Weather — Page 4

Waterspouts on Lake Michigan

Saturday, September 22, was the first day of autumn 2012. It was also my first-ever time seeing waterspouts. I’ve chased them a few times (if chased is the right word) previously within the past two years, but not successfully. This time made up in spades for those occasions. I don’t know how many waterspouts I saw, but “lots” ought to cover them, including one that made landfall about a hundred yards north of me at Tunnel Park. I managed to capture that one on video. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I woke up at 5:15 a.m., showered up, and headed for the lakeshore. The ICWR waterspout forecast indicated a high probability of waterspouts all along the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, and the main concern seemed to be simply finding adequate near-shore convection. That didn’t seem to be a problem, since a line of thunderstorms was moving across the lake from Wisconsin and heading east almost straight at me. Based on the line’s slightly southern component, I decided to head for Holland Beach.

A nice cumulus field had overspread West Michigan as I pulled into the state park. At the entrance, a ranger informed me of restricted parking due to a marathon that was being routed through the park by the beach. The racers hadn’t yet arrived; in fact, very few people were present, and having the parking lot mostly to myself, I chose an optimal spot where I had an unimpeded view of Lake Michigan.

The stiff lake breeze concerned me. Westerly surface winds–and strong ones at that–didn’t seem to me to bode well for waterspouts. How would the convergence necessary for spout formation occur over the water with unidirectional winds? Still, the waterspout index was maxed out, and here I was, so I guessed I would find out.

After a while, the western sky began to darken. The storms were moving in, but they would take a while to arrive. Meanwhile, a green blob of convection on GR3 corresponded with a cloud bank stretching perpendicularly from the waters to the shore about ten miles to my south. It seemed worth checking out, so I grabbed my camera and headed across the beach toward the pier near the lighthouse. From that vantage point, I finally got a good, complete view of the convective band.

A slim, well-defined gray tube hung from the distant cloud base. Bingo! My first waterspout! I began snapping pictures.

The salmon run was on, and all along the channel, fishermen were having a heyday. Focused on fish, they seemed oblivious to the elegant spectacle unfolding over the water. How could they not see it? I pointed it out to one fisherman. “Wow! A waterspout!” he said. Then he went back to his fishing. To each his own, though I suppose he could fish and watch the spout at the same time.

I don’t know how much time passed–fifteen minutes, maybe twenty. By and by, the spout dissipated, and I returned to my car. I didn’t need to look at my radar to know that the storm was closing in. I could see the lowering clouds and rain shafts over the water.

What the radar did tell me, however, was that heavier convection was heading toward the Saugatuck/South Haven area. So, as the first of the marathoners began to trickle into the park, I decided to drop south toward where chasers Skip Talbot, Jennifer Ubyl, and Jonathan Williamston were located.

I got as far as US 31 before realizing that I had made a tactical error. Heavier convection was beginning to fire in a line that promised to train in directly over Holland Beach. Nuts. I had just compromised myself by fifteen minutes, and in the meantime, a marathon had gotten underway. I turned around and headed back toward my old location, but now the road was filled with runners and closed to traffic.

I decided to head for Tunnel Park just a few mile north of Holland Beach. But Lakeshore Drive was also clogged with marathoners. Thus began a frustrating quarter-hour of driving down sideroads and through neighborhoods, trying to gain access to the lakeshore. Ultimately, I wound up pulling over kitty-corner across the road from the park entrance, watching morosely as runners ran by. But there was a cop standing next to his car, shepherding the crowd, and … what the heck. I walked up to him and asked him if I could cross into the park. Sure, he said. The race ended officially right at this point. Just look for an opening, the cop told me, and then I could nudge my car across the road.

Free!

The storm was arriving as I pulled into the park, and rain had begun to fall. I grabbed my cameras and raced toward the tunnel. The other end opened out onto the beach, affording a sheltered location where I could watch for spouts without getting wet. It was a perfect setup.

The only other people there at the park were a young ethnic couple with a baby and a small child. I greeted them and talked with them about waterspouts as we watched a shelf cloud advance over the storm-driven surf. After a few minutes, the guy pointed toward the lake and said, “Is that one?” I looked, figuring it was a false alarm, some turbulent scrap of scud ascending along the shelf cloud. But no, he was pointing at the water, where a rotating patch of spray was clearly visible. It was only a couple hundred yards away, small but unmistakable. Waterspout!

And now another, larger one was organizing to my northwest. I could see no funnel, but then, the shelf cloud was now almost directly overhead, and features that might have been obvious at a distance were lost in the jumble of clouds. Regardless, the rotating cascade looked intense. I grabbed my camcorder. There was no time to set up the tripod; I would have to manage the best I could with hand-held. I hit “record” and began shooting the waterspout as it progressed toward the shoreline.

At first, it appeared to be heading toward us, which didn’t concern me. The waterspout was non-tornadic, and while it obviously packed some strong winds, I felt that the greatest threat it posed was a nasty sand-blasting. We could retreat into the tunnel if necessary.

