Missouri Storm Chaser Steven Coy-Podcast 634

First Road Trip of the summer in effect! I’ve been very interested in Storm Chasing as a sub culture for a while. Lots of storm chasers these days. Steven Coy is just 21 years old, but already an experienced storm chaser. We join Steven in his hometown of Stover Missouri, and on his family’s farm which turns out to be a great place to chase a storm. In Missouri Storm Chaser Steven Coy-Podcast 634.

Storm Chasing Ground Zero

As Wall Street is to finance, Hollywood is to the film industry, Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma are to storm chasing. OU student and avid chaser Steven Coy is deceptively young. I say deceptively because his experience and knowledge become obvious in this podcast.

An Interview and a Storm to Chase

Steven Coy talks about his interest in storm chasing. His heroes. Missouri Storm Chasers FaceBook page is over eighty thousand strong these days. No hype on the FB page. Just good content to let people know about potential threats. Stover is in a ‘blind spot’ for radars at regional centers. Storm chasers like Coy perform a service for locals.

They Call Him The Weatherman

It is Saturday. Mobile Podcast Command is parked at the local storage facility on the west side of Stover, Missouri. Steven and his mom show up for the interview. After, the Coys invite me out to the family homestead a few miles outside of town. Not wanting to impose, I decline. A few minutes later they are back. In Missouri Storm Chaser Steven Coy-Podcast 634.

Chasing On Foot

Ok, off 6 miles down the road. Then a gravel road. Then a rutted driveway. A few hundred feet more. Twenty minutes later we are out by the shed. Here on the back 40, or the front 40 if you take Steven’s mom’s word for it. A vista from which to chase “on foot” as Steven says. This is where he takes a lot of photographs.

Coy Delivers

With a practiced eye and a little help from an extensive radar application on his phone, Coy precisely predicts the path of the storm. It will come right to us he says. When the storm hits, right on schedule, we head for the horse barn to take cover and take pictures. Steven measures wind velocity at 78.5 miles per hour. I thought the building was about to come down. He calls it in to the weather service. They sound skeptical. Later we hear about damage in a nearby town consistent with that windspeed.

I get an education about the nature of these thunderstorms, what causes tornados and how they form. When the storm clears, it’s time to wrap it up. From here it’s onto Oklahoma, and more hail. Thanks to Steven and the Coy family for making sure I was safe during the storm. There’s a lot of unwarranted criticism these days of young people. Steven Coy is one young person doing what he loves and learning everyday. By the way, Steven’s mom days if you leave their house hungry, it’s your own damn fault!

Sponsored by X Government Cars and Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul

Missouri Storm Chaser Steven Coy-Podcast 634

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Podcast 602-Snowstorm! Predictions Stories Hopes

Podcast 603-Snowstorm! Predictions Stories Hopes

We Love To Talk About The Weather

n Podcast 603-Snowstorm! Predictions Stories Hopes, people who live in the Upper Midwestern United States love to talk about the weather. Weather is safe. Talking about the weather offers a respite from political nonsense. Everyone has a pet theory about weather in all four seasons in Minnesota, Wisconsin, North and South Dakota and Iowa.

Here It Comes

When it comes to a predicted snowstorm we go into high gear. Snow out west has given way to severe weather predictions for Minnesota. Heavy Snow. Severe Winds. Blowing Snow. The return of winter to the plains and upper midwest. After a long period of unseasonably warm weather the cold returns. We’ll talk about it in Podcast 602-Snowstorm! Predictions Stories Hopes.

March Is The Cruelest Month Maybe

In our neck of the woods we often say March is the cruelest month. 20 days or so before Daylight Savings and the start of spring does not mean daisies and green fields in Minnesota. It could mean deep snow drifts and freezing temperatures.

Biggest Snow Storms In Minnesota

While late February and March is a transition period the standard weather theory is the biggest snow storms come in March. Statistically though, the biggest snowstorms have been in December and January, with only the fourth largest storm in Minnesota history occurring in March.

From November 1940 to Halloween 1991

Everyone here remembers the great Halloween Storm of 1991. Most everyone remembers twin snowstorms that his in January of 1982. The old folks remember the famous Armistice Day storm of 1940. Those did not occur in March. What happens in March though usually, is gloomy, rainy, snowy and cold weather. I’ll provide a list of the biggest storms in Podcast 603-Snowstorm! Predictions Stories Hopes.

We Aren’t Worthy

Warmer weather has lulled us into a false sense of security. Warm is something we Lutheran and Catholic Minnesotans do not deserve. When it is warm for too long in the winter we feel there must be a pay back.

We’re Gonna Get Clobbered

As if on cue, the National Weather Service models predict the possibility of a major winter storm with high winds and so much precipitation and if it is cold enough and conditions just right we will get clobbered. Accumulations of between ten and twenty inches of snow. A major winter storm. Get the details in Podcast 602-Snowstorm! Predictions Stories Hopes.

A Kid’s View of Severe Weather

In Podcast 602-Snowstorm! Predictions Stories Hopes some stories about extreme weather. Tornadoes. Snow Storms. The twister scene of the Wizard of Oz. Twisters that destroyed towns in Xenia Ohio, Siren Wisconsin and in Missouri. Tornadoes that blew over my house when I was a kid. Yes, they do sound like freight trains. Snowstorms that made schoolers happier than Christmas morning.

Turn Up The Heat and Plan The Menu

Get ready to make the trip to the store before the shelves are picked clean, Walking Dead style. Plan your menu. Get ready to settle in. Listen to a ridiculous list of tips for ‘staying alive’ during a snow storm. Get ready to shovel. The National Weather Service is predicting a major winter storm. No one is safe! Look at it this way. It gives us something to talk about on the bus.

Sponsored By Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul and X Government Cars.

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Podcast 304

Snow Storms and Drones. Midweek update on the top stories, starting with the New York Blizzard of the century that fizzled. Now the Governor of New York, Governor of New Jersey and Mayor of New York City look like Chicken Little. A National Weather Service Meteorologist has apologized – profusely – for going so far as to suggest the city be evacuated. This is the same meteorologist who perfectly predicted Hurricane Sandy. Maybe he got lucky, or Pride Goeth Before The Fall. The Justice Department has investigated the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri last summer, and has decided – drum roll please – not to press charged against Police Officer Darren Wilson. Will there be apologies from the ‘Hands Up Don’t Shoot’ crowd for lying? Don’t count on it. Remember the fanfare that greeted the release of Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl last summer? Almost immediately his brothers in arms said he was a deserter. Now Bergdahl will have to go through a Court Martial to determine whether its true. Bergdahl stands to lose rank and at least three hundred thousand dollars in back pay and benefits. Finally a man described as a drunk ‘federal employee’ lost control of a drone Monday night while he was flying it ‘at an apartment building a few blocks from the White House’. He went to bed, woke up the next morning, heard it had crashed onto the lawn of the White House, and called the Secret Service himself to tell them that, yeah he was the guy. The employee works for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which provides the NSA and the Department Of Defense with … you know, stuff. This shows what off the shelf disruptive technology can do to centrally controlled structures, like give the secret service another black eye. Just what they need. The President was traveling Monday, and wasn’t at the White House, although his kids were. Sponsored by Depotstar. 

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