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NEWS
  
 
>>>>>>>>2008<<<<<<<<

2008 started off with a very dry format, and a high fire risk, with many fires on New Years Eve and day. We are forecast to be drier and warmer than normal through the Winter. Travis County finally went under Burn Ban conditions after New Years, and will likely remain that way until we get a significant rain event. As usual, Texas goes from one extreme to the other. One year ago, the Lake Travis level was at a record low of 645', but when the floods came in July, it rose to 701' with large scale flooding. We look forward to an active but safe Spring.

Skywarn is scheduled for Saturday February 23rd this year. Due to our new WCM joining the show in place of Larry, we will not have a slot in the program, but still plan on attending in force.

We are making the move to more scientific projects this year. They are currently in the works, and will likely receive publicity once we have gathered enough information and trial runs. We very much look forward to this aspect. Unfortunately, all funding is from our pockets, so changes will not be over night. However, we do hope they will be very significant, and on the cutting edge of weather studies.

>>>>>>>>2007<<<<<<<<

09/14/07 - It is with very sad heart that I announce/relay that Larry Eblen of the NWS-EWX will be retiring in December. I think he has been contemplating it for a couple of years, and we knew it was just a matter of time. It is well deserved. Larry has spent many years traveling the Central Texas area giving Skywarn classes to communities, large and small. He has touched many lives, and taught probably thousands of people over the years. We will miss him greatly and wish him the very best of luck and health. Further details will be available when the time draws closer.

** Larry officially retired at the first of the year. He will be greatly missed. He has been a cornerstone in the NWS since I have been involved with weather. We wish the best of luck to him and his wife. **

08/15/07 - Tropical Storm Erin is heading across the Gulf toward the South Texas Coast today. Tropical storm warnings are posted from Freeport to the Mexico border near Brownsville. Although some local TV stations are trying to hype it as the "Storm of the Century", it will likely remain at its current status, bringing lots of rain and winds in the 40-50 mph range. The State has gone into full preparedness, staging helicopters and rescue crews in San Antonio just in case. If we are lucky, we will see some very scattered light rain from the waves being flung off it.

Monday-July 23, We had some scattered storms moving through the area towards the SSW. Around 6:48, NWS put out a tornado warning on a cell, stating that it was tornadic and approaching Jarrell, moving towards Georgetown. Although all radar disagreed, we scrambled and had 5 chasers around it pretty quickly. Of course it died down by the time we got to it. Chase-10, Tim Stevens caught this video capture from his home just prior to leaving out. This is a direct strike to a house across the street in his circle in Teravista.

On Tuesday / Wednesday, June 26 / 27, Marble Falls and areas of the Hill Country received over 18" of rain in some areas, which caused catastrophic flooding. Small creeks in Marble Falls became raging rivers, some 20-30 feet deep, sweeping away cars, trucks, homes, and businesses. So far, amazingly no reports of any fatalities have been made. Correction, 2 missing after a week long search. It will be a miracle if this holds true, due to the extremity and conditions of this event. All lakes are over full, and all dams are releasing water thru flood gates. More rain is expected over the next 7 days. Photos of this events damage can be seen HERE.

UPDATE: 4 missing. One found 10 days later, 3 others still missing after 3 weeks.

Update: 07/04/07 - Lake Travis is now at 701 feet and still rising. It has rained upstream almost everyday. Widespread flooding and road closures are occuring all around the lake area. Photos of local lake flooding can be seen by Clicking here.

$500 fine for passing or moving a barricade.

