Tropical Weather Video Update For Week of June 29 – July 4

June 28, 2009 – The Tropical Atlantic basin for the most part, has remained very quiet for the entire month of June 2009. The only recent area I was monitoring, was the tropical wave labeled Invest 93L in the northwestern Caribbean Sea on June 26-28, 2009. The system struggled to organized and develop a low-level circulation as it slowly tracked towards the Yucatan Peninsula. Then yesterday, northern wind shear from the Northern Gulf coast and Florida, finished off the rest of the tropical wave as it moved inland over the Yucatan.

Today some of the deep tropical moisture associated with the system, was helping to enhance showers and thunderstorms over the southern have of the Florida Peninsula. The rest of the tropics have no area’s of interest at this time, at least that I’m interested in.

Have a safe 4th of July weekend this week, and watch out for those lightning storms if your holiday activities will be outside. Look for another Tropical Weather video update in the next week or two, or sooner if something becomes of interest in the tropics.

You comments are greatly welcomed!

Related Tropical Weather Video: Watch Previous Tropical Weather Update 6/5/09

Florida Mourning Dove Sets Up Nest In Our Flower Box

June 28, 2009 – Over the last week or so, we’ve had a little visitor setup camp on our front patio deck. This Florida Mourning Dove decided she liked our flower box about 6 feet from our front door. There is a lot of foot traffic right by this flower box, but she seems to be very relaxed, and not threatened by our daily in and out of the house.

Kersten, JJ, and I have gotten fairly close just to watch, and she has allowed me to take several pictures and video of her over the last two days. There are two eggs in her nest, and she stays put through heavy Florida afternoon thunderstorms. The male comes by every now and then, at least when we are outside watching, and sits near the other end of the box. Yeah I know, the box needs to be cleaned out, and I need to plant some new flowers. At least my lawn and Coconut Palms (picture coming) look picture perfect.

I’ll keep you all posted with a follow-up post once the eggs hatch, which I have read online is about two weeks from when she sets up shop. We’ll have to see how she is with us all walking by once she has her little family in that nest maybe by next week….more to come!

Lake Okeechobee Florida Water Spout and Gustnadoes Video

June 23, 2009 – Severe thunderstorm complex moves over Lake Okeechobee, FL and produces a Water Spout with several Gustnadoes as well. A combination of the west Florida coast sea breeze, and a outflow boundary set off a large severe thunderstorm complex over Central Florida in the early afternoon. This convective system raced southeastward towards southern Florida, and moved over the great Lake Okeechobee region.

A water spout developed on the leading edge of the gust front tucked in on the west side where there was still some decent inflow to the line of strong storms. As seen in the following video, there is a funnel cloud at cloud base, with a medium size circulation on the lake surface tracking southeast. In the foreground of the water spout video, you see several Gustnadoes racing south. The spout and funnel became hard to follow as rain curtains wrapped around and moved south with the complex of storms.

After the storm moved over my location on the northeast shore of Lake Okeechobee, I encountered strong straight-line winds maybe near 50mph, with pea size hail. Lightning was also present, but remain mostly over the smooth waters of the lake. All in all, a very interesting afternoon on Florida largest lake.

Dr Greg Forbes from The Weather Channel, analyzes waterspout
On the evening of June 23, 2009, Dr Greg Forbes from The Weather Channel, analyzed My Lake Okeechobee, Florida waterspout video shot earlier in the day. He get’s pretty excited over the several circulations on the water surface, and gives his view on how he thinks the setup for the waterspouts developed.

Similar Waterpout Posts:
Captured Waterspout Offshore Sanibel Island Florida Pictures
Pompano Beach Florida Waterspout Pictures

Record Heat Wave For Southeast Florida Fathers Day

June 22, 2009 – The first day of summer 2009 in Central and South Florida came in like gangbusters with record heat. Temperatures were running several degree’s above record highs in many locations along the Florida east coast. It was truly a scorcher of a day, and being poolside or indoors was almost a must.

Vero Beach and Ft Lauderdale both set new hot temp records of 98°F for the day. Now throw in dew points running in the upper 70’s to near 80°F, with very humid conditions, and heat indices were nearing 107°F.

