HD VIDEO 1: January 22 lightning in southeast Missouri
HD VIDEO 2: January 20 freezing rain road icing
(for each video, you can select 1080p option and full screen for HD)

The no-off-season-Midwest keeps on going with a very active and interesting January. A severe episode of light freezing rain hit the St. Louis region hard on Friday night, shutting down many roads and causing at least 2 fatalities. The second clip linked above is a demo video I shot to show how slick this type of precipitation makes the road surface.

Sunday, it was a setup for a potential tornado outbreak from southern MO/IL down into AR/TN/MS/AL. Due to the event being nocturnal, I was hesitant to do a long-distance drive, but decided to make a short trip down to Cape Girardeau to position in case something on the northern fringes of the event could make it that far. At the very least, lightning was a sure bet, and I wanted to get that far south at least to get out of the dense fog that was locked in north of the warm front. To make a long story short, I ended up going the extra distance south into Arkansas to try to catch a potent supercell as it crossed I-55 north of Memphis. I watched the radar-indicated circulation pass about 1/2 mile to my north, but could not see any visual signs of interest. With the rest of the supercells to the south lining out, I turned back north toward home. Most of the lightning in the front and middle of the storms was all hidden within the clouds, but after the cores passed, the trailing stratiform region had visible channels. I stopped for about 15 minutes at Steele, MO to shoot some of this lightning on the back side of the line (video clip is here).

Driving north on I-55:

Video capture:

Some chasers scoff at the idea of chasing in the winter, outside of the Plains, at night and certainly all of the above. True, I never have high expectations for winter chases - but when something potentially major is an afternoon drive away on a day off, it's not a hard decision to do it. Furthermore, the Memphis-Jonesboro-Sikeston triangle is excellent chase territory, Plains-like and flat with great visibility. After the storms had passed, I stood outside on the prairie of the Missouri bootheel, shooting the trailing stratiform lightning - no different from those end-of-chase lightning moments on the Plains. It was a fun day, and one I won't hesitate to do again if a good setup occurs close by on my day off - no matter the time of year or day. If I never chased at night, I wouldn't have seen my first and only F5 in 2007 (along with several other tornadoes) and this amazing tornado in 2004.

Your Name:   Location (optional):

Validation: Enter only the numbers colored in GREEN above:

This comment system is moderated - please read the posting rules before submitting a comment.

HD VIDEO: January lightning over the Arch in St. Louis (select 1080p option and full screen for HD)

As I've said many times, the reason it's so great to be a chaser in the United States (specifically the Midwest) is that we don't have a true 'off season' for storms. Winter severe weather events are common at least once or twice each November-February period annually here - it's one of the reasons I moved to this region. This night's setup was a warm, moist airmass transported northward by strong southerly winds ahead of an upper level trough. A low pressure system at the surface developed and moved northeastward, dragging a strong cold front southeast across the Midwest. Along and ahead of the front, numerous strong thunderstorms developed, aided by strong upper level support.

The best area for supercells was in southwestern Missouri after sunset, but as this region is difficult to chase due to trees and hills, I opted to make this primarily a lightning outing in eastern Missouri and the STL region. I started after the first storms of the evening in Bowling Green, MO, then generally dropped south and east along Highway 61, I-70 and I-64, ultimately ending up in downtown St. Louis. Just about every core was filled with small hail, the largest I estimated to be about quarter size on I-70 just west of Wentzville. The hailstones were very soft, smashing into pieces on impact like snowballs. A second round of storms moved through St. Louis around 5:30AM, but was generally less cooperative with lightning photo ops. All in all, a great way to kick off the 2012 chase photo/video folders!

