Updates from Montreal

Campus (above), and Burnside Hall (below) -- My home for the near future!

Bonjour! Or as they like to say here, "allo" :-D

So far, so good in Montreal! It has take a lot of getting used to -- between living in a new country (i.e. TONS of paperwork), learning a new department, adapting to two languages, settling into an apartment, making new friends . . . the list goes on and on!

Mom, Dad, and I arrived up here on the 30th of August, and they stayed up here most of my first week. We all seemed to have a good time and were able to see and taste a good part of the city (in particular around Old Montreal and Saint Laurent/Saint Denis), and their help in moving-in made life a billion times easier! Classes started on the 1st, followed by a very busy move-in (classes all day, moving all night!). We managed to make everything fit into the apartment with very little alteration (outside of the bed), and it's finally beginning to feel like a home (complete with a messy desk!)

Before

And After! (The 'bedroom')

The 'closet' and 'kitchen'

The 'office'

Mmmm Dinner (Tofu experiment!) -- tastes better than it looks :-D

It's definitely still feeling a bit tight, but home is still home! If anything, the hardest part has been adapting to a life with no roommates around. After being home most of the summer, and spending the past four years at school with some of my favorite people living where I live, it has been a tough transition into the single life. But, more than one would be impossible for this spot! Regardless, the only other tough things have been a touch-and-go computer (booo older computer), only one burner operating out of two (presents some interesting cooking challenges), and lots of things that click in the night, such as heaters (yes, I know it's only September, but it's chilly here!) and fridges.

As for the school part of being up here (wait, school?!?), things have gone well thus far. Classes have been a mixed bag, with some being relatively easy and others presenting a good challenge. I've enjoyed getting to know my fellow first-year graduate students, and have been trying to make friends with as many of them as I can. It's always a bit tough building new friendships, but at the same time I look forward to seeing where these new friendships will take me! The department lacks some of the friendly confines of Penn State, but there are some good times that are had, including a free coffee hour each afternoon. In addition, I've joined up and become the first-year representative for CAOS, which is the graduate society for the department. I'm hoping it provides me a nice avenue into getting involved in the department kind of like I was for PSUBAMS. We'll have to see! I haven't begun any research yet, but I imagine that something will be starting up in the next few weeks. My adviser is returning to Montreal after an unexpected extended stay in Greece, and I'm looking forward to finally meeting up with him as an official student and to find out more about where my research will take me over the next few years!

And as for the city, there is a lot to explore! I've tried looking around a bit, but the past few weekends have been committed toward figuring out basic life needs, such as food, laundry, etc. However, I'm hoping to maybe explore some of the free options (some of the art galleries), visit the parks (including Mont Royal -- see below), and next week taking advantage of a few free museums via the international student status.

Mont Royal Parc

Au Revoir!

Yep ... That's Right ... I'm making a blog entry

Hello to all -- Long time no blog! I can't really make up any reasons such as 'I didn't do anything blog-worthy', but that's not really true -- I was just a tad bit lazy :-) So, instead, I'll do a summer re-cap of the post-VORTEX2 days!

June: After returning from V2, I got to play a pirate at my cousins birthday party. It was good fun, pirate accent and all. Then, Kaitlin came down on a whim to go to the beach, along with a delicious dinner with Chris in West Chester. And lots of beer, compliments of Dogfish Head Brewery, and Father's Day gifts.

July/August: Family Time! Our relatives from California came to visit, which is always a blast. Fun festivities included Philly, fireworks at Longwood Gardens (crazy good), and an awesome trip down to Baltimore and DC, where we rode the Duck Boat Tour (Baltimore), went to the American History Museum (DC), and had a steamed crab-fest! After their visit, we had some down time, then I went off to Connecticut to visit everyone up there. Lots of fun was had between fishing, launching people into the air via water inflatables, and a fun round of golf with three young, budding stars! After all these fun visits, it was time to visit Jared up near his new home in Maine! Jared, now living in Maine, lives near Acadia National Park -- home of Bar Harbor (cut the 'r' off of everything!). I've always wanted to visit there, and exploring the area with Chris, Kaitlin, and Jared was a blast -- despite the soaking of our camping gear. Lobster was enjoyed by all the non-Maine residents, and hiking and cliff exploration ensued:

The view from the top of Cadillac Mountain

Hiking up to the top -- Water break!

