Tony's Blogbach, Between the Isobars

There are 19 days between August 12 and August 30, and I chased 11 of them.  Three were road travel days, and I flew to Houston on the 30th… 15 of 19 days I was on the road/in the sky… if you factor Edouard and flying home yesterday, that would be 17 of the last 21 days… that’s a lot…

So yes, forgive me when I say FINALLY in terms of a quiet stretch… I hadn’t really had any idea I had gone that hard in the last few weeks until I felt it yesterday.  Edouard wasn’t the most exhausting storm, but as I was dragging my way through airports yesterday, I thought it was weird I had felt so tired after that.  But when I realized the context to which that short trip had fit in, it made perfect sense.  This is definitely not the time of year I am use to this kind of grind.

So yeah, I’m happy to get a little exhale in here… shouldn’t see anything of note between now and early next week, so I am hoping that means a little R&R to recharge a bit.  I feel kinda behind on life, as is often the case during the Spring, but not usually ending summer.  So it’ll be nice to do something that does NOT involve weather for a moment.  I don’t shy away from the fact that I absolutely do NOT fall into the ‘Never Stop Chasing’ crowd… sometimes, I do want to stop, even if it’s a short-term stop.  But right now, it’ll be nice to STOP chasing for a minute.  The snoring floof ball on my floor is representing what I wanna NEVER stop doing for the next few days.. haha

That said, I’ll probably be fairly quiet after today… gonna spend a few hours on the ol’ PC getting some social stuff prepped and scheduled, including some YouTube videos.  I’ve missed two Fridays in the last several weeks due to being out, so I need to try to lock in a few posts.  Fortunately I accomplished my main goal already, so it’s not devastating to me to miss a week here and there.  Actually, my original goal was every-other-week, so the fact that I was doing weekly was already over and beyond anything I had planned, so yay me for that.  Because of that, I do not come down upon myself for missing a week here and there. 😀

That all said, break time!  I’m going to enjoy every bit of it, except the heat… that can go screw itself a few times over.  And while there is nothing coming that will give even a hint at Fall, the long-range models are at least starting to show the POTENTIAL that the summer heat’s time is numbered, at least here along the Colorado Front Range…

The Pumpkin Spice awaits it’s permanent integration into life…

Trust me when I say that I wasn’t really have THAT much fun standing in the western eyewall of Edouard near Port Arthur, Texas to start off September; I was attempting to recorded a selfie-style video, but the wind and rain was so overwhelming, I just laughed at the camera.  Made for a great still!  Haha

But yes, got back from a one-and-done intercept of Edouard; a small, but mighty storm… got blasted pretty good in the western eyewall, and spent a good chunk of time doing the thing in there, and was back home the following day.  While more than a few lines of writing to say about it, I may use this as my excuse to finally launch the Tropical section of this site, or at least get the cards and placeholders up.  So standby for that.  But more than anything, just wanted to note I was down there for it!

https://tonylaubach.net/weather-journals/

This is exciting!  In conjunction with a social media series I am putting together for September, I finally created a space here on my site to include some early-era (pre-chase) weather journals, which cover many events in the mid/late 90s prior to my chase documentation.  This includes a few Ohio-based weather events I experienced and documented in some form, plus my high-school era lightning photography when I moved to Colorado in 1998.  For years, most of this stuff has been scattered about on various pieces of hardware in various forms of archives, many scans of old photos with no dates or write-ups, but thanks to pooling all my archives, I have been able to get dates, even old-write ups and other documentation to put some of these together and displayed.  This is exceptionally cool for me as this will home a lot of the early year lightning photos, which were the ‘chases’ that bridged the gap between my first tornado in 1997 and my documented years starting in 2002.  With this, I now have documentation of at least ONE ‘chase’ event every year since 1997, and now I have a place where the pre-2002 stuff can live.  Obviously, like so much on my site, it will be a work-in-progress as I am trying to prioritize various other posts.  As you can imagine, 30 years worth of content, a lot of the early stuff scattered to the digital wind, will take some time to sort through, but I have finally hit a point where I can get some of that stuff live on the site!

In addition, I should have some landing pages for various event section, including tropical systems, winter weather, etc.  I have been working behind-the-scenes with those, and while they’re still a ways away, the templates are being hammered out to at least have landing pages ready in the near future!

The last two weeks have provided plenty in the eye-candy department, from awesome lightning to great structure to awesome sunsets, and while yesterday’s chase provided plenty of a lot of that, what it did differently this time was actually be severe.  Yes, I have seen severe storms scattered over the last couple weeks, but its been rare to actually experience one.  Yesterday will wrap up this lengthy stint with a memorable bow echo intercept along I-80 as I rode out 60-70mph winds in Maxwell after being overtaken by a pretty dramatic looking shelf cloud.

Wrapped up in North Platte shooting lightning til just after midnight HOPING that the MCS and its associated clouds would clear in time to give me a peak at the lunar eclipse.  Unfortunately, they did not, but the lightning show was pretty good.  I had positioned a bit further north and away from the lightning to allow the best chance to snag the moon, which ultimately prevented me from getting better lightning shots, but alas, it was still an awesome show.

Heading home today and should be stationary for a stint, minus any chance that Dolly reforms later next week.  Outside of that, should be pretty quiet for me after a busy last couple weeks.  I will gather my August stats up and see where it sits in my history after I get home and get this chase formally in the books.

To say the cameras got a workout yesterday would be an understatement.  I woke up in North Platte after having seen my target shift from northwest Kansas the morning before, to ‘perhaps around North Platte’ the night before, to “oh crap, I’m going all the way to Wyoming, aren’t I’.  Big shift in how I panned this day, but I pivoted, headed west, and was treated to some fantastic daytime lightning which the Bolt Hunter captured very well (that thing has completely changed my lightning chasing).

After some great lighting near Kimball and a quick core check, I got onto the storm of the day after it was no longer the storm of the day, but provided an amazing rainbow scene, some more lightning, and the sunset stormscape of my career (see featured image above).  It was serene, unworldly, all the adjectives that go with it.  It only lasted a handful of minutes, but I managed to capture at it’s peak.  Easily one of my favorite pictures of the last few years.  After which, I caught some more lightning at the NE/WY border and was home before 10pm!

Today is a low-end Colorado day, which again, had my original plans stuck, likely would’ve involved me coming in front the east on I-70, but as Nature would have it, I ended up home, which sets up for a much more chill morning, a quick load-up and go.  Denver to Cheyenne is kinda the initiation zone, so it’s a matter of when I head out and where I end up.  That said, day 3 of this mini-August stint will commence in a few hours.

Meanwhile… while yesterday was the day, TODAY is when I christen the PUMPKIN SPICE for the first time this year 😀