Book is coming along nicely and will be posting another portion from it here soon. I am currently relocated to the NW (Spokane, WA) but plan on meeting up with a colleague of mine and do some E. Wyoming and E. Colorado, W. KS chases when the weather permits it.

Currently under a Tornado watch. Not expecting much in the terms of significant tornadoes, could see a couple of tornado warned cells capable of producing weak short lived tornadoes. Atmosphere has become unstable with low level shear marginal at best around 40+ knots. The 700mb shear will be able to support large hail in the supercells that do develop. Will be remaining in position here in Hope Mills and await firing convection from the South and West.

Convective towers going up to my northwest. Storms had a hard time maintaining strength for long periods of time and out of all the storms that passed close to my location only one of them prompted a sever thunderstorm warning, that was producing quarter size hail. Unfortunately this storm drifted off to my east and didn't produce any good photo ops.

Exert from my Book "Diary of a Storm Chaser"

"I walked toward the kitchen and on my way passed our giant window in the dining room that overlooked our backyard. I immediately noticed the clouds were racing by. I grabbed my fruit snacks accompanied by my juice box and sat at the dining room table. I looked out the window to see the sky was a dark green color and the sky looked to be breathing. The wind picked up and the window started to flex and rumble as branches from our tree began to fly into the air and bounce off the window. The wind began to roar as I quickly ran away from the window and emerge into the living room where my family was looking into the front yard. I got up on the couch and peered out to see a grey cone descend from the sky. I watched this cone as the tip quickly came in contact with the ground and spin up dirt at the base. My first tornado encounter! This was the start of that fear most meteorologists get before it eventually turns into a passion".

2011 Chase Season Highlights

Chased the outbreak in MS/AL which we caught a potent hail storm and a night time supercell which had a well defined wall cloud (no reports of a tornado) and plenty of lightning. I was chasing this outbreak and returned Asheville after some 27 hours on the road. I woke up to find out a  major tornado outbreak was occurring and my hometown was at risk. I watched a supercell produce an EF3 tornado about 7 miles north of my house. I drove home the following week and drove across the damage path from the Sandford, NC tornado and the Fayetteville, NC tornado. I unfortunately was not chasing the super outbreak in MS/AL because of work at school. Four days after the outbreak, I gathered up a group of colleagues and we went down to AL and passed out water to the hardest hit areas of: Trinity, AL, Cullman, AL and Pleasant Grove AL. This trip chased my mentality when it comes to storm chasing and opened my eyes to the raw power of mother nature

2010 Chase Season Highlights

2010 was by far a long season. We spent most of the chase season in MS/AL/GA. We chased well over 1000+ miles. We intercepted the infamous Yazoo City, MS cell in its dying phase, but it still greeted us with strong RFD winds. Captured a couple of ragged short lived funnels in MS/AL. During the middle of the chase we were delayed, and had to abandon the chase temporarily and push a car out of the mud. Once we were back on the chase we intercepted our 7th tornado warned cell of the day, this occuring during the night hours. This storm did not produce a tornado but it gave us a grand lightning show. Most chases were tough since most of the supercells were HP as PWATS were in the 1.5"-2.0" in most of our chases, which made spotting any tornado extremely difficult. Overall still enjoyed the challenge of the chase.

2009 Chase Season Highlights

Although another successful chase season, my video camera fell victim to the weather elements. So this montage is photo heavy with only a couple of videos at the start. We spent most, if not all our time all over the state of Texas. We went from Dallas/Fort Worth to Del Rio to San Antonio to Abilene we even got to see Mexico...on the other side of the Rio of course. We did end up getting a nice supercell just out side of Evansville, IN to end the chase. Overall a quieter chase due to a stubborn ridge that stayed in place for a good portion of the spring. Lightning and hail were the stars of the chase season, hail ranged from 0.25" to 1.50".

2008 Chase Season Highlights

2008 Storm season was full of some great structured storms. The best being a storm we intercepted in west Texas. All tornadoes were caught in Central Kansas. Overall this was a great chase season as the pattern was very active during my time in the plains. The chase covered many states including: Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska and a tornado warned cell chased us into Missouri and force us to seek shelter in a kitchen of an Applebee's.