Between Idolatry and Joy: Some Thoughts on Life from a Jazz Saxophonist and Storm Chaser

There is an art to pursuing the things we’re most passionate about without letting them consume us. I certainly find this to be true of my own two interests, jazz saxophone and storm chasing, but the principle applies to all of us in whatever our preoccupations may be. Without fascination, energy, focus, and joy to drive us wholeheartedly in our pursuits, there’s no point to them; yet without restraint, self-awareness, and awareness of the broader world around us, it is easy to become a mile deep in our passions and an inch deep in life at large. Between these two realities, for me and I think for many of us, there lies a dynamic tension.

As a disciple of Jesus, I have to reckon with the issue of idolatry. In Old Testament times, an idol was easy to identify. It’s hard for us today to fathom people fashioning gold calves and graven images, both human and bestial, and then worshiping the things that they themselves had crafted. Yet that’s exactly what people did back then, both in pagan nations and in apostate Israel.

The funny thing is, we’re no different. We still bow down to the works of our hands, to things that are capable of becoming our gods if we let them. Things that blind us to truths bigger than ourselves and hinder our capacity to love God and others.

The problem with our modern idols, however, is that they’re not readily identifiable as such in the same manner as, say, a brazen bull or a figurine of Marduk. Anything in our lives can become an idol–our careers, our pursuits, significant relationships, the desire for love, our injuries and disappointments, our causes, our appetites, our emotions, our cars and other possessions, even our ministries and charitable occupations. Idolatry today is not usually something that is innate to the things in our lives, but is a matter of our attitude toward them and God. In ways subtle and not so subtle, it’s easy for us to invest ourselves in what we have and what we do in such a way that we allow it to define life and purpose for us. That’s a problem, because any of it can be taken away from us at any time, and sooner or later all of it is going to go. Then where do we find meaning; then where do we find life?

Moreover, we can become irresponsible and selfish in reaching for what we’ve defined as life, setting our pursuits above people we love and who love us. When we’re frustrated in those pursuits, we can become downright nasty, even destructive, toward persons who seem to inconvenience us, challenge us, or obstruct us. We’ll sacrifice others to our idols and justify ourselves in doing so rather than deal with our own hearts.

All this in the quest for life on our own terms.

Well do the words of Isaiah the prophet speak to us today: “[The idolater] feeds on ashes; a deluded heart misleads him. He cannot save himself or say, ‘Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?'”

Is there a flip side to this coin?

Of course there is. If God never intended for us to enshrine the things that we enjoy and love to do, neither does he want us to smother those things in sackcloth. In the Bible’s book of Genesis, in the Creation story, God from the beginning gave Adam and Eve something meaningful to do. They were gardeners, caring for the trees and flowers in Eden. Ironically, after they sinned, the man and woman’s immediate response was to hide from God behind the very things he had assigned them to cultivate and protect.

The problem lay not in the shrubs and trees and vines, but in Adam and Eve. The greenery in the garden was the same as the day when God first looked on it and called it good; it was the human heart that had changed. Ever since, in various ways, we’ve had a tendency to conceal ourselves from God and from each other behind the things we do.

Yet those same pursuits also have the potential to express the robust life of Jesus living in us untamed and unfettered. There’s nothing at all winsome about Christians who are so paranoid about idolatry that everything they do is constrained by a gray, lackluster religiosity. Many well-meaning believers confuse holiness with a boxed-in, sanctimonious, hermetically sealed existence that is about as invigorating as paper pulp. It hardly mirrors God’s exuberance in the act of creation, when with a decisive word he spun the visions of his heart into being–planets, suns, galaxies, luminous gas clouds, multiplied quintillions of celestial objects, all whirling across the velvet-black vastness; ocean tides pulsing and surf crashing against craggy shorelines; wildflowers waving in vivid, multi-hued pointillism in meadows and forests, knit together, unseen, by untold millions of miles of subterranean roots and rootlets.

Talk about a hobby! It was no dour, stuff-shirted God who created this fabulous world around us, this universe that awes and fascinates and humbles us; no, it was an eternal being who throughout the ages remains forever young–smarter than the most brilliant scientist, wiser than the wisest sage, yet passionately, perpetually, and unapologetically a child at heart.

God created us to live our lives as wholeheartedly, creatively, lovingly, generously, fearlessly, and beautifully as he lives his, in ways unique to each of us. Failure to do so is in itself a form of idolatry, a lack of trust that the One who hardwired us with our personal interests also supplies the grace and wisdom to express his life and fulfill his intentions through those interests.

