Delegates from the 17 Mexican municipalities of Texas and the settlement of Pecan Point had met on March 1, 1836, at Washington-on-the-Brazos to consider their future. In the early morning hours of the next day, they unanimously voted to declare independence from Mexico.

But, notes the Texas State Historical Association’s Handbook of Texas, the move toward self government “remained to be demonstrated to Mexico.”

Fours days later, newly minted Texans made a stand at the Alamo. None survived.

The result was just as dismal on March 27, with the massacre of more than 350 Republic of Texas soldiers who had surrendered at Goliad.

My Texas compatriots of yore decided they’d had enough. It would take 150 more years for the phrase to be coined, but folks were about to learn why you don’t mess with Texas.

On April 21, 1836, Texas Republic soldiers attacked Santa Anna’s troops and the Battle of San Jacinto was underway. It took 18 minutes for Texas to secure its independence from Mexico.

I know a lot of current Texans, especially those in the legislature, too often don’t represent my home state the way I’d like.

But I am still proud of my North Texas heritage and thrilled to call the area home.

And every chance I get, I tell everyone I’m a native Texan, although those who actually hear me proclaim my love for the Lone Star State know where I’m from by my drawl long before I can finish the sentence!

Not a bad day… Considering the high opportunity to not see anything and otherwise go home with a sunburn.

Traveled quite a few miles yesterday. Caught up with the cells out west of Enid, Ok and tracked them as they jetted NE across northern Ok, through the Blackwell, Ok area and on into South Central Kansas. For February, the structure of the storm was incredible, but the storm seemed to have a hard time with a strong RFD undercutting the rotation several times until it moved into Kansas.

Got into pretty good position to see the tornadoes drop when we went down a county road and there were some young idiots form OU with New York tags on a Honda civic trying to make it down a mud road. They eventually got stuck and blocked the entire road. Along with an F-150 2wd with SKYWARN stickers and lightbar (I guess they wanted to feel important).

Lesson of the day… If you own a 2wd vehicle, STAY OFF OF MUDDY ROADS! Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that one out.

By the time we got around the jackholes, it was nearly dark, and we called off chase.

Even though there were the headaches, not a bad way to start off Chase Season 2011. Another round of SVR seems to be peaking it’s head around the end of the week.

Here’s to a stellar year!!!

Without going into a lot of detail, there is a fairly decent chance of a chase from Central OK up into S KS. I feel like SPC is being conservative with their outlook. I’ll check data again before I head out in the morning.

With the arrival of TS Hermine in south Texas, my attention turns to the potential of tornadic storms over central and North Texas the next couple of days.

The attention focuses on the path the TS will take over Texas and Oklahoma.  Although the storm will lose it’s surface winds, and they wont be as potent as they are along the gulf, it often takes a longer time for winds in the upper levels to settle causing a significant amount of windshear, or… turning of the winds with height.  One of the key ingredients in tornado genesis.  Below is an expected track of the storm.

Models have been extremely persistent in putting the track somewhere in between Childress and Wichita Falls on Wednesday which would put N Central Texas on the eastern side of the low pressure.  Often times the eastern sides of the low are the focus areas for thunderstorms capable of producing tornadoes.  Below is text from the Area Forecast Discussion put out by the national Weather service office in Ft. Worth, Tx:

 IN ADDITION NORTH TEXAS WILL BE IN A FAVORED REGION FOR TORNADOES
WITH HERMINE TAKING A TRACK THAT IS PERHAPS THE MOST FAVORABLE
TRACK FOR TROPICAL CYCLONE TORNADOES HERE OF ANY SYSTEM SINCE
FRANCES IN 1998. MOST MODELS ARE SHOWING LOW LEVEL SHEAR VALUES
STRONG ENOUGH TO SUPPORT TORNADOES TUESDAY AFTERNOON OVER THE
…SOUTHERN ZONES AND TUESDAY NIGHT AND WEDNESDAY OVER MOST OF THE
AREA.

I’m fairly concerned with the scenario that is falling into place and judging by some GFS models, the dry air at the 750 and 500 mb levels will inject itself into this low pressure system causing the instability needed to produce tornadic supercells, especially Wendesday throughout the day.

I will be optimistically chasing this system and hoping I’m in the right place at the right time.

As always, you can follow along with my live streaming video from my website here or www.chasertv.com

www.kten.com will also carry my stream live on their website with “break ins” as severe weather strikes the Texoma area.

Now would be the time to start going over your storm preparedness measure and ensuring the batteries are fully charged in the NOAA All Hazards weather radio.  I’ll keep this blog updated throughout the next couple of days as this event unfolds.

