Back in December I wrote a post speculating how El Nino might affect the moisture fetch from the Gulf of Mexico. I wrote as a non-expert, which is always my position regarding weather related stuff, but it appears that my concern about the influence of cooler sea surface temperatures on return flow actually held water.

Tornado season normally begins ramping up in Dixie Alley in February, solidifies in March, peaks in April, then begins to decline in May as the action moves west and north toward traditional Tornado Alley.

Last year the tornado total for February, 2009, was 43. It consisted of six tornado days, two of which were outbreaks of 12 and 21 tornadoes.

This year, the tally for February was a statistically unprecedented zero. That’s no, nada, zippo tornadoes at all last month. Instead, the South experienced record-breaking cold weather, with snow in virtually all of the southern states and a series of brutal winter storms lashing Oklahoma, Texas, and parts of Dixie Alley.

Now we’re into March, and the snow seems to finally be behind us. As I sit here writing, I can look out the sliding doors of my apartment at a beautiful day with temperatures climbing into the mid forties. I’ll take that with a smile, along with the warming trend that’s in store for this coming week here in West Michigan. But at the same time, sampling buoys across the Gulf of Mexico, I see water temperatures in the low to mid fifties and some really horrible dewpoints. It looks a lot like what the ENSO sea surface temperature table has predicted, namely, cooler-than-average temperatures.

We’re presently looking at  systems moving through the Plains that might be tornado breeders if they weren’t starved for moisture. It’s hard to get excited about dewpoints that barely scrape into the low to mid fifties pretty much everywhere except waaay down in southern Texas and Louisiana.

Okay, it’s only March. What’s a bit scary is to think that the Gulf may not be up to snuff till as late as May. Click on this image of the Climate Prediction Center’’s ENSO sea surface temperature anomaly forecast, updated March 1, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. The first two tables are the ones you want to pay attention to. That blue in the Gulf of Mexico doesn’t look too promising.

I hope I’m wrong, and it could be that I am. A quick glance at water temperatures west of the Florida peninsula shows some temps into the seventies well out into the Gulf, so maybe things will pick up more quickly than the map suggests. The ENSO update does indicate that El Nino is weakening:

•A majority of the models indicate that the Niño-3.4 temperature departures will gradually decrease at least into the summer.

•The models are split with the majority indicating ENSO-neutral conditions by May-July 2010 and persisting into the Fall. Several models also suggest the potential of continued El Niño conditions or the development of La Niña conditions during the Fall.

–Page 27, March 1, 2010, CPC-NCEP ENSO Update

That’s a good sign, kind of. The last part leaves us hanging, but as always, time will tell.

More immediately, I wonder, as I did three months ago, whether we won’t see a delayed storm season. I think, I hope, that when it does finally arrive, it will be a stellar one.  There’s reason to be hopeful, considering the ample ground moisture available for evapotranspiration throughout Tornado Alley, including areas that languished last year under a severe drought. No such problem this year. I hear some chasers talking about West Texas, and I’ll bet they’re right. Once the Gulf finally does set up shop, whether sooner or later, I expect to be making some trips out west. See y’all at the edge of the meso.

No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were. Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

–John Donne

Yesterday, March 2, 2010, the bell tolled for Dr. Eric Flescher, and in tolling for him, it tolled for us all. We in the storm chasing community are diminished by the loss of a good, decent man whose passion for life was matched with a gentle, friendly spirit.

I never met Eric in person, but, like many on Stormtrack, I swapped plenty of messages with him, enough that I considered him a long-distance friend whom I looked forward to meeting. Last year he had let me know that his door was open if I needed a place to overnight while out chasing, and I was struck by his generosity and hospitality.

I never made it out to Kansas City in 2009, but I had hoped to finally connect with Eric face to face this spring. I regret that now I will not get the opportunity to sit down with him and talk about storm chasing, and about carnivorous plants, another passion of Eric’s that he and I shared. He was so proud of that Nepenthes ampullaria! And he was able to successfully grow a cobra lily–no small accomplishment.

To say that Eric was a storm chaser captures just one facet of him. He was a Renaissance man with a broad variety of interests ranging from severe weather, to astronomy, to carnivorous plants, to cooking, and more. Those who knew him better than I can no doubt add plenty of other items to the list. But in the storm chasing community, he was known foremost as a fellow chaser, and judging from the responses to ongoing news of his condition since early last December, and now of his death, he clearly was a very well-liked and respected chaser whom many counted as their friend.

