Thanks Texoma, its been my pleasure!

Everyone talks about the weather. The sky is an equal opportunity offender and altruist. It gives and it takes. Some say Texoma is not a scenic place. I would argue that the beauty is found in our unobstructed horizon. We can clearly see distant thunderstorms achieving heights twice that of Everest. Storm chasers drive hundreds of miles to witness what we have a front row seat to every spring and summer, natural spectacle. Everyone talks about the weather....heck, sometimes it's all we got!

Being a TV weathercaster is a unique and humbling job. It involves predicting the future on a daily basis before a savvy audience. There are no take-backs, no mistakes that can be remedied with White Out or spell check. You can garner a level of recognition on par with the Mayor, and of course, you are "wrong most of the time and still get paid". But that's a different letter.

I'm writing today to thank the citizens of Texoma for allowing me to serve them. Being a Texoman myself, I feel as if I've become an accepted and even respected member of the community. You've allowed me into your homes, given me your trust, and when passing in public offered up a smile and a nod of acceptance. Even the farmers and ranchers of this great land, from whom my greatest scrutiny comes, are always quick with a wave and encouraging word.

I'm sorry to say, after nine years of trying to figure out these skies, the weather is no longer my job. It's once again just a hobby. The station that allowed to me serve you made a business decision I could not stand behind. Due to an established professional relationship, a certain business agreed to sponsor some of the station's weather equipment. Because of the nature of the sponsor, I felt it cheapened our weather product and it fell into a ethical gray area. I poured too much of my time and pride into my job to have it sullied like that. I respectfully bowed out.

It's important that you know I understand that television news and weather is ultimately a business, a costly business requiring incredible amounts of revenue just to pay the bills. I wish no ill will upon my former employer. In fact, maybe one day, I would work there again if the opportunity came about. When you invest ten years in a place of employment it becomes part of your spirit. This is simply a matter of me standing up for what I believe in, and I feel both parties are better for it. I have left many dear friends, to whom I credit my success.

The good news is I'm not leaving Wichita Falls. My family and I enjoy our life here. In fact, with a more "normal" job I will play a greater role in my children's lives. That's something I've wanted to do for a long time. I will still be serving the community as a volunteer storm spotter. So, the next time you scan that unobstructed horizon and see a distant thundercloud, chances are I'll be under it.

Thank you Texoma, It's been my pleasure

John Cameron

"Brrrrrr!"

In case you're not cold enough, it looks like we have much colder air on the way come mid-week. Air straight from the arctic will ease into Texoma Tuesday evening making for a bitter cold Wednesday. The chances are fair our high temperatures will be just below freezing Wednesday and Thursday while morning lows are in the teens. The chance of precip (snow/frz rain) with cold air are no better than 20%.

Weather Word

Convergence

A process in which higher momentum air moves into lower momentum air.

November Heat

This string of very warm days is causing calendar confusion for me. Temperatures are warming well into the 80s every day, yet orange and yellow leaves are falling from sparsely leaved trees, the sun is setting before 6:00 and Holiday themes are becoming the focal point of area retailers. Oh well, the 80 degree heat will be gone by Thursday. This will all be a distant memory in a weeks time.

Here's something interesting. Did you know that in over one hundred years of keeping record temperatures in the city of Wichita Falls, the National Weather Service has never observed a temperature higher than 89 degrees in November(as of this writing). Anxious to see how close we get Tuesday. The hottest temperature observed in October is 102.

I love October!

I've lived in Texoma most of my life, and I can now say with a fair amount of confidence that this area's best weather comes in October. Honestly, if there was a place in America where morning lows were in the 50s and daytime highs were in the mid and upper 70s year round, I would move there. Well, at least I would seriously entertain that thought. Ahh October, not too hot, rarely too cold, commonly just right. My favorite temperature is 75. To me that's perfection. Clouds or sun, 75 works for me. for me, Texoma weather is at it's best when, in the late afternoon under partly cloudy skies and light winds, temperatures top out in the mid and upper 70s. It borders on blasphemy to be indoors. Here's another reason I like October weather...it's easier to forecast. It's not so much that my skills as a forecaster get better as afternoon shadows grow in length, it's that the tools and data we use to develop the forecast become more reliable. The scale of the weather dynamics grows. It's like stopping at stop sign on a rural highway and looking down the road to see what's coming. It's much easier to see an 18 wheeler than it is a Mini Cooper. Well, in the summer time, July, August, September, its all Mini Coopers all the time. In October, 18 wheelers (strong cold front and well-defined troughs) start heading our way. If there's a major change coming, it can be seen as many as 7 days away. I like that! I, myself have been guilty of uttering the stereotypical "The summer forecast is easy...hot and dry, right?!" but, in all honesty summertime forecasting can really be tiresome. It's what happens between hot and dry that troubles the forecaster. Little, microscale disturbances that drift aimlessly across the southern plains that can make the difference between drought and deluge. Yuk. And gridded forecast models rarely help. So, in summary, not only do I love October weather, I love forecasting October weather. Football helps things too, but I digress...