Here are some screen captures from video:

And finally, a lone still from near I-70 at Foristell:

Other chaser reports from this day:

• Paul Hadfield (Decatur, IL)

Keep in mind the 10/90 rule. Tie any sky to atleast 10 percent ground, good captures though. - Posted by Brendon Lindsey

Brendon, thanks for the note. I would argue that sometimes that rule can be broken for a tall subject like the Arch. I try to do a new angle of the Arch every time I shoot it to have a good variety. I have a lot of the standard angles (with the ground) already covered. In this case, I zoomed in so that it fills the frame more proportionately, expecting lightning to fill in the rest of the sky behind it. I suppose it's a matter of preference whether this composition actually works OK or not - personally, I tend to like having a few unique angles like this one. - Posted by Dan R. from New Baden, IL

Great shots Dan!...Even without any ground showing ;) - Posted by Kristina W. from Louisville, KY

Your Name:   Location (optional):

Validation: Enter only the numbers colored in GREEN above:

This comment system is moderated - please read the posting rules before submitting a comment.

In my online 'travels', I've found that some of the most outspoken atheists are former Christians - some even coming from the highest and heavily-dedicated ranks: pastors, deacons and missionaries - some who have given their lives to the cause before doing a total 180. A common thread in this faction is that many have either come from some of the more outrageous, legalistic and heretical denominations (I use the term 'Christian' denomination loosely here), or were a part of an abusive church environment. As a Christian myself for 19 years, I have had firsthand experience with a few of these. It's easy for me to see why someone coming from one of these cultic, caustic and/or anti-intellectual environments would turn so hard against the faith. The wounds created are deep, and I have seen it happen to friends and associates of mine.

The process goes something like this: the person, at some point or another, begins to become educated - while at the same time, first experiencing the 'outside world' in some way that they've never been allowed to before. It can be a child brought up in a strict home finally going away to college, a dedicated church member deciding to research his or her faith for the purposes of better understanding God, or someone who encounters a friend or associate of differing faith and thereby is exposed to arguments against Christianity. The result is the person deciding to 'check up' on what they believe, and when they find some long-held beliefs to be incorrect, the results are traumatic.

Inevitably, the person begins to learn that many of the things they were taught for so long are clearly wrong. So they are forced to abandon their beliefs in those things. But a common problem is that such a Christian is unable to stop with just casting off the wrong things they were taught - they become distrustful of *everything* they were taught. While completely understandable, this is the beginning of disaster.

Some of the things taught in these bad environments were right. Even some of the most bizarre cults get a few points of doctrine correct. But as one goes through such an emotionally tumultuous crisis as a new doubter of their faith, they don't have the presence of mind to distinguish between the right and the wrong teachings - they simply reject *everything*, both the good and the bad. And so the floodgates open - everything they were taught to avoid, they now rush toward. Many turn down dark paths of drug and alcohol abuse. Others turn themselves loose to sexual promiscuity. Marriages, friendships and careers are ashes left behind in the blaze.

If you yourself are in a situation like one I described, I'm not here to pronounce judgement on you for where you are. I can see how it happened. I just urge you to keep a level head, as difficult as it may seem to do at the moment. Don't throw away what you have. There is a true Christ outside of the dystopia from where you just exited. I won't say it's going to be easy, but the answers are out there if you have the tenacity and resolve to find them.

Good places to start are the following web sites:

• Reasonable Faith by William Lane Craig
• Ravi Zacharias
• John Lennox

Your Name:   Location (optional):

Validation: Enter only the numbers colored in GREEN above:

This comment system is moderated - please read the posting rules before submitting a comment.

Manfrotto video head removal - battle scars

This post is mainly to give web searchers some reading on the problems I had removing my Manfrotto video pan heads from the tripods. During my own searches, I found many people having this problem, but no working solutions. I have two Manfrotto aluminum tripods with fluid video heads both that have been attached for about 5 years. I needed to take one of the heads off of the tripods to use on a window mount I bought for shooting video from my truck. Since the heads had been on the tripods for several years, they were pretty well fused together. The tripod baseplate has threaded holes for set screws that you can use to secure the head baseplate, but neither of my tripods were using those. Compounding the problem is that the baseplates of Bogen/Manfrotto heads are of a large diameter, and don't have anything to grab onto to unscrew the head from the tripod.

