gpspete

Pat and I slept through a storm report on my Weather Radio, Paul and Arron wondered why Pat and I had not seen the good lightning display despite Pat reputably always having his finger on the camera shutter button !

hi Paul look forward to comparing amount again this winter, if it happens and does not turn to rain have ruler ready lol.

my take on using a lightning trigger on 2010 chase worked very well got a couple of hundred cg shots some awsome some not so good also quite a few interclouds. yes it does take a lot of duds as it triggers on even small interclouds and even strikes out of shot even odd ones behind you if they are close, the loading of the pics to memory card can mean missing shots so use at least a class 10 memory card good quality one as fast as you can afford to minimise download to card time, take pics as jpegs if you want to speed it up as smaller files than raw i normally shoot in raw though. in the uk i have used it on about 10 storms and yet to get a pic with lightning on it plenty of cloudscapes though ! due to the nature of our storms its always pointing at the wrong storm, the small multicell types we get triggers on out of shot strikes and i never seem to have camera looking at the right one. a cautionary note set camera up taking pics with trigger "strong gust of wind dust on lens clean it up - put lens cap on !!" result 70 photos of lens cap before i noticed missing a brilliant Anvil Crawler display at times overhead i was so gob-smacked by seeing the Anvil Crawlers last time i had seen any as good as those was 40 years back in Australia, so always double check what your doing and don't get mesmerized by the moment or try not to be !!! the only other thing i would say is taking photos is not it all i know it nice to have nice photos but you miss so much when your busy taking photos and you will miss the overall view of what's happening when your squinting through the viewfinder so using the lightning trigger enables me to set my rig up stand back and watch what's going on..... use a heavy tripod or weigh it down to stop your rig blowing over as i have seen that happen a couple of times luck as it with no disasters for those it has happened too. one from last year 2011 lightning trigger and video note i was trying out a nd8 filter on camera (to increase shutter open time to capture multistrokes) so it came out a bit dark should off photoshoped it a bit. http://vimeo.com/24387241 Pete

had a message from Pat today he was a bit too north for tornados but did manage a lot of excellent lightning photos and knowing Pat there will be some insane photos amongst them

To those wondering your laptop and camera chargers are usually rated 110/240v check on the charger so all you need is an adapter for your uk plug (null)

Tornadic storm heading towards Miami Florida tornado signature good hook on it tonight update went up the north/west side of Miami just added this meso discussion MESOSCALE DISCUSSION 2263 NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK 0739 PM CDT TUE OCT 18 2011 AREAS AFFECTED...SRN/CNTRL FL CONCERNING...TORNADO WATCH 867... VALID 190039Z - 190145Z THE SEVERE WEATHER THREAT FOR TORNADO WATCH 867 CONTINUES. WITH WW 867 SCHEDULED TO EXPIRE AT 02Z...A REPLACEMENT WW WILL BE COORDINATED AFTER 01Z. 12Z WRF-NMM AND RECENT HRRR GUIDANCE ARE RATHER CONSISTENT THAT REGENERATING TSTM CLUSTERS WILL CONTINUE ACROSS SRN/CNTRL FL FOR THE NEXT SEVERAL HOURS. IMPRESSIVELY LARGE LOW-LEVEL HODOGRAPHS ACROSS CNTRL/SRN FL PER 00Z RAOBS AND VWP DATA WILL REMAIN QUITE FAVORABLE FOR POTENTIAL TORNADIC CIRCULATIONS THIS EVENING INTO THE OVERNIGHT WITH 0-1 KM SRH AOA 300 M2/S2. GREATEST NEAR-TERM TORNADO THREAT IS WITH A SUPERCELL IN WRN MIAMI-DADE COUNTY WITH FORECAST TRAJECTORY TOWARDS THE MIAMI METRO AREA. MODIFIED 00Z MIAMI RAOB SUGGESTS AIR MASS ACROSS SRN FL IS AT LEAST MODERATELY UNSTABLE WITH PW VALUES AROUND 2.50 IN. PROGRESSIVELY LESSER BUOYANCY WITH NRN EXTENT SHOULD LIMIT A MORE ROBUST TORNADO THREAT ROUGHLY NORTH OF A TAMPA BAY TO MELBOURNE LATITUDE. ..GRAMS.. 10/19/2011

if you have not seen any lightning hire these guys http://lightningforhire.co.nz/

just been sat in garden watching the local gliders (about 1/4m to airfield) mostly cable launched today they are certainly finding some lift and climbing rapidly after release perhaps we may get some local grown later the sferics in channel have died away know but i still hope for later

you may wish too keep an eye on my website ignore most the most the website its no longer working properly and i am rebuilding it at present but my lightning page is working http://www.bicesterw...uk/StormVue.php the wide area storm page is several detectors correlated to try and correct positions but may show less than the true amount of strikes if storms are local my pc may be turned off so it may go down though

