After a huge forecast failure in NW OK close to the KS border...AND perusing the models this morning, I'm turning off the lights and shutting the door on 2009. I'm happy to to do so on a very bizarre and frustrating season for me. I managed to get on many tornado-warned storms with VERY little to show for it. I've come to the point of being convinced that if you take a non-tornado producing storm south of the Kansas border and then place it in Kansas, it will spin and produce multiple, gorgeous tornadoes....especially when I'm not around it. LOL!!
My stormkiller reputation has been reaffirmed this year much to my own chagrin. Yep, I killed the "Caprock Magic" single-handedly. For 2009, it was more of "Caprock Illusion"....or "Delusion"...or "Elusion". Take your pick. :-) So for both 2008 and now 2009, it's been a pretty dull season out in these parts compared to what you would typically see. My odometer can testify to that. I'm experiencing Deja Vu from the North Central Texas curse. It always seemed the really good events were 500 or more miles away. What few setups did materialize, something would happen to totally screw up what looked to be a prime setup.
The biggest problem this season was the very dry airmass over the region. I think a large part of this was due to the massive dry air dumps into the GOM basin early on combined with the serious drought in the region. The total winter snowfall total for Amarillo through early March was less than two inches which was a near-record pace. Only the blizzard of March 27 produced any appreciable amounts with up to 13 inches of snowfall. Even with that, we were below the average of 17 inches. It was also our first truly appreciable moisture in several months since about late September based on my memory.
Sure, there were good severe weather events in other parts of tornado alley, but in areas with lower elevations....relatively speaking. The moisture depth was all too often rather shallow. Even with good return flow, the moisture couldn't make it on top of the caprock. It would quickly and easily mix out by early afternoon (or sooner) if any did make it up here. Not surprisingly, and as I often pointed out early on in the season, the dryline would mix east well into Oklahoma or central Kansas. Whenever the dryline would back up to the NM border, the dewpoints ahead of it would be below 50F with large dewpoint depressions.
So, for the naysayers out there who don't believe that extreme severe drought conditions west of I-35 combined with massive GOM dry air dumps doesn't affect the season, 2009 should hopefully be enough to at least consider it as "plausable"....especially with 2006 as another very similar year. This of course begs the question and debate as to the La Nina pattern affecting us. Was the drought the overriding cause of a dismal Caprock severe weather season...or was it just a small contributing factor and symptom of La Nina which screwed with the upper air pattern thus choking the season out here? The very bizarre and unusual upper air pattern in May that resembled July/August certainly didn't help the cause.
Fortunately, we are getting TONS of rain out in these parts. After nearly turning into the Sahara Desert for almost 9 months with very little if any rainfall, we are now prety much soaked all across the Caprock....especially around Tulia area and the eastern Texas Panhandle. These areas are very lush and green with water standing everywhere. All of the playa lakes are brimming with water and the air is moist and sticky with humidity....and TONS of bugs. My windshield alone has splattered a million critters....easily.
Will this trend continue this summer and into the winter? I certainly hope so. I hope we see a much "wetter" winter with fewer episodes of the massive dry air dumps deep into the tropics that we saw so much of this season thanks to frequesnt deep SE US upper air troughs and cyclones. We need them over the SW US as we would normally see in the winter and early spring.
With all of that aside, I'm looking forward to watching the tropical season crank up. I do not have any plans to chase any landfalling hurricanes in Texas. Part of the reason is having a new full time job, so taking time off will be almost impossible. Plus, it's an expensive venture which is difficult to make enough money through media busness to justify it. I'm needing a new vehicle as well as new camera gear....not to mention relocating to Panhandle, TX this fall (hopefully). Since experiencing the eyes of Gustav and especially
Ike last year, I don't really have the level of desire to do so again as I did being a virgin hurrican chaser this time last year. :-)
I'm also just starting to play around with
HDR which I have been wanting to do for awhile. In fact, I'm "behind the times" in this regard. I'm looking forward to producing HDR versions of my best storm photography over the years. My main goal is to achieve a more natural exposure balance in the often extreme lighting levels within storm environments. I will also do some more "artistic" versions with more extreme tone mapping. Stay tuned for that as this will be on the top of my "to do" list this season.
I'll also be doing some more work on my website as well. I made alot of positive changes, but want to dig deeper into some ideas I've had but with little if any time to devote to it. Chase reports in particular need alot of work. Another effort will be to transfer this blog to something other than this google blogger. I'm still having to jack around captcha crap everytime I do something because my blog is still marked as a spam blog. Despite submitting a request SIX times now to have it reviewed and returned back to a normal blog, I've not heard a peep from the google idiots. With this and some other crap in having to deal with them, I'm more than ready to abandon them.
Will I
EVER do a highlights DVD? I keep thinking I will. Maybe this year will be the year to do it. It's just so much work for what I want to do and how to do it. Who knows? If I actually get started and make any appreciable progress, I'll let you know. :-) I at least want to work on some individual video clips for posting on YouTube. Watch for that as well.
Other than that, I'll be working on setting up the annual Tailchaser SDS party for August. We used my apartment clubhouse last year which worked out great. I'll likely do that again this year. It's always a blast with friends watching the season highlights and just hanging out. It's tough to have the time to do that during the busy chase season.
Outside of chase-related activities, I'll be getting a new or newer vehicle this year. My Honda Element has nearly 140,000 reliable miles on it and still going strong. But, it needs some maintenance done on it which could get pricey. It makes sense to use that on a new vehicle down payment. The dilema I face is whether I should keep it? It's been such an awesome litttle vehicle..AND it's paid off, I hate to sell it. It would make for a great second vehicle. I've considered making it my official chase vehicle and fully rig it out and get the maintenance up to snuff for next year. It would make it easier with a non-chase vehicle to get into work too. ;-) So, I'll be lamenting and pondering that as well over the next few months.
The other big plan is moving from the SW side of Amarillo to the little town of Panhandle. It would shave 40 miles per day off my current commute. This also translates into a time savings as well. Coming back from weeknight chases in the E TX PH or W OK, it's a 30 minute savings in time as well as 30 minutes of a morning. That translates into an extra hour of sleep. :-) Plus, doing any lightning photography would be simply driving a few blocks and setting up the camera. I've checked out the town pretty well and love it. It has all of the basic amenities I would ever need including cable internet, nice grocery store, gas stations, post office, etc. In fact, it even has a nine-hole golf course! :-) For chasing, it's in about as strategic of a location as you could hope to have.
Other than that, some photo excursions are in store (hear that Jason Boggs? Get your camera ready!). There are so many cool things to go explore and point a lens at including New Mexico. With the HDR being added to my skill sets this year, I'll be looking forward to it. Hopefully I'll get the new Rebel DSLR by then. :-)
So that's it from me for at least a week or two in this blog unless some bizarre setup creates a local chase opportunity. Lightning photography is still an option as would be any NW flow event storms (whcih I see no opportunity for in the crystal ball). I'll put together a "best of 2009" photo slideshow down the road. Maybe in a week or two in my next blog entry. So for now....shutting the door and turning off the lights for 2009....
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