The head baseplates are only a quarter-inch high and nothing but smooth metal all around, and are much too large for even larger-sized wrenches and pliers to get around. The pan lock that keeps the head from rotating isn't strong enough to hold against the force needed to separate the baseplate from the tripod plate, so you have to find a way to grab onto that thin baseplate with enough force to turn it. With a huge pipe wrench or vise from a well-equipped shop, this would have been easy. So, if you have a friend close by who has a nice workshop, ignore the rest of this post and call him. However, for the average person with only a basic set of tools, read on.

I have a larger set of pliers that *almost* fit around the baseplate, but only partially. The smoothness of the metal kept it from getting any grip, so the first thing I did was to take a file and rough up the edge of the baseplate so that the pliers would have more friction to grab onto. Still no luck. I tried several suggestions I found posted elsewhere, like heating the tripod plate with boiling water or a stove burner. I supplimented that with cooling the head baseplate after heating the tripod plate. That didn't work. Neither did a shot of WD-40.

Finally, I decided to drill horizontally into the baseplate and put a screw into the hole, using the screw as an object to gain leverage. I hit the screw several times with a hammer trying to get the plate to move, but instead the screw broke off! Undeterred, I started hammering flathead a screwdriver into the part of the screw that was left. After several minutes of this, I could see the plate finally starting to move, millimeter by millimeter until finally I could turn it with the pliers, then finally by hand. The above picture shows the battle scars of the process.

One major point I could not confirm anywhere online is the fact that the Manfrotto head mounts are NOT reverse-threaded. They are threaded normally (counter-clockwise to unscrew). The internet didn't have an answer to this when I searched, so hopefully this post will answer someone else searching for the same thing. I didn't want to be hammering away at the plate in the wrong direction and only making the problem worse. Only because I had the new window mount was I able to determine which way the threads were set.

January 12 St. Louis snow event

Reverse tire tracks in snow

Your Name:   Location (optional):

Validation: Enter only the numbers colored in GREEN above:

This comment system is moderated - please read the posting rules before submitting a comment.

I know most readers come to this site to see storm chasing material, so I don't cross-post updates from icyroadsafety.com very often. However, I have a few items of interest to share here since a.) road icing is a valid form of dangerous weather that, as a storm chaser, I've devoted a lot of time to, b.) we're in the middle of winter in the US, and c.) and it has been quite a while that I posted about it here. I have been devoting more time to this subject not because I have a deep 'passion' for winter weather, but because I've become interested in doing something that actually has a chance at making a difference in the world. I feel that efforts toward road icing have the better potential to that end, as opposed to similar efforts with traditional severe weather (tornadoes, lightning, etc) which seem pretty well covered already.

First off, of recent note is a major high-impact icing event due to light snow that occured in the eastern Midwest/Appalachians region of the US on Monday (January 2). The number of accidents and multi-vehicle pileups reported with this event is as high as any that I've seen in the years I've been following this subject. I'm in the process of doing some information collection for a case study, but in the meantime here is some preliminary notes on the event:

LINK: Monday, January 2, 2012 road icing outbreak

Also, here are a couple other recent articles posted on the site:

LINK: No vehicle can safely go highway speeds on icy roads
LINK: Another case for "Road Ice Warnings": December 8-9, 2011 light snow event

Lastly, I have been experimenting with Youtube's HD video capabilities, with caution and heavy watermarking of course. I posted a full 1080i version of my icy road footage preview compilation here. To view this in full HD, select the "1080i" resolution option and then hit the "full screen" button:

HD VIDEO: HD Icy Road Footage - Accidents, Crashes, Spinouts and Slides - 1080i stock footage

I may begin using Youtube more in the coming season for HD video if it looks like this will be a safe option. As time permits, I'll probably render out and post some older clips in full HD in the coming weeks.

Your Name:   Location (optional):

Validation: Enter only the numbers colored in GREEN above:

This comment system is moderated - please read the posting rules before submitting a comment.