Tarantulas, Fire Ants & Snakes, Oh My!

As if the floodwaters from Hurricane Dolly weren't bad enough in South Texas, throw in some nasty little critters to make it even worse. Only in Texas. :-)

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9251MP81&show_article=1

If you've never seen what fire ants do in flooding situations, they basically ball up in one, big mass while floating around waiting for something to crawl up on. I've seen them on Lake Ray Roberts before when it flooded. It's incredible. One such mass found it's way up onto my boat via the outboard. It wasn't pretty...for them. They met their demise with a can of Raid before they could get a strong foothold and take over the boat. ;-) Of course, I couldn't help but delight in swatting any other wads of those ciritters with my fishing pole thus scattering them by the thousands on the water's surface. The perch had quite a feast. :-)

But, in the story above, I was quite amused that the reporter considers tarantulas as deadly. Really? Is that deadly to crickets and grasshoppers? They are physically harmless to humans, at least in this part of the world.

I used to have a few as pets when I was younger. However, there was one I had that was completely psycho and would attack anything and everything that came near it. That one stayed in the jar at all times. As harmless they may be, they'd certainly give you a severe case of heebie-jeebies if they climbed up your leg to escape the floodwaters. Perhaps the reporter was just "embellishing" the story for emotional impact, eh? Or perhaps as a youngster, they saw the movie "Tarantula" too many times. LOL!!

Spinny Thing In S TX and "TEXAS!"

What is that spinning cloud mass with a hole in it down in the southern tip of Texas? A "Convectively Induced Donut"? ;-) I jest of course, but with soooo much attention and blogging about Hurricane Dolly combined with the media assault, talking about it here would simply regurgitate what is already posted out there. A trip to intercept Dolly was in the works, but logistics and timing didn't work out...along with the uncertainty if it would even landfall north of the Rio Grande. Maybe next time.

At least my Oklahoma bretheren posted some cool 3-D radar images. I saw one uber-cool radar image by Dr. Greg Forbes on TWC showing about 4 very distinct and pronounced swirling eddies in the eyewall of Dolly. That was pretty cool. IMpressive rainfall rates too with the slow movement. Dopplar estimates up to 25 inches in one isolated spot with many 15-20 inch amounts indicated with the rain still coming down. Since dopplar estimates in such tropical systems are overestimated, those amounts in reality are probably 5-10 inches less. Still, very respectable rainfall amounts. Major flooding, no doubt.

I was amused by some of the damage to hotels on South Padre Island though. They didn't bother to board up windows, so the video of the lobby was one of total floodage as all windows were blown out. A few hundred bucks for plywood, a couple of thousand for labor, would have saved tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage....not to mention lost revenue as they repair everything. Ouch. Complacency is perhaps one of humanity's greatest faults.

At least that whole drought-stricken area will get some serious relief. Maybe the lakes Amistad and Falcon along the Rio Grande will get a much needed boost.


Jay McCoy, his daughter, my folks and myself went to see the outdoor musical drama "Texas!" at the Pioneer Amphitheater in the Palo Duro Canyon. I was pleasantly surprised in just how good it really was!! The storyline is generally about the struggles and challenges of the settlers in the Texas Panhandle. The storyline was entertaining as were the characters developed in the story. With the canyon walls set as a backdrop and utilized well in the play, it is a spectacle I encourage everybody to see. Truly, this is the only place such a grand production could be presented....as big as Texas. :-) If you are a native Texan with a true heritage as I have, it would be a shame NOT to see it. People from all over the world have seen it...and every night!

The admission fee paid for itself in one particular scene that puts any SDS therapy session to shame. I must include this in future treatment!!! :-) It's the best simulation of an actual thunderstorm I've seen including one big moment. I won't ruin it for you (and Jay, don't tell them either! lol). But you'll thank me for it later. The fireworks dispaly at the end is spectacular as well.

Overall, I came away feeling that the $27 was well spent. I've spent twice as much for rock concerts with half the experience. Since they do allow non-flash photography and even video cameras, I'll be taking my SLR next time and hopefully a better low-light lens. In fact, I might even go again this year if the weather cooperates. It can be pretty damned hot with all the people there and no wind down in the Canyon...even with the sun down. The Big Texan also serves a steak dinner before hand which I'll take advantage of next time as well. It smelled awesome and made me regret not going that route.

That's it for me for now. I'm making another step towards self-employment by parting ways with another corporate lunatic asylum last Friday. I've got some things in the works that I am hoping will work out in the next few months. In fact, I've got alot of things in the works and just waiting for at least a couple of them to work out. I figure my luck can't be that bad for everything to fall apart. :-) I'll detail as much as I can, or want to, as things get rolling along.

Wind Pollution

The vast, open spaces from the Big Bend to the Panhandle is about to sprout ALOT of wind farms over the next 2-3 years. The T. Boone Pickens farm out around Pampa/White Deer I believe will have 2,700 alone. That's pretty much as far as the eye can see. So much for there not being any trees on the caprock, eh?