But the spout made landfall about one hundred yards to my north. I ran out onto the beach to try to capture more of it as it progressed up over the foredune, but I was too late, and that section of my footage turned out pretty wobbly. Still, I had about forty-five seconds of shaky but ultra-cool footage of a Lake Michigan waterspout hitting the shore at close range. The first thirty seconds is the best, but I’ve chosen to show the whole shebang because I think there are some points of interest in the latter part, flawed though it is.

Back at my car, the radar indicated more intense convection headed toward Grand Haven. After sending a report to Spotter Network, I got onto Lakeshore Drive and began heading north. The stream of runners had thinned out, and the road was open, though still patrolled by the police. A little ways north of the park entrance, I noticed a “damage path” of tree trash–clusters of leaves and large twigs–scattered across the pavement. The road was only a quarter-mile from the shore, and I have no idea how far inland the waterspout made it before dissipating, but I suspected that a few runners had gotten quite a surprise.

Up at Grand Haven, a cloud bank to my northwest put down a series of spouts. These were much farther offshore and not particularly impressive at the time I viewed them, though I’ve seen some stunning photos by another spout chaser from the same location. After a while, the waterspout activity dwindled off, but I’d gotten my fill and was glad to head back east.

Back in Grand Rapids, I processed my video of the spout at Tunnel Park and attempted to send it to WOOD TV8. But the ftp upload failed, so rather than waste more time, I stopped by the station and let their tech handle things. The footage got aired on the evening news.

After that, I somehow wound up in Lowell. It was a lovely, moody day, perfect for the first day of fall, and I guess I just felt like a drive. Anyway, I found myself on the waterfront, watching ragged cumulus clouds drift over the broad, windblown face of the Flat River. To the north, a small, low-top storm billowed up above its less successful convective comrades and spread its cirrus anvil eastward. It was a beautiful sight, as was the entire sky, and I couldn’t resist taking a few more pictures. The last view on this page looks to the south, where the Lowell Showboat rests at its dock just upstream from the Flat River Grill and the dam beneath the startlingly blue September sky.

And that is that. Two days later, the same intensely azure sky prevails and this chill wind testifies that autumn is indeed at hand. The trees are still mostly green, but change is in the air. My hunch is, we won’t be getting a “second season” for storm chasing. If not, Saturday was wonderful compensation and will see me through to next spring.

September 24, 2012 by Robert Hartig

Filed Under: Michigan, Nature, Outdoors, Photography, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Uncategorized, Video, Weather Tagged With: Bob Hartig storm chaser, chasing waterspouts, fall waterspouts, first day of fall, Great Lakes waterspouts, KDR Media, waterspout video, waterspouts on Lake Michigan

A View from the Air

I initially posted the following humorous piece without any preamble. It subsequently dawned on me that a brief introduction could serve one important purpose: preventing anyone from taking me seriously. The following is strictly fictitious and by no means a true account. The real Bill is indeed a wildman, and I’ve got my own crazy streak, but neither of us is quite as nuts as our fictional alter-egos.

With that understanding established, I present …
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A View from the Air

Copyright ©2012 by Robert M. Hartig
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“Look at those clouds!” said Bill. “You just don’t see that kind of structure from the ground. Chasing storms this high up gives you a whole new perspective.”

“Hmmph,” I grunted. He was right, but I was in no mood to agree.

“See how tiny those farms down there look? What an incredible view!”

I had my own opinion of the view. I felt irritable, and the growing symptoms of airsickness weren’t helping. But Bill was enjoying himself, so I kept my thoughts to myself.

The use of airplanes has recently added a novel wrinkle to storm chasing. After viewing Skip Talbot and Caleb Elliott’s stunning videos of supercells shot from a private plane, Bill and I decided to try our own hand at aerial chasing. So now here we were east of Wichita, circling a storm. Thus does what begins as a half-formed thought escalate into a full-blown idiocy.

A sudden bout of turbulence jolted us. Our fragile craft rose and fell fifty feet in a single second, and my stomach lodged one more protest in an expanding series. The complaints were rapidly approaching the danger level. What would happen once that level got breached was not pleasant to contemplate. It would be great wisdom to avoid such an eventuality. But wisdom hadn’t gotten us up here to begin with, and it couldn’t be counted on to show up now.

The plane had been my idea, which is strange considering I’m normally more cautious than Bill. Our storm chasing partnership spans the better part of two decades, long enough to establish Bill as a maniac and me as a maiden aunt. The combination has worked well and sparked some memorable moments. Tactical conversations between Bill and me typically go like this:

Me: What a monster tornado! It’s going to pass within a quarter mile. That sucker could drop a satellite vortex right on top of us. We need to move.
Bill: Yeah, let’s get closer.

Bill: Wall cloud.
Me: Where?
Bill: Right above us, rotating like crazy.
Me: Oh.
Bill: [Pulls over and parks the car.]

Bill: We’ll just take this shortcut west straight toward the meso and beat it to the main road by at least thirty seconds.
Me: Are you serious? This is little more than a two-track of wet Kansas clay. We get stuck here and we’ll get eaten.
Bill: Trust me. I’ve got four-wheel-drive, I’m doing sixty miles an hour to maintain momentum, and I’m consulting the map as I drive to spare you the stress of discovering that this road doesn’t even show on Street Atlas. You’ve got—whoops, almost hit that gully—absolutely nothing to fear.
Me: Let me know when I can open my eyes.

