If I were to pick a chase target for tomorrow, it would be Rolla, Missouri. That’s based on a sampling of the 6Z model soundings of the GFS, NCEP’s present model preference.

Frankly, though, I can’t get too excited about this system. True, it seems to be shifting the activity to within striking distance, where I could conceivably go chasing and still make it back Friday morning in time to make an appointment that I absolutely can’t miss. But instability isn’t all that great, and besides, who wants to go chasing in Missouri hill country?

If the NAM verifies, things will shift north a bit. But I don’t see that making a practical difference. It’s a marginal setup at this point, and unless things improve, I don’t think I’ll feel short-changed sitting this round out. Maybe the next trough will be an improvement.

ADDENDUM: Ouch! Just looked at the SPC’s afternoon update. If they’re right, then only the desperate and the insane will be chasing tomorrow. They’ve pulled the 30 percent risk down mostly into Arkansas, tapping on southeast Oklahoma, northeast Texas, and extreme southern Missouri down around Branson. Anyone for a chase through the Ozarks?

The storm system that has been in the models for the past week produced a fast-moving squall line that blew from Wisconsin across Lake Michigan. Kurt Hulst and I were there on the shore just north of Holland, Michigan, to catch the action.

Kurt is a great lightning photographer. Look for his photos of last night’s storm on his blog.

As for me, I’m a neophyte when it comes to lightning. Shooting at night, the problem I encounter is focus. Unfortunately, most of my shots were too blurred to crop, and since I was shooting wide angle, cropping is essential. However, a couple shots didn’t turn out too badly. The one shown here is the best of the lot. Click on it to enlarge it.

I just finished taking photos of the “kids”–my collection of carnivorous plants. They’re mostly North American pitcher plants, but I do have a very prolific population of Venus flytraps as well. The things reproduce like crazy. Not only are the seeds majorly fertile, but the corms love to divide. Start with one flytrap and in a couple years you’ll have a flytrap village.

Anyway, I have yet to process the rest of the photos to place in my gallery, but I thought I’d give you a little preview. The flytraps have been snarfing down bugs like M&M chocolate covered peanuts, so forgive the fly and hornet exoskeletons. My kids are not very good about brushing their teeth.

The following pattern is nothing new. If you’ve worked at all on the diminished scale, you’ve doubtless encountered it. But have you worked it out in descending half-steps until it lies smoothly under your fingers from the top to the bottom of your horn? Because that root movement downward by minor seconds is what makes it, or any diminished pattern, particularly useful.

Let’s take a look at  why this is. First, here’s the lick:

Note that while each measure brings the diminished scale pattern progressively downward by a half-step, the corresponding chord progression is moving around the circle of fifths. Why?

Remember tritone substitution?

The diminished scale functions perfectly as a scale of choice for V7b9 chords and their tritone substitutes because of its symmetrical nature. Due to its structure, every diminished scale will accommodate not just one, but four possible V7b9 chords.

For instance, a half-step/whole-step diminished scale beginning on the note A will obviously work with an A7b9 chord. But it will also work equally well with C7b9, Eb7b9, and F#7b9.

Note that the A7b9 and Eb7b9 have roots a tritone apart, as do the C7b9 and F#7b9. In other words, tritone substitution is hardwired into the diminished scale.

Herein lies the magic of diminished scales descending by half-steps.

Look closely at the above diminished pattern and you’ll note that root movement downward by a half-step gives you the same scales that you’d arrive at with the circle of fifths.

For instance, in the first bar, the diminished pattern starting on the note C repeats itself sequentially a half-step down in the following measure, starting on the note B.

But what scale would you have arrived at if, instead of dropping a by a minor second, you had dropped by a perfect fifth to the note F, as you would do if you were moving around the circle of fifths? Guess what? You’d have the same scale–i.e. B, C, D, Eb, F, Gb, Ab, A. You’d just be starting on a different note of that scale.

Now, if you’re thinking…

…you’ll realize that because every diminished scale contains four possible roots, you can also achieve the results I’ve just described by moving upward by major seconds, another easy root movement.

You can also move down by a major third or a perfect fifth, but it’s easier to focus on the two root movements that are close at hand.

In summary

When woodshedding a diminished scale lick, it particularly behooves you to get it laying smoothly under your fingers in root movements of descending half-steps and ascending whole steps.

And that, Grasshopper, is that. The rest is up to you.

The problem with the surface dewpoints map on my Storm Chasing page is fixed. Everything is now running the way it should be.

Storm chasers, check out the new RUC maps on my Storm Chasing page. They’re still under development, and they’re not comprehensive, but they do offer you something different. I haven’t seen F5 Data weather maps on other sites. If you’re a fan of tornado indices such as the EHI and STP, you’ll like the proprietary APRWX Tornado Index, which includes Great Lakes waterspouts.

For some strange reason, the surface dewpoint map keeps displaying surface temperatures instead. Not sure why, but obiously it needs fixin’. Everything else works as it should. I’ll welcome your comments/suggestions.

It’s getting toward that time of year when I’ll be taking the kids indoors. During the warm months, as far as I’m concerned, they can stay outside all night long, and they do. Pretty soon, though, the nights will get frosty and the kids will get cold. Does that mean I’ll let them in? Heck no. Not right away, anyway. They can darn well stay outside, and without a stitch of clothes on, at that. I’m not about to pamper them. The cold air will do them good before I finally take them inside and shut them in the refrigerator for three months.