There is a group of Sferics SSE of Isle of Wight looks like that they may hit south coast soon as they have been moving in a generally north direction

nice pics Paul, Grande Canyon on my hit list do not know when i will make it back out storm chasing but hopefully 2013 would be a hard choice between Tornadoes or Arizona Palo Duro Canyon perhaps in May

i would keep an eye on the storm forming on the northern spanish/portuguise coast via the usual sat sites also some cloud that is over Devon and Cornwall is looking a bit active and may get more active as it moves north eastwards

sferics showing well over france plus an interesting area starting to show in the Bay of Biscay hopefully for us later. i will be at work on nightshift so very limited photo opportunities if anything reaches Oxford

storm over northern france the coloured areas are convective areas defined by temperature and cloud hight

what we should of had today france and germany seem to get more than there share a few minutes ago

Almost Kansas well done

the link is http://www.chasersforum.com/forum.php the full membership criteria for anyone in UK is going to be quite difficult to achieve even for most US chasers also i suspect this forum will die as it is still not well supported (i don't know where the 95% have gone but after spending several months searching the web and only finding some new local 1 state/city forums (like 10 members ha) i have found nothing) as the main part of the forecast and chase part is locked down to those that meet the full membership criteria which is the part that everyone wants and limiting it too an elite few is never going to make it as good as Stormtrack

not long had an email may be visible again tonight cloud and of course what will be a decaying geomagnetic storm permitting

not lightning watching but tonight there may be a good chance of a seeing the AURORA cloud permitting as there is a major geomagnetic storm hitting earth at the moment its a class G2+ and is expected to ramp up to a class G3+ Geomagnetic Storm Effects G2 (Moderate) Power systems: high-latitude power systems may experience voltage alarms, long-duration storms may cause transformer damage. Spacecraft operations: corrective actions to orientation may be required by ground control; possible changes in drag affect orbit predictions. Other systems: HF radio propagation can fade at higher latitudes, and aurora has been seen as low as New York and Idaho (typically 55° geomagnetic lat.). G3 (Strong) Power systems: voltage corrections may be required, false alarms triggered on some protection devices. Spacecraft operations: surface charging may occur on satellite components, drag may increase on low-Earth-orbit satellites, and corrections may be needed for orientation problems. Other systems: intermittent satellite navigation and low-frequency radio navigation problems may occur, HF radio may be intermittent, and aurora has been seen as low as Illinois and Oregon (typically 50° geomagnetic lat.). onto todays non geomagnetic storms Latest from my lightning detector

i took one with me on stormchase 2 didn't find any scorpions, but it did show up how good the hotel cleaners were other insects including some spiders and moths seemed to fluoresce quite well

latest on my lightning detector

finish work at 2 home then head for MK i think then possibly head south to Dunstable Downs on to Aylesbury via chilterns depending on what i can see when i get to MK. got to get my first uk daytime lightning shot been trying for 3 years cams always been pointing at wrong part off or wrong storm even, with our normal storms not producing many lightning strikes plenty off convective cloud visible from Oxford at the moment and the odd spot of heavy rain lets hope it really gets going today not too much rain though want to see any lightning

Bicester Oxon. 10mins, ago heard 3 rumbles of thunder have had a phone call 'heavy large hail in Thame and stong gusty wind'

Bicester Oxfordshire certainly some convective clouds had a drive to look south see some quite heavy rain shafts from some clouds nothing showing on my lightning detector, seen or heard lightning/storm wise yet

i know its not lightning photography but it's Arizona http://vimeo.com/groups/tm700/videos/14609937 lots of people claim it is the most photogenic state in us from what i have seen on video and photo websites i think it may be so its also known for its good stargazing, clear skies at night so is well known in the Astrophotography world also, one day i hope to get there myself