It was truly hot for Fathers Day and the first day of summer over much of Florida. Florida gets hot, but conditions like these are rare and only setup every few years or longer. A heat ridge parked over the state, with extremely high atmospheric moisture levels in the low-levels helped to combine the perfect setup for a South Florida heat wave. Even the Meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Miami had some comments about the current heat activity in their morning area forecast discussion.

THIS COULD REALLY BE ONE FOR THE RECORD BOOKS TODAY. YESTERDAY SAW RECORD HIGHS ALL UP AND DOWN THE EAST COAST…WITH FT. LAUDERDALE HITTING THE ALL TIME RECORD HIGH FOR THE MONTH OF JUNE…98F.

PLENTY OF SUN IS EXPECTED TODAY WITH JUST SOME HIGH CIRRUS (AS WAS THE CASE YESTERDAY). GIVEN THIS…AND THE WARM AIR ADVECTION/HOT RIDGE AXIS OVERHEAD THIS AFTERNOON…DECIDED TO INCREASE TEMPS ALONG THE ATLANTIC COAST…TO LEVELS THAT I THOUGHT I WOULD NEVER FORECAST FOR IN SOUTH FL.

Today is shaping up to be a carbon copy of Fathers Day with expected record highs and very dangerous temperatures for folks outside and for older residents of South Florida. Second day in a row with high heat advisories that run until 7:00pm ET.

SOUTHEAST FLORIDA HIGHS OF NEAR 100 WITH HEAT INDICES AROUND 110 ACROSS THE EAST COAST METRO. A HEAT ADVISORY IS IN EFFECT FOR THE EAST COAST METRO DUE TO THESE EXTREME TEMPERATURES.

It’s very important to drink plenty of fluids and the first signs of feeling overheated, head indoors as soon as possible. Also be sure to check on elderly residents in your community that you are aware, and just make sure they are ok in this Florida heat wave of June 2009. Stay cool out there!

Received My Pitchmen Sticker – Discovery Channel Series

Update – Sunday June 28, 2009 - With great sadness, Billy Mays from Discovery Channel’s Pitchmen show has died. It’s unfortunate that he had to die so young. My condolences to Billy Mays III and his whole family, and to everyone with the Pitchmen crew in Tampa and at Discovery. Billy will be greatly missed.

First off I wanted to say that I’m a huge fan of the Discovery Channel series Pitchmen. Kersten and I look forward to each Wednesday night to see what new inventor will be trying to pitch a new product to Billy Mays and Anthony Sullivan. It’s a great show and a funny one at that too. The chemistry between Billy and Sully is great, and also seeing the products being setup for a infomercial along with the results. The behind the scene of the whole process is really interesting and makes a good hour of TV. I’d love to get to see one of these production shoots in person. It looks like a fun time on the set and just watching them work their magic with a new product.

Over last weekend Young Billy Mays, who is very friendly and active on Twitter, sent out a Tweet saying send a Self Address Envelope to their production address in Tampa and receive a free Pitchmen sticker. Well, I couldn’t pass up that offer. Who doesn’t like a free sticker, especially from a cool TV show and group of guys. So over the weekend I sent mine out and yesterday I received my awesome Pitchmen sticker! I was sifting through my snail mail, and came across my envelope with a Sullivan Production label. Alright it’s here!

A big thanks to Young Billy May, Bill Mays, and Anthony Sullivan for the cool sticker and fast reply. Be sure to catch the show on Wednesdays at 10p ET on the Discovery Channel. I feel like I’m pitching the show! LOL!

Gustnadoes Damaging Straight-line Winds Pratt Kansas

June 15, 2009 – The Dodge City Supercell went tornadic early in the afternoon once east of Dodge City, Kansas. Several Storm Chasers were able to get deep into the Bears Cage and film the rain wrapped tornadoes, but many others once again played catch up in the hail, heavy rains, and poor road networks.

I was nowcasting for Jim Edds one again on Monday, and he was able to get in under the wall cloud a few times, but road network to the east kept him having to dive south of the storm. Once the storm reached just north of Pratt, KS, he tried one last time to get into the notch, but the gust front kept blasting in from the northwest. He did film some cool Gustnadoes crossing over the highway just west of Pratt and damaging straight-line winds that made it look more like hurricane conditions than Supercellular.

