National Storm Chase Convention 2008

	National Storm Chaser Conference (formerly known as the Colorado Storm Chaser Conference) 2008 National Storm Chaser Convention official website

MOUNTAIN PHOTOS Tony and Doug Bald Mountain Bald Mountain close up Doug and Neva Another Doug and Neva (L to R) Doug, Chris, Tony) Myself by 100+ old cabin The rest of the photos are all taken from Georgia Pass at 11,585 feet Bald Mountain Great View (Pikes Peak far left distance) Tony and Doug catching their breath at the high altitude Chris wants to get one last shot. Our guide, Kurt, did a fantastic job. We will ask for him next year. A group shots (from left to right): Myself, Chris Collura, Doug's girlfriend Neva, Doug Kiesling, and Tony Laubach.	After a two year absence, I once again returned to the National Storm Chaser Conference in Denver Colorado. This was in part because I needed a kick-off to my return to chasing after an absence due to my medical issues the past few years. I also needed to see some old faces and meet some new ones. The trip started for mee on Wednesday evening as I headed to the airport very late a night via Metro. Since I could not make the flight if I waited till morning, I had to arrive the night before. I only had to wait about 4 hours in the airport, before the ticket counter opened at 4:30am. I love leaving early, significantly reduces the risk of delays. In fact, our plan was the first to take off on Thursday morning. Arriving in Denver later that morning, I spent some time at Denver International Airport, which is quite a neat place (in the Main terminal). I ate a very early lunch, and then had some tea and sat, keeping a lookout for possible other convention go-ers. No such luck. I then grabbed a shuttle and headed to the hotel. I was quite early to the hotel also, but they did allow me to check-in, so I took my bags to the room, napped a little and then came down around 8pm. I sat a the lobby bar for a little while, once again hoping to see some other early arrivals to the convention, but once again no luck. I did however meet Laura Heiden in the shuttle on the way over. Around 10pm or so, Chris Collura (my temporary roommate) arrived and we got him checked-in and bags dropped off. We returned to the lobby and ate and had some alchol. Finally went to sleep around midnight (local time) Then next morning around 5am we were up and getting ready for a fun day ahead. Chris and I would be joining Tony Laubauch, Doug Kiesling and his girlfriend Neva for a 3 hour guided snowmobile ride. Around 8am we arrived at Breckenridge and the Good Times Adventures for our tour. At first I wasn't sure if I would go snowmobiling with everyone since I was a little nervous about only having had kidney surgery 3 months prior. But I wasn't about to let them have all the fun. We began to suit up and gear up. Then we got a quick verbal lesson about the snowmobile, the trails, and safetly. Then we jumped on and went over to a practice field. I quickly realized that there wouldn't be any problem for the kidneys, but my legs muscles were going to get a work out. Then it was onto the trails. Most of the trails were below the treeline. Very secluded and very snowy views. We did stop from time to time to get some pictures of the more picturesque vistas. Then about 3/4 of the way into the trip we head up and up and up, above the tree line an into Georgia Pass at 11,500 plus feet. It was also the highlight of the trip as there was a huge valley and lower terrain to the southwest and because that day was so sunny and clear we even got a view of Pikes Peak in the distance. We stopped for a little bit, got plenty of pictures then it was time to head down the mountain. This is when things went crazy. On the decent, each of the snowmobileers had to leave extra distance between and it was very slippery as the 600 pound snowmobiles easily skid in the snow. We were strictly advised not to stop especially on blind curves. However one couple (riding together) did, and unfortunately for Tony, he was the next one to come around the corner. He made a split second decision which meant instead of slamming into the back of the couple, he swurved and ditched his ride, but unfortunately down a sharp drop-off. The snowmobile ended up hitting a tree and doing some minor damage, and Tony slide into a tree (but had his helmet on saving his life) and down into waist deep snow. After a failed attempt to fish out the snowmobile, I gave Tony a ride back to the office on my snowmobile. There we changed to drier clothes and waited to hear what the damages were. I figured around $800 and other thought around $1200-$1800. Luckily we were all too high, the total damages came to $470 and American Express even took car of under their customer service protection plan. Anyhow, after a great tour, we headed back to the hotel. Once back at the Radisson, we headed to our rooms for a little nap before heading down to the Meet-n-Great, and to pick-up our registration packets and name tags. Chris and myself grabbed our stuff, headed into the vendor room, and almost immediately I notice that I didn't