Eric Tomjack

First is video I’ve never posted before of the 4-26-24 Elkhorn EF4 as it condensed just before the town. Second video as it passed right beside me. Such a surreal experience, so glad I’ve been inspired to pursue meteorology. #wxtwitter #tornado #newx #supercell @tornadicwonder

Brief lightning display put on by the system SE of FoCo

10/10 book, a very detailed account of the strange life led by Chris McCandless in his last couple years. A tragic end to a beautiful story, makes me want to go back to Alaska

Hell yeah

Enderlin mentioned

@swrightCO Is this the story of Colorado storms? They leave the foothills and die completely?

Managed to get a couple clear bolts shooting out of this storm from Johnstown before she fell apart completely ❤️ #COwx

This lightning in OKC is insane!!!

@swrightCO Where is this

holy shit

The moon is absolutely beautiful tonight

This storm last night near Horton, KS was breathtaking! #KSwx

@swrightCO During the week shouldn’t be bad, but if you’re chasing on the weekend you’re better off stopping at the loaf n jug across the street. I work at the Johnstown Buc-ee’s every weekend and the crowd is absolutely crazy most of the day fri-sun

Confession: I live within 30 minutes of a Bucees that I pass all the time, but I’ve still never been to any Do I build in an extra hour for my next chase and go before

A driver crashed through fences and backyards during a chase in Sarpy County, leading Nebraska State Patrol troopers through a neighborhood as backyard security cameras captured it all on video. @bethcarlsontv has more: ketv.com/article/driver…

The Jupiter-Venus conjunction was quite impressive even in the middle of town

What are we doing

It was fun running into our German friends on a rural backroad in Canada. Always cherish these memories and the friends we make along the way. The storms are only one part of the journey.

@DanielShawAU Was a pleasure to meet you! Here is a livestream clip of your amazing german 😍twitch.tv/unwetterjaeger…

@GumryWX @swrightCO Y’all ever listened to “I Like Birds” by Eels? Every time I play it I think of y’all haha

@swrightCO close enough

Bird yapping on a stick(?)

Looks like a sizeable fire ongoing ESE of Johnstown,CO

Stand with us to protect the future of Nashville Zoo. A proposed 69,000-square-foot data center is planned next to the Zoo, but no environmental impact studies have been conducted. Sign our petition to help protect the animals in our care ➡️ c.org/KxhXznzBcD

Here's how this might go over in the short-term now that our CME has hit: The shock is what we just saw. It's one moment in time when the CME hits Earth. Our CME (or at least the first one if the X1 is following behind? Unknown at this point) impacted with a velocity of ~ 550 km/s, not too shabby but FAR from the 1000+ km/s NOAA SWPC was calling for. Bt =~ 20 nT which is probably good for G2-G3 storming if we get -Bz throughout the night. This could get better or worse as time goes on. Mid-latitude auroral displays are certainly possible now that our CME is here, but the solar wind has to behave. The CME is going to slam Earth when it's fast asleep. Bz has been north for some time before the CME arrived at our L1 satellites. Imagine how long it would take you to wake up if your alarm went off at 6 am after getting home from the bars at 2 am (definitely not speaking from experience). It's going to take a bit of time to get the aurora stirred up even when -Bz starts swinging in, but from right now, the CME itself is still ~30 min out from hitting our magnetosphere. So at a minimum, we won't see ANY reaction to the CME for 30 min. Then, it may take another ~30 min or so for things to get grooving once we see sustained, negative Bz. 30+30=60 min for aurora to really start moving at all from now (9:45 pm ish PDT). Things don't happen instantly when a CME hits, especially for a moderate impact on a cold magnetosphere with leading +Bz sheath. About the sheath: the first real part of the CME Is the sheath which is usually full of messy, turbulent solar wind with lots of + and - Bz. This can be good for pumping up auroral displays, but -Bz really helps as we all know. 30-60 min sustained -Bz is ideal to give the aurora time to build and expand further equatorward. We are likely in the sheath now. After the sheath, most CMEs have magnetic cores which you can see in solar wind data by a "smooth" (not super jittery) Bt and Bz. It honestly looks like we got slammed by the core immediately with this CME, but that would be highly unusual. We just have to see how things develop per usual. But, during the core, it is possible to get either really lucky or really unlucky with the Bz depending on how the mangnetic fields inside the CME are twisted. Sometimes, an early Bz north core can swing dramatically southward, and vice versa Other times, it's all south or all north. It's a bit of an art to reading these things, but this is the usual pattern, and like all space weather events things rarely adhere to the "classic" scenarios. Take into account that this may be a combination of 2+ CMEs and things get weird. For now, although we have our CME (finally!), the Bz is north, and we are still waiting for it to even hit our magnetosphere. I suggest watching webcams regardless of what is happening with the solar wind since the skies don't lie. It's good to have a ground-truth of what's going on: go.theauroraguy.com/webcams

Holy shit Chugwater 😭