The reason for the expected explosion is that the State Of Texas today gave preliminary approval for a massive transmission "corridor" project to carry all of the wind-generated electricity to major cities like DFW, Austin, San Antonio, etc. Read about it in more detail:

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080717/D91VR9N80.html

I really really hate to see that because the vast, open skies are one of the reasons I love it out here. Within the next few years, I'm afraid it will be a rare photo of a storm without them in the shot. While not a nuisance now, with that many expected in the future, it's going to be common to have one blocking the view. I hope that I'll get used to it.

On the positive side, it will eventually mean lower electricity bills...at least that's what they say. In the meantime, we get to help with construction expenses by paying $3-5 extra on the bill each month. I've seen this scam before to sell the idea, and then later moan and cry that it's running over budget. I estimate that the actual payment will be $10-15 per month when all is said and done. But, "they" continue to assure everybody that we'll see lower bills "sometime down the road".

The problem is, I don't see anybody presenting any sort of solid estimates of just how much we'll really save. I say the big city folks foot the bill since the project really benefits them and nobody that lives out here.

I can't count the number of times our government pulls a fast one on us citizens in order to appease some wealthy special interests who line the pockets of those that govern us. Logically, we should see a big chunk of savings...particularly with the price of oil continuing to soar with no relief expected. We'll see.

From a stormchasing perspective, it would make for some cool video to see a strong tornado ripping into a wind farm. I've always said that would make for one of the best images of irony I could think of. :-) But, with the increased economic benefits, we should see some road improvements with the Bob's roads and dirt roads standing to benefit the most. That'll make interecpting storms a bit easier. I've already seen this benefit with the increased oil production efforts.

So, it is kinda depressing to know that the landscape is about to become cluttered or "polluted" with wind turbines. If it truly helps to significantly cut my electric bill and reduce our dependency on foreign oil by a million or so barrels per day, then I could probably stomach it. I'll keep the antacid handy though. ;-)

On a side note, I want to wish my buddy Jason Boggs a speedy recovery from a serious fall out of the bed of his pickup truck. He broke the big bone of his arm in two places at the wrist which isn't easy to do. His hand was fractured too and he suffered what sounds like a mild concussion.

He's doing great when I talked to him last night after they put him back together again....kinda like Humpty Dumpty. LOL!! Of course, the real pain an suffering will ensue later when all of his buddies out here conspire to make fun of his acrobatic feat. What are friends for? I'm still wondering if a part of his story is missing...something like, "hold my beer, watch this...." ;-) Seriously, get well soon.

2008 "Best Of" Storm Pics

Here are my best pics from the 2008 season. It was mostly a dud for me as everything up until mid June required a long drive from Amarillo to intercept and always on a workday. But, mid June saved the season for me. :-)

I hope to have some video clips before long. I'm currently playing around with the demo version of Sony Vegas Pro 8. I'm leaning towards buying it right now as it seems better than Adobe Premiere. More on that later. Pics!

March 4th in Amarillo. 2-3 inch snowfall. 18 hours earlier, it was in the low 70's! Temps plummeted with sustained winds 35-45mph and one recorded gust of 69mph. Awesome!


March 30th in SW OK. An amazing day with storms moving slowly like a June chase. Chased with Jay McCoy and eventually met up with David Drummond. That evening, we experienced one of the MOST intense and eerie inflow jets I've ever been in. Jay and I later drove though some incredible hail fog and hail banks too.


April 7th In Archer County, Texas. I couldn't capture the mid level bands overhead corkscrewing into the updraft. It was stunning to say the least. I chased with Jay McCoy this day.


April 26 in W TX. Not often you get these types of opportunities. I tagged along with David Drummond and eventually Jason Boggs.


May 23 near Canadian, TX. A breathtaking updraft without a doubt. It would produce a tornado in NW OK near Buffalo...pictured below. Video clips coming soon. Solo chase.




May 31 in S OK. This was one of the most intense supercells at night I've chased. Continual anvil zits, awesome structure and internal illumination from lightning that presented different hues and colors. Solo chase.



June 14th in the Texas Panhandle. Along with Jay McCoy, we witnessed a landspout that did some damage in Claude. They weakend though later and left me with a spectacular sunset. Even non-severe storms out here on the caprock can be awesome. Solo chase.


June 15th in the Oklahoma Panhandle. The "Festival Of Vortices" supercell. I hope to get some video clips of this event loaded soon. Lots of streaming video to NWS AMA. Solo chase.


June 19th in the Texas Panhandle. Incredible storm structure! Solo chase.





June 20th in the Texas Panhandle. Solo chase.

Where did July go?

