Storm Chase of May 28, 2016
This was one of the storm chases where I should have just sat in my apartment all day and let the storms come to me. It was a very marginal day, there was a bit of instability, but not much wind shear. Also, the cloud bases were pretty high up as well; which is not…
PECAN: Fin
This update is long, long overdue. On July 9th, Frederick, Ren, and I hit the road for Kearney, Nebraska. Hunter had to head back to Hays on the 8th, but would meet us in Kearney. This time, we ended up having nearly no down time in Kearney. In fact, I think we only had one…
PECAN: Fixed PISA 5 – Again
My team did end up rotating to Colby, Kansas on June 30th. Just before that, we had a team member swap. Connor was going back to his school’s team, and we gained Hunter in return. We made the drive to Colby, and then had a mission that night. In fact, we had missions every night;…
PECAN: Fixed PISA 4, and back to the Mobile Team
After spending a week in Colby, KS, me team rotated to Kearney, Nebraska. I had been to Kearney once before (the night before the tornadoes in Rozel, Kansas back in 2013,) but I didn’t remember very much of it. The hotel we stayed in, the Windgate, was actually very nice. But overall, the week in…
PECAN: The Last Mobile PISA mission, and moving to Fixed PISA 5
So, the day after the night with all the lightning was IOP-5. I started out as a Low Level Jet mission, and we were originally told to head to the same spot we were at on Tuesday, which was northeast of Otisberg, Kansas. Along the way, we stopped in La Crosse for gas. While we…
PECAN: IOP 2, 3, and 4
It’s been a busy few days, and I haven’t had much time to blog. So Tuesday was IOP-2. IOP-2 was a Low Level Jet mission. We were given some coordinates, and sent on our way. The coordinates took us to a little ways northeast of Otisberg, Kansas. On this mission, Abbi, Lucy, Jon and I…
PECAN: IOP-1
Monday night was the first mission of PECAN. IOP-1 (Intense Observation Period-1, I believe,) as it was called, started out as a shake down mission, but became an MCS (Mesoscale Convective System,) mission instead. An MCS was forecasted somewhere along the Kansas-Nebraska-Colorado borders, though the exact location was not certain. So, the plan was to…
PECAN: Training and Prep
So, tomorrow is the official first day of PECAN. Since the chances of an MCS are a bit on the lower end, tomorrow we will be doing a shake down/practice run. This way, we can get some practice operating after dark, as well as make sure all our communications work. Over the past couple days,…