Nebraska Plains, Sunday, August 8, 2010~
Seems that we have been here forever, although it's only been a few short weeks. Nebraska (not to mention, Kansas, the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Wisconsin) have been getting pounded week after week with powerful, violent storms.
There's no telling when this pattern will end. Looks like it may continue for a while, according to the convective outlooks at NOAA, or the Storm Prediction Center out of Norman, Oklahoma. *Sighhh* Looks like we have our chasing and other work cut out for us ...
Yesterday, the seventh, there were at least half a dozen tors (or more) in different supercellular storms that formed. Several people were injured by flying debris, accidents, or hail, and there were a couple of fatalities: a woman driving her car hit a tree, and another man, a jogger, got struck by lightning while herding his cattle to the barn. So the storms have been quite deadly, to say the least.
Not the kind of thing you would like to hear. If anything, we chasers do this to inform people to get out of harm's way, but even after all the warnings, some just refuse to listen, and they only end up getting into trouble. This is when being a chaser is the hardest because we hardly get any thanks in return for what we do.
Right now, as I write this, we are waiting for storms to fire up; there's enough juice/moisture in the air to favor powerful storms, including the possibilities of large hail, damaging downburst winds, extremely heavy rains, dangerous, cloud to ground lightning, and yes, even tornadoes. The atmosphere right now is a storm chaser's dream because this is what we live for.
The skies are partly cloudy, but towers (Cus, or cumulus) clouds should be starting to build up. When they do, it is going to be very rapid; it won't be long before we have a storm on our hands. Now whether it goes severe or not, that is up to God; it is out of our hands, but we can hope that they do, so we can chase it and keep people abreast of the situation before the storms hit.
A few weeks back, on July 23, 2010, we were in Vivian, South Dakota, when that massive, eight-inch hailstone fell. Wow, what a monster; it was bigger than a softball! Almost looked like a bowling ball, the thing was so huge! I just pray and hope that nobody (or nothing) was under that stone when it fell, or there could have been lethal damage. Incredible! There are no words to describe it!!
Well, the radio is coming to life, so storms might be starting to get their act together. Have to check the radar to see what is excactly happening and then go on from there. I don't know when I will write again, but I will once this pattern calms down and we can take a breather; we need to! We are starting to run out of go juice; our batteries are starting to wear down mighty quickly! Take care and keep your eyes to the skies!
~"Tornado" Joe Dorman.