Class B Misdemeanor jail time for driving into water.
We had a couple more rounds of severe weather locally, both last night and today. Last nights produced a very spectacular lightning show the likes of which has not been seen in years. It was literally non stop lightning, with very strong ground strikes every 5-10 seconds, lasting for 30-40 minutes. Many power outages, very hard downpours of rain, and at least 2 microbursts or thunderstorm wind events, both in the 60-80 mph range, causing widespread damage over multiple counties. Todays storms were more shortlived, and dropped much less rain in most areas. There were reports of golfball to softball sized hail near Cedar Park, but no confirmations beyond golfball could be found. CLICK HERE for some pics of todays storms. **
Another round of heavy rains came through on Thursday night-5/24, and Friday 5/25, dumping very heavy rains in essentially the same locations. The Killeen area received over 10" between the 2 incidents. While we didn't get any of the serious flooding on camera the night before, we did today. CLICK HERE for those images. **

A cell fired up around 9:00PM last night (Monday 05/21) North of Burnet and slowly moved Eastward towards Lampasas. It kept backbuilding as it went and dumped between 6-10" of rain in some areas. Below are the rainfall totals.

This resulted in this creek flooding over 4 feet deep across 183, closing the road and causing extensive damage to the bridge structure and guardrail. Imagine encountering this at 11:00 at night.

It continued to flood the Lampasas river downstream, causing some STAR Flight rescues in Nolanville, near Killeen.

**

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Well, we are glad to see severe weather return to Texas. TSSI has made several outings this year. Although we didn't make any runs into other states with bigger tornadoes and damage, we have had an active time in our state. Below is a pic from Harper, TX in the first week of May.

These are a couple of lightning pics from home after we got back that night.

Some of us also had a run into the Panhandle the last week of April and caught this tornado just before it went into Tulia and did extensive damage. These are video captures of night shots.

 

**

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Central Texas finally had Winter. Beginning on Sunday 1/14, we started getting frozen precip and awoke to icy conditions and frozen roadways. This persisted as a constant jet carried moisture from the Pacific, across Mexico and over Central Texas, and eventually all the way up into Maine. On Tuesday, the sleet turned to snow. Kids were out enjoying the "Snow Day", and of course, the majority of the area shut down. Late Tuesday night, the round of snow we were supposed to get fell as rain, even though it was 28 degrees. Today (Wed. 1/17) the roads are melted, yards are still frozen, we have foot long icicles hanging from the roofs, and are facing going back to work, still under the withdrawal syndrome left over from the holidays. Some pics of my house and street can be seen HERE. **
 
>>>>>>>>2006<<<<<<<<
  

07/22/06

A weak front passed through the area and triggered some showers that moved Southward across Central Texas. One cell had a weak microburst within it, causing some damage in the Georgetown area around 4:00PM. There were about 6 whole trees blown over, many large tree limbs and power lines down, and 1 or 2 power poles snapped. We surveyed the area and declared it a weak microburst, with approx. a 1/2 mile wide area of damage, and winds of 60-70 mph, lasting 5 minutes according to residents. There were also reports of golfball sized hail in Sun City. The NWS stated they never saw any winds above 50 mph indicated. Though this is within 15 miles of the Granger radar, NWS usually watches their own radar in New Braunfels, and may have not seen signs of the burst from that distance. Since the Granger radar site apparently belongs to Ft. Hood, NWS doesn't seem to make any official use of it. No injuries were reported, and crews were working on restoring power before dark. **

  The 17th Annual Lou Withrow Skywarn class has tentatively been scheduled for Saturday February 10th at the J.J. Pickle Center, as in past years. The class is free and runs from 8:00AM-4:00PM.  

VERY IMPORTANT LINK TO THOSE WHO LIVE NEAR THE LAKES:

HERE IS A VERY INTERESTING ANALYSIS FROM THE LCRA ON WHAT CAN BE EXPECTED WHEN WE FINALLY FACE THE DAY OF EXTREME FLOODING. IT IS CLEARLY NOT A QUESTION OF "IF" IT WILL HAPPEN, BUT WHEN. THERE ARE ALSO REALLY INTERESTING HISTORICAL PHOTOS OF PREVIOUS CATASTROPHIC FLOODING IN THE AUSTIN AREA. CLICK HERE.