After learing the hard way at one of the better firework shows I attended this weekend, a little reading of my camera manual and some simple internet searches gave way to some great information on fireworks photograpy. I was able to shoot fireworks on the 4th… my last chance of the year, and come out with some stellar shots that I’m extremely happy with.

Hope everyone had a happy 4th. It was nice to get the camera out and get some great shots in. Manual aperature, exposure, and shutter times give way to some amazing shots!

Check my facebook page out for photos!

www.facebook.com/kris.hair

Been a while since I posted… I gotta make a change to that. A lot has gone on in the past few months.

I’ll leave you this for today:

The winds that blow throught the wide sky in these mounts, the winds that sweep from Canada to Mexico, from the Pacific to the Atlantic – have always blown on Free men

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Happy 4th Everyone!

Today is the 2nd in 2 weeks for High Risk days in Oklahoma.

Looks like today wont be quite as agressive as last monday with storm motions, but will definately be a news maker. High instabilities and a good 500mb jet are going to prime the Southern OK/N Texas for severe weather all along the dryline.

I’m going to head out here shortly and set up somewhere between Lawton and the 1-35 corridor and make my move from there.

Once again, if you’re anywhere in Oklahoma or N Texas, PLEASE be aware of your surroundings today. Make sure you weather radios are programmed and have a plan of action before the storms hit. These storms will be extremely dangerous. Not only because of the tornadic possiblity, but because of the LARGE hail (up to the size of softballs) that will accompany them.

I’ll be working with KTEN TV all day and streaming video back LIVE to www.kten.com and www.chasertv.com

Hope for the best, but expect the worst

Today is going to be a particulary dangerous, if not deadly day across much of Central OK into Southern KS.

With a warm front progressing north and a Jet max approaching 60kts, along with high instability and energy indexes, today is one of those days most storm chasers dream about. Looks like we’re going to head out shortly and get somewhere close to Ada/Oklahoma City and reasses data there. My thinking is storms will fire west of OKC and drift NE towards Tulsa becoming tornadic somewhere along the I-35 Corridor.

There is another pocket of instability that I’m keeping a close eye on further south along the Red River. If the sounding from Ft Worth at 1PM verifies my thinking about the cap (layer of warm air aloft) breaking, then I may jet back south to catch up with those.

Storms today, especially north of I-40 will be moving at breakneck speeds which makes today a day that could be extremely dangerous for residents and chasers alike. Definately not a day for the amateur.

If you’re in the Central Oklahoma area, or know someone that is, PLEASE let them know they need to be particulary aware of their surroundings today. This is a serious situation.

I’ll post more as I figure out my next steps. Look for me streaming LIVE on www.kten.com

A lot has gone on over the past week since I made my last blog post before the destruction in Yazoo City, Ms. I’m still not sure wether I’m coming or going. I want to thank everyone for the calls and messages of kind words. Last weekend still sits in my mind like it was just yesterday. It’s the part of this job I hate, and dont care to go through it again any time soon.

I especially want to thank KTEN-TV for giving me the opportunity to tell my story last Monday. Any time you can shed a positive light on a negative situation does wonders for the chaser community. Along with getting the word out about why we’re out there, and the positive effect it has on any community.

I’m working on a detailed blog on my accounts from the last weekend from tracking a large wedge tornado in the W Texas panhandle, to the destruction we saw in Mississippi the following Sunday. It’ll take me a few more days to get the finalized piece ready to post.

Looks like we’re in store for a few days of calm weather, which will give me time to get the new Tahoe outfitted and ready to chase the next one.

I’ll get that blog up in the next few days… It ought to be a good read

2:00AM 4-24-10

Currenty headed west on I-20 for a significant weather outbreak today. SPC has issued a HIGH RISK of severe weather along a line from Monroe, La to Alabama. We chased today, but didn’t come away with much. Tracked a nice tonado warned storm that had some great lowering right at dark, but couldn’t get organized well enough to produce a tornado.

Thursday was a great day. We tracked an extremely stong supercell from the Lubbock area all the way up to Paducah, Texas where we filmed a very large wedge tornado. The tornado appeared to be over a mile wide at the base as I was not able to get the entire tornado into my viewfinder of my video camera.

Today looks to be an extemely dangerous day across the south. All the paramaters are in place for an extreme breakout of high wnds and tornadoes. I’m going to stop in Vicksburg to get some sleep as I’m running off of 3 hours sleep the past 48, and I need to be on top of my game tomorrow for the big show.

I’ll post more in the morning as I have a feel for what is really going to happen.

As always, I’ll be streaming LIVE video back from www.kten.com and www.chasertv.com