02/27/05 REPORTS: TX

[David Drummond]

We just got in about half our ago.

Started out the late afternoon just to go with hoping to get some good hail video. Ended up seeing something we almost couldn't believe we were seeing , A WALL CLOUD. Then the warning went out for that location and we were like, "I'll be damned". That one was not rotating and was NE of Big Spring. We saw that, some awesome looking virga and a some lightning.

After dark set in we hit Big Spring and headed east and got in the outer edge of the storm before we headed south. Got nailed by some "soft" hail that would "splat" when it hit the windshield and were fighting 50 sustained gusting to 65 winds on I20. Vehicles were taking cover under overpasses.

South of there we watched another wall cloud in the lightning flashes. Couldn't see rotation when it did flash, BUT, it's appearance did seem to morph quite a bit from one to the other, so there was definitely some sort of rapid motion in there. Came across several hail paths on the road, the deepest was 3 inches deep of mostly pea to marble size hail, and lots of really slushy looking stuff. Driving was treacherous. Lots of great lightning.

I am totally pleased! :wink: I will post a short video clip or a pic or two later tonight (this morning) or later in the day sometime.

 

[David Drummond]

Ok, got a few pics here from that event:

[Broken External Image]:http://wx5tvs.com/stormtrack/022705-A.jpg

[Broken External Image]:http://wx5tvs.com/stormtrack/022705-B.jpg

[Broken External Image]:http://wx5tvs.com/stormtrack/022705-C.jpg

[Broken External Image]:http://wx5tvs.com/stormtrack/022705-D.jpg

I'll post a little video in the weather and chasing section.

 

[David Drummond]

Couple of video grabs. One is the second wall cloud we were watching. Storms were still relatively high based.

[Broken External Image]:http://wx5tvs.com/stormtrack/022705lightning.jpg

[Broken External Image]:http://wx5tvs.com/stormtrack/022705lowering.jpg

 

[Susan Strom]

Originally posted by David Drummond

[Broken External Image]:http://wx5tvs.com/stormtrack/022705lightning.jpg

Sweet, cool image - you can play the cloud game..."it's a phoenix", "no, it's a dragon..."

 

[Tim Stoecklein]

Originally posted by Susan Strom
Sweet, cool image - you can play the cloud game...\"it's a phoenix\", \"no, it's a dragon...\"

Taken from Target Area - Special Rules..."-- Frivolous posts. Every post in Target Area must contain meteorological or observational content. Purely social and personal posts should be made in E-mail or in another Stormtrack section."

Nothing personal, just trying to clean up the Target Area a bit.

Tim

 

[Susan Strom]

Tim - sorry...so I'll elaborate. This one was interesting to me because Plains lightning can be a challenge to photograph particularly since HP, wall clouds and low bases obscure so much lightning that would otherwise be clearly visible. I often observe that CA crawlers are prevalent as the storm is dissipating or up in the anvil so it is nice to see one clearly when the storm is in maturity just feet above the ground, probably interconnecting in the areas of opposing charge near the wall cloud, which is also interesting.

Aside from that, an artistic comment is not "social" or "frivolous". A storm's beauty and our ability to appreciate it and the fun we have with it is not contingent only on the presence of meteorological and observational data (perhaps "Target area" is, and for that maybe I am in error) Do I think it looks like a phoenix? Sure. But more important to me is that although lightning strikes are commonplace, each strike is absolutely amazing and when someone gets a good one on film, even better. Forgive me but I've been photographing lightning for a long time. Chasing is multi-level...empirical, technical, artistic, spiritual, primitive. The day that I approach chasing in only a clinical state of mind is the day I turn in my cameras.
-S

 

[Robert Dewey]

I would agree those are some very good images. That storm seemed to pop up out of no where (or at least I wasn't paying attention, LOL)...

I think Susan's post was observational, as it was in context to the images being provided.

 

[Tim Stoecklein]

Please (this is a sarcastic please)...........

I'm not saying David's pictures aren't good, but the cloud game has nothing to do with a report thread, a now thread, or a forecast thread. And this is not place to debate it so I'll end my involvement and let the Target Area run away........

Tim

 

[Susan Strom]

Tim, I hardly think that saying lightning looks like a phoenix is likely to cause a donnybrook in the Target area. I respectfully...wonder what...?
I'm not into that, just storms.

 

[Jeff Snyder]

Originally posted by Tim Stoecklein
Please (this is a sarcastic please)...........

I'm not saying David's pictures aren't good, but the cloud game has nothing to do with a report thread, a now thread, or a forecast thread. And this is not place to debate it so I'll end my involvement and let the Target Area run away........

Tim

Tim,
I appreciate your willingness to help ensure that the Target Area threads remain compliant with the special guidelines. We can maintain a high quality forum if users self-police... So, for that, thank you.

That said, we can also help ensure that these threads stay compliant by keeping even the self-policing threads out. I think it's better suited, in an instance such as this, to PM the user who you think posted a non-compliant post. This will discourage others from posting on a policing post, which means that we won't contribute to the off-topicness...

Regarding the particular post in general, I would agree; I would probably say that Susan's short commentary was technically out of guidelines, since it did not display meteorological content, nor was it really much of an observational post ("sweet, cool image" does not count as 'observational post' in my opinion). I think Susan's comments would have been better suited for either a PM (private message) or an email. If it was really something to talk about, a new post in Weather and Chasing would have been best, but I don't think this was the case (not like there was going to be a multi-page discussion about David's pictures)..

Please direct any responses via PM; please do not post further comments on this issue in this thread!