The overarching principle is love–love of God and love of others. Love is ultimately what separates between idolatry–which is about pursuing our own independent way on our own terms–and the abundant, God-dependent life that Jesus offers. Christianity is not about good morals and rock-hard dogma; it is about nothing less than the life of Jesus himself living inside us, energizing us, guiding us in the pathway of his character. That is no weak, wan way of living. To be sure, it is a way that is often marked by self-sacrifice, pain, loneliness, misunderstanding, prayer, struggle, and self-control. But it is also a way infused with immense purpose, remarkable potential, endless fascination, and a joy that can be found in nothing else this life can offer.

In conclusion

Bringing all of the above to bear in a practical way for those of us who chase storms and/or play music: Whatever you do, do it with all your heart. God is not glorified by a timorous approach to the things you enjoy, nor does he want you to walk on eggshells for fear of offending him. Just keep in mind that there is more to life than your pursuits. Enjoy those pursuits, treasure them, but don’t grasp them so tightly that you can’t let go, and don’t let them give you tunnel vision so that you fail to see and participate in the broadness of life around you. Other people’s worlds are as rich and important as yours; to the best of your ability, enter into them, celebrate them, and let them expand you. Harness your interests in a way that makes your life bigger, not smaller–an expression of generosity, not selfishness, and of a Christlike perspective that values God and others most of all.

Behind the sound of a saxophone playing now tenderly, now exuberantly, always striving for creativity and beauty…behind the sublimity, the fascination, and the awe of a tornado churning across the open prairie…you can, if you choose, hear the song and see the face of God. If you submit your heart to him, he will in turn release his own magnificent heart in and through the things you love to do.

This, in part, is what life, true life, is about: allowing the things that are central to us to become the servants and the expressions of Someone far bigger than ourselves, and of a kingdom greater than our own.

October 30, 2010 by
Filed Under: Christian Music, Christian Spirituality & Inspiration, Church Worship, Jazz, Life, Music, Saxophone, Storm Chasing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Multiple Vortices: How Deep Do They Go?

In a recent thread on Stormtrack, storm chaser Shane Adams speculated that all tornadoes exhibit some degree of multi-vorticity. He opened up a topic that has intrigued me for a while.

Just how deep does multiple vorticity extend into a tornado? It may go deeper than most of us chasers imagine. We all understand that many tornadoes display multiple vortices, and a lot of us have witnessed the phenomenon firsthand. It’s possible, though, that the process we call a tornado is a actually an entire complex of vorticity consisting of rotations within rotations. It’s no secret that circulation ranges downward from synoptic scale to mesoscale to microscale; why shouldn’t it continue to do so on increasingly smaller scales? Maybe this concept is nothing new to tornado researchers, but I haven’t heard it discussed to any degree in the general storm chasing community.

While I used to associate multiple vortices with larger tornadoes, it’s the smaller ones that in recent years have intrigued me as I’ve taken a closer look. Some of the more transparent tornadoes have revealed fascinating inner structures, including a sheath-like outer wall cloaking a vigorous center, and a sort of braided appearance that has made me think of the strands that weave together to compose a rope. The 2007 Elie, Manitoba, F5 drillpress is a good example. Check out this video and I think you’ll see at least some of what I’m talking about, particularly around 4:17 into the clip.

Another video of this same tornado, shot at a closer location, offers an excellent front-row view of the tornado as it dissipates. Unfortunately, I can no longer locate that video on YouTube, and I really wish I could, because as I recall, the close-up of the tornado in its last couple of seconds amazed me. The funnel appeared to unravel; for a brief moment, you could see it separate into what I’m going to call vortex strands as its energy abruptly gave out, following which it simply vanished. As striking as how quickly the tornado transformed from a town-wrecker into nothingness was the manner in which it did so.

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More recently, I finally got a good firsthand look at extensive, small-scale vortices on May 22 this year in South Dakota. The much smaller, highly photogenic tornado that followed the massive and violent Bowdle wedge was a shape-shifter that went through some fascinating transitions. Parking itself in a field a mile northwest of our vantage point, unobscured by rain, it was beautifully visible and offered a study in multiple vorticity throughout its life. For me, the high point was when the funnel assumed the form of a truncated tube, with delicate tendrils of condensation circulating underneath it one after the other like horses on a merry-go-round. (My thinking is that a pocket of drier low-level air stripped out condensation except in the places where the vortex strands rendered the pressure low enough to make themselves visible.)

