Can”t believe I”ve let an entire month slip past me without posting something. This summer has been a busy one, and rather than try to cover it all here, I”m going to just toss out a couple items of interest.\r\n\r\nOn the musical front, I”ve done a number of big band and small combo gigs with Paul Sherwood et al, and I just returned from a couple Labor Day weekend gigs in Alpena, Michigan, and Kalida, Ohio, with accordionist Dave Slivinski. Those who have read my previous account of my three-day gig with Dave at the Hofbrauhaus in Panama City Beach, Florida, have gotten a little of my take on the place of jazz saxophone in polka music. Stylistically, the two genres are worlds apart, but in terms of technique, interpretation, and form, I have to say that polkas are as demanding as anything I”ve come across.\r\n\r\nNot that we played purely polkas. Rather than just Dave and me, this time we had a foursome, with Dave”s son Aaron playing drums and, alternately, a guitarist and another accordionist/trumpeter rounding out the sound and expanding the musical options. Tim, the guitarist, was simply superb, and brought in a whole new sound for the variety crowd in Alpena. And down in Ohio, for an older audience, Chris provided the lead horn lines and I filled in behind him.\r\n\r\nBut enough about music. Let”s talk about storms. While Gustav bruised the Gulf Coast and gave New Orleans a scare, there hasn”t been any weather action to speak of here in Michigan lately. Harkening back a couple months, though, the following is a little incident I”ve been meaning to write about.\r\n\r\nThe SWODY1 update issued at 12:06 EST for June 13, 2008, read as follows:\r\n\r\n…OH VALLEY INTO GREAT LAKES…\r\n AREA AHEAD OF OUTFLOW BOUNDARIES FROM IND INTO SRN MI IS RAPIDLY\r\n DESTABILIZING AHEAD OF MID LEVEL WIND MAX WITH LITTLE REMAINING\r\n CINH. THUNDERSTORMS WILL INCREASE IN NUMBER AND INTENSITY ALONG AND\r\n AHEAD OF SURFACE CONVERGENCE FROM CENTRAL IL NEWD INTO SRN LOWER MI\r\n THRU EARLY/MID AFTERNOON. DEEP LAYER SHEAR OF 35-40KT WILL SUPPORT\r\n PRIMARY MULTICELLULAR STORMS EVOLVING INTO LINE SEGMENTS/BOWS AS\r\n COLD POOLS DEVELOP DURING THE AFTERNOON. HOWEVER WITH MLCAPES AOA\r\n 2000 J/KG THERE WILL BE POTENTIAL FOR SUPERCELLS WITH AN ENHANCED\r\n SEVERE THREAT OF BOTH WINDS/HAIL AND ISOLATED TORNADOES INTO THE\r\n EVENING HOURS. WHILE STRONG THUNDERSTORMS WILL CONTINUE INTO THE\r\n NIGHT EWD ACROSS THE OH AND TN VALLEYS…SEVERE THREAT WILL\r\n GRADUALLY DIMINISH BY LATE EVENING WITH LOSS OF SURFACE HEATING.\r\n\r\nStorms were in the area, as I recall, and steamy, gray turrets of cloud were visible from my window to the southeast. Not expecting much out of the system–which, indeed, wound up offering little more than a sneeze in Michigan–I was dinging away on my computer when I happened to glance out the window and saw this.\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\nZooming in for a closer look…\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\nThis shear funnel persisted for several minutes. It was pretty cool, and a nice bonus on an otherwise bland day.\r\n\r\nThe funnel turned out to be the first of two almost-severe-weather-related vortices I”ve seen this year. I spotted the second a month or so later as my best friend and homebrewing buddy, Duane, and I were heading east down M-6. Beneath the updraft base of a small, very low-topped storm (if you could even properly call it a storm) hung a distinct funnel cloud. We pulled aside and watched it, and I snapped a couple photos with my cell phone, which unfortunately didn”t turn out. The funnel weakened to the point where I thought it was going to dissipate. But it got its second wind and strengthened into a fairly stout, robust vortex that descended maybe a sixth of the way to the ground and lasted another minute or two before finally disappearing.\r\n\r\nAt no time did I ever think the funnel posed a danger. I would have been extremely surprised had it evolved into an actual tornado, as ground-level conditions didn”t seem conducive to surface-based storms. My guess is, the funnel was a product of adequate helicity interacting with the updraft near the cloud base. Not particularly dramatic, but unusual, pretty, and fun to watch.