Me: We were too close.
Bill: I agree.
Me: You do? You’re kidding. Let me feel your forehead. Hmmm … nope, you’re not running a fever.
Bill: Stuff the sarcasm. Now let’s get out of this ditch and see if we can find my car. It can’t have blown far.

You get the picture: just the normal banter between two chasers. Occasionally, though, circumstances get intense. Which brings me back to my story.

After talking it over, Bill and I hit upon a plan for an airborne chase. It was simple and elegant. We would watch the forecast models for a strong storm system to show up, one that displayed good potential for producing classic, well-structured supercells. Then, assuming that the system firmed up as the forecast hours narrowed down, we would locate a private pilot in our target area who was willing to fly us within proximity of a tornado, and we would book several hours with him or her. Our main concern would be to find someone capable of making cool, level-headed decisions in the face of extreme flying conditions, a requirement complicated by the fact that any pilot willing to assist us would necessarily be insane.

An adequate storm system presented itself in due course. More than adequate, in fact. A potent trough promised to dig down into the plains, and with it, the kind of conditions that storm chasers drool over. Three days out, the Storm Prediction Center had already outlooked a moderate risk for much of Kansas. It was time for Bill and me to hunt up our pilot.

You’d be surprised how hard it is to find someone willing to do fly-bys of a tornadic supercell with hundred-mile-an-hour updrafts and downdrafts and baseball-size hail that can shred a small plane in seconds. We’d almost given up when Bill found a private charter service that would take us on.

“The name Lunatic Larry’s Aerial Antics makes me a bit nervous,” I said.

“I know. The company motto bothers me. ‘No One’s Died Yet’ just doesn’t inspire confidence. But we don’t have any choice.”

“I wonder if our boy is on drugs.”

“I asked him about that,” Bill replied. “He said, ‘Hell yes.’”

“That’s good,” I said. “At least he’s properly medicated.”

Two days later we were in Bill’s Subaru, headed southeast down I-35 on the home stretch toward Lunatic Larry’s hangar just outside Wichita. We were to meet Larry promptly at 6:00. Just to our west, though, storms were already exploding.

“Look, there’s a wall cloud,” Bill said. “Hey—tornado!”

“Not very far away, either,” I said. “It’ll pass just a couple miles to our north.”

We looked at each other. It was only a few minutes after five o’clock. We had time. “Let’s get it,” I said.

By the time we drew within a mile of it, the tornado had grown into a good, solid stovepipe. I glanced upward. We were at the edge of the meso. It looked low, turbulent, and entirely untrustworthy. “Careful, Bill,” I said. “We could get a spin-up anywhere in there.”

“I know, buddy. I just want to get a little closer, get a good look at this thing.”

“Okay. Just don’t get too close.”

“Trust the old pro. I know what I’m doing.”

I rolled my eyes. Here it comes, I thought. Once the Old Pro surfaces, it’s useless to say more. “Fine. Bear in mind that Lunatic Larry keeps our deposit if you get us killed.”

We drew closer to the tornado, which was chewing through a forest and throwing trees hundreds of feet up into the air. By and by I said, “I think we’re too close.”

“Nah, we’re okay,” said Bill. “We can get closer.” A tree flew by in front of us. “Then again, this is probably close enough.”

“Good,” I said, striving to unclench my teeth. “I applaud your restraint.”

“Thank you,” Bill replied, smiling modestly.

“I would even advocate for backing up a smidge,” I added with a relaxed, cheerful grimace. “Better for viewing storm structure.”

A cow tumbled past the windshield with a startled look on its face, mooing above the wind roar. “Okay,” the Old Pro said. Shifting the Subaru into reverse, he backed up ten feet.

This was crazy. I had to think of something quickly or we’d both wind up in pine boxes with little anemometers attached to them, turning gently while an organ played in the background. “Great Scott!” I cried. “Look at the time! We’re supposed to meet Lunatic Larry in ten minutes. These storms are just getting started. There’ll be more tornadoes. We need to drop this one and get our butts to the airport.”

“Nuts, you’re right,” said Bill. “We have to go.” Turning the vehicle around, he headed back south toward the highway.

Half an hour later, as we soared high above the landscape just below the cloud base, Bill said, “You have to admit, the view up here is spectacular. See down there, those other chasers on the roads way down below? Ha! I’ll bet they’d give their right arms to trade places with us right now!”

“You had to do it, didn’t you,” I replied, peevishly. “You had to make just one more pass at that stupid tornado before we headed to the airport.”

“Hey, how was I to know it was going to wedge out on us? Besides, look where we are now. Didn’t I tell you to trust the old pro?”

He had a point. Actually, the view from a Subaru at 900 feet is pretty decent, probably every bit as good as it would have been from Lunatic Larry’s airplane. Maybe even better. Even a lunatic wouldn’t have gotten us this close.

“It sure is a long-track tornado,” I said as we completed another circuit around the funnel. “You got the live-stream running?”