05/14/06

On Sunday, 05/14, some storms fired up along a boundary. We had 3000-4000 capes,but some cloud cover held the temps down. One of the cells came across Burnet County. As it got to Williamson County, a tornado warning was put out on it. We were monitoring radar, and kind of all said "What???" at the same time. It showed very weak elevated rotation, but not enough to support a funnel. Allegedly a Deputy reported a funnel, and they had some damage reports in the area. We knew better and decided to run over there and check it out. We did find some damage including one building that was completely destroyed. Jeff, accompanied by other team members, did a survey and decided it was a microburst of 70-80 mph winds. Although there has been some foolish dispute by some of the media, Jeffs ruling will stand. It has been backed by other media by their screen captures, to have the 70-80 mph winds that were estimated by the survey, and the NWS has seen Jeffs survey and fully agrees. The survey can be found on the "LINKS" page. **

05/04/06

For 3 nights this week, TSSI & LSSN were out chasing the weather. We had supercell tornadic hailmakers every night, but to our knowledge, no tornadoes dropped in our area. There were funnel reports, but none observed. We did drive into the hook, and what we thought was a rainwrapped funnel in Fredericksburg on Thursday night, but found no tornadic level damage afterwards.

 

The KXAN special "Surviving the storm" aired on the 25th at 7:00PM. It was very well done. Very special thanks to the crew: Jim Spencer, Shawn Rutherford, and Laura Skirde, and the rest of the KXAN crew that worked on it. Job well done! We have it saved on a site, but is a very large download. Click on the link below to load it.

"Surviving the Storm" video download - click here

  
KXAN TV-36 is working on a prime time severe weather special. TSSI has been working with them, and will get a 5 minute segment in the 30 minute show. It was scheduled to air on April 11th BUT HAS BEEN MOVED TO THE 25TH, at 7:00PM.  
Jeff, and Jeremy Morris with Volente Fire Dept. and a handful of other Travis County Dept's responded as the Austin/Travis County Strike Team, to the large wildland fires in the Panhandle last week. It was declared the largest wildfire in the nations history, with approx. 1 million + acres burned. They returned home Late Friday night 3/17 after 3.5 days.
 
The next scheduled event is the Annual LZ Class, put on by MSET-TX, and hosts a handful of helicopters, including Star Flight, DPS, APD, STATAIR, and possibly others. It is from 9-noon on Feb. 11th. at Shoreline Christian Center. Admission is free, pre-registration is recommended. You get 3 CE hours for attending.
  
The 16th Annual Lou Withrow Skywarn class was held at the J.J. Pickle Research Facility on January 14th. We had all the usual personnel, and Al Moller from DFW NWS was guest speaker this year, covering the Advanced segment. TSSI and LSSN was there in usual force.All in all it went well, and we look forward to next year. (provided we actually have any weather between now and then) : )
  
 
>>>>>>>>2005<<<<<<<<
 

UPDATE: The drill was held and went off pretty well. The "War of the worlds" scenario was pulled off, still surprising some folks who happened onto the repeater, even with the "This is a drill" announcements I made almost every minute. Pics and audio files are on the LSSN site (s). Thanks to all-Williamson County kicked butt again, and showed fellow ARES groups how an S.E.T. drill is supposed to be. We had a full blown, scripted weather net, involving 3 tornadoes, the last one being an F4 which wiped out key parts of Cedar Park and Georgetown, successfully activated 4 EOC's, and had 40 members involved in the drill. The goal was to stress test the system and the repeaters. I think we did that pretty well. Traffic was passed among all 4 EOC's, concerning damage, injuries/fatalities, Emergency Services response and dispatching. Granted it was only 4 hours, but with all the activity we had this year with the hurricanes, Tom didn't feel the need to push everyone any longer than that.

WILLIAMSON COUNTY PROVIDED AN ESTIMATED 20% OF THE TOTAL RESPONSE FOR SUPPORT FOR TEXAS IN THE RITA DISASTER - WAY TO GO GUYS!

