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Ok, first off, I just thought of this and yes, sorry Weberpal, I forgot to tell you about this event because I know you would have wanted to help out with it too.

After Stressing about TS Fay all morning and into the afternoon, I am on standby to chase TS Fay right now if it becomes a hurricane in the next 24 hours.  While stressing about the storm, I took a break and went to work, yes Scott, my bad for not telling you…  Anyway we went to the Mall Of America to work another PR Event with…  Sorry Scott… 

Carlos Gomez & Harmon Killebrew from the Minnesota Twins.

And now time to talk about TS Fay.  I’m on standby to see when and where I will fly out to intercept Fay once it becomes a hurricane.  I am already gearing up and getting ready to shoot some crazy HD footage with the new Underwater Housing.  Brian and I were talking tonight and we should be able to cover a ton of crazy shots in the surge and I was talking to Chris about helping out to cover some other shots.  If the stars line up and were able to pull this off and get some crazy HD footage, it looks like another production in the works.

Radar out of Cuba is showing the center of Fay and the mountain area in Eastern Cuba is taking it’s pound of flesh out of the storm. 

Once again, as you can see from the cool graphics from Weather Underground www.wunderground.com the forecast is all over the place and now it has shifted further to the west.  Where or where will Fay hit?  Will it be up north in the Arm Pit of Florida or as I like to call it, Southern Alabama.  Who knows but it looks like the track will take it further west and that is better for the hurricane formation since it will have more time over open water.

Now while writing this blog, the 2AM forecast has come out and Fay is now up to 50MPH and the track has stayed almost the same from the 11PM forecast track. 

Like the song by Asia say’s, Only Time Will Tell…

Today is one of those day’s where you don’t have enough time and you planned and promised to be somewhere when you know you DON’T make ANY plan’s AT ALL during hurricane season.  Today Neva and I are off to a family reunion south of the Twin Cities at her aunt’s place and I’m trying to plan a hurricane intercept and still have to get some gear out of storage.

The whole intercept is in question now because the storm is looking like crap due to the interaction with the mountains in Cuba.

The latest radar our of Cuba shows the storm is being really killed off by the land interaction.  Below is the two radar sites that are near the storm and it does not look good.

While NHC still has the storm coming in as a hurricane on Tuesday morning, looking at the latest computer models, the storm is still all over the forecast maps. The latest from Weather Underground www.wunderground.com shows another move to the west for most of the computer models.

NHC still thinks it is going to hit around the Naples to Fort Myers area as a hurricane but I’m starting to think it may only come in as a strong tropical storm at best now.  I will need to see what the setup does in the next 12 hours before I pull the trigger to go chase.

Now some people are talking about rapid storm development like what happened to hurricane Charley but there is one main difference. Charley was a developed hurricane long before it hit Cuba.  Below is the graphic from the day before Charley hit Florida in 2004.  It was a storm, not a system trying to be a storm. It is much easier to go and chase a hurricane that is already formed with a general area to intercept vs trying to intercept a storm that may form into a hurricane in a general area with a 50% chance it won’t even become a hurricane in the first place. 

Just looking at the latest update on TS Fay.  I will know tonight or first thing in the morning where I am going to fly into to chase the storm if the storm does not fall apart over the mountains of eastern Cuba over the next 24 hours.

If this forecast verifies, Brian, I’ll be chasing with you in your back yard…

The storm is still trying to come together but the track is so close to the area that could rip it apart in eastern Cuba that I’m worried that if I book up a flight to Florida now, I will be chasing water spouts and beers on the beach in the rain.

Time to see what tomorrows forecast brings but I’m getting ready to go pick up the XDCam and go.

I have been getting asked by a lot of people if I’m going to chase Tropical Storm Fay, and the answer is that if it becomes a hurricane I might but it’s looking like crap right now.  Last night Tropical Storm Fay’s pay took it along the length of Hispaniola (Haiti and Dominican Republic) and it barely survived the Journey over the island. 