In my five years on Stormtrack, I never once saw Eric enter into the sniping and flame wars that have lit up the forums, or demean another member, or utter a bad word about anyone. Not ever. And I never saw a bad word written about Eric. Those who wrote to him or of him expressed only appreciation and respect. In a community of diverse, colorful, and opinionated personalities, to be able to say such things about Eric is a tribute to his character and his stature.

Today I am saddened by Eric’s death. His wife, Sue Ellen, will deeply miss her beloved husband; many of us will miss our friend; and all of us will miss a gentle, decent, passionate man whose presence made both the chaser community and the world in general a better place.

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 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.

If March coming in is anywhere nearly as leonine as February going out, it will be a March lion indeed. Today the wind was blowing hard out at Holland Beach, churning Lake Michigan into a grand spectacle of roiling billows, crashing surf, and smoke-like spume torn from the wave tops and carried along on the gale.

It was a marvelous sight. Lisa preceded me out onto the pier, and when I caught up with her, she was standing there, laughing as the waves burst against the ice shelf and threw blasts of icy water toward her. That’s my kind of gal! Someone who takes joy in the wild side of nature.

Unfortunately, the water got all over my camera and onto my lens, so the latter part of my photos are somewhat distorted by water droplets. But I don’t mind terribly, because the effect is actually rather moody. I guess if I was going to have something go wrong with my photos, I would pick that.

Speaking of photos, the four here were all taken from the beach and out on the pier. Click on them to enlarge them.

In taking them, I got more soaked than I realized; and the wind chill being what it was with the northwest wind blasting in off the big lake, I rapidly got much colder than I ever expected. But it was worth it to get some shots of Lake Michigan’s raw, unfettered side.

I haven’t edited these images. I’m slapping them up here just as they are–maybe not works of art, but a taste of the kind of effect the shoreline is capable of delivering when the gales blow hard across the big waters.

It’s gratifying to know, in these troubled times when so many are struggling financially, that you can purchase swan meat for just $50.00 a pound. That’s right, there are deals to be had, and ways to satisfy the well-known American craving for swan at bargain-basement prices.

The kicker is, you’ve got to purchase the entire, live bird. But at rates this low, why would you not?

Presumably, when you order a bird from 1-800-STEAKS.COM, you’re getting a black swan as shown in the web page photo. The page doesn’t actually specify that it’s a black swan, nor does it tell you how much meat you’re getting for your money, because, heck, why not make things more fun by making the customer guess, right?  At the time of this writing, I defy you to search the page content and find any details beyond the fact that you’re getting swan for for $999.00–a steal at $500 off the regular price of $1,499.00.

Since it really is kind of important to know where in the size spectrum between a chicken and a sperm whale the swan in question lies, it’s off to Wikipedia we go, you and I, where we learn that a mature black swan weighs anywhere between 8 and 20 pounds. Very good, now we’re getting somewhere. But in what form will our swan be delivered to us? After all, it’s swan MEAT that we’re after, and that is what the site advertises. So should we expect it to come pre-packaged, frozen whole, or what?

Finding no immediate information, off we go again to do more research, this time to the Exotic Meat Market, which offers competitive prices on black, mute, and black neck swans, and is pleased to answer some of our pressing questions.

Ah! The swans are live. We will not be receiving our 8 to 20 pounds of swan meat in nicely prepared parcels. No, our swan meat will be arriving in the freshest of all possible conditions, honking and hissing and flapping its wings and ready to vigorously assert its personal views on being converted into table fare. So we shall have our work cut out for us, but the Exotic Meat Market sweetens the deal with prices that make us want to shout for joy, they are so ridiculously low.

Here, for instance, is the pricing information for a single live, male black swan:

Regular price: $1,299.00

Sale price: $599.00

Black Swan – Live Male blswlima

[Add to cart]

I’m not sure what “blswlima” means. Maybe the swan comes with Lima beans. Regardless, you can see right away that here is a golden deal if ever there was one, with the Exotic Meat Market undercutting 1-800-STEAKS.COM by $200 on their regular price and $400 on the sale price. I know, I know–it makes you want to rub your eyes in disbelief. Disbelief is a common reaction to prices like these. Nevertheless, it’s true: you can purchase live, aggressively fresh swan meat–between 8 and 20 pounds, we’re still not entirely clear on that–for a low, low, not-quite-six-hundred bucks.

And that’s not all. Mute swan, a non-native species which is rapidly becoming a weed bird in United States lakes and rivers, also sells for just $599.99. And black neck swan, regularly $2,499.99, is currently on sale for a paltry $1,999.99. That’s a $500 SAVINGS! (Though it should be mentioned that the black neck swan doesn’t come with Lima beans.)