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On November 5th, TSSI, LSSN, WilCo ARES, and WilCoARC will be doing an annual S.E.T. Disaster Drill in Williamson County. Although the outline is remaining secret to most, it will involve a large scale weather event (of course). Jeff has spent some 50 odd hours preparing the drill script for the weather net portion of the drill. Tom Whiteside-N5TW will be controlling the resource side of the net. We will activate 4 county EOC's, and hope that Emergency Services will be involved in this as well. There will be an announcement in the Hill Country newspaper, as well as the Austin American Statesman. We also hope to have coverage/mention on 4 of the 5 Austin TV stations. The Exercise will begin at 8:00AM, and run through approx. noon. The tactical weather net will be held on the NA6M repeater in Georgetown-147.080. The resource net will be held on the 146.640 in Georgetown.

 
On September 23rd, Chase-1 & Chase 3 loaded up with 25 gallons of spare gas each, food, cooler full of drinks, bedding, etc. and headed down to the coast for the arrival of hurricane Rita. We made it as far as Lake Jackson / Surfside Beach. We met some fantastic people with the City of Lake Jackson who fed us dinner in their new fire station, and offered a place to stay. We were also offered similar comforts from the Sheriff in Matagorda County. We enjoyed dinner at Lake Jackson, as well as their fine company, but neglected to take them up on the sleeping arrangements, figuring we would be up all night as the hurricane was making landfall during the night. We decided not to push our luck and try to get to ground zero that late in the game, and remained where we were, on the Western edge of rotation. In hindsight, I think we would have either not went, considering the costs it required-not to mention driving around with 25 gallons of fuel in the back of each truck, or we would have headed down there earlier and got in to ground zero. We did have quite an interesting trip back that morning, passing thru some more active parts of the hurricane.  
On Saturday, January 14th, 2006, the Annual Lou Withrow Skywarn Advanced class will be held at the J.J. Pickle Research Center, beginning at 8:00AM. It will have the usual cast of weather folks. Special guest speaker this year is Al Moller. Al is one of the "gurus" of severe weather from the DFW office, and we look very forward to seeing him again.  
On Thursday afternoon, March 31st, another round formed as the dryline crossed us, and storms crossed the Pflugerville/Round Rock area, dumping hail and heavy rain. This eventually turned into a bow line and caused damage in SE Austin. Near 969 & 973, there were many utility poles and wires down and some 3800 residents were without power for awhile. It raced Eastward causing more issues and damage near Cameron & Milano, NE of Austin, and also some similar damage and hail in Bastrop county.  
 
 
  Friday night, March 25th, a supercell made its way towards Central Texas. TSSI responded and headed for Burnet to head it off. As we neared Burnet, it became clear that it was a "right turner" (rotating) and we had to run South to Round Mountain to intercept it. We arrived there 2 minutes before it hit. I was showing 3.25" hail and a meso coming right at us, and I knew in the next radar update it was going to be on top of us. The next thing we knew, we were getting slammed by fast falling golfball and larger hail. I saw a few that were over 2". I truly thought the windshield was going to crack with each strike. The golfball hail was constant, the larger ones would break the constant noise with a louder bang. 2 of us ran South on 281 to drive out of it in a mile or 2. Two other members stayed and pulled under the awning of the gas station and were then trapped by idiots who blocked them in. As we turned around and headed back their way, I could see a funnel drifting Eastward across the sky near them. It wasn't on the ground, but was a funnel crossing the highway. Once we rejoined them, we continued on into Austin with it. The southern cell we were on faded, and the next cell North fired up, and continued the swath of hail and damage across the lake into Lakeway, North Austin, and down 290 thru Manor and Elgin. At 290 & Giles, a funnel dropped and sucked up a storage facility, then lifted. Again near the county line in Littig, another funnel bounced in & out, accompanied by the hail and 60-80 mph winds. On Saturday, Troy Kimmel called and requested my assistance with the damage survey. We returned again Sunday. I returned again Monday evening, and Tuesday evening, completing the survey and delivering it to NWS. Also on Tuesday, I met with Larry Eblen and guided him around to visually witness the damage and talk to the residents we spoke to previously. (Littig is a black settlement, founded in 1865, I was told, and the people there were very friendly and glad to see us. It consists of a couple dozen homes and a new and old Church building, and a few ranches.) We concluded there was an F-0/F-1 tornado which dipped in and out, accompanied by the hail, only nickel sized and smaller, but accumulating in drifts over a foot deep in places, and 60-80 mph winds. It is very lucky it wasn't stronger, and didn't occur in a more populated area, and was a miracle no one was injured by all the flying tin.  
 