“You bet. Over ten thousand viewers, last I looked.”

“Good. That’ll help cover expenses. Maybe even hospital bills after we land. I guess we can kiss our deposit with Larry good-bye.”

August 21, 2012 by Robert Hartig

Filed Under: Humor, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: chasing tornadoes with planes, storm chasing humor, storm chasing with airplanes, tornado chasing humor

Things a Jazz Musician Never Hears Anyone Say

You see this? It’s a rare phenomenon in Michigan called “rain” (pronounced rayn). It began yesterday as a closed 500 mb low settled in over the state, and it looks like it will be with us for a while, as the low seems content to linger. You can see a hint of cyclonic swirl on the radar.

And that’s not all: as I write, just a quarter past noon, the KGRR station ob shows a temperature of only 57 degrees. After a heat wave that has stretched from June into early August, with temperatures in Michigan exceeding the 100-degree mark at times, suddenly it looks and feels like autumn. Yesterday I traded my shorts for blue jeans. Even during a normal summer, that rarely happens.

After a historic, severe drought that has mummified Michigan and crippled much of our nation, this steady rain and respite from the heat is beyond welcome. It is a godsend, and those of us who believe in God thank him for it. “He sends his rain on the just and the unjust”–and to the just and the unjust alike, it is a great beneficence.

Next week there’s the possibility of a trough digging down from Canada across the northern-tier states, with jet energy bringing the potential for severe weather in the Great Lakes sometime Wednesday and/or Thursday. But that’s far from certain at the moment. The GFS has painted some wildly varying scenarios, and the most I can see right now is that both it and the ECMWF agree on troughing, with the Euro painting the more potent picture.

Okay, enough of the weather. Let’s talk about music. A while ago, I posted a status update on Facebook that struck me as pretty funny. I have a great appreciation for my own sense of humor, which is a good thing because it means that I have at least one fan. What I hate is when I tell a really hilarious joke and then I don’t get it. Then I have to explain the punch-line to myself, and that just ruins it. Fortunately, that doesn’t happen often. Most of the time, I break out into spasms of laughter, and people look at me oddly, and … getting back to my Facebook post: I figured that I’d share it here and then add onto it whenever I feel inclined. Feel free to post your own additions in the comments section. Without further ado, here are …

Things which, as a jazz musician, I have yet to hear someone say:

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“Could you turn up the volume? You’re not loud enough.”

“For our first dance, we want you to play ‘Giant Steps.'”

“You want $100 per musician to play at my club? Is that all? I’m doubling your rate. It’s about time you musicians gave yourselves a cost-of-living raise.”

“First tahm playin’ hyeer at the Eyegouge Saloon, eh? Well, I hope yew boys play a lot of Ornette Coleman. Folks hyeer get mighty disturbed if’n they don’t get their Ornette. And another thang: do NOT, if yew value yer life, play ‘Free Bird.'”

“I know we’re an all-white church praise team with three guitars, but we only like playing in the flat keys.”

“What t’hell you mean, you don’t have a trombone player? How can a jazz band not have a trombone? Tell you what: you come back next week with a trombone player and I’ll shell out an extra hunnerd-fifty bucks.”

August 10, 2012 by Robert Hartig

Filed Under: Humor, Jazz, Music, Weather, Weather Radar Tagged With: 2012 drought, 500 mb closed low, cold core, musician humor, musician jokes, musicians, rain in Michigan

Saying Good-Bye to July

Looks like I almost let July slip by without making a single post.

Almost.

I just haven’t felt inspired to write in this blog lately. Weatherwise, what’s to say?

Right–the drought. Frankly, I haven’t felt like writing about the drought. We all know how horrible it has been: day after day and week after week of relentless, rainless heat. No doubt that’s newsworthy, but I’ll let the news media tackle it. From my perspective, it discomforts me, it annoys me, it inconveniences me, and certainly it concerns me, as it should anyone living in the continental United States. To say it has been disastrous is putting it accurately. But while I suppose this drought is severe weather in its own way, it doesn’t interest me the way that a thunderstorm does. Mostly, it’s something I wish would go away, a sentiment shared by millions of Americans roasting in the Midwestern heat.

Fortunately, it won’t be here forever, and lately the pattern around the Great Lakes has seemed to be nudging slowly but progressively toward a stormier one. As I write, the radar screen for Michigan looks like this (click on image to enlarge it).

I like that: a cold front dropping out of the northwest bringing a nice line of storms and a good dousing of much-needed rain.

Shifting gears to music, there’s not much to say on that topic either. Of course I’ve been staying on top of my instrument, but that’s par for the course. My woodshedding on “Giant Steps” and “Confirmation” continues, along with “Ornithology,” and I’m getting to where I’m starting to shred the bejeebers out of those tunes. But, mmm, yeah, okay, so what. Where do I go from here?

The studio, I think. It’s about time I finally recorded my efforts, put something down for ears besides mine to listen to. Otherwise, why am I bothering with all this practicing of tunes that no one is ever going to call for on a gig? Folks want “Satin Doll,” not Coltrane changes. Still, somewhere out there I think there are people who will take an interest. So I need to get with my buddy Ed Englerth in his Blueside Down Studios and make some noise.

