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Just a quick note: I’ll be speaking at the Flagler County Public Library, 2500 Palm Coast Parkway NW in Palm Coast, at 1:30 p.m. Saturday. I’ll show “Chasing Reality” and some cool storm slides, and I’ll talk about the realities of storm chasing – and what it took to make it realistic but fun in my fictional take on chasing, the novel “Funnel Vision.” I’ll also sell and sign books. Breeze on by!

On Friday, make sure you check out my friend Kam Miller’s blog, Glass Half-Full in Hollywood. Kam is an experienced TV and film writer and offers fabulous advice straight from Hollywood’s movers and shakers. And speaking of shakers, she also features Friday cocktails on the blog. I’m guest-blogging there Friday about Tales of the Cocktail, the convention in New Orleans from which I just returned (and from which I’m still recovering). While I was there, I helped The Times-Picayune cover the event with blogs, photos and videos.

I’ve been busy lately. Lots of photo shoots. Not nearly enough storms. And then there were the four lost days in which I disappeared into stomach-bug purgatory. But I’m hopping again and looking forward to speaking on Saturday afternoon at the Orlando Science Center about storm chasing. You can find me at 2 and 3 p.m., chatting in easily digestible 20-minute segments, about how storm chasers find tornadoes. [UPDATE: I’ll introduce the “Tornado Alley” movie at 2, then talk at 2:15 and 3:15.] I’ll also share fun facts about the extremes of Florida weather. Look for me on the fourth floor, in the Science on a Sphere area. While you’re there, you can pretend to give a weather forecast on TV. The image here shows my attempt to do this. All I can say is, green screens are tricky.

At OSC, you can also catch Sean Casey’s “Tornado Alley” IMAX movie, which has some beautiful storm footage and a neat little story about the frustrations and triumphs of the Vortex 2 tornado research team. Of course, the film also features Casey’s home-brewed tank, the Tornado Intercept Vehicle. He visited OSC recently. I won’t be bringing a tank, but I will bring a piece of a car that was trashed by hail!

Thanks to the Orlando Sentinel’s Theme Park Rangers for noting my appearance Saturday. Also, OSC interviewed me by phone and shaped my answers into wee nuggets for its blog. I have more events coming up, which you can find in my new calendar: storm-chasing talks, book signings, and another talk about storm photography in Vero Beach.

Florida has afforded a fair number of photo opportunities since I’ve been back from what I consider my real storm-chasing trip, the one to Tornado Alley.

I shouldn’t be a storm snob, but the Plains storms have such power and magnificence, it’s hard for Florida’s summer thunderstorms to compete. Still, Florida is king of the shelf clouds, and it’s tops nationally in lightning (though not always at night, when I prefer to shoot it).

 

Wednesday, June 13, I caught a very pretty shelf cloud in Brevard County, Florida, as it came over the Indian River Lagoon. One result was the panorama above; the other is the video, which includes time-lapsed footage.

Roll over a photo to see a caption, or click on any image to start a slide show.

 
It’s always difficult adjusting to the routine of regular life when I get off the road. Storm chasing embodies freedom for me – the ability to go wherever I wish, according to nature’s whims, to follow the weather. I am totally immersed in my passion.

I love being at home, too, but my attentions are fragmented. I have to work to earn a living, acknowledge bills and deal with the drudgery that comes from basic life maintenance. (Though laundry follows me even on the road.) At least Florida offers storms in the summer, although the photo opportunities are more scant than you might think, especially for lightning.

The night of June 10, I headed out about 9 p.m. EDT in hopes of catching some lightning in a severe storm that was approaching the east-central Florida coast. Most of the bolts seemed buried in rain, and I was preparing myself for disappointment.

I decided to give it a few more minutes in case it went into anvil-crawler mode, and I was pleasantly surprised by a handful of spectacular crawlers, shot from Rockledge, Florida.

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As I update and migrate posts from the old Sky Diary site, I’m leaving out a few lackluster storm days. But I wanted to include this one because I visited one of my favorite places at sunset.

Some of my chaser friends started the drive home on June 3, 2012, while others considered their options.

I decided to target northwest Oklahoma, from Woodward to Alva. The storms that formed barely moved, but I was delighted to end the day – and my 2012 Tornado Alley chase – in the Shattuck windmill park that inspired the fictional one in my novel Funnel Vision.

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May 29 of this year was an example of a great storm chase that didn’t include catching a tornado. There was a brief tornado with this storm, but from my position, I didn’t see it. Nonetheless, at one point I was incredibly close to a rotating wall cloud – do I get points for proximity? No, I guess not.

 
But the real crown jewel of this chase was a few minutes of incredible structure on this supercell, which I followed with friends, then on my own, from Canton, Oklahoma, toward the Oklahoma City metro.

The night’s finale was lightning around the National Weather Service in Norman.

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The May 25, 2012, chase led me to a pretty backlit tornado in north-central Kansas.

I started the day with Dave Lewison, Scott McPartland, Dayna Vettese, Brad Rousseau, and Simon Eng, but by chase’s end, we were scattered to the winds.

We stopped in Great Bend, Kansas, targeting the triple point to the west where warm front and dryline met. We then drifted to Rush Center, where we met lots of chasers, and one tower went up in a hurry. This is the first storm we chased, along with a zillion other chasers, who drove like crazy people through a grid of dirt roads like a pack of rats let loose in a maze.

 
That storm didn’t produce the cheese, but at dark, storms in the line went crazy. Some chasers reported seeing as many as five tornadoes, some at or after dark; makes me feel like a slacker for just finding one.

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Sometimes you’re rewarded by playing the marginal setup when it comes to storm chasing. Our group opted out of the 10 percent tornado risk on Thursday, May 24, as issued by the Storm Prediction Center for Wisconsin and environs. We didn’t like the idea of chasing fast-moving storms in the trees up north.

Instead, chasing with Dave Lewison, Scott McPartland, Dayna Vettese, Brad Rousseau, and Simon Eng, we headed toward eastern Kansas.

After a lot of waiting and hanging out with cows in a sunny meadow in Garnett, Kansas, we were fortunate to catch a late-day storm that was beautifully sculpted and produced tremendous lightning, though it was never severe-warned.

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I’m posting galleries almost every day, but not tonight (i.e. early this morning), because I’m too tired and really didn’t see much today. Except the cows.

The best part of May 23 was dealing with cowboys and girls moving a big herd of cattle down a Nebraska road. Our caravan had to proceed past slowly, listening to the moos and watching the calves trot to keep up with their mothers.

Our hopes for storms today were not realized, as they didn’t quite get to our target area. I checked out a few of the tail-end storms before sunset, but they were unimpressive as they all formed on the cold front and screamed east. I’ve been driving … and driving … and driving …

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My target on May 22, 2012, was initially the South/North Dakota border. Though I knew the best backed winds were farther north, I didn’t think I could get to the Canadian border in time, and I liked the forecast dryline push, among other factors.

However, I thought the grunge would inhibit convection, so I dropped south.

In all, it was a smorgasbord of mostly weak storms, though friends and I saw a skinny shear funnel spinning out of the back of a dying storm.

Amid all this, an unlucky pheasant hurtled at my car and snapped off my CB antenna. (See Daniel Shaw’s video, above.)

Roll over a photo to see a caption, or click on any image to start a slide show.