Death Ridge and New Possibilities

I think I am starting to see first hand just what this "death ridge" thing is all about. Not only does it place a hold on chases for days on end, but it slowly drives chasers insane. SDS in the middle of storm season, good god what are we being punished for? After the amazing year I had in 08 I can say that I am feeling the pain of this as much as the rest of you are. And I have my fingers crossed that I will get at least one more chance at a full condensation before the season is up. 

Until then however I have decided that it's time to explore other possibilities in my life. Growing up I had more then one passion. Considering that as a child I never believed I would get the chance to actually chase storms, I set aside that desire, and turned my attention to my other passion. That would be my fascination with the paranormal. My love for scary movies is not just  because having the shit scared out of me is fun, but also because I am drawn to the unknown. I was the kid that sat in the back of the cafeteria with books piled in front of me that delved into the possibility of UFO's, earth spirits, ghosts, and other events that seemed to defy explanation and forced people to sleep with the lights on. Yes there was a point in my life where I slept with the lights on as well. I have had my share of experiences.The difference between me and most others is that I had a thirst to find out if it was real or just my imagination. 

As I got older I found myself being drawn to people who had the same interests but sitting around talking about it did not quench the thirst or quell the desire that burned  in me to learn/understand more. These friends of mine have all moved on, some are in bands not signed as of yet, well not that I am aware of, some completely destroyed their lives, and one even moved on to be a ghost hunter, good on you Steve, but me, I did what my parents wanted me to do. 

My family was made up of mill workers, folks who never dared to do anything other then wake up every day, go to work, come home, go to bed, get up, repeat and eventually die miserable. I started to follow in those foot steps, matter of fact every member of my family at one point in time worked at the same paper mill in Holyoke Mass, "Parsons Paper". My father worked there for 36 years, my grandmother and grandfather worked there but my grandfather eventually moved on to work at a different paper Mill and died from a massive heart attack 3 weeks after he retired. My father who my only memories of him are as a miserable old man,  spent the last three years of his life in retirement and in pain from hereditary conditions worsened by over working himself. I never saw my father growing up because he was always at work, and his retirement was an early one because after a while his conditions prevented him from working. 

He spent the last three years of his life collecting stamps and kicking himself in the ass for having never lived out his dreams of becoming an architect. He did tell me in the end that he was sorry for the way our lives were, that he did his best (which I knew) and that he was sorry for leaving me with nothing more then his medical conditions, because  I am slowly developing them. 

My younger brother, who I am very close to and miss dearly, shares the same interests in the paranormal that I do. He worked at Parsons for a very long time and eventually saw his life slipping away through the bottom of a bottle of whiskey. After surviving an overdose which placed him in a coma for 6 weeks, he smartened up, realized he was given a second chance at life and I am happy to say is doing everything he can to take full advantage of it. 

My step brother spent most of his life working at parsons as well and so did my mom. He defies any sort of explanation and lives with the belief that he has the right to be a miserable prick and so I pretty much leave that alone. 

My mom is slipping away as well, but it's old age that is claiming her at this point. 

I did what my parents expected of me, I married and had kids. I worked at parsons as a secretary, but I was eventually forced to give it up and stay home to care for my ailing child. Korben is doing better then the doctors could have ever imagined. It's not a full recovery, and I honestly don't believe  it ever will be, but he is happy and as healthy as a child in his situation can be.

 All around me I could see how every ones lives were slowly coming apart at the seams and I realized I could not be a part of that. So I left and moved to Oklahoma to do what... well chase storms of course :-), finally doing what I want instead of following the flock to an early grave. 

 This death ridge from hell has forced me to take a second look at things, and I have realized that chasing is only about 3 or 4 months out of the year, it leaves an enormous amount of time to explore other avenues. I am being given a second lease on life so to speak and I have decided that I am not going to spend 8 months of the year waiting around for the next storm. I can't do that, it's a stagnant way to live and I am not cut out to deal with it. So I am going to re explore an old fascination of mine and try my hand at ghost hunting. So you are going to see this blog go from being just babblings about stormchasing to babblings about ghost hunting as well. I have no idea how far this will go, but at least in the end I can say I tried :-) Now the only question is where the hell do I start?