SEE THE ENTIRE DAMAGE SURVEY IN THE LINKS SECTION OF THIS SITE, UNDER "DAMAGE SURVEYS"
  
 
>>>>>>>>2004<<<<<<<<
  
   
   
   

 
SOME OF TSSI MADE A TRIP TO OKLAHOMA THE WEEKEND OF MAY 29TH ON A HIGH RISK OUTLOOK. IT TURNED OUT PRETTY GOOD. WE RAN INTO THE T.I.V., THE ROTATE ARMADA WITH A DOW, MOST OF CHANNEL 9 INCLUDING VAL & AMY CASTOR. WE CHASED A LONG TRACK SUPERCELL WHICH TRACKED ACROSS 2/3 OF THE STATE FOR APPROX. 9 HOURS. WE MET SOME FANTASTIC FOLKS, MAINLY GREG & MIRANDA COUCH. WE HOOKED UP WITH THEM AND WE ALL CHASED THE CONSTANTLY TORNADIC CELL ACROSS THE STATE. IT WAS AMAZING HOW MANY PEOPLE WERE OUT THERE "CHASING", BUT I WON'T EVEN GET STARTED ON THAT.  
     

This is a photo of "The Jarrell Watch". It was found on property South of 71 in far Western Travis County, in the area of the ending damage path of the Pedernales portion of the Tornado, which is where alot of the Jarrell debris ended up. The time on the watch matches exactly to when Jarrell was hit-3:42pm, if you allow for the tilt in the face. An independent watch dealer confirmed it was sold between a summer 96 and fall 98 time period. It is believed that it was hung in the cedar trees, and another thunderstorm had knocked it down, where it was found. There is also alot of other debris in this area which is undoubtably from the twister also. We will search the area shortly for more findings. At the time, my damage survey ended just short of this location, as beyond it was uninhabited and unaccessible. Growth has allowed for access now. Will follow up with any further findings. The watch and the dealers report will be turned over to Larry Eblen at NWS New Braunfels for display on their "Jarrell Wall" in the office.  
     
Mars Exploration Rover landed on the surface of Mars. Click here for photo of the memorial on the sat dish on the rover, dedicated to the Space Shuttle Columbia.  
 
     
 
>>>>>>>>>>>>>2003<<<<<<<<<<<<<
We are very sorry to see Nyzette Rydell of the NWS-New Braunfels leave our area. I'm sure she is really disgusted, having transferred to Hawaii. She was a very integral part of the local weather scene and she will be greatly missed. Send us a post card Nyzette.  
     
TSSI HAS JOINED FORCES WITH LONE STAR STORM SPOTTERS NETWORK AND ARE WORKING ON SOME FANTASTIC NEW PROJECTS THAT WILL ENCOMPASS ALL OF CENTRAL TEXAS INVOLVING SEVERE WEATHER EVENTS, AS WELL AS ANY OTHER WIDESPREAD EMERGENCY OPERATION THAT MIGHT ARISE. JEFF HAS BEEN APPOINTED HEAD OF THE ORGANIZATION. BLAKE ROBERTS WAS NAMED FORECAST COORDINATOR, SPLITTING HIS DUTIES WITH TSSI AND LSSN. JEFF HAS BUILT A WEBSITE FOR THE GROUP AT WWW.LSSN.US STAY TUNED FOR FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS.  
   
