How To Combine Mismatched Passions Into Something Awesome

Some of the mood captured in the Pecos Hank song/video
"Drive Under The Moon."

The other day, in my sister blog, "Matt's Weather Rapport," I featured a guy named Pecos Hank.

Pecos Hank is a storm chaser, the kind of guy weather geeks like me love. He spends days, weeks, maybe months out in the Great Plains, chasing after tornadoes and other severe weather.

Unlike many storm chasers, Pecos Hank emphasizes creativity and art over the usual yelling and screaming and shaky images of tornadoes that most storm chasers embrace.  Pecos Hank's storm videos, which he narrates, are moody, beautiful, beguiling.

I think his creativity with the storm videos comes from his other job, his other passion. Pecos Hank is a musician.

Pecos Hank last year was wise enough to combine one passion, storm chasing, with the other, music, to create a haunting music video that I just can't resist.

OK, I'm a fanboy of this guy. So sue me.

The song is called "Drive Under The Moon." It liberally uses outtakes of his storm footage to create a dark, mysterious, almost morbid music video. I like songs that have a darkness, so this appeals to me wonderfully. Pecos Hank's deep voice, combined with his sort of Tex-Mex sound, is just perfect. And the 1950s styles in the video add to the retro, brooding mood.

Is the creepy guy driving the car the Grim Reaper? Is the glamorous woman adventurous and oblivious to her fate, or is she a willing participant in this tornadic, deadly story? You decide.

You have to see this. Watch:

Extremely Scary Tornado Video Out of Italy, Of All Places

As you know, I love weather porn, defined as videos or images of really bad storms or really horrible weather that ads some excitement to the day.

A tornado touching down near Milan, Italy
yesterday.  

There was an odd outbreak of tornadoes near Milan, Italy, of all places yesterday. It seems everybody in and near Milan shoots videos, so there's lots of images of the storms.

My favorite and scariest one is a view out of a corner office window as a tornado comes through.

The person who shot the video is lucky. The windows could have easily shattered and high speed broken glass and debris could have shredded the poor guy.

As you watch the video, notice at the end it cuts off abruptly. It's clear he thought he was in danger and fled. He was right. But he survived to give us a very unique view out of his office window on a day that turned out to be anything but dull.

If you ever get a tornado, don't try this at home, OK?

Watch and be amazed, as you will be even if you're not that into weather porn.

(EDITORS NOTE: Person who took the original video, which I posted here 8 a.m July 30, was taken down. I replaced it with an RT tornado report that includes most of the orginal video.)

Aerial View of Storm That Caused Ugly, Deadly Tornado is Beautiful

Tom Magnuson, who works at the National Weather Service office in Pueblo, Colorado, said he took this photo from an airplane of the thunderstorms that would unleash the huge tornado in El Reno, Oklahoma last week.

Click on the image to make it bigger and easier to see the details.

He said the tornado was just getting ready to form, he thinks, when he took this picture. The tornado turned out to be one of the strongest on record, and also the widest on record, reaching 2.6 miles across at one point

The storm was of course incredibly violent, but from the air it looks peaceful.  At least at first glance.

Magnuson says the top of the anvil,  that big cloud that points to the right on the top of the thunderstorm,  is bumpy on top, because the updrafts were so extreme ---100 mph --- that it made the top of the storm look bubbly as the wind roared upward. Usually the tops of thunderstorms are pretty smooth.

And a close look at the clouds beneath that anvil silently testify to the roiling winds in the storm that would soon release the deadly tornado.

Still, from the air, with the soothing blue and white hues, and the soft features of the clouds, you'd think you're looking at somebody's dream. Instead, you're looking at Oklahoma's nightmare.

Hideous Sandy's Beautiful Skies

Here in northern Vermont, we escaped the wrath of Superstorm Sandy. Just a little wind, a little rain, no big deal. Too bad we can't say the same for the entire Northeast.

A bright sunrise over St. Albans, Vermont
as Hurricane Sandy approached Monday

I feel a little guilty doing what I'm doing here, given the terrible destruction and heartache across Sandy's path, but here on the edge of the storm, Sandy gave us some beautiful skies.

Funny how a terrible thing could give us a bit of beauty. This beauty is not worth the pain of Sandy, of course, but I guess we have to take the silver linings where we can get them.

As the storm approached Monday morning, Sandy gave us bright, orange lit up dawn.  After the storm moved inland, the outer tropical rainbands of the storm swept across Vermont, giving us spells of quick downpours, blue skies and lots of rainbows.

Finally, as the remains of Sandy limped off into Canada at midweek, she threw more rain showers our way, with a parting blast of a setting sun lighting up the landscape below the lingering dark clouds.

Pics, of course are in this post. As always, click on them to make them larger and more visible.

After mostly bypassing, Vermont
Sandy threw up some rainbows over the state
This one is in Underhill.

As the lingering dark clouds and showers of Sandy
began falling apart Wednesday, a shaft of setting sun
lit up this hill in Milton Vermont

Photogenic Vermont Thunderheads Delight

We've been blessed in Vermont over the past several days by mostly clear skies and not much haze. Amid this clear air, widely scattered thunderstorms have erupted in the warm, humid air.

