Author: Doug

This weekend has been a roller coaster for forecasting and chasing.  With the crazy weather setups and forecasts for the Midwest looked great the day before, on the day of the chase, everything was not as great and chase targets have been way off target for a lot of people.

On June 4th, the main area of risk and where most of the chasers went to go cover was in central Kansas.  A few stayed in Wyoming while the Colorado chasers I work with knew that the Palmer Devide area is always magical for weather.  That was the day Eric Treece and Verne Carlson got amazing if not insane footage.  Tony was pretty pissed that he went to Kansas along with others but all it takes is a degree or two in the cap and you get major storms or major busts.  The setup was a little different in Colorado then it was in Kansas and with the dynamics of the area, Colorado won the day for severe weather.

The next day, virtually everyone that was in Kansas and could chase went back to Colorado to chase.  A few unlucky chasers I know had to go back to work and go home.  No disrespect to them since obligations are just that, OBLIGATIONS.  I know I get shit from a few arm chair SPC chasers that say I don’t chase anymore when I have 50 people out in the field and I have obligations to them to make sure I’m working the news desk and to take care of them.  At the same time, were in the June weather setup now, the weather pattern is shifting north, and we have the ridge setting up where it will bring the storms up north.  Why drive all over the place when I don’t have to and can just wait for the weather to come to me?

Saturday was just one of those days where I wait for it to come to me.  I woke up early to what I thought would be a pack up and take a trip to Nebraska to chase and then looking at the forecasts I said, eh, I think I will stay home.  The area by McCook Nebraska would fire first and the area to the northeast would get screwed over.  Where there storms in the area of northeastern Nebraska?  Yes!  Where there storms that were worth my time to drive 10 hours round trip along with an additional 4 hours of waiting and chasing to blow off a possible local chase where I saw a major flooding issue?  That’s where I said, eh, no, I will stay home.

The decision to stay home was a good call as the flooding event did take place.

The area just to the north and west of Saint Cloud was hit with at least five inches of rain.  At one point Neva and I were documenting the flash flooding in Sartell, MN where several feet of water was in front of the police and fire department.

As we checked into the areas further to the northwest, the flooding and washed out roads were also pretty bad.  You would have never known since MPX seems to have ignored the reports of the flooding in the area yet again.  After seeing the flash flooding and the reports once again being blown off by the weather service, I’m just not going to bother to report anything anymore. 

This week looks to be a busy week for severe weather again and I’ll be out chasing with the setups being closer to home and up north.

P.S. Last nights storms, missed those due to staying home to repair the dishwasher and I was not able to get out in time.  Neva took off in her truck and shot some cool lightning photos while I was trying to play catch up with the storm.

The website infrastructure has been overhauled and now the core of everything here is up and running smoothly for my personal blog.  The only problem I have now is that “Too Much Happens In A Day” 

With all the side projects that I have agreed to help out with oer the last year or so from wedding videos, charity videos and just helping friends out, I have not had time for myself and barely had enough time for my business so the blog or I will like to call it going forward, “My Journal” had suffered immensely.  

Today, or was it yesterday, I can not recall since I have yet to sleep, but sine I’m still awake, I will say it is today even though it happened technically yesterday since it is five in the morning, was pretty insane.  A good friend of mine and one of the StormChasingVideo.com crew got some amazing footage but I also had flashbacks to 5/31/2013 or “El Reno” when I lost a couple of friends.   Verne got caught up in the storm and drove down the wrong road and got hit by the tornado. 

Many times while storm chasing, we depend on technology to help us with mapping and location in relation to the storm.  What happens when the road that is on the map is no longer there?  Today Verne had that problem.  The road that was suppose to be an escape route turned into what he said was a “Two Mile Driveway” that when he got to the house at the end, there was no where left to go?

Here is the footage he shot.  It is pretty insane. 

Now this was not the only video we had from today.  If you go to www.stormchasingvideo.com you will see we had some great footage from Ben McMillan who was live streaming most of the day.  Justin King had some great storm damage footage from just south of Loveland. Eric Treece and Brian Barnes were on the same storm as Verne.   So Yes, Too Much Happens In A Day, but I fit it all in somehow.