But perhaps you’re the outdoorsy type who prefers to head out to the swan blind and harvest your own. If that’s the case, you’ll appreciate this recipe for mute swan burgers. I realize that you’ve probably already got your own half-a-dozen-or-so favorite ways of preparing America’s favorite poultry, but in a country where the mere mention of swan sets mouths to watering, one more recipe can’t hurt.

Let me know how you like it. As for me, I think tonight I’ll settle for fried chicken.

Here’s some news that will put joy in your heart: skunk cabbage days are almost here! (And all the people shouted, “Hurrah!” and donned their festive garments.)

It’s true. Sometime within the next three weeks or so, the odd, purple cowls of Symplocarpus foetidus will start pushing up through the mud and matted leaves of the wetlands where they grow, generating enough heat to melt their way through the ice and snow and provide a microclimate for early insects. Here in the Great Lakes, the skunk cabbage is the year’s first wildflower, and I always get happy when I see it begin to show. It’s a charming little plant, though there’s nothing particularly pretty about it. This plant doesn’t care about “pretty.” It’s all about character and nail-toughness. Skunk cabbage has the grit of a pioneer.

It also has the smell of a pioneer, as you’ll find out if you ever hold a piece of the broken flower or leaf up to your nose and get a whiff. It smells a lot like an armpit that hasn’t been washed in a month. Taken all around, this is not the kind of wildflower you’d feel inclined to gather a bunch of and take home to stick in a vase. But, appearing with the robins and redwing blackbirds, it is nevertheless a welcome harbinger of the warmer months. I’m surprised that some Michigan town hasn’t claimed it and instituted an annual skunk cabbage festival. Not too surprised, though.

Speaking of warmer months, they don’t seem to be in any hurry to put in an appearance, and I’m starting to wonder whether Punxatawney Phil might not have been conservative in his forecast of another six weeks of winter. Another major winter storm is poised to dump another 6-10″ of snow on West Michigan this evening through tomorrow, and more snow is in the forecast for the next ten days.

Snow, snow, and yet again snow. If you like the stuff, just stick around. Sooner or later, Michigan always delivers.

Today dawned clear and blue, the sky braided with jet contrails and accented with just enough clouds to add drama. More clouds are moving in now, but I don’t mind. The forecast for “mostly cloudy” means we’ll be seeing at least some sunshine, and the temperature is above melting and supposedly will hover in that vicinity through the next ten days. One month away from the vernal equinox and just ten days from meteorological spring, we’re getting what may be our first hint of warmer weather ahead. And we all know what that means: Storm Season 2010. Yeah, baby! Bring it on!

Today is my 54th birthday. Sitting here drinking my coffee, with the sun slanting through the sliding glass doors, the birds flitting about the feeders out on the deck of my apartment, the cat sleeping on the floor, and my sweetheart, Lisa, sitting in her room working on her blogsite, I’m taking a pause to consider how simple and yet how marvelously rich my life really is.

I am a jazz saxophonist and a storm chaser, and those are the topics I mostly write about in this blog. But before them, and above all else, I am a lover and follower of Jesus. That is my true, deep, core identity–the one sure and certain thing that can never be taken from me. All else can be stripped away, and in time, it will be, whether bit by bit, like leaves falling in the autumn, or in an instant that catapults me into eternity.

Most of the things in life by which we define ourselves are temporary. That is not to say they’re unimportant. They’re very important. But they can be removed in a heartbeat–and yet, we are still ourselves. So obviously, our identity as individuals, our “I-ness,” goes much deeper than what we do. We choose our pursuits because, in a very real sense, our pursuits choose us according to God’s intentions for our lives; but the fundamental state of being ourselves–that is not something we choose. We are here by decree, not personal choice.

Right now, if I choose, I can set aside my saxophone for the rest of my life. I can stop chasing storms forever, never trek through another wetland in search of wild orchids and carnivorous plants, never again pick up my fishing pole, never savor another mugful of craft beer, never hike another trail, never write another word. Those are all things I love to do, but I can choose not to do them. The one thing I cannot do is stop being me. That choice is not mine to make.

So today, as I celebrate the family members and friends who bless my life…my vocation as a writer which I work hard to excel at…the interests that I pursue with passion and joy–as I consider all of these rich, wonderful, irreplaceable treasures in my life, I give thanks to the person who has been the source of them all, and who ordained that I should be here to enjoy them, fulfilling, in the process, a purpose that goes deeper than the things themselves, and a pleasure greater and more lasting than the works of my hands.

