Jazz and Storm Chasing: Facing the Trade-Offs

And so it begins in earnest. The 2009 Tornado Alley storm chasing season, that is. Me droogs Bill and Tom left today to chase this weekend’s opening action in Iowa, en route to the main play in the Oklahoma/Texas panhandle region. I couldn’t join them as I’ve got a couple of commitments, including a gig with Francesca Amari tomorrow night plus a search for new living accommodations.

Today’s setup out in Iowa was such that I did’t feel too much like I was missing out on something. The storms have turned out to be massive hail producers (LSR from five miles southwest of Greene: “All hail…very little rain falling”), but not a single tornado report have I seen, not in Iowa, not in Wisconsin, not in the entire CONUS.

Tomorrow and Sunday look to be a different matter, though, and I wish like anything I could be out there with the guys watching tubes drop. But as I’ve said, I’ve got commitments.

It’s funny how my two great passions–playing jazz and chasing storms–can conflict. But that’s how it is. You can’t chase storms when you’re on a gig, though ironically, sometimes the storms have come along and canceled the gig. Three years in a row, I got hailed out at the annual Grand Rapids Festival of the Arts. It doesn’t seem to matter who I’m playing with. I’m a freeking hail magnet, and in June or July, you book me for an outdoor event at your peril.

This year, I’ve actually adopted a policy of not accepting any gigs during the peak storm chasing months of May and June. That’s the time of year when the storm chaser in me outweighs the jazz musician. Tornado weather is seasonal in a way that jazz isn’t. Once those mid-levels heat up and the steep lapse rates of spring give way to summertime’s Cap of Doom, that’s all she wrote. I don’t have the time or money to chase the Canadian prairies. So I’ve got to grab my storm action when it’s prime time. This year, I hope to spend ten days or so in mid to late May out in Tornado Alley. I am looking forward to it so much I can practically taste it!

Meanwhile, Bill and Tom are out there headed for Oklahoma without me. Sniff! Ah, well. I hope those dirty dogs get skunked. No, wait…what I mean is, I hope my buddies see some really great tornadoes and get all kinds of cool footage that they can show me when they get back, causing me to grin in maniacal delight while dying inside.

Okay, let’s try that one more time. The compensation for not chasing is getting to do a gig at One Trick Pony in downtown Grand Rapids with Francesca, Dave, Wright, and Tommie–some truly fine musicians whom I absolutely love to play with. A Saturday night spent playing my sax is a Saturday night well spent, and I can’t wait to hit the stage with Francesca and Friends. If you happen to be in the vicinity, please drop on down to the Pony and give us a listen. You’ll like what you hear. The show starts at 8:00 and continues till 11:00.  Hope to see you there!

April 24, 2009 by
Filed Under: Jazz, Life, Music, Saxophone, Storm Chasing, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Storm Chasing Selectivity (aka Impulse Control, aka Curbing the Impulse to Chase Any and Every Dumb System That Comes Down the Pike)

If the developmental curve of storm chasing is analogous to the seasons of life, then I think I’ve moved out of adolescence into young adulthood. Just as testosterone-driven impulses become tempered with knowledge and experience as callow youth transitions into maturity, so do idiotic, desperate, SDS-and-adrenaline-fueled urges to chase at the drop of a hat become balanced by an awareness of how stupid it is to waste time and gas driving hundreds of miles in pursuit of borderline scenarios.

Living in Michigan carries a steeper price tag than living in Kansas or even Iowa when it comes to busted chases. I can’t afford not to be selective, and I think I’ve finally internalized that lesson. As this year’s convective weather season has begun to ramp up, so far my greatest attainment hasn’t been successful chases, but rather, my refusal to get pulled into 2,000-mile excursions this early in the year.

Dixie Alley has had its moments, but so far they’ve been nothing like 2008. Tornado Alley has also offered a few setups, even one or two moderate risks, but I’ve been content to follow them at home on the radar, and I’ve been glad I did. If I lived in Oklahoma, I’d have been on them in a heartbeat. But when the party’s over and you live in Michigan–well, it had better have been a darned good party, because it’s a long drive home.

True, I chased at the beginning of this month in Kansas and Oklahoma. But I was already in the neighborhood, so to speak, and the chase opportunities were just frosting on the cake. I was happy with the Hutchinson, KS, action on March 7, but I probably wouldn’t have gone after it if I’d had to travel 800 miles to see it instead of simply heading north up I-35 from Norman.

