April 10, 2002

By DAN ROBINSON

Editor/Photographer

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.

A slow storm day such as this one normally doesn't warrant discussion, but the events on this afternoon made the sky interesting to watch.

As a springtime cold front approached from the west, conditions needed for strong thunderstorms slowly dissolved in the days leading up to Tuesday. As the front neared, rain showers were the only features that managed to develop along the line.

However, just prior to the front's passage around 6:00PM, a narrow, brief but potent line of cells quickly fired up in the center of the state, from Morgantown stretching southwest to just north of Charleston. At the time, the cells began producing a fair amount of cloud-to-ground lightning in the Braxton and Gilmer county areas.

Down in Kanawha County, the rapidly developing line was very obvious as it passed over Dunbar and was a very interesting sight to watch (see photo below). While the cells at the southern edge of the line did not grow large enough to produce lightning in the Charleston area, they brought a brief shower of heavy rain to the area.

Below: A line of convective cells develops over Dunbar and South Charleston, West Virginia. This view is looking east across the Kanawha River in Dunbar.