4/9/09

8/09/09 We chased Oklahoma, Kansas, Mo and although we were sitting in the middle of a cell that went tor-warned we ended up seeing nothing more then a pretty sunset as we crossed the border into Oklahoma. I saw the cell on radar and even based on my naked untrained eye I can tell you I have no clue why they warned that cell. By the time it went tor-warned we had pretty much given up on the day all together. But what we did see upon entering the state of Oklahoma was the brush/grass fires that were raging here that day. Now I have seen small brush fires while growing up in Mass and I saw a few on TV but that night was the first time I actually ever saw it "physically" right in front of my face and I must admit it was pretty damn scary.
As you can see by the photo the sky is not normally that color of orange, this is actually unfiltered, what you are seeing is all of the smoke in the air..I was happy to see that by the time we got to the fires themselves they had pretty much died down but it is the first time I ever saw entire wooded areas ablaze and hopefully it will be the last time I ever see it. From what I am told about Oklahoma's history of droughts though I have a feeling it will not be the last time.

Missed events.

I received an email this morning questioning if tornadoes can happen anywhere at any time, be it here in the plain states, on the west coast or the east coast. Now as most of you know I am originally from the east coast. Hurricanes, oh yeah we had those, nasty snow storms.... some of the worse, but tornadoes...... NEVER right?
Research it and you will read about the 1953 tornado that ripped through Worcester and leveled a good portion of it. Other areas that I know of that were hit years ago were Holyoke, where a tornado dropped down on my ex's mom's house and ripped part of her the roof off, and there was one that moved through Westfield when I was a kid, and a rotating wallcloud that passed over head where I was babysitting in Chicopee when I was 16. That was the event that turned my interest from meteorology to stormchasing and led me to where I am today.
You will also find that last year Western Mass folks saw numerous (for them) reports of tornadoes and some pretty nasty wind damage, but while these were happening I was here in Oklahoma chasing.
It's funny how many people actually believe that because the portion of Mass I originate from is in a "valley" it offered us automatic protection from tornadoes. But if you flip through the archives of severe storm events in Western Mass you will find that is just not true.
I received a lot of text messages last year from friends freaking out because suddenly they were seeing warnings and watches and some even swore they saw the actual funnel. Now as much as folks may want to poo on the idea that these people were seeing them, they are in the archives at NWS. I do not have friends in Mass that are skywarn personal or stormspotters by choice, I only have friends that I would drag to these classes with me and then watch them snore.
I did not know anyone in Mass who held the same fascination/obsession with severe weather that I did/do, but some of my friends that went to these classes with me actually paid attention. Now have they seen anything out on the east coast like folks see here in the plains... not so much, and do I think they would shit themselves if they saw the difference... absolutely. I am sure they would question my sanity a lot more now then they did back then. That's ok and is the reason I am here and not there. But their lack of passion for severe weather did not prevent them from experiencing it, at least now they have some knowledge that these events can and do happen just about every where, and in the end that's what counts.
I am a little pissed that I missed last years events. It's one thing to be out here chasing and catching tornadoes where they are so common, but to get them in a place where they supposedly don't exist would be really cool. I only fear that because they do not happen as often in Mass as they do here, the long drought between events would drive me over the edge.

Pretty storm

Sadly though it was nothing more then that. A bit of lightening, a few rumbles of thunder, a down pour and it was over with. Not even a piece of hail. Oh well I guess I should be happy that it at least proves there is still moisture in the air. I just hope it's enough for this weekend. One thing it did give us was some really pretty striations as you can see here,



and some other pretty pictures...... The one above is Shane's favorite. The one below is mine. I like this one because in my opinion it's a little bit more artsy, either way I hope you like them.

Oh and once again, yes these were taken with my phone. I really can't wait to get a "real" camera.