In the photo (click on the image to enlarge it), some of the vortices are apparent, but if you look closely, you’ll notice that some of the larger vortices actually appear to be made up of more than one vortex strand. You’ll also see a tendril or two appear to branch off. In all, I’m able to make out eleven strands, ranging from the obvious to the nearly undetectable. Granted, I may be pushing things; my point is that the circulations in this tornado were numerous, varied in scale, and complex. I suspect that there were even more vortices present than meets the eye, but I’m not going to force the issue because I’m no scientist, just a thoughtful observer with an aversion to crackpotism.

If there’s any recent weather-related post on this blog that I hope will draw some solid, informed comments, it’s this one. I’d love to get the opinions of others in the storm chasing community; and while I don’t expect that it will happen, I’d be extremely interested in hearing from those who are actually involved in tornado research.

October 20, 2010 by
Filed Under: Nature, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Survivor Guilt: The Unseen Tornado Trauma

“The thief comes only to rob and kill and destroy; I have come that [you] may have life, and have it to the full.”–Jesus (John 10:10)

Forty-five years after he lost his younger brother in one of the 1965 Palm Sunday Tornadoes, Pete Johnson still finds it hard to talk about what happened that dreadful evening in northern Indiana. He feels responsible for his brother’s death.

The name Pete Johnson is fictitious. I doubt the man I interviewed yesterday afternoon would mind if I shared his real name or that of his brother, but my conversation with him is so fresh, and my topic so potentially sensitive, that out of care and respect I’m calling him Pete in this post.

Pete was with his family visiting an aunt and uncle in Dunlap, Indiana, when the deadliest tornado of the entire six-state outbreak swirled into view outside the picture window. As his relatives sought shelter indoors, Pete’s parents packed the kids into their car and took off down the road in a frantic attempt to outrun the tornado. They didn’t succeed. Pete’s dad told him that a house hit the car. All Pete remembers is experiencing a blow to the head and then regaining consciousness out in a field, where he’d been blown by the wind. Rescue workers rushed him off to a hospital. It would be some time before he learned that his younger brother, Mark, hadn’t survived.

Mark’s body wasn’t found until a week later, buried under debris in the devastated Sunnyside neighborhood. Pete wants to believe that his brother’s death wasn’t his fault. But still, after all these years, he wonders: What if…?

What if he’d gone straight to the car instead of hiding in the closet, as his aunt had told him to do? Maybe those few extra seconds would have saved his brother’s life. What if his family had ridden out the tornado at his aunt and uncle’s house, which sustained only minimal damage? What if…?

There’s no satisfying the what-ifs of survivor guilt. You can respond to them with your head, perhaps, but your heart doesn’t buy the answers, not when the wound goes as deep as the loss of a loved one taken by a disaster. There’s seemingly no closure, no tying off of the open ends, no last stone to turn after which the supply of unturned stones finally ceases. At the bottom of it all lies a tyrannical, perpetually haunting lie: “I’m to blame.”

People with survivor guilt suffer–and “suffer” is an appropriate word–from a form of self-imposed penance for not having been the one to perish instead of their loved one. Reliving the incident year after year, they blame themselves for failing to foresee the unforeseeable and stop the unstoppable, for not preventing things over which they had no power. Really, for not being God.

Tornadoes are quirks of the atmosphere, not so much objects as unfathomably powerful processes dependent on an ironically delicate balance of ingredients. Earlier this year I watched one take out the heart of an Illinois town, then disappear into nothingness seconds later. Like lions and Alaskan brown bears, tornadoes are magnificent but also deadly and unpredictable.

As a storm chaser, I’m captivated by the beauty and drama of tornadoes. Yet I’m also keenly aware of their dark side. Who isn’t? The human impact of tornadoes, when it occurs, is seldom conservative and often it’s wholesale. Homes blown to pieces. Trees debarked, debranched, uprooted and thrown hundreds of feet. Vehicles crumpled into balls of metal. Worst of all, bodies mangled and lives ended.

But there’s another kind of damage that can’t be seen. Long after the dead have been buried, long after houses and neighborhoods have been rebuilt, years after people have gotten on with their lives, a sadness lingers. And for many, survivor guilt haunts them. You can build a new home, you can buy a new car, but you can’t replace a loved one, and what do you do with your own wounded heart?