Until last year, my chases have largely been event-driven. A system would move in and my buddy Bill, or Kurt, or Tom, and I would head out to Illinois, or Iowa, or Kansas, Nebraska, or Texas, or wherever, and chase it.  Last May was the first time I’ve spent more than three days out west. The logistics were different and definitely superior, and a change in my life circumstances–i.e. getting “restructured” with a decent severance, and starting my own business as a freelance writter–allowed me to tap into them.

This year I hope to spend even more time out on the Great Plains. The nature of my profession allows me that flexibility, and I love it.  This may be the year when I finally take a ten-day chase vacation and conduct my business out on the road.

I hope so. It’s been a long winter, I’ve waited a long time, and I’ve been very patient.

And now I’m itching to see some tornadoes.

March 31, 2009 by
Filed Under: Life, Nature, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Monte Montgomery Concert Tomorrow Night

Whew, I have let waaaay too much time elapse since the last time I posted an entry in this blog. Let me mollify you with a nice, bright, sunny image from this cold, early March day. The following photo is one of a number that I took out at Pickerel Lake near Grattan Township in east-central Kent County. It’s a beautiful area, and with spring rapidly rolling in, today was a great day to capture the beauty of the icy landscape while I still can.

Pickerel Lake

Pickerel Lake

Cold as this day has been, there’s no question that warmer weather is moving in. By Thursday, temperatures here in the Grand Rapids area should be in the forties. But I won’t be here. I’ll be with my storm chasing buddy Bill down in Louisville, Kentucky, where he’ll be meeting with some of his clients while I do my own business on my laptop. Then from Louisville, we head out to Norman, Oklahoma, for an all-day severe weather forecasting workshop with Tim Vasquez on Sunday. I’m really looking forward to it!

On the way out there, I hope to catch some early season action. The GFS is calling for a low to be positioned in Colorado or somewhere out there, and with a little luck, we’ll see the right combination of moisture, lift, and kinematics to make life interesting somewhere between Louisville and Norman. Arkansas looks likely. We’ll see.

More immediately, and on the musical side of things, tomorrow night is the Monte Montgomery concert at the Intersection in downtown Grand Rapids. The concert got rescheduled from its original date last September due to illness, and now the time has arrived.

I’ll be playing with the Ed Englerth band as the opening act for Monte.  We rehearsed last night and sounded tight, and today I took my horn to the shop and got a leak tightened down, so all in all, I feel good about playing tomorrow.

If you’re in the neighborhood, come on out to the concert. Ed’s material is strong, and if you’ve never heard Monte, prepare to be stunned. The man is a brilliant guitar player, rated one of the all-time top 50 by Guitar Player magazine. The show starts at 7:00 p.m. Admission is $10 (cheap!),  and worth every penny. See my events calendar for more details.

March 2, 2009 by
Filed Under: Band, Entertainment, Jazz, Music, Nature, Outdoors, Photography, Saxophone, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Preparing for Storm Season 2009

Out of curiosity, I just ran the GFS down to 384 hours. The SPC has posted a light risk for parts of the South on Wednesday, but that may be just a foretaste of an upcoming active period. Did I already write about this recently? Not sure, but if so, I’m writing again.

Long-range prognostication is something like reading tea leaves, but consulting the numerical models still beats going to a groundhog for your two-week weather forecast. At around 204 hours, a nice surge of moisture appears to unlock the the Gulf of Mexico for several days, with 55 degree  dewpoints extending as far north as Missouri, southern Illinois, and Indiana.

Am I hanging my hat on this? Heck no. I’m just thinking, quite wistfully, how nice it would be if what I just saw bore some resemblance to how things actually play out nine days hence. In February, one dreams if he’s a northerner and shudders if he’s a resident of Dixie Alley.

I’m anxious to to see some great storms this year. Last year was fabulous, but I blew some great photo ops because I didn’t know how to use my camera. This year I think I’ve overcome that concern. Now if only the weather and my finances will cooperate.

Meanwhile, I’ve decided to make the best of the holding pattern by signing up for Tim Vasquez’s severe weather forecasting class. It’s a small group setting that will be held on Sunday, March 8, in Norman, Oklahoma. I just shelled out my hundred bucks today and am really looking forward to attending this thing. My chase partner, Bill Oosterbaan, will be joining me. This ought to be a perfect way to really tighten down our forecasting skills for storm chasing season 2009 by learning from one of the foremost gurus of the field. I own nearly all of Tim’s books, and also his Forecast Laboratory software. It’ll be cool to finally pick his brain for eight hours in a focused, fairly personal setting.