Just crazy

I woke up yesterday morning to find only what I can assume would be the Oklahoman version of a winter wonderland. I was impressed at the amount of snow that stuck to the ground and by how cold it was. I was impressed but, I HATED IT, don't think that has changed. Short of stepping outside to have a smoke I remained in the house while Shane did what ever running around he wanted to do. I went to bed last night, it was freezing out and there was still bits of snow showing.

I woke up this morning and the birds were singing the trees were in bloom the temps had gone up significantly and I just stood there in shock.....I am amazed at how fast things around here changed. I remember back in Mass we would have periods like this. It would snow one day and there would be a small amount on the ground and such but if we woke the next day and it was warmer there would still be a small amount of snow on the ground and it would be a wet, gray sort of warm day, not winter at midnight and Spring by midday. From what I am being told it's going to be a bright, sunny warm and boring week here in Oklahoma.... In other words nothing to chase. But if I have learned anything in the year that I have been living down here "if you don't like the weather wait a while (hell a couple of hours) it will change". So I am not losing hope just yet :-).

Tornado #19, and A Very Happy Anniversary

Yup you got it, March 23rd 2009 I saw my 19th tornado 2-3 miles northeast of Arkansas City. Best of all March 22nd marked one year that Shane and I have been together. What better gift could any woman receive, then a tornado. On top of seeing my 19th tornado I also managed to get some pretty wild photos (off my cell phone) of a couple of rotating wall clouds, which were utterly breath taking, a scud bomb and yes my little tornado. Now mind you the photo of the tornado is a little bit hard to make out, I was sitting in the back seat trying to snap a photo of it with my cell phone through the front window, but if you look close enough you can see it.....

Just before getting that photo I managed to grab this rotating wall cloud. Probably my most favorite picture of them all.....


and then there was this one...

and of course my scud bomb.....
and last a lovely core that we passed by as we were leaving Oklahoma.


I know a lot of you heard about our wreck. Well let me tell you that there really was no sign on that road signaling that strange ass turn that came out of no where. I am a bit sore but nothing I won't get over, and well in all honesty it was allot of fun. All I can say is I am looking forward to finally having my Rebel and our next chase :-).

First chase of the year and another awesome party at Steve Miller OK's

Friday March 6th was yet another awesome Party at Steve Miller OK's place. Per usual we had a really great time, and I got to finally meet a few more really great people: Scott Bennett, Randy Cooper, Tony Laubach, Lanny Dean, Erin and Chad Berryhill, and a few other folks whose names escape me right now... sorry. Everyone ended up being really cool and I ended up having a really good time. The party was also live streamed for CTV which was (I believe) officially launched that night. Thanks again Steve and Andrea for another awesome night :-)

March 9th 2009 was officially my first chase of the year. I spent the entire winter looking so forward to that day and it ended up being a bust. It really sucked that it ended up that way, but it was a hell of a trip. We chased with Steve Miller OK and Hans Schroeder, who proved to be just as much fun to chase with as they are to hang out with at parties :-)

Our target started off being Ardmore, but Mother Nature had her own ideas for that day and we ended up west of Hennessey instead. We met up with Chad and Erin Berryhill as well as Scott Nordstrom in Hennessey, and then moved west on OK51. We finally stopped for a period at farm on 51, kept an eye on the sky and our fingers crossed. After about an hour of hanging around, watching radar, and messing with our live stream on CTV, we spotted a cell north of us on radar and decided it would be fun to play with...so we headed off to see what would happen. We decided there was no way we were going to catch it, so we changed our minds and decided to head west to catch a cell that was coming off the dryline. After a short drive and a very pretty sunset we found ourselves on north side of a cell in Watonga. That storm produced the largest hail of the day anywhere, along with some lightening. From there we decided to head back to Norman, and caught some real pretty lightning (including several close CGs) in Oklahoma City, which we watched while eating dinner at Sonic. At that point I pulled out my phone and decided to play solitaire during the rest of our ride home.

All in all it was a bust but, a bust is a chase and the chase is what it's all about. The company made it worth while so in my opinion it was all good :-) Thank you Steve and Hans for allowing us to tag along and I hope we get to chase with you guys again this season.