‘Scuze me if I sound a bit cranky. At 56 years of age, I’m rapidly approaching full curmudgeonhood and I am getting in practice for it. The lack of heavy convection and lack of gigs combined is assisting the effort. But a shift in either aspect of that equation will restore my humor and give me something to write about.

No, that’s not right–there’s always something to write about. What I need is something I feel like writing about. Maybe later tonight will do the trick, when that storm line which is presently 50 miles to my north moves in. Hmmm … the cell that is just making landfall near Pentwater is packing straighline winds of nearly 70 knots. That’ll create some interest for folks south of town.

Now to close up shop and see what kind of action we get around here a few hours hence. If it’s nothing more than a good dumping of rain, I’ll be more than happy. But I’m betting it’ll come with a spark and a growl.

July 30, 2012 by Robert Hartig

Filed Under: Jazz, Life, Michigan, Saxophone, Weather, Weather Radar Tagged With: 2012 Midwestern drought, Giant Steps, practicing jazz, Saxophone, severe weather

A Session with the Doc

This storm season of 2012 started with a bang but then rapidly fizzled into a pathetic whimper. Now summer is here, and with the mid-levels heating up and dewpoint depressions widening to the point where one needs binoculars in order to see the cloud bases, I’m sensing the onset of Supercell Deficiency Syndrome (SDS).

I hate that feeling. Half the time I want to curl up in a dark corner like a giant pillbug of despair, and the other half, I want to go out and beat the tar out of the first stupid simile I encounter and then run naked through a funeral parlor. SDS is not a pretty thing, and mine does not improve as I get older.

So this year I’ve decided to meet the malady at its onset with aggressive therapy. Today I had my first session. As you can see from the following transcript, it went beautifully.

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Psychiatrist: Okay, Bob, I’m going to show you a series of images, and I want you to tell me what each of them reminds you of.

Me: A tornado.

Ps: All of them collectively remind you of a tornado? How do you know? You haven’t seen any of them yet.

Me: Nevertheless, they remind me of a tornado.

Ps: All of them?

Me: Try me.

Ps: <Hrrummph!> … Very well, let’s proceed. [Shows me a large black blob on a sheet of white paper.] What does this look like to you?

Me: A tornado. Didn’t I tell you? A niiiiice condensation funnel lowering into the middle of a great big grassland, with really cool suction vortices swirling around its periphery and…

Ps: Yes, yes, that will be fine, Bob. Now what about this image? [Shows me another blob. I don’t know why he’s asking. This one is clearly…]

Me: Wow! AWESOME wedge! Where was that? Is that Manchester? Man, I wish I’d been there!

Ps: Most of my clients see a butterfly.

Me: Yeah, well, most of your clients are several boogers shy of a sneeze. Dang, what a monster!

Ps: [Arching one eyebrow and chuffing thoughtfully on his pipe.] This promises to be an interesting session. [Shows me yet another blob.] Don’t tell me you see a tornado in this too?

Me: Stovepipe. Plus some really nice structure, very impressive. That is one wild-looking tail cloud! Where are you getting this stuff from, anyway? Hey, wait a minute … that looks like one of Mike Hollingshead’s shots from Hill City. I hope you got his permission.

Ps: I don’t know who Mike Hollingshead is, and this is not a photograph. It’s a Rorschach inkblot, and I don’t understand how you’re seeing so much detail in it.

Me: [Chuckling.] I’ve made it my business to notice the details, Doc. For instance, looking at this next image, which is clearly a nice elephant’s trunk, I can see a clear slot wrapping nearly all the way around the funnel. The tornado is in the process of occluding–see how it’s tilting?

Ps: [Leaning in for a closer look.] I’m trying. Hmmm … yeah, I think so. Kind of.

Me: It’s getting set to rope out. Another minute or two and it’ll be gone–and meanwhile, keep your eyes peeled for another circulation to start forming right about where–hmmm …

Ps: What?

Me: We’re in kind of a bad location, Doc. I think we need to reposition.

Ps: Bob, we’re in my office and it’s a beautiful day outside. There’s absolutely nothing to worry about.

Me: But …

Ps: Now, what do you see in this next image?

Me: Looks like the same storm, only a couple minutes later. The edge of the meso is right overhead and a cone is starting to drop. Doc, I really think we should …

Ps: [Smiling at me sagely. I hate it when people smile at me sagely.] Bob, trust me, we’re fine right where we are. Repeat after me: “I am not out in the field chasing storms. I am in my therapist’s office. There is no storm. I am perfectly safe.”

Me: There is no storm. I am perfectly safe. But Doc …

Ps: Perfectly safe, Bob. Just tell yourself that. You need to replace your negative self-talk with positive affirmations. Now, let’s take a look at this next … hey, what happened to the sunlight? All of a sudden it’s pitch black outside.