I believe there’s healing for those who struggle with survivor guilt. I don’t mean the sorrow of losing someone close; that will always remain, and it is not necessarily a bad thing. But the sting of guilt which serves no good purpose is exactly the kind of thing Jesus came to put an end to.

Let me be clear, as I share from a Christian perspective, that I have little interest in dogma, any more than Jesus did. The wounds that life can inflict are too real for game-playing. But just as it’s possible to glibly quote the Bible in a way that misses its meaning and heart, it’s equally possible to lightly dismiss the Bible and so miss not only its unnervingly pinpoint assessment of the human condition, but also the power and hope of the gospel for some very practical life issues.

The life, ministry, and teachings of Jesus reveal the heart of a God who desires that we should find true, deeply rooted peace in our souls that flows from the peace we have with him. For those who trust in him, Jesus has resolved the issue of guilt in all its forms, including survivor guilt, with a power and effectiveness that extend beyond the unpredictable events of our lives to a deep and certain, eternal foundation. In his execution on the cross, Jesus took everything that runs counter to the character and will of God and, absorbing it into himself as the eternal scapegoat for mortal mankind, put it to death. Then, in his resurrection, he opened the doorway to a new kind of life that is not subject to the values and limitations of this world.

This is fancy language, but for those who struggle with survivor guilt, the bottom line is simple: God looks at you and says, “Not guilty.” His heart toward you is that you should have life, not death; peace, not self-recrimination. That’s no mere religious proposition–it’s the living, breathing, passionate longing of God for your best, your freest, and your highest.

Given the reality of what God desires for you, the question isn’t whether you could have done something that might have saved your loved one. You’ll never know. That question is a deception from the devil, who loves to torment people with issues that have endless complexities and no resolution. It’s really no question at all–it’s a prison sentence and a distraction from the simplicity of faith. The true, powerful question is whether you’ll stop holding yourself accountable when God himself doesn’t, and stop beating up an innocent person whom he loves very much: yourself.

As you consider that question, here’s another one to contemplate along with it: If the situation had been reversed and you had been the one who perished while your loved one lived, would you have wanted your surviving loved one to live the rest of their days with the guilt that has haunted you? Wouldn’t you rather have desired with all your heart that he or she would think of you with love but not guilt, and fulfill the gift and potential of their life in freedom?

What you would want for your loved one would surely be your loved one’s desire for you. Love does not condemn, but frees and blesses.

I realize that what I’ve proposed is easier said than done. I just want to put the possibility before you–the seed of a new way of thinking which, I hope, can make a difference for you. I’m well aware that I haven’t experienced what you’ve experienced. My struggles have been my own. Yet they have been significant in their own right, and in the face of them, Jesus has made me a freer man as only Jesus can. So my words to you are spoken both humbly and frankly, with a longing that you should know peace at last, peace that only the love and grace of God can bring.

One of the titles by which the Scriptures call Jesus is “Prince of Peace.” The peace he offers rests not on life circumstances, but on an interpersonal relationship with him in which the quality of life that resides in him flows to us. It is a life in which guilt, shame, and torment can’t be found. If you belong to him, then the peace which is native to that life is more than his will for you–it is your very birthright as a child of God.

My prayer for you, if you struggle with survivor guilt, is that your birthright will become real to you in a way that frees you from a weight that is not really yours to carry. Bring it to Jesus and trust him with it. You don’t know what to do with it; he does. Letting him do so is a journey he’s eager to make with you if you’re willing to make it with him.

July 31, 2010 by
Filed Under: Christian Spirituality & Inspiration, Life, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

An Independence Day Double-Header: Summer Weather Is Here

It’s July 4, Independence Day. Happy Birthday, America! For all the problems that face you, you’re still the best in so many, many ways. One of those ways, which may seem trite to anyone but a storm chaser, is your spring weather, which draws chasers like a powerful lodestone not only from the all over the country, but also from the four corners of the world.

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This has been an incredible spring stormwise, but its zenith appears to have finally passed for everywhere but the northern plains. And right now, even those don’t look particularly promising. That’s okay. I think that even the most hardcore chasers have gotten their fill this year and are pleased to set aside their laptops and break out their barbecue grills.

