Pre-Season

I know I said I would start updating more frequently the last time. LOL!! I've either not felt like it or just did not have the time. My folks' big moving day was a week ago and I spent several days helping them get settled in and situated. They are officially and safely planted in Lubbock now. It is a huge relief and comfort to get that over with. There are certainly things that are a helluva lot more important than stormchasing.

I still have one more trip to get all of their audio-visual stuff hooked up including setting up a wireless router in their house. That is the final piece to make their move complete. This of course is assuming that Sudden Link Communications gets it installed correctly when they promise.

As for my new business venture, I have to admit that I haven't jumped in to it yet as I had wanted. That will start next week without a doubt. I've been putting off a few potential projects, but the good news is that I'm getting a couple of new inquiries every few days. The work is out there and waiting for me. It's a damned good position to be in.

And I just gotta comment on the Cowboys. Why did they lose? Well, it certainly didn't help that they all went on a week's vacation prior to their big playoff game. Superbowl teams don't do that...ever. They work their butts off practicing and honing their plays and offensive/defensive schemes and watch hours upon hours of video of the team they are going up against. They are hungry and determined. The New York Giants certainly proved that. So have the New England Patriots. With the Cowboys' level of playing declining in the last few games of the season and looking pretty pitiful compared to the first half of the season, the last thing they needed was a week off. Oh well.

As the month of January wanes, the SDS is really starting to escalate to epidemic proportions. As pissy as some chasers are starting to get, there might be some gang related activity at the Stormchaser Convention. That should be quite fun to watch for those going. Be sure to practice flashing your chaser gang-affiliation symbols. LOL!!

On a more practical note, it will be interesting to once again see how this season unfolds. Will May once again crap out for the most part? It will be interesting to see if it does. With the very cold winter we are experiencing, I'll be particularly interested in seeing what kind of moisture we have to work with this year. I read something by Rich Thompson of the SPC talking about colder airmasses spreading out over the GOM and Caribbean actually increasing the overall hemispheric moisture content. I'll see if I can dig that up someplace so that I don't practice science without a net. I'm not a CFDG-approved publicator (is that a word?). ;-)

But, basically, there is a greater latent heat transfer from the relatively warmer GOM waters when that occurs. Thus, more moisture is "absorbed" from the balmy tropical waters into the colder airmass. This certainly explains why the warmer winters we had were followed by drier springs where dewpoints would crater with daytime heating as the 850mb bone-dry air would mix out the very thin and shallow surface moisture....despite several days or return air over the GOM. The 850mb layer was bone dry across most of this hemispheric region.

I'm starting to look forward to the upcoming season!! To get us through February, I and a few friends are planning a major SDS therapy session in a few weeks. Hopefully a Panhandle blizzard won't screw it up.