Right now the forecast track is all over the Map.  Last night it looked like it was going to hit the upper Gulf Coast like Hurricane Ivan and Hurricane Dennis did back in 2004 and 2005.  Now it’s looking more like Tropical Turd Ernesto from 2006 and TS Fay is almost on the same track as that POS storm Ernesto.  Why beat down TS Ernesto?  Simple because someone jumped the gun in my opinion and upgraded it to a Hurricane for a brief period of time when it was in almost the same place as TS Fay is now. and everyone started to freak out because they were still in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.  The funny part is that Tropical Depression Ernesto mad landfall on the one year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina so everyone was in a panic that it could be a repeat, and then it came in as nothing… 

Here is the latest Satellite Image and track for Fay from 1715 and 1815.  Fay is not looking that great yet.

Now that the center of Fay is over open water between Haiti and Cuba it is hard to say if Fay will regain any strength before making landfall over Cuba and the big question, will Fay make landfall over the mountainous area of Easter Cuba which could destroy her.

Below is a hurricane forecast track map from Weather Underground http://www.wunderground.com

As you can see, the forecast tracks are all over the map and the big question is where will it go and where will the Right Front Quadrant (RFQ) go?  The RFQ is the strongest part of the storm.  

Here is the 2PM NHC Forecast.

As you can see, NHC has the forecast center line track moving over the Lower Keys during the overnight on Monday and hitting the Naples Florida area to Fort Myers FL area on Tuesday Morning.  But if you look at the Weather Underground forecast tracking plots above, this thing could hit Miami and leave Naples in the dust or it could miss Florida altogether.

The GFDL Model which I tend to lean more towards is showing that it would miss Naples and hit the Miami area and ride up the Gulf Stream to the Carolina’s.  Like I said before, the computer forecast models are all over the Fn Map.  If the GFDL is right, then later this week it will be a real hurricane in the Carolina’s but if the GFS forecast model is right, I could be in Florida on Tuesday Morning filming in Fort Myers with Brian and Chris. 

Hurricane forecasting is much easier when the damn storm has already formed before it makes landfall and not as it makes landfall.

I just started a new section on my website for Paparazzi Photographs.  No not Weather Paparazzi but when there is no Weather, I can still do Paparazzi work. 

Ok I don’t do Stalkerazzi stuff, just real P.R. events to build up the stock footage archive and celebrity news stuff.

So when I get done unpacking all the stuff that I moved into Neva’s house and get the office back up to speed with stuff, I will be posting more of the photos from over the years. 

To start off the Paparazzi collection, here is some of the work I did yesterday.  Neva helped me with the New Kids On The Block video and photo shoot and took this one. 

And before ANY of you SMART ASS CHASER’s that read this blog (Brian, Bill, Eric and Tony) start to rip on me about being at a New Kids On The Block Concert at a mall like some 12 year old back in the 80s, STFU, I was also there for the Magic Johnson ribbon cutting for the new Best Buy Store at the Mall Of America.

Oh yeah, I got lots of stock footage from this event and got to listen to one hell of a great speech by Magic Johnson talking about business.  I got a ton of new ideas to work with after listening to him and how he runs his empire.  He is one of the few people that actually owns over 100 Starbucks and took playing basketball into making a huge corporate empire that owns a ton of stuff. 

Okay, time to get back to unpacking the boxes. 

Ok a bunch of people have been calling me asking me what is up, am I still alive?  Where have I been since it has been a while since I updated my blog or even called anyone. 

It is hard to think that just one year ago I was seeing this. 

It has been one crazy year since then.  In the last year I got the business rebuilt for the stock footage setup, did a ton of scuba diving, got a ton of sweet footage and met the woman of my dreams.  Which is why I have not been on line in the last month because I’ve been moving and now I am all moved out of the cities and in with Neva in St. Cloud.

I’m out of the cities and any thought of giving up my view that I had has been nullified since yesterday morning we were woken up by the weather radio alarm going off. 

A major storm was coming in and I went chasing.  I soon realized that living in St. Cloud has some real perks because now I am central to what is happening in the state of MN and best of all, I am already north of the metro when the auroras come back this fall.  Anyway, a major storm was coming so I left to go chase it at six in the morning. 

I got to the storm in what I thought was record time since I’m not living north and west of the cities and found that I can be on the storms ASAP now.

And what a storm it was for a early morning storm.  Here is the radar screen cap and my GPS position with the Green Arrow. 

The red box is off course the Tornado Warning that I’m driving right into.  It’s pretty hard not to see where the hook on this storm is located.