Thank you, my Lord Jesus. Thank you for everything. Thanks for making me who I am–even in those times when it has been so terribly painful to be me. Thank you for my beautiful lady, Lisa; for my sweet mother and wonderful siblings; for my Jonathan-David buddy, Duane, and other close, close friends who truly know me and love me, and whom I have the privilege of knowing and loving. Thank you for the feel and smell of Gulf moisture, for the rush of inflow winds across the prairie grass, for cloud turrets over the plains that build into turbulent, dark skies and mighty tornadoes. Thank you for gifting me to pour music through the bell of my saxophone, and for my father who gave me that horn as his legacy and is now with you. Thank you for the promise of seeing him again someday.

Thank you for more things than I can possibly say–things I know of, and things I will never know of, all provided by a great, unfathomably deep grace that runs like an invisible current through my life, unfelt but powerful, gentle but mighty, upholding me, carrying me, delivering me, guiding me, providing for me, shaping me. Truly, Lord, you have been a father to me, and a friend, and a brother, and a savior, and my Rock.

Thank you, above all, for You. Your unfailing love has changed me. You, Lord, are the source of my identity and my life. I am who I am because you are who you are. Thank you for the gift of a grateful heart. Grant me to be your faithful follower and friend for all of my life, for there is no one and nothing else whom I desire to worship with all my heart. You, and you alone, are worthy.

I love you, Jesus. On this, my 54th birthday, I thank you for the gift of my life, and the gift of yourself. Imperfect man that I am, warts and all, Lord, let me be a gift to you.

–Bob

There’s talk about another round of snow hitting the South toward the end of February. It’s a bit strange to see how much discussion goes on about snowfall as an anomaly when here in Michigan, it’s a way of life. Today, snow was in the forecast in the Grand Rapids area. But that’s the norm in February. I’m used to looking out the window and seeing snow in its various forms: big, fat, fluffy flakes; small, sharp, crystalline flakes; hard, dry graupel that bounces off the sidewalk like Styrofoam crumbs; frigid diamond-chips that barely qualify as snow, they’re so fine and so tremendously cold, cold, cold.

The snow du jour on this fine, wintry Monday has been the big stuff–merry, white clumps cascading by the billions out of the mid-February sky, twirling, diving, swooping, soaring, pirouetting on the wind–snow that looks as if God sliced open an enormous feather pillow and has been emptying its contents in fits and starts over my hometown of Caledonia. I grudgingly admit, snow Grinch that I am, that it has been a darn pretty sight.

Yes, you heard me say it. Even an avowed, long-time loather of snow such as I has his moments, times when the beauty of winter transcends its miseries and those dancing flakes warm my attitude with their frozen magic. It’s a bit easier to admit to toward the end of an El Nino winter that has been less snowy than usual.

Nevertheless, I’ve never taken the kind of interest in winter weather that I have in warm-weather convection. I don’t make a habit of following forecast models daily in February, I possess only a rudimentary understanding of their interpretation at this time of year, and I get caught by surprise by events that blizzard enthusiasts have been following with eager eyes. You maybe can’t understand my indifference unless you’ve lived in a place where the snow is going to come to you whether you look for it or not, and you will be scraping plenty of it, along with generous portions of ice, off your car windshield for four or five months.

So, is the South due for another round of snow in a week or so? I dunno. Out of curiosity, I ran a GFS snowfall totals loop out to 384 hours a little while ago, and it suggests a pretty good dumping, beginning in Pennsylvania and parts east–why am I not surprised?–and then spreading the joy to northern Oklahoma, Missouri, and Tennessee as another system moves through. That’s probably the system that folks are harping about. But as everyone knows and everyone is quick to say, it’s still a long way out, and nobody knows for sure what’s going to happen right now. That’s particularly true for someone like me, who hasn’t bothered to cultivate winter forecasting skills in a place where snow is as inevitable as death and taxes, and for many, only slightly more enjoyable.

A little dark humor there, folks. Don’t hold it against me if you’re one who loves snow. You’re welcome to remove as much of it as you wish from my vehicle for free, take it home with you, and enjoy it to your heart’s content. Come, ease your craving. I call that a generous offer. But act soon! It’s only good through April.

We may not get socked with anything quite as bad as the three feet of snow that got dumped on Maryland a few days ago, but lower Michigan is poised for a major snow slam starting tomorrow morning. The current warning text from GRR reads as follows:

A WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 7 AM TUESDAY TO
1 PM EST WEDNESDAY.

HAZARDOUS WEATHER...

 * 6 TO 12 INCHES OF SNOW IS EXPECTED FROM DAYBREAK TUESDAY THROUGH
   WEDNESDAY MORNING.

