Author: Doug

I spent the day shooting ton’s of footage on the new camera I have been testing out.  It’s the HD Sony EX1 XDCam tapeless setup and the Underwater setup on the other camera. 

For most of the day I scouted out the area around New Orleans and it is going to be insane when this storm hits.  This place is in a state of panic but it is in a controlled panic.  Controlled as in everyone is getting out of here and the evacuation is already started with tons of people leaving.  My evacuation forecast for NOLA is their will be more law enforcement then people in the region when the storm hits. 

And now on to the storm.

Here is the latest NHC forecast track for Hurricane Gustav and the track is shifting east more and more.

Yes, that is correct, the winds are 150 miles per hour and it is heading almost straight for me.  The good news, I’m here and their won’t be very many other chasers here due to the fact that the Police and National Guard are booting everyone out.  The bad news is that we may be stuck here for a while.

Here is the latest visible satellite images before sunset.  Gustav has a very well defined eye on it and it made a direct hit on the Isle of Youth in Cuba and is now slamming into western Cuba during the overnight hours as it enters the Gulf of Mexico. 

In all honesty, nobody knows were this storm will hit.  Just look at all the computer models below.  This thing could end up hitting Florida still. 

Ok, time to get some rest before I go back out and do it all over again.

Never in my wildest nightmares did I ever think I would be back in New Orleans for a hurricane and get here on the day of the three year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina for Hurricane Gustav.

Right now were just west of New Orleans and when I say we, I mean me and the boys from the TV crew.  Jared is back out for the chase along with some new friends and that homeless guy we picked up in Colorado back in June. 

Where will Hurricane Gustav hit?  That is the 64 Million Dollar Question friends.  The computer models are saying somewhere in the Gulf between Gulfport and Houston. 

Right now NHC current track has it centered on the area just west of New Orleans.

So it looks like the worst of the storm sure and the worst of the flooding could be heading this way with the worst of the winds heading towards the area just to the SW of New Orleans…

Oh Wait that is the center track, New Orleans is in the middle of the right side of the Three Day Cone. 

What does that mean?  That my friend’s tells me that NOLA could get this thing with a head on hit.  How many hurricanes hit and turned to the right at the last minute? Um yeah, most of them do in the Gulf.  Even that last thing, TS Fay turned to the right at the last minute.  Charley did in 2004 and so did Katrina and Rita.  I have a feeling I may be seeing the eye of Katrina in the worst spot possible.

If your not in here by now, your not getting into this town.  New Orleans is pretty much on a lock down with St. Charles Parish being locked down this morning.  I just heard the last flight out will be at 6PM today and the Contra Flow will start up today as well.

The good thing about this storm is Katrina woke up everyone and this time everyone is ready, well almost everyone.  The people are still partying on the street in the French Quarter but most are saying they are leaving ASAP. 

I have all the supplies I need to last me for a week so I am good to go.   I just hope that Hurricane Hanna does not come in while I’m still dealing with Hurricane Gustav.  This could be an active 2 weeks.

Did I make a mistake or did I make the right decision?

It’s 2:30 in the morning (Central Time) and I’m watching the radar out of Key West that show’s Tropical Storm Fay moving into Marco Island Florida. 

The reason I question if I made the right decision now is because the storm is looking much better on radar.  But and that BUT is for you Ryan since you hate it when I say BUT, But this was not the case last night.

24 hour’s ago, NHC had forecasted TS Fay to be coming in as Hurricane Fay into the Tampa & St. Pete area of Florida.  Here is the 2:00 AM forecast from NHC from last night.

As you can see in the forecast track above and the previous blogs, it looked like the storm was going to turn into a hurricane and hit Tampa in about 5 hours from now, BUT (just for you Ryan) that is not the case now as the Radar graphic above shows it making landfall just south of Naples Florida in the Marco Island area.

Just 24 hour’s ago, I was booking a flight to Tampa that would have left at ten in the morning and I would have been in Tampa by three in the afternoon to intercept what I thought was going to be Hurricane Fay. 