And this was what I was seeing that wrapped from around the whole storm from the Northeast side to the Southwest.  It looked pretty cool and I just wish I had a fish-eye for the still camera. 

The time-lapsed video that I shot of this looks pretty sweet and I will be getting that up on the stock video site as soon as I get caught up with rebuilding my office up in St. Cloud this weekend.

Back to unpacking.  My to do list is all about unpacking and getting back to business this weekend because towards the end of next week I will be hella busy with paparazzi stuff.

Wow, just looking over the latest data for Tropical Storm Dolly and if the forecast track keeps to where I think it was going to go this morning (Monday) then I will be uber forecasting. 

Here is the 10 PM forecast graphic from the National Hurricane Center.

I have been watching the storm on Vis and Shortwave Sat today and watching it move to the west at around 16-18 (17) miles per hour and stay only at a 50 miles per hour tropical storm force.

Here is my forecast, if Tropical Storm Dolly keeps it’s due west track, it’s going to be a major bust for anyone chasing the storm.  With no real jump in the center of circulation wind speed and a fast ground track, Tropical Storm Dolly is going to be making landfall a lot faster then expected and in Mexico.    However, Dolly is expected to slow it’s forward speed and build during the overnight according to some of the computer models but I just don’t trust them. 

My Gut Forecast says, Mexico.  It’s still July and there is still several months of hurricane season left.  Were not even in the prime which comes in September.  I can wait for a better setup and use Dolly to refine my forecasting skills on the latest computer model updates for this season.

The tropics are going nuts this week.  With Tropical Storm Christobal off the North Carolina coast that is doing pretty much nothing but kicking up some large surf, to now Tropical Storm Dolly that just passed over the Cancun area of Mexico and now heading into the Gulf of Mexico where it may turn into a cat one or cat two hurricane.

My Thoughts.  Why, I’m trying to move this week up to St. Cloud and why does this have to happen this week?  Fucking Murpheys Law…

Next Thought, not saying anything bad about Mexico but if the storm hits Mexico, nobody in the press will care that much.  How many shows have been produced about Hurricane Dean that hit Mexico back in 2007 or Hurricane Wilma back in 2005.  Pretty much nothing except for a few B-Roll clips but for the most part it was nadda.

Now if Tropical Storm Dolly turns into hurricane Dolly and hits the US Coast, well then we may have a story.  

The first problems with Dolly is timing.  Is Dolly going to come in during the day or night.  The latest forecast tracks show that Dolly will more then likely be a night storm which means you can’t really see anything for video.

Next is where it is suppose to hit on the latest 10AM NHC Forecast Track.

The forecast track for Dolly is in the evening hours of Wednesday, that is just 2 days from now with it moving west north west at 18 miles per hour.  This storm will be over in a blink of an eye when it hits land at that speed.

And now the other major issue with chasing Dolly.  Where it is going to hit.  The middle of a Ranch in Texas.

View Larger Map

What, the middle of the ranch?  Yes, the middle of nowhere in Texas is where the latest forecast is taking this storm.  Look it up and you will see that from Brownsville Texas to Corpus Christi Texas there is nothing for the storm to hit.  There is no coastal road to travel on to refine the position like in Florida or along the upper gulf coast.  Matter of fact the only real road is Highway 77 that is over 15 miles away from the coast line.  One could take road which will be locked down to South Padre Island or Port Mansfield but I doubt anyone will be able to get into those areas.

This looks like the perfect storm to hit the United States as it will hurt more Cattle then anything else along the coast line.  Now the flooding that comes from this storm, that could be a whole different problem. 

Right now, I am on standby to head to Texas tomorrow but it now is looking more like I will be staying put for the next 24 hours.

To start out with, I have been chasing like crazy here to the point were Neva has been wondering when I am going to finish moving.  I was up by Canada the other day and then chasing in Northern Iowa the next day.  The storms up north of Grand Forks were pretty sweet but damn it is a Fn haul to get up there.  It’s like driving from Minneapolis, MN to Kansas City, MO, it will take a while.  But it was worth it.  I just wish I would have got up their sooner.  The area is still way up north but when there is nothing else happening, it was worth the experience chasing tornadic storms why up north.

