In The Vortex

Tag: video

  • Lamesa, TX Tank Battery Fire in SLOW MOTION

    I have put together a slow motion clip of the incredible tank battery explosion I posted yesteday from Lamesa, TX that you no doubt have seen all over the news.

    I have received some requests from various fire personel from all over asking for a copy of the video for training.  I am going to be putting this on a DVD for that very purpose.  I will be happy to freely give one to any official fire department that wants it for training purposes.  All I as is that you either contact me through email from an official government email address, or you can email me and get my mailing address and send me a request on department letterhead.  I have over an hour of video of this fire.

    Just a follow up on the vehicle condition as some have been asking.  I got the estimates today and the damage was even worse than I thought.  Many of the structural members beneath the skin were damaged and have to be replaced, and it’s most likely going to be a total loss for the chase vehicle.

  • 04/25-26/09 Storm Chase Recap

    Saturday ended up with a big chaser convergence in Shamrock, TX meeting old friends while we sat around waiting for things to fire off.  Got on the first storm that fired off the triple point, that was very high based, but eventually caught us by surprise with a weak tornado spinning up in the field directly beside us, crossing the road just yards in front of Ben Holcomb, and then into the field on the other side stampeding the cows.  Unfortunately when it crossed the road it only had some grass in it, so it didn’t pick up on the camera well.  I would have thought this was a gustnado had I not been filming a very intense circulation in the base directly overhead.  Over a dozen of us that saw this agreed on tornado.

    Later on we ended up seeing an incredible wall cloud rotating furiously, but it never produced.  Not much else came from that day.

    Sunday, we played the odds and got on the long lived supercell coming out of Texas in to Oklahoma, intercepting it south of Vernon, TX.  Despite several attempts it never could produce a tornado, but twice if came VERY close, once with a giant wall cloud, then later as we fled to get away from the circulation as it moved over Carnegie, OK and sirens were blaring!  That town just narrowly missed a bullet.

    Today has some potential for a sleeper even in eastern New Mexio, more on that in another post shortly.