Rock climbers near Otter Point Cliffs

Group shot at Otter Point

Success on Cadillac Mountain -- after which Jared tried to attack a rival news van :-)

Following Bar Harbor, we returned to Rhode Island for a fun concert in the Walsh Family Robinson back yard, and then it was off to the Cape to visit the Bowley clan! (we're into August by now btw). After fun times with Tennis and the beach, an essential trip to Montreal was thrown together, leading to an apartment finally getting locked up! It's not the biggest of places, but it will certainly do!

The Atmospheric Science Building -- looks a bit like Walker?!?

In Central Campus

Half of my apartment -- imagine a low loft here!

The other half of the apartment!

Now, I'm slowly ramping up my preparations before heading North in a few weeks. It's very strange seeing so many of my friends returning to Penn State this fall, and I certainly am going to miss my home in Happy Valley for the past four years. I'm still very excited about going up to Montreal, but I guess Penn State is in my blood forever (as it should be). Regardless, new adventures lie ahead, and it will be a blast residing in Montreal for these next few years! Check in for my new adventures this fall!

Final V2 Thoughts

Only saw one of these -- but one is better than none!

So, after having a few weeks at home to relax and recover from Vortex2, I have finally gotten around to posting my final pictures and thoughts on the great adventure/experiment. After the excitement of seeing our tornado and big hail in Wyoming, the mobile mesonet fleet escaped to Cheyenne and Omaha to repair windshields, which ended in a lost day for us. The fleet chased after two supercells in NC Nebraska, but neither produced anything tornadic. Our next big chase day was June 7th, which brought us along the Missouri River near NE Kansas and NW Missouri. This day brought yet another change to my mesonet team (it was getting a bit old by then admittedly), with Ben and Al as my new crew. The storm we were on was quite tough to set-up on, but once we did, it appeared to be close to forming something tornadic on a few occasions. Nothing did form out of it other than mushy hail and strongish winds though, providing a nice case for why tornadogenesis did not occur. However, it did have some nice structure to it, and we learned why that area is really not very ideal for chasing whatsoever.

Portions of the Updraft -- it had some nice spirals at one point in time

The wall cloud early in the storm

Same wall cloud, different time (a bit earlier than the last shot)

After this storm, we drove through quite a light show to get into Kansas, and we moved our way westward the next day, even making a stop at a winery. On the 9th, we intercepted storms near Dodge City, KS. The drive up to this intercept was a bit humbling in that we passed through the town of Greensburg on our way, a town which just two years ago was destroyed by an EF-5 tornado. Although they are recovering, there is still a lot to be done there, and you could certainly feel the power unleashed on that town by mother nature. Fortunately for the town, this storm did not produce a tornado, although it had some good circulation to it. This day was intriguing for driving, in that the fleet came across some of their worst roads yet. Despite our best efforts to destroy the undercarriage of the mesonet, everything held together, and we were treated to another beautiful storm, though it again lacked anything tornadic.

Entering Greensburg, KS

Our wall cloud -- I would have liked to drive under it, but it was out of our storm-relative mission :-(

The wall cloud losing it's punch -- you can see the clear slot chewing it up
The updraft had quite a look to it -- a real 'mother ship' kind of shape at points in time

After this storm, we proceeded to stay in Kansas for several days, and intercepted storms for 3 straight days. On the 10th, we intercepted storms near Sublette, one which did produce a tornado, but not where we were intercepting. In fact, the tornado occurred after operations were called off, and rain was blocking our view of the circulation. The storm did have some attempts at forming weak funnel clouds, but nothing all that impressive. However, it did have a nice shape to it, and twice formed 'trick' wall clouds -- wall clouds that looked very impressive and drew our attention away from the main circulation core. Regardless, it was another nice storm despite the missed tornado.

Our 'wall cloud' -- it was pretty disorganized

Weak attempts at a funnel -- but Al and I agreed that it counted

The trick wall cloud -- it looked better than what we had, although still outflow dominated (note the tilt)

This was as we raced out in front of the storm on the way to the hotel -- nice structure and CG lightning

After a bit, we stopped to take pictures of the storm -- somewhere in there is a tornado masked by rain :-(

On the 11th, we had the longest chase day of the V2 campaign -- 600 miles of driving. It was a bit of a frustrating day, as we dropped south toward Texas with an early start, only to turn around and head NW to Colorado (roughly 100ish miles from where we had started the day). However, we were rewarded with a very nice looking storm, though again lacking a tornado. The storm did allow for some nice hail though (nothing damaging, but some new dents), and some of our stronger winds that we've observed damage on (a few downed branches). It had a nice layered structure to it, although I wasn't able to get any pictures of that. However, after obs were called off, it was back-lit by the setting sun, giving a beautiful view.