Now is the time for Great Lakes chasers to set their sights on the kind of weather our region specializes in, which is to say, pop-up thunderstorms and

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squall lines. The former are pretty and entertaining. The latter can be particularly dramatic when viewed from the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, sweeping in across the water like immense, dark frowns on the edge of a cold front. If you enjoy lightning photography, the lakeshore is a splendid place to get dramatic and unobstructed shots. Not that I can speak with great authority, since so far my own lightning pictures haven’t been all that spectacular. But that’s the fault of the photographer, not the storms.

The images on this page are from previous years. So far this year I’ve been occupied mainly with supercells and tornadoes, but I’m ready to make the shift to more garden variety storms, which may not pack the same adrenaline punch but lack for nothing in beauty and drama.

faux_supercell
July 4th is a date that cold fronts seem to write into their planners. I’ve seen a good number of fireworks displays in West Michigan get trounced by a glowering arcus cloud moving in over the festivities. But tonight looks promising for Independence Day events. Storms are on the way, but they should hold off till well after the party’s over.  That means we’ll get two shows–the traditional pyrotechnics with all the boom, pop, and glittering, multicolored flowers filling the sky; and later, an electrical extravaganza, courtesy of a weak cold front. A Fourth of July double-header: what could be finer than that?

July 4, 2010 by
Filed Under: Life, Michigan, Nature, Outdoors, Photography, Storm Chasing, Uncategorized, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sax ‘n Wedge: A Life Goal

This last week I was so preoccupied with chasing storms that I hardly blogged at all. When I did, naturally it was about weather. Jazz, music, and the saxophone have languished in the background, at least blogically speaking.

Not, however, in practice. When I headed out west for some dryline action, my horn went with me. It always does. My chase partners know that when I head for any chase over a day in duration, the sax is as much a part of my travel gear as my suitcase, laptop, and camera. Some folks toss a baseball or football while waiting for storm initiation; I practice my saxophone. Any time is a good time to get in a few licks.

I have several reasons for bringing my horn along on chases, all of them having to do with eventualities. The most likely scenario is, as I’ve just said, that I’ll get a chance to woodshed my instrument. Far less likely–but still, ya never know–is the possibility of winding up in some restaurant where a band is playing, and it’s the kind of band that makes me wish I could sit in for a tune or two. Like I said, unlikely; most Great Plains towns aren’t exactly jazz hotbeds. Still, as I learned back in the Boy Scouts, it pays to be prepared.

My main reason for taking my saxophone with me on storm chases, though, is because of a particular life goal of mine: I want to get a good photo, or maybe some video, or even both, of me jamming on my sax while a monster wedge churns away in the distance. For that matter, I’ll settle for just a nice, photogenic tornado of any shape or size. I just want some kind of visual record that captures the raison d’etre of Stormhorn and the essence of who I am as a storm chaser and jazz saxophonist.

Assuming that a storm is moving slowly enough to make a photo shoot practical, my preparations once towers start muscling up are:

* Rain-X windows

* Remove camera from case and make sure it’s ready for action

* Get tripod out of trunk

* Assemble saxophone

Just a handy checklist. Reasonable enough, wouldn’t you say?

So cross your fingers for me, or better still, pray. This season could be the one where I fulfill an ambition and get some very cool photos to show for it.

I’m a maniac, you say? Of course I am. A maniac is just someone with a different kind of dream.

April 28, 2010 by
Filed Under: Jazz, Life, Saxophone, Storm Chasing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

First Crack at Severe Weather (Has the GFS Ever Lied?)

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Here on the last day of February–just one day before meteorological spring begins–temperatures are finally settling into a warming trend here in Michigan. With plenty of snow still on the ground but the promise of better days in sight, and with me feeling my repressed itch for severe weather beginning to surface too insistently not to scratch, I’ve cast a wistful eye on the long-range GFS.

At 180 hours out from today’s 6Z run–in other words, on March 7, early afternoon–things look interesting. Not inspiring, just something to keep an eye on. If you’re a

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fellow storm chaser, you know the drill, and you know how the models change. With that caveat, while I haven’t been an avid follower of the GFS these days, I seem to recall that it was painting a somewhat similar scenario last week.

Anyway, here are the surface maps for sea level pressure and surface dewpoints at 18Z, March 7. Click on the images to enlarge them. Obviously the moisture could stand improvement, and I wonder whether sea surface temperatures in the Gulf will be warm enough to deliver, but let’s see what happens from here.

February 28, 2010 by
Filed Under: Life, Michigan, Storm Chasing, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

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Thanks!

