In The Vortex

Author: David Drummond

  • The Side Effects of “Harmless” Storms

    Often as storm chasers, we talk about how we never want to see tornadoes going through populated areas, but would rather see them out going through fields not hurting anything. The real truth of that really hit home with me today as I noted a story by the station I chase for, KCBD, about a relatively benign landspout tornado that happened a couple of days ago on 09.26.07.

    This day really wasn’t a typical “tornado day” really. Actually, any severe weather was only expected to be very marginal for our area. However, as nature would have it, one lone wind shift boundary interacted with an otherwise harmless thundershower to produce severe weather, and a nice landspout tornado.

    Hale County Landspout 9/26/07

    What would have otherwise been a nice surprise on an unassuming storm day, in reality was devastating to some farmers. What was to be a million dollar crop of cotton, corn and milo was quickly turned to rubbish, and with it this years livelihood for some farmers. For one farmer in particular, who lost almost all of his crops earlier this year to hail, this was the final straw as it took out his last remaining harvest. To this farmer in particular, this will be a devastating impact.

    Hale County Cotton Damage 09.26.07

    Hale County Cotton Damage 09.26.07

    Fortunately, there were no injuries or structure damage, but the impacts were nearly as great. Something we chasers should keep in mind while we are enjoying that tornado going through a field, “not hurting anyone”, in fact really might be.

  • Fishing at Lake Alan Henry

    And now for something completely different…

    In rare form, I unplugged from most of the world for a change and headed down to Lake Alan Henry this weekend when Steve Miller called me up on a spur-of-the-moment fishing trip. This was the first trip to this lake for both of us. He has summed up the trip well in his blog so you can read more about that there. Steve is a great fisherman with plenty of experience. Me on the other hand, I am lucky if I ever catch anything, I just like to get out there for the peace and quiet and feed the fish expensive bait. This was a chance for Steve to teach me a thing or two about artificial bait fishing. I caught my first ever bass fish (2 smaller ones) and a couple of crazy perch, but it was fun! Steve did quite a bit better on the bass than I did however.

    Steve Miller sports a fish at Lake Allen Henry

    We also got in a lot of great hiking and exploring some back roads and hiking trails and found some really cool hidden away spots. One of our favorites was this huge cliff that dropped almost straight down into the water. I don’t know how high it was, but it was definitely HIGH! This is a view of it from the side…

    The Cliff at Lake Alan Henry

    And this was the view…STRAIGHT DOWN! Would have gotten a nasty scratch from falling off that!

    The Cliff at Lake Alan Henry

    We also saw a good sized rattle snake Steve has pics of over on his blog and in general had a nice relaxing time, despite the 300+ boats coming and going resulting in a huge traffic jam at the boat dock requiring Lubbock Police to sort it out. Despite the huge crowd, almost everyone was well behaved and we were able to hike back in to some area where most people didn’t tread. The nice thing too was we were able to scout out some great fishing spots from the shore that we want to take advantage of on a weekend that isn’t a holiday and less people around. There are also some GREAT primitive camping sites that are spaced out enough among the ample vegetation to give you plenty of privacy. I am looking forward to another trip there despite my attempted recovery today from Ultra Violet Radiation Poisoning!