Cyclone Road

CHASE BLOG

Monday, August 25, 2008


A few items of news: I'm back teaching at the University of North Texas and as a result will probably update the blog more often. The reason is that now I'm really busy, and when you're really busy everything you do starts a timer in your head, and you tend to accomplish more in less time. I wrote and published a fair amount in the year I was off, but did little else. Now I'll try to do everything at the same time.

As for real news, Eric's photography continues to land in national and international publications. The Mulvane tornado appears on the cover of a special issue of Astronomy Today called Extreme Weather, available in bookstores worldwide. While the article is about "riding with Warren Faidley" to find the "world's most dangerous photo opportunity," the cover shot is Eric's. Also, the Weather Calendar publisher, Accord, is about to release a coffee table book with some of their 'greatest hits,' and they intend to use three covers for three versions of the release. Mulvane will appear on one of those covers.

Lastly, and the publication that would have made Eric proudest, is a new textbook from Professors Paul Markowski and Yvette Richardson of The Pennyslvania State University: Mesoscale Meteorology in Midlatitudes. This book will feature one of the Eric's less well-known structure shots on the cover, from August 10, 2004, and will also include several of his images of storms in various stages of their life cycles. Eric's email to Professor Markowski happily agreeing to donate these images was one of the last he wrote.

For someone with essentially a five-year body of work as a serious photographer, his publication record is pretty amazing. It's particularly gratifying right now as we're coming up on a year since he's been gone, and his family and friends are thinking of him a lot these days.

The long-promised Tulia data article is *this* close to being published. Truly it should appear in less than a week. It's an important presentation and editors at every stage of the process, as well as the highly-distinguished reviewers who juried the article, wanted to insure it was as thorough and accurate as possible. The authors of the article are Scott Blair from the National Weather Service forecast office in Topeka, Kansas, Derek Deroche from the National Weather Service forecast office in Kansas City, Kansas, and Al Pietrycha, Science Officer in the Goodland, Kansas National Weather Service forecast office. I won't reveal the reviewers names until the article appears, but my understanding is that in the format of the Electronic Journal of Severe Storms Meteorology, it will be possible to see some or all of the reviewers' comments as well as authors' responses. It's a very open format. Check the website in the next several days and I'll be sure to post right away when the article goes live.

While processing the Tulia article and planning for afterward, the EJSSM editors contacted me about working as a copy editor on future articles (not the Tulia piece). I was happy to accept. I've taken far more from operational and research meteorology than I've ever given back and the opportunities to do so are rare as a non-meteorologist, so I was pleased to say yes and honored by the offer.

My own chase reports and photos for 2008 remain unfinished. My goal is to complete them before next February, honestly. I'll try to post one per week or so; it's just not a priority anymore.

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