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November 26, 2009 by
Filed Under: Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Music, Saxophone, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Some Reflections on the Icons of Jazz and Storm Chasing

I just finished looking through a couple forum threads on Stormtrack.org, one of them about what makes a person a “true” storm chaser, and the other about storm chasing legends, about the forerunners who have risen to icon status. In reading the latter thread, I was struck by a similarity between jazz and storm chasing that I had never seen before: each is a distinctively American art form.

While today both jazz musicians and storm chasers hail from all over the world, yet we owe our respective crafts to a handful of American pioneers who, guided by passion and a quest to learn and excel, first set forth into uncharted territory and showed the rest of us the way.

Both pursuits are young. Jazz has been with us for only a century. Storm chasing has existed half that time, a little over fifty years. In the history of both, the progression of discoveries and advancements has been rapid, even dizzying. One obvious difference is that the patriarchs of jazz have passed on, whereas most of the veterans of storm chasing are still with us. Louis Armstrong is long gone, but David Hoadley remains a present inspiration, and while I’ve never met him, I assume from his occasional input on Stormtrack–the online descendant of Hoadley’s trade magazine for chasers–that he’s still fairly active.

I suspect that Hoadley wouldn’t see himself in the same light as Louis Armstrong. From all accounts of David, he’s a humble man who likely would feel surprised to be compared with the likes of Louis. Yet both men are innovators. Both followed their instincts to accomplish something that had never been done before. In Armstrong’s case, the result was the birth of a brand new musical language of feeling, inflection, and improvisation. With Hoadley, it was the acquisition of knowledge and insights that could only come from actively pursuing tornadic storms rather than passively waiting for the storms to come to him.

Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, John Coltrane.

David Hoadley, Tim Marshall, Jim Leonard, Chuck Doswell, Al Moller, Howard Bluestein.

The lists are only partial, and over time they will grow. Storm chasing probably has more potential for true innovators to rise within its ranks than does jazz, for similarities aside, jazz is driven primarily by creative explorations that have for the most part already been made, whereas storm chasing deals with a subject about which much still remains unknown, and is influenced to a much greater degree by advances in meteorology and technology. Regardless, the icons of each field occupy a special, venerable position that can never be duplicated. The rest of us–whether we’re small-town musicians or world-renowned artists, or whether we’re neophyte chasers or OKU grad students with plenty of chase seasons under our belts–can only do the best we know how to carry the torches lit by our predecessors.

From our ranks, too, new knowledge will come and new beauty will be birthed, and from time to time, someone truly remarkable will rise to the surface. Let’s hope that person’s generosity of spirit will be in keeping with his or her abilities.

As was Louis’ Armstrong’s. As is David Hoadley’s.

August 23, 2009 by
Filed Under: Life, Saxophone, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

June 19 Central Illinois and Indiana Storm Chase

Approaching our storm from the north near Normal, Illinois.

Approaching the storm of the day south of Normal, Illinois.

After Iowa’s blue-sky bust on June 18, yesterday provided some welcome and much-needed activity. Between illness and May’s ridge of steel, my chase expeditions this year have been limited. The Edina, Missouri, tornado of May 13 has been my only tornado to date for 2009. Yesterday did nothing to improve that statistic, but it did offer a vigorous, classic supercell with some great structure that ensured my 1,650-mile, two-day chase with my buddy Bill Oosterbaan wasn’t a complete washout.

For that matter, storms did finally fire in eastern Iowa, and while Bill and I were too late to catch the big mutha that slammed Prairie du Chien (Ben Holcomb, if you happen to read this, great job on tracking that beast into the hills and jungles of Wisconsin!), we did manage to latch onto the one that followed in its footsteps. But I’m no fan of night time chasing and neither is Bill, and knowing the kind of topography that lay to our east once we crossed the river, we dropped our chase at Prairie du Chien and found ourselves a hotel.

After a decent breakfast yesterday morning, we were on the road by noon and headed south. The SPC showed a moderate risk for a large area extending from Iowa and Missouri east across the corn belt and Great Lakes. With a continuation of yesterday’s huge CAPE and good bulk shear, a widespread severe weather outbreak seemed like a sure bet. However, veering surface winds and unidirectional flow seemed to put the kibosh on chances for tornadoes in all but a few areas to the east, where helicities improved, particularly around 21Z.

As we approached Davenport, Iowa, heading south, we could see towers muscling up along an east-west boundary that transected Illinois south of the I-80 corridor. Catching I-80 east, we could see new cells firing up farther to the south on GR3. With a Kankakee target in the back of our minds, we decided to drop toward Normal on I-39.