John

Weather Word

CORIOLIS- An apparent force caused by the earth's rotation. The Coriolis force is a maximum at the poles and a minimum at the equator.

The Weather Prediction Web Site

This date in History

September 5th,1847

Outlaw Jesse James is born in Missouri

Seen by some as a vicious murderer and by others as a gallant Robin Hood, the famous outlaw Jesse Woodson James is born on this day in 1847, in Clay County, Missouri.

Jesse and his older brother Franklin lost their father in 1849, when the Reverend Robert James abandoned his young family and disappeared forever into the California gold fields. Their mother, Zerelda, quickly remarried, but rumor had it that their new stepfather treated Jesse and Frank poorly, and a third husband soon followed. Perhaps it was a violent and unstable family life that led the young Jesse and Frank into lives of crime. Regardless, it is certain that the brothers first learned to kill during the Civil War. As Confederate sympathizers, both Jesse and Frank joined William Quantrill's vicious Missouri guerilla force, and Jesse participated in the cold-blooded murder of 25 unarmed Union soldiers in August 1863.

When the war ended, neither man felt any enthusiasm for the drab life of a Missouri farmer-earning a living with their guns seemed easier and more exciting. Joining a motley band of ex-soldiers and common thieves, Jesse and Frank staged the first daylight bank robbery in U.S. history on Valentine's Day in 1866, making off with $57,000 of the hard-earned cash of the citizens of Liberty, Missouri. For the next decade the James Gang would steal many thousands more from banks, stores, stagecoaches, and trains.

The boldness of their crimes and the growing resentment among westerners of big railroads and robber barons led some to romanticize Jesse and Frank, a process that was encouraged by the authors of popular dime novels who created largely fictional versions of the James brothers as modern-day Robin Hoods who stole from the rich to give to the poor. In reality, the James brothers' crimes preyed as much on the common folks as on the very rich, and they did little to spare the lives of innocents caught in the crossfire. The Robin Hood myth conveniently ignores the little girl shot in the leg during a botched robbery at the Kansas City Fair, the train engineer killed when the James Gang derailed his locomotive, or the dozens of other innocent bystanders murdered or maimed by Jesse, Frank, or their gang. Nonetheless, the myth that Jesse James was a good-hearted hero of the common folk remains popular to this day. Robert Ford shot James in the back of the head-- killing him on April 3, 1882.