So why did I bail on the trip at the last minute?  Simple really, I just said a prayer and asked for a second opinion and not more then a few minutes later, Blake Michaleski, one of my friends and hurricane chase partners calls me up and said “Dude, have you seen the radar out of Cuba?” 

I was watching it but thought it was looking a little strange with the movement at first but when he saw the same thing I saw, it confirmed my worst fear, the storm sped up an the track shifted east and Fay was now heading almost straight north.  We talked about how the center of the storm looked as if it jumped out of the center of the cone from NHC that is posted above the radar image. 

So this spooked me because I knew if the storm busted ass north, it would not have the time it needed to grow into a storm that was worth chasing with the cost of flying into the area at the last minute. 

I watched Fay during the day and was on standby for now-casting for the stringers we do have in the area.  Hell I was even ready to get on a late flight into Tampa this afternoon and still fly down if the forecast would have changed but it did not.  TS Fay did not gain any strength and when it hit Key West Florida, it was still a 60 MPH Tropical Storm. 

I was ready to go but Fay just did not look like a storm that was worth chasing on Radar unless you already lived there.  Above in the radar image from around five in the afternoon, there was no real eye of the storm but a rag tag mess of a center of the storm.

Now Tropical Storm Fay is actually making landfall as I write this blog.  I just talked to my other chase partner Chris Collura who is on Marco Island right now and he said there is a lot of rain and wind but with it being a night he can see some stuff but as he put it “It’s Dark, And I Can’t See Anything Worth Getting Video Of Yet”.  The latest radar image as I type is this.

Now did I make a mistake by not going to intercept Tropical Storm Fay?

Nope, I think I made the right call.  I have Brian covering this and Chris is covering it as and their both top guns at what they do.  The storm is still not a hurricane with the latest report from Naples

Naples Municipal

03:53

Light Rain Fog/Mist and Breezy

76

76

100

NE 22 G 32

29.49

Look’s like I chose wisely…

Ok, first off, I just thought of this and yes, sorry Weberpal, I forgot to tell you about this event because I know you would have wanted to help out with it too.

After Stressing about TS Fay all morning and into the afternoon, I am on standby to chase TS Fay right now if it becomes a hurricane in the next 24 hours.  While stressing about the storm, I took a break and went to work, yes Scott, my bad for not telling you…  Anyway we went to the Mall Of America to work another PR Event with…  Sorry Scott… 

Carlos Gomez & Harmon Killebrew from the Minnesota Twins.

And now time to talk about TS Fay.  I’m on standby to see when and where I will fly out to intercept Fay once it becomes a hurricane.  I am already gearing up and getting ready to shoot some crazy HD footage with the new Underwater Housing.  Brian and I were talking tonight and we should be able to cover a ton of crazy shots in the surge and I was talking to Chris about helping out to cover some other shots.  If the stars line up and were able to pull this off and get some crazy HD footage, it looks like another production in the works.

Radar out of Cuba is showing the center of Fay and the mountain area in Eastern Cuba is taking it’s pound of flesh out of the storm. 

Once again, as you can see from the cool graphics from Weather Underground www.wunderground.com the forecast is all over the place and now it has shifted further to the west.  Where or where will Fay hit?  Will it be up north in the Arm Pit of Florida or as I like to call it, Southern Alabama.  Who knows but it looks like the track will take it further west and that is better for the hurricane formation since it will have more time over open water.

Now while writing this blog, the 2AM forecast has come out and Fay is now up to 50MPH and the track has stayed almost the same from the 11PM forecast track. 

Like the song by Asia say’s, Only Time Will Tell…

Today is one of those day’s where you don’t have enough time and you planned and promised to be somewhere when you know you DON’T make ANY plan’s AT ALL during hurricane season.  Today Neva and I are off to a family reunion south of the Twin Cities at her aunt’s place and I’m trying to plan a hurricane intercept and still have to get some gear out of storage.

The whole intercept is in question now because the storm is looking like crap due to the interaction with the mountains in Cuba.

