Approach Of Autumn

In just a few days, the Fall season will be here. Looking at the models, the atmosphere appears to be taking it's cue. The upper ridge begins to fade away as the upper air pattern starts taking on the appearance more of spring with a big, powerful west coast cyclone rather than the typical broad east coast trough. In fact, here is a very interesting article talking about the left coast storm being more typical of April.

Indeed! This could be the vanguard of a more active fall severe weather season. We should see abit of that later this week and weekend as the big upper low opens up and kicks out. However, large troughiness will remain in it's place. This is advertised to stay in place through the next 10 days and beyond. The result in the moisture machine continuing to pump GOM air into tornado alley with surface fronts, troughs and drylines meandering around waiting for the next disturbance ina long parade of such to help spark things off.

This is in stark contrast to the typical fall pattern with a parade of strong, dry cool fronts shutting down the moisture machine and scouring the tropical airmass to Fidel Castro's doorstep. That's not too bad because it makes for some awesome weather for outdoor activities. :-)

Instability this time of year is always tough because of the mid levels being warmed all season long by convection. But, enough should be in place related to the abundant low level moisture to provide severe weather opportunities throughout the plains for the foreseeable future. I'm grinding out a Sept 28 deadline at work, so I can't chase beyond my backyard until October.

Last weekend was a blast with the camping and fishing trip with David Drummond and Jay McCoy. It was great to endure a few gut-busting laugh riots! The fishing wasn't all that great and it was hot and humid. That kind of took the fun out of it because I don't have a boat yet. Still, it was alot of fun and I look forward to more trips when the weather is abit cooler and the fish start getting stirred up in the fall. We definitely have all of the gear though.

Here are a few pics...nothing really special, but worthy of a look.

The big flag towards the damn.


This is looking down into the water. I should have used a polarizer filter, but still gives you and idea of how clear it is. The weeds are pretty deep....about 10 feet in this pic. How many baby bass do you see?


Camp Tailchaser! :-) That purple glow over my head is the Aura Of Awesomeness! LOL!! Seriously, it's from the fishing dock with about a 5 second exposure at ISO400 f4.


The heavens above. There is practically no light contamination at Lake Alan Henry. You can see everything.....


...including the Milky Way. The exposure was longer which caused the stars to appear to streak because of the earth's rotation. I hope to get a better low-light lens soon to really do this sky scene justice. I forgot just how many stars there really are in the night sky as it was truly a blanket of a million points of light.