On May 20, 2014, Peggy Willenberg and I shot south from the Nebraska panhandle into central Colorado, driving hard to get into position in front of a cell coming out of the Denver area.

We got in front of the storm around Last Chance and were rewarded with a spinning storm that made frequent wall clouds but could never quite produce a tornado, though it was tornado-warned as it passed over Burlington. Instead, we saw some hot lightning from the town.

 

Roll over a photo to see its caption, and click on any of the pictures to start a slide show of larger images.

 

On May 19, 2014, Peggy Willenberg and I finally got into the range of chaseable storms after driving for two days from South Carolina to begin our storm chase.

When we reached the Nebraska panhandle, prospects didn’t look great for severe storms, and near Scottsbluff, we watched several small cells pop up and die as they moved northeast out of Wyoming. But patience was rewarded as we finally got a gorgeous UFO-like supercell, complete with hail, blowing tumbleweeds, lightning and a mothership structure.

The lightning was accompanied by sparkling stars. You can see the railroad tracks in the foreground.

Roll over a photo to see its caption, and click on any of the pictures to start a slide show of larger images.

I’m waiting for the right time to go storm chasing – perhaps as soon as the coming week – and working on “Zap Bang,” the third novel in the Storm Seekers trilogy. Here’s a teaser for you – a book trailer. If this were a movie, this would be the action trailer, which would be accompanied by a softer trailer that shows the humor and relationships between the characters. Unfortunately, the latter would require actors and a big-time Hollywood production. So until there’s a movie, ahem, here you go – the dark, dramatic side of “Zap Bang.”

Want to know more? Here’s the working summary of the novel, which is the sequel to “Funnel Vision” and “Tornado Pinball”:

The Storm Seekers trilogy concludes with a new storm-chasing adventure, “Zap Bang.” Expert storm chaser Jack Andreas is called to join a lightning study that will put him in the path of the tornado – and into the secretive world of pilot Maribeth Lisbon, tasked with flying a converted warplane into the zap zone. They intersect with Jack’s undeservedly famous nemesis Brad Treat and down-on-his-luck adventurer Aurelius Zane as the two men host a show that’s trying to get a young couple married in front of a twister. The antics of the TV chasers, the lightning experiment’s eccentric benefactor and a food-truck-driving mystic lead to dangerous complications, as Jack and Maribeth find their most arduous challenge may lie within.

By the way, I think “the zap zone” is to “Zap Bang” what “the suck zone” was to “Twister.” R.I.P. Dusty.

Stay tuned for details on the novel. Look on the upper right of the page to subscribe to blog posts by e-mail to get all the latest storm-chasing reports and book news.

I had a pretty frustrating storm chase today – just a quick one in between work I’m doing on a video project, a book edit and photo shoots – as I tried to intercept a beautiful shelf cloud ahead of a line of severe storms. I just couldn’t get in front of it in position to take a good photo and ended up driving in a huge circle in Brevard County, Florida, in intense rain and wind. My persistence paid off in a slightly less spectacular but moody photo of the tail end of the shelf, near the southern end of Patrick Air Force Base. See the rest of the photos here.

I thought I had plenty of time to catch a dawdling line of storms parked over central Florida, but as it strengthened, it accelerated, and I was overtaken by the beautiful shelf cloud I was so desperately trying to catch.

I had to settle for a weaker tail-end shot after a lot of frustrating driving in the severe storm – nature’s car wash – and a video malfunction that was likely human error. Sigh. But the view from the beach was pretty.

Roll over a photo to see its caption, and click on any of the pictures to start a slide show of larger images.

 

There’s a swans’ nest in nearby Viera, Florida, that has had spectators gawking for weeks. Its enormous size and spectacular and doting parents were plenty of attraction, until the baby swans were hatched on Friday.

Swans mate for life, barring disaster, and these parents seemed at least as devoted as all the fans crowding around the bank of the retention pond with their cameras and cell phones. Of course, one idiot drove by today screaming “F*** swans,” but there’s no accounting for poor taste. The swans were tolerant of their fan club, though one informed participant warned us that they have teeth in those elegant beaks, and a bite can be quite painful.

As you might guess, the three-day-old cygnets are adorable. Still, their neighbor, a great blue heron, was not impressed.

 

 

It felt good to slap the dash-cam mount on the dashboard, pop in a video camera and go on a real storm chase today, in the middle of a tornado watch, no less. I ran out in such a hurry that I will have to reconfigure the dash-cam mount later, but that’s OK. There was a line of intense, tornado-warned storms rampaging across central Florida with a distinct bow on radar, and I got in the way of one of the warned circulations on S.R. 520 northwest of Cocoa and south of 528. I’ve seen plenty of gust fronts, but this one had an amazing leading edge that created a tornado-like optical illusion for a few moments. It’s too bad I was in heavy rain at the time, or I would have had more photos of it, but I got a few, and they’re in my Sky Diary storm-chasing report for March 29. There’s also a video, which I have posted here, too.