More immediately, though, this evening the sun set at 6:17 here in Caledonia, and tomorrow the temperature is supposed to spike to a sweltering 36 degrees. I’ll take that and like it for now. It presages good things to come.

February 16, 2009 by
Filed Under: Life, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Blowing Strong: National Storm Chaser Convention and a Great Gig with Francesca

What a fun and interesting weekend this has been! I had the rare pleasure of indulging both of my two main passions in life, storm chasing and playing jazz.

Fellow chasers Bill Oosterbaan, Kurt Hulst, and I got together Saturday at Bill’s house and spent the day watching live, streaming video of the eleventh annual National Storm Chaser Convention in Denver, courtesy of SevereStudios.com. When 6:30 rolled around, I broke away and played a gig at One Trick Pony in downtown Grand Rapids with Francesca Amari. The engagement was a blast and we were well received; tunes included a vocals-sax duet on “Good Morning, Heartache,” as performed on Francesca’s new CD, Better Days. Then this morning, I got together with Bill again and we watched the rest of the conference.

The entire conference was great, but from my perspective, the last part was the best. This included talks by Dr. Greg Forbes, Jon Davies, and Rich Thompson on forecasting and mesoscale analysis. I learned a couple things that will definitely be helpful for this coming chase season, which is just around the corner.

All in all, a most enjoyable couple of days. I finished by spending an hour or so practicing my saxophone, which is performing beautifully for me after coming back from the repair man.

Another point of interest: I’ve been invited to put together a little unit to play for the Thornapple Jazz Festival on April 17, hosted by the Thornapple Arts Council of Barry County. I’m excited about this, and pleased that the festival coordinator, my friend and fellow jazz musician Joe LaJoye, thought to ask me. I’ve already got two standout players lined up for my rhythm section, and am considering whom I’ll use for the last one.

Lots going on, and much of it good. Today it snowed, but with temperatures in the thirties, even the cold weather is warmer than it was a few weeks ago. From storm chasing conferences to jazz festival invitations, there are signs that spring is on the way.

February 15, 2009 by
Filed Under: Band, Jazz, Music, Saxophone, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Remembering the Super Tuesday Outbreak

A year has passed since a swarm of eighty-seven tornadoes churned across Dixie Alley, claiming fifty-seven lives over a two-day period from February 5-6, 2008. Beginning on the day when twenty-four states were holding their Democratic primary elections, the Super Tuesday Outbreak has gone down in the books as the deadliest tornado outbreak since the full implementation of NEXRAD, and one of the worst in history.

The outbreak packed twenty-one confirmed strong tornadoes, including five rated at EF3, and five violent EF4s. One of the latter carved a 122-mile swath across Arkansas–the longest continuous tornado path in that state’s records.

My storm chasing partner Bill and I made it as far south as Louisville, where we intercepted one supercell and then headed back east to Corydon, Indiana, parked, and let the squall line slam into us. You can read my chase account here. Had we left a little earlier, we’d have made it farther south and likely would have seen some of the tornadoes. One came as close to our position as Brandenburg, Kentucky, just a handful of miles away.

Storm season 2009 is drawing near. Today the skies are blue, clouds are scooting along on a brisk low-level jet, and temperatures are in the fifties. This next week looks to be an active one, and while I don’t expect much more than rain in the Great Lakes, it’s nice to see the Gulf of Mexico setting up shop and giving us a taste of springtime weather. Rain instead of snow is good! And warmer temperatures will be with us for at least this next week. I doubt we’ve seen the last of mid-teens, cold-air intrusions, but if we have, I won’t go into mourning.

February 7, 2009 by
Filed Under: Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: , , , , ,

Storms of 2008 DVD

I just received my new Storms of 2008 DVD in the mail a couple days ago, and I have to say, it’s fabulous! Having been thoroughly smitten with its predecessor, Storms of 2007, featuring its remarkable coverage of the historical Greensburg, Kansas, EF5 tornado, I was skeptical that any subsequent effort could live up to such high standards. But I have to say, this latest in the celebrated “Storms of…” series has more than met the challenge. Simply put, this is a stellar work, and if you’re at all a fan of storm chasing, you need to buy it, period.