The latest radar our of Cuba shows the storm is being really killed off by the land interaction.  Below is the two radar sites that are near the storm and it does not look good.

While NHC still has the storm coming in as a hurricane on Tuesday morning, looking at the latest computer models, the storm is still all over the forecast maps. The latest from Weather Underground www.wunderground.com shows another move to the west for most of the computer models.

NHC still thinks it is going to hit around the Naples to Fort Myers area as a hurricane but I’m starting to think it may only come in as a strong tropical storm at best now.  I will need to see what the setup does in the next 12 hours before I pull the trigger to go chase.

Now some people are talking about rapid storm development like what happened to hurricane Charley but there is one main difference. Charley was a developed hurricane long before it hit Cuba.  Below is the graphic from the day before Charley hit Florida in 2004.  It was a storm, not a system trying to be a storm. It is much easier to go and chase a hurricane that is already formed with a general area to intercept vs trying to intercept a storm that may form into a hurricane in a general area with a 50% chance it won’t even become a hurricane in the first place. 

Just looking at the latest update on TS Fay.  I will know tonight or first thing in the morning where I am going to fly into to chase the storm if the storm does not fall apart over the mountains of eastern Cuba over the next 24 hours.

If this forecast verifies, Brian, I’ll be chasing with you in your back yard…

The storm is still trying to come together but the track is so close to the area that could rip it apart in eastern Cuba that I’m worried that if I book up a flight to Florida now, I will be chasing water spouts and beers on the beach in the rain.

Time to see what tomorrows forecast brings but I’m getting ready to go pick up the XDCam and go.

I have been getting asked by a lot of people if I’m going to chase Tropical Storm Fay, and the answer is that if it becomes a hurricane I might but it’s looking like crap right now.  Last night Tropical Storm Fay’s pay took it along the length of Hispaniola (Haiti and Dominican Republic) and it barely survived the Journey over the island. 

Right now the forecast track is all over the Map.  Last night it looked like it was going to hit the upper Gulf Coast like Hurricane Ivan and Hurricane Dennis did back in 2004 and 2005.  Now it’s looking more like Tropical Turd Ernesto from 2006 and TS Fay is almost on the same track as that POS storm Ernesto.  Why beat down TS Ernesto?  Simple because someone jumped the gun in my opinion and upgraded it to a Hurricane for a brief period of time when it was in almost the same place as TS Fay is now. and everyone started to freak out because they were still in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.  The funny part is that Tropical Depression Ernesto mad landfall on the one year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina so everyone was in a panic that it could be a repeat, and then it came in as nothing… 

Here is the latest Satellite Image and track for Fay from 1715 and 1815.  Fay is not looking that great yet.

Now that the center of Fay is over open water between Haiti and Cuba it is hard to say if Fay will regain any strength before making landfall over Cuba and the big question, will Fay make landfall over the mountainous area of Easter Cuba which could destroy her.

Below is a hurricane forecast track map from Weather Underground http://www.wunderground.com

As you can see, the forecast tracks are all over the map and the big question is where will it go and where will the Right Front Quadrant (RFQ) go?  The RFQ is the strongest part of the storm.  

Here is the 2PM NHC Forecast.

As you can see, NHC has the forecast center line track moving over the Lower Keys during the overnight on Monday and hitting the Naples Florida area to Fort Myers FL area on Tuesday Morning.  But if you look at the Weather Underground forecast tracking plots above, this thing could hit Miami and leave Naples in the dust or it could miss Florida altogether.

The GFDL Model which I tend to lean more towards is showing that it would miss Naples and hit the Miami area and ride up the Gulf Stream to the Carolina’s.  Like I said before, the computer forecast models are all over the Fn Map.  If the GFDL is right, then later this week it will be a real hurricane in the Carolina’s but if the GFS forecast model is right, I could be in Florida on Tuesday Morning filming in Fort Myers with Brian and Chris. 

Hurricane forecasting is much easier when the damn storm has already formed before it makes landfall and not as it makes landfall.