Late last March, I got to chase a great squall line event, too. These kinds of Florida storms are good warm-ups for my Tornado Alley trip, when I get to learn all over again how to juggle cameras, radar, navigation and driving while trying to capture the storms of the Great Plains. I expect to head out in May and will be posting regular updates. I’m happy to note that I’m again among several storm chasers with whom Midland is partnering to show off the capabilities of its cameras. New this year is the XTC-400 HD Wearable Video Camera. I’m looking forward to trying it out, hopefully on a mothership supercell! Wide-angle lenses do amazing things to mothership supercells.

A tornado watch was issued the morning of March 29, 2014, for all of central Florida, so I kept my eye on the sky.

Several storms in a bowing line prompted tornado warnings, so I went to track them down and met the line on S.R. 520 – west of the St. John’s River but south of 528.

I was quite close to one of the warned circulations, as the radar image shows, and even saw a Scary Looking Cloud that had a great tornado look about it – but was really an optical illusion as the leading edge of the bow passed by.

Roll over a photo to see its caption, and click on any of the pictures to start a slide show of larger images.

It’s Severe Weather Awareness Week in Florida, but regardless of where you live, weather awareness is best achieved through one little piece of hardware: a NOAA weather radio.  You can get them in all kinds of forms — portable, desktop, alarm clock. I have one in my car as part of the CB radio I use sometimes when chasing storms. I even have a weather radio app on my phone. The most important function of a weather radio is the ability to sound an alarm when the National Weather Service issues a warning, so you’ll always know if a tornado or severe storm is headed your way.

The radios broadcast local weather from the NWS all day long, not just warnings, but an alert tone is sounded when warnings are issued. Even when the radio is off, if set correctly, the alert will sound. Some radios can be programmed so they sound an alert only for your area and not other counties in the forecast area (look for S.A.M.E. or Specific Area Message Encoding in the product description). A small investment in a weather radio can keep you and your family safe.

Midland makes several models of weather radio and sent me its ER300 for review.  This portable radio’s multiple functionality appeals to my love of gadgets. First, it’s light (just a pound) and fairly small, with a handle, though it won’t fit in most pockets. It’s a natural companion for the beach or any outdoor activity as well as for emergencies.

The ER300 can be powered by AA batteries or its lithium ion battery, which can be charged via the included mini USB cable or — handy in a power outage — via its built-in solar panel or by turning the fold-out crank. Midland sells an AC adapter for the USB cable for $19.99, but these days, you can get a similar adapter just about anywhere if you don’t already have one. Once charged, the radio offers up to 25 hours of use. (By the way, the quick-start instructions say to plug in the battery, and that’s meant literally — the battery’s attached wire must be plugged into the receptacle in the battery compartment. I realized this after a fair amount of pointless cranking, but hey, it was good exercise.)

There are more goodies: a built-in LED flashlight with a dim, bright or flashing SOS setting, AM/FM radio in addition to weather radio, a clock display, and an ultrasonic dog whistle. The latter didn’t get a blink from my lazy Cavaliers, but it could theoretically help alert search and rescue dogs in the worst kind of emergency. There’s a headphone jack, too. (Addendum 2/27: I got to hear the weather alert during our state tornado drill, and there’s no way you can miss it! It sounds like a series of incoming torpedoes.)

Once the radio is charged, the USB ports can be used to power your tablet or cell phone — again, a handy feature if your power is out for a while. We could’ve used something like this in the onslaught of 2004 hurricanes, when our electricity was out for days.

I found the push-button controls fairly easy to use, though you’ll want to read at least the quick-start guide. The retractable antenna should be extended for best reception. The radio retails for $79.99. If cost is a concern, you can get a weather radio for a lot less (e.g. Midland’s HH50 Pocket Weather Alert Radio for $24.99). It’s worth it. It can save your life.

The details

What: ER300 Emergency Crank Weather Alert Radio
Features: Weather radio with alert; AM/FM radio; multiple ways to power it, including crank, solar, USB and AA batteries; LED light/beacon; supersonic dog whistle; clock; headphone jack
In the box: radio with rechargeable battery; USB charging cable; owner’s manual
Retail cost: $79.99

 
I always want to be better, and I am never satisfied that I’m where I should be in anything, especially in my passions – photography and writing. Storm photography, especially, always leaves room for improvement.

If the photo in itself is great, it might have been shot from a better angle, at a different time, or on a different storm. Because in storm chasing, the first rule is location, location, location. The second is timing. You can be a technically great photographer (I’m still working on that, too) and never be a great storm photographer if you can’t get into the right place at the right time.

In 2013, I saw a lot of extreme weather, most of it packed into less than three weeks during my annual whirlwind tour of Tornado Alley. Yet I still curse myself for not being in better position on some of the storms I saw and for missing others. Such is always the way of the perfectionist; that drive is a blessing and a curse, since perfection is never possible, except, perhaps, in the sweeping curves of a supercell at sunset. I’ll leave perfection to nature and post my imperfections right here.

I’ve put some of my favorite weather photos of 2013 into a video slide show. Watch it here, or if you like, see the photos themselves.