The wall cloud as we approached -- not bad!

Not quite sure on this, but it looks like some horizontal rolls -- suggesting some circulation

The updraft -- we were almost directly under it, so scaling to get it all in was impossible

The storm near sunset -- very nice looking

A bit of CC lightning too -- always a nice treat

The 12th and 13th were kind of bust days for us, with nothing happening on the 12th, and a deployment on the 13th that kind of had the feel of 'why not?!?'. Our storm on the 13th, east of Amarillo, literally evaporated in front of our eyes, challenging the Childress storms from earlier in the project for fasted storm death. It had a bit of hope for a short period, but then the weak circulation occluded and it was like a derailed train -- it rapidly ended. An unfortunate end to the experiment, but fitting given the year.

Headed toward the last storm

The Anvil looked nice

And...poof there it goes!

When all was said and done (including the road trip back to State College from Amarillo, we covered ~12500 miles (keep in mind we weren't there for the first week). We passed through Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. It was an experience I will never forget for sure, and one that I would love to do again if the opportunity presents itself. Thanks to everyone who made my trip so memorable, and be sure to continue checking in on my summer adventures, including trips to Bar Harbor! And of course, my journeys up to Montreal late in the summer to begin my grad school career!

I can has Tornado?!?

Video of the tornado as it moved out of the rain a bit for our first great view

Okay, so reallllllyy fast recap of what we did the day before, then the fun stuff :-)

On the 4th we intercepted supercells near Cheyenne, Wyoming, which were pretty cool, but didn't produce any tornadoes. It did have a nice shape to it though, and it dropped a LOT of hail on I80 -- but we were too far ahead of it to see that part. That's it...because the next day was WAYYYY better.

On the 5th we moved into Nebraska, and then into Wyoming again to play the upslope potential. As we pushed westward, three storms were firing up in eastern WY, only two of which were within reason for us to intercept. Lucky for us, the southern-most storm began to evolve into a supercell, exactly what we were looking for. With conditions better for tornadoes that day than almost any other day we've had this project, spirits were tentatively hopeful. When we saw the wall cloud that the storm had produced, we became a LOT more hopeful:

Distant view of the updraft -- it certainly looked mighty good

Our probes first assignment was to go north and sample the forward flank downdraft, which is an area of typically 'calmer' weather, which for this storm meant occasional torrential rain and hail up to golf ball sizes. We did one big pass to the west, and turned around when we saw a beautiful updraft feature on the backside of the storm:

The updraft from N/NW of the storm -- this gave us good hope that this storm would produce something special

After this, we booked it eastward knowing that the storm was quite likely to produce a tornado at any moment, and we needed to complete our storm-relative mission of sampling the inflow just ahead of the tornado, and the gust front features to the northeast relative to the tornado. It also happens that this position allows for OUTSTANDING views of the tornado, not to mention from really up close. We began our transects on a NE/SW highway, and we were able to pass back and forth in front of the circulation 4-6 times before finally bailing out to the north. This gave us a view of the tornado that was truly spectacular:

The tornado from a distance -- this was our first view of it and we couldn't really tell if it was on the ground

This was from our transects -- beautiful tornado possibly into the EF-3 range

The view as the tornado was working in and out of rain bands

A bit closer -- this was the best vortex shape we saw -- after this it began to lose some strength

Our last pass to the north -- this was as the tornado dropped south and roped out

After making our several transects, we made our final transect northward knowing that we would both sample the mesoscale frontal features and also find large hail (given what probes 1 & 3 had found -- they were already out of commission with major windshield damage). We ran into baseball and softball sized hail, leading to us receiving the bronze metal for windshield damages on the day, meaning we had several cracks, but not enough to end our day.

Our hail damage -- a bronze metal on the day, but still something of concern no doubt -- all for good data!

The tornado continuing to rope out, from a distance

From there, we pushed eastward through hail, and finally found ourselves out in front of the storm. As the storm caught up, the tornado roped out and eventually disappeared, and didn't appear to produce again. However, it came close as we made our final transects on the day, and we even were able to sample some surface circulation despite no tornado forming.

The mesocyclone later in the storm -- we thought it might produce another tornado, but no such luck

So close -- but these were just good looking scud than funnel clouds

In the end, it was an incredibly successful day from both a scientific and chaser prospective, and certainly a day that I will never forget. The next few days appear prime for chasing right through the end of the project, so wish us luck!

Pretty mammatus clouds as sunset from our target storm, from the south