Devastation

New Orleans Before Katrina

New Orleans After Katrina

above pictures from Digital Globe

In the wake of hurricane Katrina there are many thoughts an emotions flowing through my heart and mind. You take what's happening in New Orleans out of the equation and you have what will go down as the costliest natural disaster in the last 100 years. I fear that we will continue to find human remains for days to come once the most heavily damaged areas become more accessible to search and rescue personnel. Two days ago (Wednesday) I looked at the helicopter footage from a news chopper based out of Jackson,MS WLBT and it suddenly became clear that the scale of damage to Mississippi's coast was unlike anything seen previously. By the way, if you visit the TV station's web site linked above you'll want to view the "Skycopter on the coast: First tour" video. The state of Mississippi will spend years bandaging this wound. The Gulf coast has been a natural attraction and site of recreation for decades in this poverty stricken state. I can't help but think that the draw of casino gambling has caused the population to jump considerably in the last 15 years. When I was stationed in Jacksonville, Florida in the early 90s it was common to see billboards for the Biloxi and Gulfport based casinos even from that distance. With the pre-storm evacuations, so many lives were spared, but think of all the displaced people with nothing to come back to. All of the inland communities that have taken on increased populations of either totally dependent people or those whom have enough to last them a few days. I feel even the kindest souls and most far reaching charities will be challenged to sustain the needy. Many employment sources have virtually crumbled beneath the broken buildings littering the coast. And now, thanks to Katrina's Gulf of Mexico passage, those who have vehicles will struggle to afford a full tank. If anything, I think this will change our attitude toward living in hurricane prone areas and make us re-think how horrible hurricanes can be.
Then, there's New Orleans. It's hard to escape the imagery, especially in my line of work. What started as man vs. nature has evolved into man vs. man and has become a crisis rooted in survival of the fittest. A expected, the "blame game" is well underway and the "squeaky wheels" are being heard. As I watch the evolution of this disaster, I again feel the emotions and saddened worry I felt after 9/11. Of course, it wont be long now that we'll have to relive that terrible day courtesy of the cable news networks. And of course the people will bend over backward drawing comparisons between our most recent American disasters. It will be hard to be happy this month. When I look at the satellite imagery from New Orleans I can't believe what I'm seeing. Most of the city is seemingly underwater. Dirty, contaminated, polluted, water. I just don't know how this can be fixed anytime soon. There's no place for this water to go. The city streets actually lie below the normal surfaces of the Mississippi River and Lake Ponchartrain to the north. So that water, full of chemicals, sewage and snakes is going to sit there for weeks ruining at least every home and the bottom floors of every building in the flooded area. As it stands now, there are at least 100,000 flooded structures. I can't help but think there are some residents still in those dwellings. It just breaks my heart.
I made a promise to myself that I would never state any political opinions here on this weather blog, but since this is not a Republican vs. Democrat situation and the circumstances are the result of weather, I'll take a few liberties here.
While Katrina was still well off shore, and I first heard that the Louisiana Superdome was going to be used as a shelter, I was deeply concerned. Considering the likelihood of this "worst case scenario" actually coming to pass my immediate thought was "bad idea". I know the powers-that-be made it clear that the Superdome was to be a "last resort" shelter, but the media made it sound as if it were the only shelter to local residents. When we give weather talks here in Texoma and the subject of tornado safety come up, we always tell people that buildings with large span roofs are not good shelters because the roofs commonly collapse. So my initial concern with the Superdome was that the structure may not be hurricane worthy. Not to mention, hurricanes commonly spawn tornadoes. Katrina spawned over 20 tornadoes from Georgia to Pennsylvania. After pondering what may happen during the storm, I then began to think about after the storm. It was predicted prior to landfall that the City of New Orleans will likely lose power and clean water service, levee breach or not. Now we have proof on every news station that this idea has backfired. Toilets overflow, no air conditioning, no clean water, babys using the same diaper for days, no electricity, drugs, violence and no way out. Granted, this was to be a last resort for evacuees that likely didn't have a way out of town. I think the better idea would have been to get these people on buses and get them out of the city. Now we have a big problem that resembles anarchy. I can't help but think it will get worse before it gets better. With all the petrol chemicals in the floodwaters downtown the fuel is there for devastating fires. I really think using the Superdome as shelter will go down as one of the poorest pre-disaster decisions of this entire tragedy. Were lives saved? I imagine so. But it is my feeling that if these people were transported to a place not so vunerable to flooding outside of the city, more lives would have been spared. My 2 cents. My heart bleeds for this city.
As the days go by, we will get a bigger picture of the scale of this disaster. Since its weather related, it really weighs heavy on my heart as I ask myself "will I be ready for this in my neighborhood?". Wichita Falls is no stranger to total devastation brought about by weather. I hope we as a community will do our best to help those victimized by this most recent American tragedy.

whoa mamma!

Had to post these incredible pictures of Mammatus clouds hovering over Lawton in June. I also have to thank my Mother for snapping these beauties and sending me the pictures.
Mammatus clouds are typically born of supercell thunderstorms, near the anvil of the storms. They themselves are not dangerous and not capable of producing severe weather, but if you see these, chances are it's happening within a few miles! Judging from the fact that these clouds are reflecting golden sunshine, its safe to say that hail and damaging winds are occurring to the east of this location. "Mamma" clouds are absolutely stunning at sunset. Here's proof.