I just started a new section on my website for Paparazzi Photographs.  No not Weather Paparazzi but when there is no Weather, I can still do Paparazzi work. 

Ok I don’t do Stalkerazzi stuff, just real P.R. events to build up the stock footage archive and celebrity news stuff.

So when I get done unpacking all the stuff that I moved into Neva’s house and get the office back up to speed with stuff, I will be posting more of the photos from over the years. 

To start off the Paparazzi collection, here is some of the work I did yesterday.  Neva helped me with the New Kids On The Block video and photo shoot and took this one. 

And before ANY of you SMART ASS CHASER’s that read this blog (Brian, Bill, Eric and Tony) start to rip on me about being at a New Kids On The Block Concert at a mall like some 12 year old back in the 80s, STFU, I was also there for the Magic Johnson ribbon cutting for the new Best Buy Store at the Mall Of America.

Oh yeah, I got lots of stock footage from this event and got to listen to one hell of a great speech by Magic Johnson talking about business.  I got a ton of new ideas to work with after listening to him and how he runs his empire.  He is one of the few people that actually owns over 100 Starbucks and took playing basketball into making a huge corporate empire that owns a ton of stuff. 

Okay, time to get back to unpacking the boxes. 

Ok a bunch of people have been calling me asking me what is up, am I still alive?  Where have I been since it has been a while since I updated my blog or even called anyone. 

It is hard to think that just one year ago I was seeing this. 

It has been one crazy year since then.  In the last year I got the business rebuilt for the stock footage setup, did a ton of scuba diving, got a ton of sweet footage and met the woman of my dreams.  Which is why I have not been on line in the last month because I’ve been moving and now I am all moved out of the cities and in with Neva in St. Cloud.

I’m out of the cities and any thought of giving up my view that I had has been nullified since yesterday morning we were woken up by the weather radio alarm going off. 

A major storm was coming in and I went chasing.  I soon realized that living in St. Cloud has some real perks because now I am central to what is happening in the state of MN and best of all, I am already north of the metro when the auroras come back this fall.  Anyway, a major storm was coming so I left to go chase it at six in the morning. 

I got to the storm in what I thought was record time since I’m not living north and west of the cities and found that I can be on the storms ASAP now.

And what a storm it was for a early morning storm.  Here is the radar screen cap and my GPS position with the Green Arrow. 

The red box is off course the Tornado Warning that I’m driving right into.  It’s pretty hard not to see where the hook on this storm is located.

And this was what I was seeing that wrapped from around the whole storm from the Northeast side to the Southwest.  It looked pretty cool and I just wish I had a fish-eye for the still camera. 

The time-lapsed video that I shot of this looks pretty sweet and I will be getting that up on the stock video site as soon as I get caught up with rebuilding my office up in St. Cloud this weekend.

Back to unpacking.  My to do list is all about unpacking and getting back to business this weekend because towards the end of next week I will be hella busy with paparazzi stuff.

Wow, just looking over the latest data for Tropical Storm Dolly and if the forecast track keeps to where I think it was going to go this morning (Monday) then I will be uber forecasting. 

Here is the 10 PM forecast graphic from the National Hurricane Center.

I have been watching the storm on Vis and Shortwave Sat today and watching it move to the west at around 16-18 (17) miles per hour and stay only at a 50 miles per hour tropical storm force.

Here is my forecast, if Tropical Storm Dolly keeps it’s due west track, it’s going to be a major bust for anyone chasing the storm.  With no real jump in the center of circulation wind speed and a fast ground track, Tropical Storm Dolly is going to be making landfall a lot faster then expected and in Mexico.    However, Dolly is expected to slow it’s forward speed and build during the overnight according to some of the computer models but I just don’t trust them. 

My Gut Forecast says, Mexico.  It’s still July and there is still several months of hurricane season left.  Were not even in the prime which comes in September.  I can wait for a better setup and use Dolly to refine my forecasting skills on the latest computer model updates for this season.