In a pretty bizarre year known as 2008, July so far has been rather mild and even cool for the Texas Panhandle. We had much hotter weather back in May and even April when temps soared past 100F on several occassions.

But, one of the many reasons I moved up here was to escape the swealtering, relentless and unbearable summers in North Central Texas around the DFW area. Case in point was today. A seasonally strong cool front plowed through the area knocking our daytime highs into the 70's...with strong insolation!! It was very pleasant with a good breeze luring me outside to do some stuff. Our expected overnight low will be in the upper 50's.

As I write, it is a nice 66F outside with light rain. I just came inside when the precip cranked up after sitting outside enjoying my favorite cold beverage and actually feeling a tad chilly. By comparison, it is STILL 87-92F at 10pm in the DFW area with swealtering humidities. Ugh. I am so glad I'm not stuck down there any more. :-)

We started off the first week of July with alot of cloud cover and precip. I think we had 3 days in a row below 90F. In fact, alot of areas got some really good, soaking rains out of that event including the drought-ravaged Oklahoma Panhandle. Most of that area received 2 inches or less of rain in about a year's time. There is still a long ways to go, but at least it is relief. Many areas of the Texas Panhandle into the Permian Basin region has received moderate to heavy rains which has resulted in many shouts of joy from the ranchers and farmers suffering from from a spring drought.

Tomorrow, high temps are forecast to be only about 80F. Awesome. I'm considering driving down to Lake McKenzie near Silverton just to explore and do some photography stuff. I've seen some awesome landscapes down there while whizzing by chasing a storm. So, a casual trip would be nice to go and check that place out....while we have a break in the July heat.

Torches, Pitchforks & Faked Video

The stormchasing community is all up in an uproar again. This time however, it MIGHT be warranted. Here is ONE of MANY various news stories:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080710/ap_on_en_tv/tornado_video

Mr. Fabel denies it:
http://www.ksnt.com/news/state/24333319.html

I am refraining from jumping onto the judge/jury/executioner's bandwagon until I see something truly definitive. After all, I've seen some tornado video clips of different tornadoes that look very similar to other ones. It wouldn't be the first time pitchforks and torches were raised in a frenzied mob mentality to go after somebody with nothing more than rumor or perpetuated lies by others....depending of course if the person in question was a popular or well-known veteran. ;-) However, for the record, what I've seen so far (and I haven't seen EVERYTHING), it looks very very suspicious to me that the video appears to be from Rock, KS back on June 12, 2004 of which I also witnessed and videotaped.

For some people, they won't be satisfied until they shoot his dog, burn his house down, sell his kids into slavery, kidnap his wife, hang him from a tree, and set fire to his corpse dragging it through the streets...figuratively of course. ;-) It's curious to see a couple of names pop up leading the charge against Mr. Fabel who have a track record of enthusiastically trying to destroy others in the "stormchasing community" over the past few years.

In closing, I believe that the best way to hunt down Osama Bin Laden is to start a rumor that he is riding a camel with amber lights on it, running stop signs, purposefully riding into big dust devils then appearing on Al Jazeera to tell his story and sell the video, and selling faked video. I'd give the "stormchasing community" about a week or two to track him down for elimination. ;-)

Fourth Of July Pics

I had a great time over the 3-day weekend. I graciously accepted an invitation to be part of the Lubbock parade as part of the TV station that David works for. That was alot of fun! I had a blast hamming it up with the people in the crowd...especially the kiddos. Later that evening, we got a VIP pass, thanks to the TV station and David, to a great viewing spot for the Lubbock fireworks display. It was really pretty cool and very well choreographed with some creative effects. The weather was perfect with a nice, cool breeze and no annoying flying critters to deal with.

I FINALLY had a great result with photographing fireworks. Prior efforts were ptitiful failures with ISO/stop settings, shutter speeds, focus, or just poor positioning. I'm very happy with the results this time.

For those wondering, I'm using a Canon Digital Rebel XT 350D with Canon "L" series lens 17-40mm. I was shooting at ISO 100 with fStop of 6.4-8.0 using the "bulb" setting and remote cable release. Average shutter speed was about 4 seconds depending on the intensity of the fireworks. Alot of my manual shutter control was pretty much spontaneous on my part trying to capture a certain aspect of the fireworks at different stages of the explosions. It helped to have some good amateur fireworks going off nearby to practice before hand to get a feel for it.

I shot about 80 pics in total and most all of them came out very good. It was tough to choose my favorites as I have so many. Someday soon, I'll get a gallery together to show them all off. So, I picked out a few to show. I reduced them to 500px wide, so the quality, detail and clarity is abit subdued compared to the full size versions.

Mine and David's vehicles all purtied up with the colors.




I borrowed some of David's glass chalk to try my hand at a little tornado art. ;-) The color match with my vehicle was cool.












Check out the "spider" effect.




Palm trees?


More "critters".








Big ice cream cone?

Happy July 4th!