Now the question is how to fall asleep and get up early enough to be ready for today’s or do I call it “Tomorrows Storms?” Not sure how but maybe a couple of shots of Tequila could help but I doubt it. Time to lay my head down next to Charley (aka Happy Cat) and let the purring from him help me start to mellow out and get a few hours of sleep before hitting the news desk again.

Going Retro… After years of ignoring my website and depending on “Social Media” for my posts which in the end are not my own if you read the Terms Of Service, I’m going back to updating my website on a much more regular basis. 

Just like the photo below, I’m going retro, going back to listening to albums because they sound better and their more personal.

Now that it took a month to clean up and transfer the database, the updates should be flowing a lot more after I take care of the final bit of work this week, and I hope it might even be today or tomorrow.

Really not much to day, just trying to figure out how to work on rebuilding the website.

The only independent video production that documents Hurricane Katrina from both sides of the eye as the storm devastated the United States Gulf Coast.

The footage in this documentary was captured by my chase partner Chris Collura and myself from different parts of the hurricane.  It was shot in Miami, FL at Katrina’s first land fall and in the air with the NOAA Hurricane Hunters, we chart Katrina’s path towards the record breaking landfall.

The footage continues in New Orleans, LA prior to Katrina to document the evacuation of the region. As the storm nears the Gulf Coast, it also continues in Biloxi, MS before the record breaking storm surge destroys the coast.

We bring you through the storm and after the storm for an in-depth look at what was really happening 24 hours after Katrina in New Orleans.

This production was filmed and produced by the videographers who were on the ground and in the middle of Katrina the storm and storm surge came on shore on the morning of 08/29/2005.

To license footage from our production, please contact us at http://www.StormChasingVideo.com.  No part of this production or any of our footage on our YouTube channel can be rebroadcast without prior written authorization.

One of these days I will have free time to finally get the updated setup for the page.  I’m finally getting caught up on a lot of the behind the scenes work for SCV to get ready for spring. 
So here is the latest Aurora video and a still from last night out west.

After what seemed like a lifetime of overcast sky and above average temps in central Minnesota, we are finally back to real winter sub zero temperatures.  Now don’t start yelling at me saying you hate the cold.  If you hate the cold, leave, move to South Florida.   I personally love the cold weather for one simple fact that we don’t have any bugs flying around for half the year.  I’ll put on a coat, hat, and gloves if it means don’t have to cover myself in chemicals like Deet.

Another great thing about winter is the long nights and the chance to get to watch the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights. 

Tonight was another one of those rare nights were just north of Saint Cloud, MN the lights were visible once again.  

Below is the video I shot and one of the photographs form this mornings Aurora event.  Time for me to get back to working on the new website.  I hope to have it completed by the end of next month if not sooner.

Ok, so I get a lot of people wondering WTF, where are the updates to your blogs? What are you up to? Where are the new photos and video? Short answer, I’m over worked and doing the work of a two or three people to run my company Stormchasingvideo.com and soon I will have a full time assistant helping me run the company. Check www.StormChasingVideo.com to for the updates. Right now, I’m trying to get this website software up to date with the current versions of the CMS or content management setup software. The problem I’m having is there is some bugs in the software from much older versions of it from way back in 2006 and it has to do with stuff in the SQL database that is pretty much just a pain in the ass to try and solve. Next week, if the weather is mellow, I’m going to be working on a ton of accounting stuff and website upgrade stuff so come 2015, I’ll have a lot of to do lists stuff off the list and ready to go chase and grow StormChaisngVideo.com into something much larger and more fun. Hope everyone has a safe and fun holiday week. Doug

Just a quick post, it’s been a very busy week with the winter storm that hit the Saint Cloud, MN area.  I have been out working in the weather almost every day.  Check out www.StormChasingVideo.com for all the latest videos.

Also working on a site upgrade so I have not posted much since I have been busy behind he scenes.

As the season’s are changing and the temps are getting colder out. 
So this week, I finally did it.  I asked Neva to marry me.  I had some friend’s help out and I put together a cool little video for Neva to show her before asking her.