recognize anyone there. Chris knew a few folks and started talking to them. I didn't know any of the folks he talked to so I headed back out, figure I might catch someone outside. Tony Laubauch made it back down and since I was hungry, figured I ask if he wanted to join me. He was with some folks I didn't recognize, but together we headed over to the Lobby bar. A few of us ate, and a few just had some drinks. Tony's friends were folks he was in school with over at Metro Denver University in the Meteorlogical Department. Dan, Karissa, and Jennifer we all very nice and cool, I look forward to seeing them in the plains. Even though they are new to chasing, they are more in the old way I remember from ten years ago. Not seeking fame, or over emphasizing the money parts. They love weather, and severe weather is just a fun part of the their profession and passion. That pretty much wrapped up the evening and I was off to bed by around 10pm. I retired to the room and quickly got to sleep. The next morning, Chris and I awoke to the sound of the alarm and quickly got ready to go down, eat some breakfast and get ready for the presentations. Breakfast was a little on the short side, only some fruit and overly sugary muffins, and such. At least there was some coffee. But the presentations were good, and this year there was a focus on forecast, which is exactly what I needed. Not being an active chase mode for two years, my forecasting skills were diminishing, but these assorted presentations really helped and even tought me a few new things. My favorite as usual was David Hoadley. He diverged from the normal discussion talked a little about the history of the plains. I don't think many folks got out of it what I did, but it was interesting to me. At lunch time, I once again joined Tony and the met crew from Metro and we headed to Hooter's. We were joined by Mike Nelson of ABC7 ( ) Chief Meteorologist. He graciously paid for our lunch (many thanks Mike), and hurried back to the hotel for the afternoon presentations. Dinner and the Keynote Presentation by Josh Wurman and Sean Casey were great. Lots of Drama between those two. Kinda like watching a long term married couple. This is the two that appear on the Discovery Channel's Storm Chasing TV show, about the TIV (Tornado Intercept Vehicle) and trying to actually penetrate a tornado for footage and weather data. Afterwards the Video night began. Chris Collura started the night out with some excellent footage set to music. Very cool, and I think the favorite of the night. Tony showed some of the recent Tennessee footage. Overall however, I was a little disappointed with the video night. It didn't even last the two hours that it was scheduled for. Most everyone retired for the evening, and I too returned to the room for some much needed sleep. The following day, there were more presentations, again, mostly surrounding forecasting. Those wrapped up around mid-day, and I visited and finally purchases some of the few items that were in the vendor area. I was going to skip the Skywarn training, since I can practically teach them myself, but I stayed and mostly started writing this summary. Chris checked out of the room and headed for the airport. I still had one more night before my flight left. The rest of the trip was uneventfull. Mostly just making my way back from Denver to DC. One thing though was the landing at my layover in Charolette airport. We "bounced" hard on the landing. There was quite a bit of low level shear and turbulance, and quite few folks were nervous as we came in for the landing. As we were just about to touch down, we dropped hitting the runway hard, then "bounced" up again, before the pilot brought us back down. We also used a good portion of the runway for our landing, still going a kinda fast speed as we turned of the runway at the last exit point onto the taxiway. I sure wish I had my video running on that one. I would have loved it even more if someone had been video taping from the outside. I would like to have know how high our bounce was. It felt like we got about 50 feet in the air before touching down again. Oh, and I also ran into my brother-in-law who works at the airport. I was just by accident that I ran into him as he enjoyed lunch at one of the restuarants in the C concourse. We were able to talk for about 45 minutes before he had to return to his work. But it was good seeing him. Arriving back in DC was nice, and I was very happy to know that I could travel again without much trouble. I suspect my flying will be much more frequent, but not as much as my 2001-2004 days.	Weather Warrior NSCC Pages 2003 2004 2005 2008 Chris Collura's NSCC Pages 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2008 Additional Links Bill Hark John Farley CONFERENCE PHOTOS Early AM take-off from DC Snowy and cold in Denver at landing. Chasers crowd around TIV While other Chaser's crowd around DOW Chris Collura selling his photography and videos. Chris walks away with two prizes, and ice scraper and a coffee mug. View of Charolette, NC from airplane I tend to use US Air, very reliable and easy to use.