Before you report me for child abuse, let me explain that “the kids” are my carnivorous plants, which I keep out on the balcony at my apartment. Presently they are flourishing, still sending up new trap leaves in mid-September. But my white-top pitcher plant, Sarracenia leucophylla, is in the process of rapidly producing its  fall flush of traps, a sure sign that autumn’s triggering mechanism is bringing changes to my little collection. Waning daylight and plummeting temperatures will soon signal the kids to go into hibernation, at which point I will take them out of their pots, wrap them in sphagnum moss, dust them with sulfur, and stick them in the frig for their mandatory rest period.

There will be more of them in the refrigerator this year. The family has grown. Besides several potfuls of Venus flytraps, I now own all eight species of United States pitcher plants. Now I’m working on adding variations, beginning with the addition of Sarracenia rubra var. wherryii, S. flava var. cuprea, and the “maroon throat” variation of S. alata. I’d love at some point to add the rare S. rubra var. jonesii to the collection, but that may be tricky. The variety is cultivated and sold by at least one reputable dealer, but interstate transport may be a problem. Collection from the wild is, of course, out of the question; besides being illegal, the poaching of a rare and endangered species is flat-out reprehensible.

But I digress. Right now, as I was saying, the kids are out on the balcony and loving this warm, moist, misty September weather. My oreophila put out its phyllodia months ago, so it’s got a head-start on hibernation. The rest are, as I have said, still cranking out leaves that seem to be getting only more robust. And I’m really looking forward to the fall show of the leucophylla, which is easily the gaudiest of the Sarracenias.

Yeah, I know–you want pictures. Okay, I’ll post some. But not now. Give me a few days, then look in my photos section under the wildflowers tab. Right now, I just wanted to offer you a diversion from jazz and weather. After all, there’s more to life, and certainly more to my life, which seems to be marked by quirky interests. I’d say the kids qualify for “quirky,” wouldn’t you?

Yesterday’s trough passed through pretty much as expected, without a whole lot of fanfare and certainly not with anything tornadic. So the question is, what lies ahead? Anything?

Maybe.

At least we’re not locking in under another ridge. Today is the first day of autumn, the weather patterns are changing, and the GFS and ECMWF seem to agree on a 500 mb trough affecting the Midwest over the next several days. And yeah, yeah, I know it’s just reading tea leaves, but here are a couple 132-hour GFS maps for next Sunday at 00Z. At the risk of stating the obvious, click on the images to enlarge them. The first shows sea level pressure (shaded), surface wind barbs, and 500 mb height contours.

The second map shows 500 mb winds (shaded) with wind barbs, and 300 mb wind contours.

The big question mark may be moisture. But this far out, it’ll be nice if that even matters by the time Sunday arrives. This time of year, living in the Great Lakes, the best one can do is hope. But there’s nothing wrong with hoping.

It’s always a pleasure to sit in with local musicians. In Suttons Bay, Michigan, I got a chance to blow with some very, er, unusual cats. Talk about jazz being an art form.

I had played a fun gig in Leelanau the previous evening just north of Cedar with the Rhythm Section Jazz Band. Lisa came with me, with the idea that we’d overnight in Traverse City and then take in a bit of northern Michigan. There’s no more beautiful place than the Leelanau peninsula in the fall, and we took our time driving through the area, up the east coast along Grand Traverse Bay to Leelanau State Park and the Grand Traverse Lighthouse, then down the shoreline of Lake Michigan to Sleeping Bear.

Stopping in the artsy-craftsy town of Suttons Bay, we had gotten some coffee and were heading back to the car when I happened to spot a jam session taking place outside a shop. Strangely, though, not a note was being played. As you can see, the band was in fact a group of stylized jazz musicians made out of metal and set out on the lawn. Whatever the tune was that they were playing, they seemed to be really getting into  it, but something was missing. Ya can’t have a jazz band without a sax player, ya know!

Naturally, I volunteered my services, and we went at it. Lisa caught our little ensemble with her camera. Hope you enjoy the pics!

For many years, it has been my habit to practice my saxophone in my car. Living in an apartment and not wishing to bother my neighbors has forced me to find alternatives for my woodshedding, and my vehicle has served me well in that regard. In fact, I like it so well that if I ever do get around to buying a house, I will probably continue to practice in my car.

Since I love trains, my habit has been to park along a railroad track that stretches between Grand Rapids and Lansing. It has always been a fairly active route, and most days I’ve been able to count on seeing at least one train, and usually two or more, go by while I’m playing my horn.

Until recently. What has happened to the trains? Lately I haven’t seen a one. Really. Not in days. I just returned a while ago from one of my practice spots by the railroad crossing near Alto, and I didn’t get so much as a flicker on the semaphore lights.

This economy has hit a lot of folks pretty hard here in Michigan. I’ve got to believe that the collapse of the auto industry has had a dramatic impact on railroad transport. What I can say for sure is, the trains are no longer rolling along my favorite tracks the way they’ve done for so many years. I hope it’s just a temporary lull, and that railroad traffic will pick up again over time. Practice is still good, and I love being out in the countryside by the tracks, working my sax over and watching the sun set over the woods and the fields of alfalfa, corn, and soybean. But something’s missing. It just isn’t the same without the trains.