 * THE HEAVIEST SNOW IS EXPECTED TOWARD THE INTERSTATE 94
   CORRIDOR WHERE 8 TO 12 INCHES OF SNOW IS EXPECTED. THE
   INTERSTATE 96 CORRIDOR WILL SEE 6 TO 10 INCHES OF SNOW...
   WHICH INCLUDES GRAND RAPIDS AND LANSING.

 * SNOW WILL BEGIN TUESDAY MORNING AND BECOME HEAVY FOR LATE
   TUESDAY AFTERNOON AND TUESDAY NIGHT.

 * BLOWING AND DRIFTING SNOW IS EXPECTED TUESDAY EVENING THROUGH
   THROUGH WEDNESDAY MORNING AS NORTH WINDS INCREASE TO 15 TO 25
   MPH.

Here’s what the NAM-based F5 proprietary snowfall total shows for Wednesday at 18Z. (Click on the image to enlarge it.) The GFS moves things more to the south and probably is a bit more in line with the NWS forecast. But either way, tomorrow is going to be very different from the beautiful day we’ve had here today in West Michigan.

Well, what else can we expect? It’s early February, after all, and the groundhog probably was spot-on in his forecast for six more weeks of winter. I guess that explains why there’s open season on groundhogs in Michigan.

Is it safe to come out of my bunker now? Has the war between jazz and rock finally ended? I don’t hear any incoming missiles. But then, I’m kind of out of the loop these days when it comes to who is presently saying what in the various music periodicals.

It does seem to me that in this melting pot called America, music has come a long way in developing mutual respect between the different genres. The purist dividing lines have given way to healthy crossover and cooperative experimentation between music styles and artists, and the style racists who once wrung their hands and shouted, “Miscegenation!” back in the days of “Bitches Brew” have long since been thrust aside by open-minded musicians searching for fresh, creative possibilities. Yet I wonder to what extent the old biases still continue to influence us.

Back in my college days, rock music was largely scorned by jazz musicians, and the feeling was amply returned. You couldn’t pick up a “Downbeat” magazine and read an article on fusion without some reader writing in to complain, “That’s not jazz!” If it wasn’t bebop, it it involved an approach to the drum set that was other than tang-tanka-tang, then the purists were up in arms, donning their white hoods and burning their crosses in the letter section. Even back then, naive as I was, I found the topic of this is/isn’t jazz to be petty, not to mention boring, when the groups in question involved world class musicians who knew the standard jazz vocabulary inside-out.

I also found the notion that jazz was the only worthwhile music, or the idea that any one style of music was better than the rest, to be confining, narrow-minded, and pointless. I mean, I cut my teeth on classic rock music–on groups such as Jefferson Airplane, Mountain, Jimi Hendrix, Jethro Tull, King Crimson, Yes, Genesis, and Fleetwood Mac–and I didn’t stop loving rock and roll just because I was starting to become immersed in jazz.

So why was it that jazzers and rockers seemed to have so little respect for each other? For that matter, what was it about symphonic musicians that gave them such an illusion of superiority over all the rest? And why did it go without saying (by me among the rest, I hate to confess) that country/western was inferior music?

Tell me that things have changed since those days. I think they have. From what I can see, we’ve come a long way.

At bottom, all music is divisible into just two categories: good music and bad music. Beyond that, it’s a matter of personal preference. And that is fine; in fact, it’s inevitable. Each of us is drawn to certain kinds of music and not drawn to others. It’s a matter of individual taste, which fines down even beyond general categories to subcategories and artists of all kinds. It’s all good as long as it doesn’t lead to demeaning other forms of musical expression, or to closing ourselves off to their creativity and richness.

Still today, it’s unlikely that I’ll ever purchase a country music CD. However, that choice is influenced not by musical snobbery, but by the fact that I’m a jazz saxophonist with a limited music budget, and on the relatively rare occasions when I purchase a CD, I usually stick with jazz, guided by a goal of learning my craft as well as enjoying its sound. It’s a matter of focus and preference, not elitism. If I’m driving down the highway and happen upon a good country station on the radio, then I’ll listen to it and enjoy it. Over the years and the long, long highway miles, I’ve come to appreciate that country music harbors some of the finest lyricists and songwriters in the world.

My point: Why limit yourself in what you listen to. Jazz is awesome music, but it’s not all that is out there. Broaden your world. Go to YouTube and check out some of the old film clips of Janis Joplin, Hendrix, and the Beatles. Tune in to The Thistle & Shamrock on NPR and let Fiona Ritchie give you an exhilarating earful of wild, wonderful Celtic music. The world of music has wide, wide horizons; open your ears to ways of expressing musical and creative excellence other than the ones you’re used to. Allow yourself to be influenced by the amazing diversity of music in this world. Doing so will enrich your own artistry as a jazz musician.