Storm Highway by Dan Robinson
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                   Friday, March 4, 2011 - 10:30PM CST

March 4 chase: Lake St. Louis and Chesterfield, MO bow echoes

By DAN ROBINSON
Editor/Photographer
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From Dan: How the crime of copyright infringement took $1 million from me and shut down my operation.

In September of 2025, my work is generating the most income it ever has in my career. Yet, I'm being forced to shut down my successul operation, against my will, due to one cause alone: 95% of that revenue is being stolen by piracy and copyright infringement. I've lost more than $1 million to copyright infringement in the last 15 years, and it's finally brought an end to my professional storm chasing operation. Do not be misled by the lies of infringers, anti-copyright activists and organized piracy cartels. This page is a detailed, evidenced account of my battle I had to undertake to just barely stay in business, and eventually could not overcome. It's a problem faced by all of my colleagues and most other creators in the field.

EXPEDITION VIDEO: March 4 storms - Wentzville to Chesterfield, MO

One thing I've learned in storm chasing is to never ignore a surface low that manages to entrain some instability, no matter how weak. Today we had that very situation just west of St. Louis, about 500-700 j/kg CAPE, steep lapse rates (sub-zero 850mb temps), backed surface winds ahead of the low, a good burst of upper level support and a cold front to kick off convection. I targeted Bowling Green, MO this afternoon, but got a late start, not getting on the road until after 3PM. I originally was trying to get ahead of the storm headed straight for Bowling Green, but was about 20 minutes too far behind.

I instead decided to hang back in Wentzville for the southern storm, which developed into a strong bow echo headed for my location. The storm briefly isolated itself, with some interesting features partially hidden in the rain. I couldn't really confirm rotation, so I hesitated to officially call it a wall cloud. Close lightning made this storm worth the drive. Later, a second bow echo developed just west of Chesterfield, weakening slightly before moving through the town. Power flashes lit up the sky near Spirit of St. Louis airport, but I didn't see any other signs of serious wind damage-in-progress. Another enjoyable and relatively inexpensive outing to log the second chase of the season.

Lightning at Lake St. Louis, MO:

Storm feature at Lake St. Louis:

Power flash in Chesterfield, MO with second storm:

Lightning continued in the stratiform precip region of the storm complex deep into the night, here over the Illinois prairie at New Baden at 1AM:

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