Okay, now onto other news about the chaser community.  I really did not want to touch this one with a 100 foot pole but I will address it here and now.

A couple week’s ago, a tornado was reported in Valentine Nebraska.  Video of what was thought to be the tornado was fed out to all the news media of the event.  And then all the other chasers saw it on viral video feeds and the network feeds and AP online feed.

Then that is when a few of us started saying wow, that sure is a cool looking speed up video feed to make it look faster.  But wait, that looks like the Rock Kansas tornado from June 12, 2004 which was same day as the Mulvane Kansas tornado day that must have been documented by several hundred chasers. 

Here is what KSTP, the station I freelance for in Minneapolis, this is what they had on their website.

http://kstp.com/article/stories/S506179.shtml
Created on: 07/11/2008 01:45:50 AM
By DAVID BAUDER
Tornado videographer denies doctoring footage
(AP) NEW YORK – A storm chaser accused of doctoring old tornado video and selling it under the pretense that it was taken last week in Nebraska denied wrongdoing Thursday, suggesting that professional jealousy was behind the allegation.

The Associated Press and video services operated by CBS, NBC and Fox pulled the video late Tuesday after determining that there was enough evidence to question its authenticity.

Andy Fabel agreed to sell the footage for $295 to The Associated Press, and also made it available to the other news organizations. The AP has purchased tornado video from Fabel on three previous occasions.

A fellow storm chaser, Dan Robinson of Appalachian Skies Media, contacted the AP to say he believed Fabel’s video was a doctored version of images taken of another twister that touched down four years ago in Rock, Kansas.

Fabel told the AP on Thursday that he legitimately filmed the Nebraska storm. He said fellow storm chasers are “jealous of you if you got a tornado that they wanted. They’ll pack it up and try to crucify you. “Robinson said the image was “flipped” to make it seem the tornado was pointed in another direction, and the action sped up.

The supposed Nebraska footage includes power lines not seen in the Kansas storm; it also is minus trees shown in the Kansas images. Robinson said he was familiar with the Kansas storm because he, too, had filmed it from a similar angle. He said at least four other storm chasers who had witnessed the Kansas storm agreed on an Internet forum that the video was from Kansas.

The AP had sent Fabel’s video Sunday to nearly 2,000 Web sites that subscribe to the company’s Online Video Network, and more than 60 large digital customers that buy AP’s online content individually. Upon seeing the evidence, the AP eliminated the video from OVN and contacted its other customers to urge them not to use it, said Kevin Roach, the AP’s acting head of domestic broadcast news operations.
“We never want to mislead people,” Roach said. “Based on evidence provided to us, we believe that the video was not authentic. “Roach said the AP looked at the two video streams side-by-side, and examined individual frames of the footage in making its determination. He also asked for opinions from a photo editor and third storm chaser, Roach said. “It was rather definitive for us,” he said.

The NBC, CBS and Fox services provide video to the networks’ affiliates. They had agreed to buy Fabel’s video and distributed it, then took it off their servers on Tuesday after suspicions were raised, representatives for the networks said.”There was enough evidence for us to make it suspect, ” said Sharon Houston, an executive producer with NBC News Channel. John Stack, vice president of news gathering for Fox News Channel, said Fabel has been one of the top storm chasers relied upon by media for tornado pictures. Now he said Fabel’s work is suspect. “The concern is whether he’s an actual news gatherer or Cecil B. DeMille,” Stack said.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

And then there is this one from the Chicago Tribune.

It has the frame grabs from the two videos to prove it was a fake. 

This was a bad thing to do and to ruin everything and hurt the industry for $295?  What an idiot.

Chased up north today with Neva and got screwed by the trees.  We were on several great storms but lost them in the trees and then on one of the better storms that had a tornado warning on it, and was heading towards Brainerd MN, we were totally on it and then we were totally blocked by Camp Ripley.  Ugh, I remember why I never chase up north of St. Cloud and north of I94. You can’t see anything except for forests.

We headed south and chased down highway 10 towards Anoka when Neva got this shot. Here is the point and shoot photo that Neva took as we were driving through Elk River on the south side of town.

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr  ugh, I have been trying for a decade to get a shot of lightning and a rainbow together and she just points the little Canon Powershot out the window and said “That was pretty easy”.