the same road life…
If there is a tornado, I sure hope someone has it covered! There were hundreds of storm chasers covering a severe thunderstorm on May 5th near Breckenridge, Texas. After all, it was the only storm in the entire state so there wasn’t a lot to choose from.
UPDATE: The Map Widget has been restored to full status.
It seems that something …
Today’s severe outbreak is setting up. However tomorrow could be the bigger severe event in Oklahoma. It’s going to depend on what happens this evening and if there are outflow boundaries leftover from today’s storms.