A distant thunderstorm, as seen from
St. Albans, Vermont Sunday

This kind of weather leads to my favorite kind of skies. Blue, with big billowy white towers with ominous black bases. Those are the scattered thunderstorms.

The clouds give Vermont an almost tropical feel.  I took more pictures of some pretty storms today, but I'm still not really caught up with Sunday's photos.

Still, I'm able to share some of the photos as I sift through dozens of photos of clouds with really cool shapes, textures and colors.

These storms are visible from amazing distances when the air is almost free of haze. That's because they're so tall, they loom over the hills and mountains that usually block views of distant areas from Vermont.

Right after I photographed a distant storm Sunday,  I consulted National Weather Service radar to see where the storm was.  It was situated about 70 miles southwest of where I was.

More scattered thunderstorms are in the forecast for the next few days. I have a feeling my camera is going to get a workout.

A detail showing the top of a distant thunderstorm
as seen from St. Albans Sunday.

A thunderstorm rises over Lake Champlain
as seen from Burlington Monday. 

Thinking About Irene.....

With Hurricane Irene poised to hit the Northeast, and blast Vermont with gale force winds, flooding, power failures and a tangle of falling trees, my thought naturally turn to various aspects of this storm.

Satellite view of Hurricane Irene taking a cruise
through the Bahamas yesterday

Are people named Irene pissed off that a major storm share their name?

Who names these hurricanes anyway? After Irene, we can look forward to the rest of the hurricane season featuring the likes of Jose, Katia, Lee, Maria, Nate and Ophelia.
'
Will the lines at the liquor store in advance of Irene be longer than the lines at the supermarket and hardware stores?

Along those lines, what is the best Merlot to sip while riding out the storm in your (dark) home?

New York transit officials say millions of subway rats might seek higher ground as the subway tunnels flood during Irene. Pleasant thought, no? "Honey, these 3,000 rats think our living room is a Red Cross storm shelter. What in heaven shall we do?"

I wonder how many people will die stupid deaths in Irene. I don't mean the poor people killed when a tree randomly crashes through a house. I mean the people who look at the violent storm surge rolling toward the beach and say, "Let's go surfing!"

Speaking of which, how many news reporters are going to do the I can barely stand in the wind routine while standing on the beach telling viewers to stay away from the beach.

Will a two-by-four finally sail through a news reporter's head at 90 mph, thereby ending the tradition of news reporters standing on beaches during hurricanes?

You can always tell in advance where the storm will cause the worst damage. Just figure out where the Weather Channel's Jim Cantore is (He's a native Vermonter!) And for the record, last I checked, Cantore was reporting live from Battery Park in lower Manhattan.

Every November, I have a big bonfire from the piles of branches I clean up from storms on my property during the year. I'm going to have a really, really big bonfire this November, aren't I? Bring the marshmallows!

Will all that humidity and moisture from Hurricane Irene wreck my naturally curly hair?

Wild Storm Hits Me, I Rejoice

In the summer time, I often drive a fair distance to chase a nice big fat thunderstorm, that's just the geek I am.

Two big trees blew over in  a severe thunderstorm
yesterday in Shelburne, Vermont

Yesterday, the wildest thunderstorm I've been in this summer came to me. I have Jackson the puppy to thank for that.

It was time for Jackson to get his first checkup and some shots, so off to Shelburne, Vermont I went. Jackson got throught the veterinarian visit with flying colors. As we left a thumder was just about to break

I got in the truck just as a wave of wind and rain and hail swept in. I put the truck in part, whipped out the camera and started filming. You see pics of the aftermath of the storm in the photos here, and the video is below.

I wish I angled the truck differently, because as I was filming at least three big trees fell behind me.

Damaged trees after the severe storm
in Shelburne, Vermont yesterday.

But it was still wild to feel the truck rock in the wind and the hail rattle over the truck's roof and hood. By the way, when the video goes to just gray and white, that wasn't a mistake. That's what it really looked like.

The area hit by the storm was isolated. I happened to be right in the middle of it. Just a quarter mile to my south and north, there were few signs of wind damage.

To think I would have missed the storm if it weren't for Jackson. Thanks, buddy.

Another Vermont Storm Chase

I had time yesterday to exercise my weather geekdom by chasing a strengthening thunderstorm south from near Burlington, Vermont down to Addison County, a good 30 miles.

Dramatic storm clouds loom over an
Addison, Vermont house yesterday.

I first saw the storm as a run-of-the-mill cumulus cloud northwest of Burlington, but it slowly developed. In South Burlington, it was a mild storm. In Charlotte, 10 miles to the south, the downpour was intense, and there was some nice. close lightning strikes.

By the time it got to Addison County, the storm had a nice Midwestern tornado vibe, though it was by no means as violent a storm as the kind you get out there.

But it had strong shifting winds, dramatic clouds, abrupt breaks of blue sky and torrential downpours. Plus, it behaved erratically, shifting to the east, redeveloping to the west, strengthening, weakening and reforming at will.







It wasn't the strongest storm in the world, but it was nice and photogenic. It was worth the chase.

Storm clouds threaten Addison, Vermont yesterday.

A video of the storm in Addison, Vermont as the storm passed just to the east is below.