[The sound of a mighty wind swells up out of nowhere, rapidly intensifying to a deafening roar. The windows shatter. One wall rips away, revealing a millrace of debris blasting through the street. A cow flies across the room and a combine crashes through the ceiling, landing directly in front of Doc’s desk. A playful little vortex finger snatches away his toupee. Then, just like that, the pandemonium ceases and all is still except for the clatter of errant pieces of lumber falling to earth.

Doc is still sitting in his chair, wrapped around with pink insulation. His eyeglasses are crooked, his pipe has been replaced with a large cigar, and there is a wild look on his face.]

Ps: What the hell … what the bloody hell?!!

Me: I tried to tell you.

Ps: But … but …

Me: Doc, this has been a great session! I can’t tell you how much better I feel already. I never thought that just a few minutes with you could make such a difference.

Ps: But …

Me: You, sir, are a genius, that’s all. A genius! I hope we can have lots more sessions just like this one.

Ps: *%@#!!!!

Me: Could you repeat that for me, Doc? I want to write it down–it’s pithy and I’m sure it’s valuable. Wait, never mind, I recorded our whole session so I can review it later.

Well, time’s up and I’ve got to get to another appointment. I’ll just clamber over the remnants of your office and be on my way. But I’m going to call and schedule another session with you as soon as you’ve got your clinic rebuilt. Good luck with that, by the way. Yeesh, what a mess!

——————–

That was just a few hours ago. I felt so depressed when I walked into my session with the doc, but now I feel great! It’s amazing what a good therapist can accomplish in just a single visit, and I can hardly wait for my next appointment. I have a hunch, though, that it may not be for a while.

June 27, 2012 by Robert Hartig

Filed Under: Humor, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: funny stories, humorous piece, humorous short story, SDS, storm chasing humor, storm season ends, supercell deficiency syndrome, Tornadoes, weather humor

Bow Echo at Elk Rapids, Michigan

Judging from the forecast soundings, it seemed that northern Michigan stood at least a chance of tornadoes yesterday evening. But the storms that first ignited in Wisconsin quickly congealed into a broken line as they crossed Lake Michigan, minimizing their tornadic potential and fulfilling the predictions of forecast models and the knowledgeable heads at the Storm Prediction Center.

I made the trip north regardless of, from my standpoint as a storm chaser, the unpromising prognosis. I hadn’t been upstate yet this year, I was itching for a bit of convective violence in any form, and the thought of simply watching a brooding shelf cloud blow in over the beautiful hills-and-water region around Traverse City appealed to me. Given ample low-level helicity between 200-300 m2/s2, I figured I stood at least a chance of getting some rotation out of a tail-end cell or perhaps a hook-like protrusion. But I was willing to settle for less, which is what I expected and what I got.

I headed north on US 131 as far as Kalkaska. Then, with storms to both my north and west, I decided I’d be better off heading west down SR 72 and meeting the southernmost cells moving in toward Traverse City.

At Acme, I caught US 31 north, and from then on my goal was to find a good place to park and get some pics. That’s easier said than done in a landscape filled with timber. Grand Traverse Bay was almost within spitting distance, and I could see glowering, lightning-laced clouds advancing to my northwest. But, blocked by trees, the clear view I envisioned of a shelf cloud bulldozing in over the bay kept eluding me.

Finally I found myself in Elk Rapids. The town was right on the water; there had to be someplace to park with an open view.

At a stop sign, I edged out prematurely, then tapped on the brakes as fellow chaser Nick Nolte turned off the main drag in front of me. Cool–Nick was here too. I figured I’d find a spot, then give him a call. As it turned out, Nick found me first a few minutes later in the parking lot of the local marina.

“Hey, I just about ran into you at an intersection,” I told him.

“That was you?” he said. “Jerk!”

Our location was probably as close to ideal as possible, given the lay of the land. The cell to our north blew past, but the radar indicated a bow echo making its way directly toward us. I’d never have guessed from the bland-looking sky to the west. But in a few minutes, storm features began to emerge from the nondescript grayness like an old Polaroid photograph developing. A shelf cloud was advancing across the bay, growing more distinct by the second.

Nick hopped out of his car and tripoded his camera. I opted to go hand-held–not the best approach, but in this case a practical one. But my camera gave me grief; the shutter wouldn’t operate, and by the time I remembered that I needed to turn off the auto-focus, the shelf cloud was overhead. Nuts. I snapped the five shots you see below, then got in my car as the rain and wind descended in earnest.

The marina was right in the belly of the bow, and for a few minutes, I enjoyed a nice blast punctuated with lightning and commented on by thunder. Then the line moved off to the east. Nick and I decided to try and reposition in hopes of intercepting the southern end, but our attempt was futile. We ended the chase and grabbed dinner at a Big Boy restaurant in Kalkaska.

This time of year, any storm is a good storm–not that I’ll normally drive 175 miles just to see a bow echo, but I don’t need a Great Plains tornado to make me happy. After multiplied days of remorselessly gorgeous weather, a boisterous round of lightning and thunder always gladdens my heart and gets a shout out of me.

