All Eyes on the Eye of Hurricane Gustav!

Yes, folks, what started out as Tropical Depression 7 yesterday... has now been upgraded to Hurricane Gustav, an intensifying hurricane, currently with winds at 90mph, a strong category 1 hurricane. Thoughts are that Gustav will be a category 2 hurricane by the time he makes landfall in Haiti. Current projections take Gustav out into the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico by Sunday morning. That is a dangerous scenario.Tropical Depression Fay is actually still spawning tornadoes and causing floods as she continues to mosey across the country. What a storm! More to come about Gustav as he progresses through the Caribbean Sea. The tropics have come to life!A really huge THANK YOU to OSNW3, for sharing his radar loop of the life of Fay, which is very cool. He made an appeal for other radar loops he could check out... send suggestions his way.

Well, as for yesterday, I stayed at the office a little past hours to finish up some work, and before I left, I snatched a glance at the radar to see if Fay was making any local impact. Would you know it, a isolated cell popped up right here in my neck of the woods, and a sizable one at that. So, I thought... well, if it looks impressive. When I got outside, I couldn't believe my eyes. This was an extraordinary cumulus congestus, swelling up, grabbing higher and higher into the sky, and it seemed to keep merging with other cumulus towers in the area. I was looking at a massive storm cloud. I couldn't pass that up! So, while I was taking pics of the growing clouds... I gave Christine a ring and asked her if she was up for a little impromptu chase. She was up for it, so it was a go. The above shot was behind me to my west, as the rest was while I was facing east. So, off I was chasing this monstrous growth of cumulus in the sky...I headed northeast on highway 221 from Valdosta towards Lakeland. Along the way I saw, a magnificent swath of rainbow embedded in the clouds, framed on either side by solid rain shafts of heavily down pouring rain (seriously, the drops were so large falling from the sky, I could see them individually, like little balls falling from the sky (NO, IT WASN'T HAIL!))As if that wasn't cool enough, I came upon this adorable church in the middle of nowhere...As I drove, Christine loaded streets to pinpoint my exact location... we ran into a little radar trouble since the Moody radar stopped sharing its images... UGH! Tally to the rescue! At one point, I looked northwest to see an amazing horizontal roll of scud... very short-lived, but very cool!Unfortunately, when I made it to Lakeland, a decision had to be made... do I keep chasing off to the east, or do I head back home and catch the back side over the beautiful Banks Lake? Responsibility prevailed. Mini-Dew would be returning home soon, and I needed to be there when that happened... so I went to the lake, hoping to catch a glimpse of the storms edge over the lake. This is what I got...... and that my friends is how you chase Dew-style... :O)

Thanks, Christine for your wonderful support. I had a great time chasing with you!

10:00AM: A tornado watch was just issued for my county until 7PM... gotta love Fay...

5:00PM: The 5PM advisory has Hurricane Gustav losing hurricane status over the mountainous terrain of Haitu, but emerging back into the Caribbean and eventually heading into the Gulf of Mexico, apparently ramping up to major hurricane by Saturday with a target looking at Louisiana... Yikes.

Toodles,
~Dewdrop