Thursday 21 July 2011

Arizona Desert Monsoon

Just 26 days until we depart for Sky Harbor Airport and the Desert Monsoon Trip to Arizona. Will be basing ourselves out of Scottsdale and have quite an extensive range to our North, East and South. Hope we get some decent Lightning and possibly some Haboobs!

Wednesday 6 July 2011

Arizona Monsoon Chasing - Aug 2011

Well in 6 weeks time we will be in Phoenix chasing the Desert Monsoon. The season has started very well with an intense burst mode - Check out the Following Timelapse Vid from 5th July over Phoenix.

http://www.mikeolbinski.com/2011/07/...july-5th-2011/

Sunday 3 July 2011

Monday 27th & Tuesday 28th June 2011

All models upto this event were showing probably some of the best conditions for about 5 years for the Uk. Cape values to 2,500jkg, A Cold Front moving in from the west with an Upper Trough between Scotland and Iceland, a hot plume of air was being advected North from the Iberian Peninsular with a shortwave trough expected to move north through Cherbourg to destabalise the atmosphere in front of the Cold Front all set the stage for some great storm chasing..................or so we thought! All organisations including Estofex, Torro, Netweather, Ukww, Met Office the list goes on were predicting the breakdown throughout Monday afternoon. Upon waking up early on Monday my hopes were waning though as an MCS In the Bay of Biscay was moving North Eastwards spreading it's cirrus shield over the UK. Surface heating although not affected in the morning got scuppered by this feature, temperatures peaked in the East at 33c before cooling off from noon onwards. End result of this were literally zero surface based storms apart from some briefly severe storms in the Newcastle area, later at 5pm the advancement of the Cold Front set off some Storms across Cheshire and Shropshire but for our chase it was ultimately a Bust! Round 2 we thought as the Shortwave would destabalise the atmosphere in the evening for the forecasted MCS.............Wrong Again!!!!!!!!! The MCS Duly formed but way down North of Bordeaux and this feature was only at the Cherbourg Peninsular by 06z on Tuesday. The other thing of note was how all the models showed the Cold Front cleared through the country and into the Low Counties by 12z Tuesday.........Wrong Again!! The hot and humid air was still resident in the SE Of England with the Cold Front stretching from NE England down through Dorset, this set the stage for the MCS now already crossing the English Channel to finally affect parts of the SE Mainly from the IOW Upto the Wash and everywhere South and East of this line. Here in SE Essex I counted 4 Seperate non severe Thunderstorms which were part of the MCS, no hail was received and only a few close Cg Lightning bolts, I recorded 23mm of rain from 2pm until 6pm and conditions were much fresher at 18c after the Cold Front had gone through at about 19z that evening.