By the time we drew near the town, the northernmost storm was showing rotation on the radar. The tower was just to our west, and as we proceeded down the highway, the updraft base came into view, dominated by a well-developed wall cloud.

Wall cloud on northernmost storm.

Wall cloud on northernmost storm.

We headed for an intercept, tracking with the storm until it began to degrade. Meanwhile, another cell to the south was strengthening and beginning to exhibit distinct rotation on SRV, so with the storm we were on mushing out, we abandoned it in favor of the second, rapidly intensifying supercell.

One heckuva hail shaft or what?

One heckuva hail shaft or what?

This bad boy had an impressive hail shaft, if hail is what we were actually seeing. Maybe it was just plain old rain with a bit of hail mixed in. The reason I wonder is because of the paucity of hail reports. We got tapped a bit as we closed in, but mostly we just encountered buckets of rain. Whatever the case, the updraft tower with the sunlit precip column was a beautiful sight.

Second storm showing hail shaft and updraft tower.

Second storm showing sunlit precip core and updraft tower.

After working our way south of the storm’s rear flank, we proceeded east and finally gained some good, clear views of the business end. Tracking with it from near Urbana through Homer, Fairmount, and Westville toward the Indiana border, we were in a good position to enjoy the structure as the storm went through several cycles.

Rotating wall cloud.

Rotating wall cloud.

Just east of Homer, the wall cloud tightened and I could see rapidly circulating cloud tags descending toward the ground. We pulled over to watch. The rotation wasn’t far away–maybe a quarter of a mile–and it appeared to be moving toward us. This was strange as we were southwest of the wall cloud, but you can’t argue with a developing tornado. With the updraft approaching to within a couple hundred yards of us, Bill seemed intent on analyzing why the storm was acting so peculiarly, while I favored beating a hasty retreat and working out the behavioral aspects of storm circulation from a somewhat greater distance. Storm chasing sure has its interesting moments.

No tornado materialized, the storm headed east, and we continued on with it. I noticed a couple of tornado reports from around Fairmount and Westville, but while I suppose it’s possible that there was a brief spinup or two, Bill and I never saw an actual tornado. We did witness a few times when the wall cloud began to torque  pretty intensely, and I sure wouldn’t have wanted to be directly below it.

The whitish wall cloud is half a mile from us and rotating vigorously.

The whitish wall cloud is half a mile from us and rotating vigorously.

Possibly a funnel cloud at this point.

Possibly a funnel cloud at this point.

But from the time we first intercepted it to the point where it finally began to fizzle 120 miles later west of Crawfordsville, Indiana, the storm was outflow-dominant. Never once did we enounter surface inflow, though above ground level, I’m sure inflow was strong. In Bill’s words, the circulation kept reaching toward the ground, looking for something to grab onto, but it never could manage to root and produce a tornado. If we’d had backing winds…if the helicities had been there…I’m sure the storm would have been a potent tornado breeder. It never got its act together in that regard, but I doubt the communities in its path felt terribly disappointed, and from my perspective, the storm provided an interesting chase with some very nice moments.

Last gasp: wall cloud at US 41 west of Crawfordsville, Indiana, shortly before the storm began to collapse.

Last gasp: wall cloud at US 41 west of Crawfordsville, Indiana, shortly before the storm began to collapse.

For sheer structure, the “Danville supercell” was interesting and photogenic, with some nice RFD slots wrapping in, and, toward the end of the storm’s career, with a classic, stack-of-plates mesocyclone that was as nice as anything I’ve ever seen. (Sorry, no photos–the ones I have didn’t turn out well.)

One downside to this chase–and it is a big one–is that somewhere between Homer and US 41, I lost my camcorder. It wasn’t a pricey camcorder; it was a used Sony that I bought from my friend and fellow storm chaser Kurt Hulst. But it has done me good service over the past year, and I hate to think that it is presently sitting out there by the side of some Illinois backroad. What’s even worse is, my video of this chase is in it.

The drive back to Grand Rapids was a long one. I arrived at my apartment around 2:30 a.m. and collapsed. The chase was fun and I think I needed it, but it’s good to be back home with the love of my life, Lisa, whose bright eyes and beautiful smile warm my heart wherever I travel.