ADDENDUM: The tail-end cell, which had consistently displayed a hook-like appendage and shown an inclination to turn right, went on to produce an EF-1 tornado at a golf course near Roscommon, forty miles east-southeast of where Nick and I grabbed dinner in Kalkaska. The low-level helicity delivered after all. If the storms had been discrete, I suspect we’d have seen a few more tornado reports.

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June 19, 2012 by Robert Hartig

Filed Under: Life, Michigan, Nature, Outdoors, Storm Chasing, Weather Tagged With: bow echo, Elk Rapids Michigan, June 18 severe storms in Michigan, Michigan severe weather, storms in Traverse City

The Action Comes to Michigan

Curious about the SPC’s Day 2 convective outlook for Michigan, I ran a few forecast soundings. Good grief! I can’t remember when I’ve seen skew-Ts like these in Michigan. The one for Cadillac reminds me of June 5, 2010, in central Illinois, though I think the winds above 500 mbs were stronger in that event.

It’s late and I’m not about to write a lot. But I have a strong hunch that tomorrow early afternoon I’m going to be heading north on US 131. It’s rough chasing in that part of Michigan, but anywhere in this state is challenging, and we don’t see this kind of setup very often.

June 18, 2012 by Robert Hartig

Filed Under: Michigan, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Weather, Weather Maps Tagged With: June 5 2010 tornadoes, Michigan severe weather, storm chasing in Michigan

June 9, 2012, North Dakota Chase Bust: Buy My Elephant

You can’t find a more quintessential border town than Pembina. It’s the last US town on I-29 before you hit Canada two miles to the north; and just across from it, on the eastern side of the Red River of the North, lie Minnesota and Pembina’s border-town twin, Saint Vincent. Tucked away in the northeast apex of North Dakota, Pembina is as far poleward as you’re ever likely to chase storms in the continental United States unless you find yourself pursuing wedges around Angle Inlet, Minnesota.

Last Saturday afternoon, Rob Forry and I gassed up at a filling station on the western edge of Pembina and contemplated the sky with fellow storm chasers Jim Parsons and Brian Spencer. The forecast models had been painting a frustrating picture, with a surface low moving northeast up into Manitoba and dragging southeast winds with it, leaving those of us without passports–which included me–with helicity-killing southwesterlies by the time storms started firing later in the day.

However, the HRRR was offering a glimmer of hope, stalling the warm front across the northernmost counties and maintaining southeasterly winds slightly south of the border as late as 01z. So there we were in Pembina in the mid-afternoon, gazing at a patch of altocumulus. On the way up, we had passed through an outflow boundary from storms earlier that morning, and now a brisk northeasterly wind reminded us that we had left the warm sector behind us.

The four of us grabbed lunch at a local restaurant, then parted ways. Most chasers were congregated well to our south near Devil’s Lake, where previous forecast soundings had looked pretty compelling. Unquestionably, instability would be present. Helicity and capping were the question marks, and even as we backtracked southward and then west, I had a hunch that we would eventually wind up playing back to the north.

In the tiny prairie town of Edmore–how do people earn a living in such remote places?–Rob and I found a shady place to park and wait for things to develop. We had passed back across the frontal boundary, and the temperature was warm, the winds were blowing from the southeast, and overhead, billowing towers kept thumping against the stout cap. We hung out in our new location for maybe half an hour with John and Brian, who had rejoined us, then took off. During that short time, the surface winds had veered to the south, so we headed back north on SR 1 to where the winds were once again blowing from the southeast and then parked.

Ten or fifteen minutes passed. A dot materialized far down the road to our south and grew larger, expanding and dividing into two rapidly approaching vehicles. It was our friends Ben Holcomb and Adam Lucio, in company with a small group of other chasers I had never met. They pulled aside and we all stood around and yakked for a while. Ben was suffering from a nasty ear infection which had hit him the

previous night, and while he had managed to score some antibiotics, he was still pretty miserable. But with a friend visiting him from Finland for the express purpose of chasing storms, he was sticking doggedly with the chase. Must come from having lived all those years in Michigan, where a chaser’s character is shaped by supercell deprivation.

We hung with Adam, Ben, and their crowd for a while, then continued north. The surface winds had once again veered, and surface obs showed them blowing from the south-southwest not very far south of us. It seemed to me that if we were going to have any chance at all of seeing a tornado–and admittedly, chances were slim to begin with–it would be along the northern tier of counties in the instability axis.

At the town of Langdon, we headed west, and it wasn’t long afterward that we witnessed a tower finally break through the cap directly overhead and blossom into a full-fledged storm. We tagged with it for a few minutes, but with just a couple miles between us and the border, we didn’t have much room to play with, so we let it go for the chasers in Canada to try their luck with.

Meanwhile, another storm was intensifying to our south, and we headed east to intercept it. From there on, storms began to multiply, but there’s no point in going into detail. The cloud bases were higher than I had expected; the ambient surface winds, which had been brisk all day, seemed to sigh away into nothingness; and the storms were outflow-dominant and just garden-variety severe. Rob and I encountered a little half-inch hail, and at one point a nearby CG which I never saw struck behind me, producing a LOUD thunderclap that sounded like a rifle shot and scared the crap out of me.