Impressive Hail Shaft On Kansas Cyclic Tornadic Supercell

June 14, 2009 – The only impressive very isolated Supercell in Kansas yesterday was one tuff storm to kept up with for many Storm Chasers. Jim Edds was playing catch up for nearly the 6 hour lifespan of this cyclic Tornadic Supercell Thunderstorm. He did film some impressive hail shaft scenes, with a cool hail foot feature, but between road networks and the fast east motion of the storm, the 3 confirmed short-lived tornadoes were out of his reach only by 10 minutes. The storm developed in extreme eastern Colorado and tracked nearly across the entire southern half of Kansas.

Texas Panhandle Supercell Video – Vortex2 Scans Storm

June 13, 2009 – One of my favorite places to chase Supercell thunderstorms is West Texas and the Panhandle region. Jim Edds on Saturday was chasing a lovely Supercell in the Texas Panhandle. The video sent in overnight to me was his latest HD video of severe storm captures of the day southwest of Pampa, TX. Jim is currently on his several weeks expedition in Tornado Alley. This Supercell showed strong signs of ration at many stages during it’s life span. Vortex2 2009 was also sampling this storm as seen in the above video, with their DOW radar scans and wind probes surrounding the storm. The cell never produced a tornado, but was pure eyecandy to all the Storm Chasers playing around in the notch of the storm.

Massive Supercell Thunderstorm East Of Pueblo Colorado

June 11, 2009 – Massive eastern Colorado Supercell thunderstorm over the High Plains east of Pueblo, CO. Once again, Storm Chaser Jim Edds FTP uploaded HD video to Weatherzine servers of the latest severe storms captured during his Tornado Alley 2009 expedition. This was a impressive Supercell, with rotating wall clouds, microburst structure, vivid lightning and very large hail from Thursday June 11, 2009. This severe storm not only was impressive in the field, it was a scary looking cell on Nexrad radar scans for several hours.

Spur of The Moment Getaway Florida Sunrise Pictures

June 12, 2009 – Kersten surprised me on Wednesday afternoon, by saying she wanted to just getaway for the night on the beach. She made arrangements for JJ to stay with my mother, and by 4:30pm, we’re off to the Ft Lauderdale region for a overnight getaway from the house.

Sure we didn’t travel far from home, but sometimes even just getting out of the house for a overnight in a nice hotel on the beach works out just great for some relaxing and alone time. Even though I brought my notebook, HD camera and some other gear, it was really just in case we came across any weather worth shooting, but nothing ever came out of the bags besides for the sunrise pictures. It was a nice warm tropical evening on the Atlantic Ocean as we checked into the Embassy Suites Hotel Resort beachside in Deerfield Beach, Florida.

We had dinner at a nice mom and pop Italian restaurant beachside with live music and outdoor dinning in view of the very glassy smooth Atlantic waters. I was born and raised in Broward County and have lived in South Florida my entire life, but I still felt miles away from home on a vacation. It was really nice and very welcomed. After dinner we headed back to the hotel after stopping to pick up some late night snacks. Kersten had a few drinks at the hotel bar while I was completely stuffed from my dinner and had no room for any drinks. LOL!

The night was great with watching HD movies on the large HD TV’s in the suites, snacking on food and looking out over the waters from the fourth floor facing the Atlantic waters. There was no checking email, texting, Twittering, nowcasting for Storm Chasers out in the Plains and being obsessive over forecast computer models into the wee hours of the morning. Just relaxing and having fun.

We awoke Thursday morning to a fantastic sunrise as seen in the following pictures. The ocean waters were almost like glass with the reflection of the rising warm sun on a mid June morning. I quickly grabbed my camera and starting shooting video and pictures of the very cool sunrise shortly around 6:30am. By 7:45am, we were off to have a really impressive cook to order breakfast and buffet. The food was great and so was the view. Again I felt so far from home and I shoot video around these parts several times a month. It just was nice to getaway from the daily grind, pattern, and routine. All in all a great 24 hours away from the house and now back to blogging, Twittering, editing video and dealing with all the email from the last 24 hours. LOL! I’m sure we’ll be doing one of these spur of the moment getaways again real soon. Enjoy the pictures!

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