As of mid October, TSSI, KXAN, and Star Flight, have been working with the Weather Channel/Storm Stories on a show for the Nov. 15th, 2001 tornado/flooding event. It aired in April, and concentrated mostly on a water rescue involving STAR Flight. We had about 5 seconds of footage on it, but was enough to get the name in the credits.
   
We have officially had the largest Tornado outbreak in history. The old record for the month of May was 404. We surpassed that on the 13th. As of the 15th, we have had 485 reported tornadoes in the U.S. A good portion of these were in Texas. Fortunately, there has been a very low fatality rate with this outbreak. This i'm sure is due to better, more advanced warnings getting out thanks to the NWS, in cooperation with chasers and spotters. There have been many significant ones that should have killed many people, but fortunately folks have heeded the warnings, or have been just plain lucky. It's hard to speculate whether or not the El Nino situation has caused all this to be more severe than normal, but you can be assured it has shoved it further North than normal. For this, folks in Central Texas should be thankful. I would hate to imagine the location that all this action would've been had it been a normal year. For all the times we have cursed the weather service for being wrong, myself more than most : ) these people deserve some thanks and recognition this year. Especially the Storm Prediction Center, who puts the warnings out for the whole country. ( For those of you who don't know, they are in Norman, Oklahoma, which is just South of Oklahoma City. ) For all the days they miss the forecast, they have dually saved that many lives in the last 2 weeks. Many Kudos to them.

Moore & Oklahoma city hit again-05/08/03

For the second time in 4 years, almost to the day, Moore & Oklahoma city were hit by a significant tornado. At approx. 5:17 pm, the tornado entered the city of Moore. Looking to be an F-3 initially, it did significant damage to hundreds of homes, the GM car plant, at least one motel, and numerous vehicles as it crossed I-35 in almost the same path as the May 3, 1999 path. It destroyed the GM plant, tossing auto carrier 18 wheelers like toys, one bursting into flames upon landing. Estimates are that it destroyed some 350 homes, causing 104 injuries, 12 were critical. 25 people were transported from a Greyhound bus that was hit directly by the twister as it travelled along I-35-(see photo at left). As of 5/15, the totals from 5/1 to 5/15 were: 485 Tornadoes, 1295 wind damage reports, and 2746 hail reports. THIS IS THE LARGEST OUTBREAK OF TORNADOES IN HISTORY FOR THE MONTH OF MAY !(<<Thanks to Kevin Anderson-KD5CCH for the nice Barons frame of the hook echo.)

And Yes, some cows were annoyed! : )

 
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>2002<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

For the second Monday in a row, Dec. 16th & Dec. 23rd, South Texas and the Austin area had severe weather. Once again, TSSI and ARES Skywarn spotters were on the chase of a line of supercell producing thunderstorms that raced across the area. Last Mondays storms produced at least one confirmed touchdown in Manor, just East of Austin. Chase-1 & Chase-3 spotted the TVS signature on radar 10 minutes prior to the NWS putting out the Tornado Warning as it was just South of Austin, and were on the road to intercept as the warning came out. They chased it across Travis, Bastrop, and Williamson counties before aborting the chase in Thorndale. One of our spotters, Preston Haun, reported damage and an overturned truck on Hwy. 290, at the Travis/Bastrop county line. Chase-1 was asked to carry out a damage survey for the NWS on the site. He concluded that it was a definite F-1, bordering F-2. It destroyed one building, one double-wide mobile home, and damaged about a dozen other homes and businesses as well. The 2nd Monday event produced several unconfirmed sightings from Canyon Lake to Giddings, which the team was also on top of, but saw nothing but hail and wall clouds.

Click here to see KXAN 36 video of storm damage from Christmas tornado

 
Heavy rains throughout South Texas cause heavy flooding from Austin to San Antonio. Waters have reached record levels on some dams and waterways. 24 counties have now been declared disaster areas.
Media coverage --2002
Gallery of photos of flood damage - Excellent collection of photos--2002
  Photos of flooding and waterways in Austin Area.--2002