But it wasn’t the severity of the storms that made this trip memorable. It was that minimalist landscape stretching its sameness in every direction out into infinity; and it was the dome of the sky, spreading its cerulean canvas from horizon to horizon over tiny communities scattered far apart across the prairie. There, a thousand miles from my Michigan hometown and over 100 miles farther north than the northernmost point of the Keweenaw Peninsula, that sky-canvas, daubed by the Great Painter with the texture and tincture of clouds and light, rendered the panoramic emptiness of North Dakota dramatic and beautiful.

The drive back on the following day was predictably long and, for the most part, uneventful. These last two photos mark what was probably the highlight of the return trip (barring dinner at a truly fabulous sushi restaurant in Janesville, Wisconsin). Rob snapped them for me at a gas station somewhere in Wisconsin or maybe Minnesota, I forget where. But the place wouldn’t be too hard to find again. It’s probably the only gas station in America that has a sculpture of a life-size pink elephant wearing black glasses standing at the edge of the parking lot.

Naturally, Rob and I both needed to pose in front of so imposing a creature, and it wasn’t until I processed the pics afterward that I noticed the realtor’s “For Sale” sign on the left. Really, though, it’s my sign. Would you like to buy my elephant? I’ll make you a great deal. It’s a very nice elephant, well-behaved and in excellent health except for a slightly embarrassing digestive disorder for which I’ve found no remedy other than to … well, you can see how I’ve handled it.

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June 12, 2012 by Robert Hartig

Filed Under: Life, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: chase busts, Devil's Lake North Dakota, Great Plains, northern plains, outflow boundary, Pembina North Dakota, Red River of the North, storm chasing in North Dakota, warm front storms

My First North Dakota Chase This Saturday

I’ve never chased storms in North Dakota, but that’s about to change. Tomorrow Rob Forry and I are hitting the road for the severe weather event that’s shaping up for Saturday along the Canadian border.

This has been a puzzling scenario to forecast, with the models gradually aligning after painting some radically different scenarios. The NAM has wanted to move the system eastward faster and place the better tornado action across the Canadian border, while the GFS and Euro have been more optimistic and, I believe–I hope–more accurate. What the heck–Canada may get more shear, but North Dakota has the big CAPE.

We’ll find out Saturday. Lacking an extended driver’s license that would grant me access to Canada, I’m counting on North Dakota to deliver. I feel confident

enough that it will that I’m taking the chance. I keep eyeballing the region from Minot east toward Rugby and Devil’s Lake, and north, and a bit south. Skew-Ts have looked consistently good in those parts, and there’s plenty of CAPE to get the job done–around 4,500 J/kg MLCAPE per the GFS. My hope is that all that luscious, pent-up energy will produce something like what the NAM 4km nested CONUS radar shows at the top of this post.

Come on! Big tubes and gorgeous storms drifting across the wide sublimity of the North Dakota landscape, and then steak and beer later on.

June 8, 2012 by Robert Hartig

Filed Under: Nature, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Uncategorized, Weather, Weather Maps Tagged With: Devil's Lake, forecast models, Minot, MLCAPE, model radar, North Dakota tornadoes, Rugby North Dakota, shear-driven tornado outbreaks, storm chasing in North Dakota

Memorial Day 2012: A West Michigan Lightning Extravaganza

I have yet to take some truly razor-sharp images of lightning, but each time I go out, I learn a little more about how to improve my lightning photography. Last night afforded me a great opportunity. Storms forming ahead of a cold front moved across Lake Michigan and began to increase in coverage as the night progressed, and I roamed with them across West Michigan from the shoreline at Whitehall and Muskegon State Park to inland northeast of Lake Odessa.

My expedition was marred by the fact that I left the adapter plate for my tripod at home. I compensated by setting my camera on top of my dashboard and shooting through the windshield, an arrangement that works okay but

which considerably limited what I was able to do at the lakeshore. Using the hood of my car to steady myself, I managed to capture a few shots of a beautiful, moody sunset, with the red semicircle of the the sun gazing sullenly through rain curtains of the advancing storms. However, parking by the side of a busy road where everybody had the same idea–to pull over and watch the storms roll in over the waters–just didn’t work very well. After too many time-lapse images marred by tail lights (see photo in gallery below) I decided to hightail it and try my luck inland.

It was a good choice. The storms multiplied as I headed back toward Caledonia, and with lightning detonating to my north and closing in from the west, I decided to continue eastward till I found an ideal location–a place far from city lights and with a good view in all directions. I never expected to drive as far as northeast of Lake Odessa, but I’m glad I did.

Note to self: STOP USING THE ULTRA-WIDE-ANGLE SETTING WHEN SHOOTING LIGHTNING. Zooming out all the way to 18 mm is just too far, and cropping the shots doesn’t work well. The crispness goes downhill.

For all that, the images below aren’t all that bad, and a few turned out really well. After Sunday’s busted chase in Nebraska, it was nice to enjoy a few mugfulls of convective homebrew right here in West Michigan. I finally arrived home at the scandalous hour of 4:15 a.m., far later than I ever anticipated. I was tired but pleased. This Memorial Day lightning display did not disappoint.

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