Hurricane Katrina Chase Preparations
-Simon prepares for the chase

Katrina first made lanfall over the southeastern coast of Florida as a minimal hurricane. But to everyone's surprise she barely weakened as she traveled southwest over the moist Everglades. Katrina then emerged early Friday morning over the record warm Gulf of Mexico waters, just shy of hurricane status!

Within hours Katrina literally exploded and become a Category 2 Hurricane within hours. She stayed on a west-southwest course longer than expected - surprising the NHC. Katrina is now officially forecast to make landfall on Monday afternoon near the Mississippi/Alabama border as a Category 4. Currently 1)water temperatures over the Gulf of Mexico are at a record warmth in some areas 2)Upper level shear is forecast to be low 3)Katrina is already a Cat 2 Hurricane. With these conditions in place, Katrina has the potential to make landfall as a Category 5 Hurricane!

Simon is preparing himself for the worst. He plans to leave Norman, Oklahoma Saturday evening to spend much of Sunday afternoon/evening scouting the coastal areas for optimal chase locations. With sustained winds near 140 mph, all precautions must be taken. He plans to chain his car to another in the even Cat. 5 winds occur - which could blow his and other cars away. He is also going to take a chain saw in order to clear the road on his way home.

Hurricane Katrina is going to be a historic storm; one which will probably break a record for either damage or just shear intensity. We have just entered the peak in the hurricane season and Katrina could be the storm of the year!

Bottom Line: Stomgasm will be there!

July 10 - Hurricane Dennis - 945mb Recorded

July 10: Pace, Florida Simon measures pressure of 945mb in eye of Hurricane Dennis! Video clip now online! Go to Dennis page

June 11 & 12 Tornadoes - Video Online

Video clips are online, but photos have not yet been developed due to time and other constraints. Photos will be online once circumstances allow it.

June 11:Texas Panhandle Simon captures a large tornado over the southern Texas Panhandle. Watch a sample clip here.

June 12: West Texas Simon, Tom & Shawn track several tornadoes in west Texas. Watch a sample clip here.

June 6 & 9 Tornadoes

June 7: South Dakota Simon gets a tornadic LP Supercell in Southwest South Dakota. See more pics here.

Tornado Video Online June 9: Kansas Simon tracks several tornadoes in Northwest Kansas. View preliminary pics here.

May 24 - Colorado Beauty

Jim views a great supercell in Eastern Colorado on his chase vacation. View more photos here. More photos and info coming soon...

Mammatus in Kansas

On the way back from a bust in southwest Nebraska, these storms in Kansas produced some of the most beautiful mammatus Simon has ever seen. View more photos here.

Now that Jim's scanner has been returned to him, he was finally able to scan photos from the following days:

March 21 in SE Texas:

April 10 in central Texas:

Granada Tornado Documentary - Wilber, NE

Granada Productions is putting together a 30 minute tornado documentary on 5 significant tornado outbreaks. Among these will be the May 22, 2004 Wilber/Hallam nebraska record breaking 2.5 mile wide tornado.

Update - July 7

The interviews in Nebraska were a great success and we are told the documentary was on British television last week. We are awaiting our copy of the show, and photos from interviews will be up soon.

Manchester Tornado Footage Airs on Discovery Kids Monday, 2 April 2005

If you haven't had a chance to catch Stormgasm video on television, you will have another chance at 3pm Eastern and Pacific time April 2nd. Click here to view sample clips.

Stormgasm Tornado Footage Airs in the UK

On Sunday, January 9th, 2005 UK's Channel 4 will air "7 Days that Shook the Weathermen".

The program will air tornado footage captured by Stormgasm from May 8, May 9, and June 24 of 2003. Simon Brewer's incredible close encounter with the Moore/OKC F4 tornado of May 8 will be shown. Power flashes from the OKC nighttime tornado of May 9 will be seen along with breathtaking, yet devastating, tornado footage taken from South Dakota on June 24.

Manchester Tornado Footage Airs on the History Channel in October

The History Channel has made a two part show on weather. The show is called "Tactical to Practical", and the first segment is called "Weather". Boring, right? Well segment two is called "Extreme Weather". Sounds a little more interesting, doesn't it?

Surely this will prove to be a very entertaining show. The reason being the History Channel is using one minute of video our footage in this show! That's quite a bit of video to show from one source. But what else can be said but it's great footage!

Keep your eyes peeled for the air date and time, which should be sometime in October.

Stormgasm Goes After Hurricane Frances!

What has only been known as a lifetime dream for Simon Brewer will become reality on Saturday, September 4th, 2004 as Hurricane Frances makes landfall along the southeastern Florida coast. Simon, Reed Timmer and Jole will attempt to capture video of what has caused a large portion of Florida to declare a state of emergency.

On Wednesday and Thursday Hurricane Frances was a very powerful hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 140mph and showing now signs of weakening. Frances had very favorable low wind shear conditions with warm sea surface temperatures and little hope of weakening. This resulted in forecasting an almost certain landfall as a category 4 hurricane or a strong category 3.

These three now "hurricane chasers" hopped on a plane headed for Fort Lauderdale, Florida Thursday night. They rented a car and planned to review the latest information on Frances and find a suitable shelter. When they left Thursday night they were prepared for the ultimate pounding-nearly 24 hours of tropical storm force winds, hurricane force winds for half that time, and a 1-2 hour window of nearly 140 mph unrelenting Frances! This would be the challenge of a lifetime; driving through blinding rain and 74+mph winds while heading for the expected landfall of the eye.

But since then things have changed. Frances has encountered a little upper level wind shear and has had some drier air entrained on the western side in the middle and upper levels. The eye of Frances has also passed over some islands. The result has been the slow weakening of Frances from 140 mph to 105 mph. Although, Frances is expected to strengthen slightly as it reaches the warmer waters just east of Florida. Nevertheless, this is simply not the same beast Simon and the others were anticipating.

Major hurricane or not, Frances is moving very slowly around 10 mph. Having said that experiencing 100 mph+ winds for several hours is still an incredible experience, one which most chasers dream of. One can only hope Simon, Reed and Jole can make it out of their safely after capturing video of an event they will never forget.