June 20, 2009 by
Filed Under: Band, Music, Nature, Photography, Saxophone, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

June 8: Mini-Supercell in Northern Illinois and Severe Squall Line on the Lake Michigan Shoreline

This is really part two of the previous post. After chasing a potent, monster hailer of a supercell north of Saint Joseph, Missouri, I overnighted at a hotel outside of Des Moines, Iowa. When I stepped outside the next morning, the air was much cooler and drier, a stable atmosphere that wouldn’t produce so much as a sneeze, let alone a tornado.

But I knew that the SPC had outlooked the area to my east across northern Illinois, and for several days I myself had been eyeballing my home state of Michigan, where the NAM-WRF had been consistently indicating the possibility of tornadoes. With a little luck, I hoped to make it back in time to chase whatever convection might pop up along the warm front.

As I approached Davenport, I observed  towering cumulus muscling up through the troposphere. However, I didn’t pay them any attention–that is, until Bill Oosterbaan called to inform me that the SPC had just issued a mesoscale discussion for the area just east of me. Even as we talked, I noticed a lowering on a cumulus tower a mile or two to my northeast. When it continued to develop, I decided to investigate. Leaving I-80, I parked across from a truck stop at the Atkinson exit to watch.

The next cell to my west quickly grabbed my attention. It had a nice rain-free base, and as I watched, scud began to form and ascend in an obvious updraft, coalescing into a small, ragged wall cloud. Grabbing my camera and getting out of my car, I noticed right away that the air was very different from back in Des Moines–considerably warmer and with plenty of moisture. The wall cloud fell apart before I could get a pic, but the overall structure remained interesting.

A mini-supercell approaches Atkinson, Illinois, just north of I-80.

A mini-supercell approaches Atkinson, Illinois, just north of I-80.

More brief, non-rotating wall clouds formed and dissipated one by one, so I figured I’d head north of town and observe. With surface winds veering and the overall flow unidirectional, I had no expectation of seeing tornadoes, but the mini-supercell made for some fun and interesting viewing.

Ragged, non-rotating wall cloud.

Ragged, non-rotating wall cloud.

Distant wall cloud and back side of main updraft tower.

Distant wall cloud and glimpse of updraft tower.

I was tempted to follow the storm, but decided it was a red herring. If at all possible, I wanted to make it back to Michigan in enough time to chase the setup there, and that left me no time to play around on the western Illinois backroads. So I headed back to I-80 and busted east.

The first Michigan supercell fired up earlier than I’d hoped, and I bit my lip as I followed its progress on GR3 and watched it hit Lansing. If only I had driven east last night for two more hours, or left in the morning two hours earlier… But the previous day’s chase had left me exhausted. And you know, one of the downsides of being a Michigan-based storm chaser is, you just don’t have very high expectations when it comes to your home state. I mean, it’s Michigan. Home of convective table scraps, squall lines, and embedded supercells that don’t produce squat.

As it was, I watched several more storms fire up and develop rotation along the warm front that stretched across mid-Michigan. I was making decent progress and still had hopes of catching up with some of the southernmost cells. But by the time I crossed the state line, the action all had shifted well to the east, and it became clear that I wasn’t going to see any of it.

Instead, taking fellow chaser Mike Kovalchick’s suggestion, I headed toward the lakeshore at Allegan Beach to intercept a short but potent squall line. I’m glad I did. The backdrop of Lake Michigan and its dunescapes lends a breathtaking drama to incoming storms. The following photos depict the progress of the arcus cloud moving in across the waters. What these images can’t convey is the full, awe-inspiring sweep of cloud, big lake, and shoreline; of the solemn foreboding of some great event about to unleash itself upon a landscape cloaked in storm shadow; of the shelf cloud moving silently overhead like the furrowed eyebrow of a dark, scowling giant; and of sand spray blowing and trees thrashing in the wind as the gust front arrived.

I’ll let the photos tell their story as best they can, and leave the rest to your imagination.

An arcus cloud advances toward the Lake Michigan shoreline at Allegan Beach.

An arcus cloud advances toward the Lake Michigan shoreline at Allegan Beach.

View to the north.

View to the north.

Looking south...the storm closes in.

Looking south...the storm closes in.

Looking north...closer still.

Looking north...closer still.

Almost overhead.

Almost overhead.

One last shot to the north, then it's time to make a dash for the car.

One last shot to the north, then it's time to make a dash for the car.

June 11, 2009 by
Filed Under: Band, Life, Nature, Outdoors, Photography, Saxophone, Storm Chasing, Uncategorized, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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