And when you make your purchase, know that your $24.95 goes directly to helping disaster victims across the United States. The “Storms of…” series is an organized effort on the part of the storm chasing community to make a tangible difference in the lives of people who have been directly affected by severe weather and other natural disasters.

Judging by the remarkable footage in this DVD–often sublime and at times mind-boggling–you’d never guess that it is a grassroots effort. Yet, as with all the videos in the “Storms of…” series, Storms of 2008 is strictly a product of the storm chasing community. As such, it is a tour de force of the remarkable talent pool within that community. Videographers, meteorologists, seasoned storm chasers, gifted amateurs…all these and others besides have worked hard and long to produce a world-class video and a true labor of love.

The history-making Super Tuesday Tornado Outbreak that scoured Dixie Alley on February 5…the late-May tube-fest that blotted SPC storm reports with red for the better part of a week…the beautiful Dighton wall cloud…the Quinter EF4 duo…the tragic Parkersburg, Iowa, EF5…they’re all here plus a whole lot more, complete with synoptic analyses and topnotch narration.

Am I saying that you have absolutely gotta, gotta, gotta purchase this exceptional DVD? Yup, that’s what I’m saying. Just do it, okay? You can thank me later for being so pushy. Your money will help to make a real difference in people’s lives, and trust me, you’ll love what you get in return. Storms of 2008 is the definitive anthology of last year’s convective Armageddon in the United States. Buy here. Or visit the Storms of 2008 website to obtain more information and view a video trailer.

To the devoted cast of producers, editors, and engineers who faced the challenges and frustrations of making Storms of 2008 happen–BRAVO! And thanks!

February 6, 2009 by
Filed Under: Nature, Outdoors, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Video, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Not Enough Tornadoes

Here is a conversation you’re unlikely to overhear at a restaurant:

“I’m going to move.”

“Why? Vermont is such a beautiful state.”

“Not enough tornadoes. I’m thinking maybe Hays, Kansas.”

Nope, you just won’t hear most people talk that way. A generous supply of tornadoes simply isn’t a big selling point for the average homebuyer. On the other hand, if you’re a storm chaser, it could be a compelling reason to sell your chalet near Boise, Idaho, and move to Wakeeney.

I just finished perusing a thread on Stormtrack where chasers were considering this question. The earnestness of the discussion struck my funny bone. I mean, the concept of moving somewhere because it has lots of tornadoes is utterly foreign to most Americans, who are unmotivated by tornado accessibility. In fact, I’d venture to say that many people would consider the idea downright weird. (“You’re moving where because of what?“)

Chasers, however, seem to see nothing unusual about factoring in tornado statistics as a motivating factor in home buying.  It’s weird. And the reason I laugh is because I can relate. I’m not ready to pack up my bags and move from Michigan, because busted economy or not, I love this state. But if I ever do move, it won’t be to California because of the ocean, or Florida because of the warm weather, or Vermont because of its rural New England beauty. It’ll be to the Great Plains because of the dryline.

Realistically, I can’t see it happening anytime soon. I might be able to find a location with a decent brewpub, such as Wichita, but where would I go to hear some decent live jazz, let alone play it? That side of me is as important as the storm chaser in me. Maybe the two can be reconciled. To be honest, I’m not too worried about it. It’s just fun to think about, and certainly worth laughing about.

I do kinda wonder, though, what it would cost to build an underground bunker as a vacation home in the Texas panhandle.

January 30, 2009 by
Filed Under: Life, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Introducing the New and Improved Stormhorn Blog

Notice anything different? My Stormhorn blog has gotten a facelift! While you’ll notice that its appearance deviates a bit from what you’re used to, the real difference is more than cosmetic. Thanks to the effort of my Web designers and friends, Mitch and Karina Myers at Tablox Web Solutions, I’ve made the switch from b2evolution to WordPress blog software. I’ve also changed my Web host from the cluttered, user-unfriendly GoDaddy to Mitch and Karina’s service-oriented, cPanel-based hosting service.

WordPress should be easier for a non-tech like me to get around in, and I expect to refine the appearance and usability of the blog over time. For now, I’m off to a good start, and I’ll begin making improvements when I have a little time to spare. Right now I have a few pressing deadlines, and my copywriting clients come first.

So I’ll keep this short and sweet:

Welcome to the New and Improved Stormhorn Blog, dedicated to my dual passions of jazz saxophone and storm chasing, with a little bit of everything else thrown in for good measure. I hope you’ll find what you like and like what you find.

January 22, 2009 by
Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , ,
« Previous Page