• Microburst Damage - Whitney MHP
  Date: July 17, 1997 - 15:40 Hours ET
  Location: Whitney MHP, Gainesville, FL
  Camera Used: RCA CC-432 VHS vidcam
  Camera Mode: Auto-focus/Auto-iris
  12:01 [ 352 MB ] [ standard format ]

  Enroute to the Oaks Mall from Whitney MHP to pick up a friend, encountered a driving, windy, thunder-crashing rainstorm. After arriving back at Whitney MHP, noted wind-related damage all around the park, indicative of downburst winds. There were good-sized branches downed from trees all about the park, and in the back corner of the park, someone's carport rooftop looked somewhat smashed.

• Multi-cellular Cb Over Marion County
  Date: July 23, 1997 - 19:46 Hours ET
  Location: Near US-441 and NW 34th St, Gainesville, FL
  Camera Used: RCA CC-432 VHS vidcam
  Camera Mode: Auto-focus/Auto-iris
  03:37 [ 106 MB ] [ standard format ]

  Large, training multi-cellular storms noted somewhere over Marion County. Viewed from the old Winn-Dixie plaza located in the area behind the FHP station on 441 and NW 34th, in Gainesville, FL.

• Lightning Damage To Tree - Whitney MHP
  Date: January 24, 1999- 13:25 Hours ET
  Location: Whitney MHP, Gainesville, FL
  Camera Used: RCA CC-432 VHS vidcam
  Camera Mode: Auto-iris/Auto-focus
  13:16 [ 389 MB ] [ standard format ]

  I was at my desk in my bedroom during a thunderstorm with my window blinds closed when out of the corner of my eye, through cracks between the leaves of the blinds next to me I saw a VERY bright repeated flash, followed almost instantly by an extremely loud thundercrash. I ducked by instinct and then opened the blinds and sat back down and tried to remember where the flash had occured through the blinds to try to gauge where the stike had occured exactly. I was able to narrrow it down to a tree in a resident's yard one street down from me. After the storm was over, I went over to the resident's house and got permission to videotape the strike to the tree to document it for educational purposes.

• Hail Event - Whitney MHP
  Date: May 14, 2000 - 1713 Hours ET
  Location: Whitney MHP, Gainesville, FL
  Camera Used: RCS CC-432 VHS vidcam
  Camera Mode: Auto-focus/Auto-iris
  06:51 [ 201 MB ] [ standard format ]

  Started out as a thunderstorm and turned into a pretty major hail event. Hail started at about a half-inch in size and slowly graduated to large balls that on occasion looked to be nearly 3-inches round. When the storm subsided, I ran outside as quickly as possible to gather as many varied pieces of hail before the rain-soaked pieces melted too much from their original sizes and shapes. The largest piece I was able to rescue was measured at about 2-1/2-inches.

• Turbulent Skies - Whitney MHP (You Tube version)
  Date: July 16, 2000 - 1801 Hours ET
  Location: Whitney MHP, Gainesville, FL
  Camera Used: RCS CC-432 VHS vidcam
  Camera Mode: Auto-iris/Auto-focus
  04:22 [ 31 MB ] [ standard format ]

  The underside of a particularly turbulent-looking gust front from an approaching thunderstorm. Lots of neat-looking cloud movement going on which fascinated me.

• Downburst & Damage - Whitney MHP
  Date: July 20, 2000 - 1635 Hours ET
  Location: Whitney MHP, Gainesville, FL
  Camera Used: RCA CC-432 VHS Vidcam
  Camera Mode: Auto-iris/Auto-focus
  11:57 [ 350 MB ] [ standard format ]

  This started out as one of those distant "war-zone" thunderstorms. I love those kinds of thunderstorms. They're so cool to listen to. The storm got closer and closer until eventually something passed over my home and for a few seconds the wind and rain got so bad there was a near white-out situation. After the storm was over and I inspected things outside, I discovered that the skirting underneath my mobile home had been blown out, along with some insulation in one place. As well, my neighbors large oak tree had a large branch that had been twisted upwards and back over it self, leaving it broken and dangling. I'm not sure what happened exactly. I'm more inclined to believe that this was a sudden microburst event rather than a tornado. Most of the blown out skirting originated in the close space between my mobile home and the storage shed parked perhaps 1 foot away from teh side of the home. The winds must have come striaght DOWNWARDS and had no where to go. The skirting in the space between the home and the shed was pushed inwards, whilt the rest of the nearby skirting had been pushed outwards. So yah, I'm pretty sure that what happened here came from straight up and was pushing downwards, rather than anything coming from the side or from random directions.

• 'Storm Spotters' - WUFT/TV-5 (Aired May 31, 2002)
  Air Date: May 31, 2002
  Channel: WUFT/TV, Cox Channel 5
  03:07 [ 91 MB ] [ standard format ]

  WUFT/TV-5 came to interview us during a spotter training class in 2002. Portions of video from the May 14 hail event and the July 16 downburst (both above) event were used in the story.

• Squall Line Greenage (Jim Carr / KC4MHH)
  Date: Mid-2004 (Exact date/time not known)
  Location: Vicinity of Haile, FL (NW of Gainesville)
  Camera Used: Cannon Ultura digital vidcam (dash-mounted)
  Camera Mode: Auto-focus/auto-iris
  02:26 [ 72 MB ] [ standard format ]

  Video of a cool, mean-looking approaching squall line that was very windy and showed some very obvious green - sometimes indicative of hail. Unknown date and time. Courtesy Jim Carr / KC4MHH.

• Waldo Wall Cloud Event (Jim Carr / KC4MHH)
  Date: Mid-2004 (Exact date/time not known)
  Location: Waldo, FL
  Camera Used: Cannon Ultura digital vidcam (dash-mounted)
  Camera Mode: Auto-focus/auto-iris
  11:31 [ 337 MB ] [ standard format ]

  Video of an actual wall cloud, the only one we've so far been able to get on tape within Alachua County. This could be the only existing video of an actual wall cloud in Alachua County. If anyone has others, please let us know and we'll try to put it up here. Jim Carr / KC4MHH was mobile near Waldo when a Tornado Watch had been issued in the area. Jim was driving north on 301 when he noticed what looked like a possible wall cloud over Waldo. Jim parked in the gas station across the street from the Waldo Church and waited and got some pretty interesting video. As the wall cloud passed over and behind the church, Jim caught several lightning shots eminating from the wall cloud. On fast forward, actual rotation can be noted in the cloud, which even exhibits somewhat of an inflow stinger. I like this video particularly because it shows most excellently how the wall clouds that a spotter might actually see here in the high humidity of the South differs drastically from the giant, "perfect" stuff of the same name that occurs out in the midwest. You will rarely if EVER here in northern Florida see anything so well-defined and perfect as in the pictures of "wall clouds" that are seen in the spotter training manuals, and other books. I've been searching for images like this for a long time, and Jim accidentally came upon it. Some things are extremely rare to come upon here in Florida. For example, I once saw a supercell thunderstorm that actually had twisted corksrewing in it's tower section. But I've only seen that once, in a storm that was occuring in another county to the northwest. I've never seen that effect again. It was many, many years ago. I was located in the vicinity of what was then the K-Mart on 13th Street across from the Wal-Mart, long ago. Of course, that event taught me a good lesson about why it's important to carry a camera in the car with you where you can if you ever want to get the things in life that always pop up by surprise.

• Waldo Wall Cloud Event (Jim Carr / KC4MHH)
  Date: Mid-2004 (Exact date/time now known)
  Location: Waldo, FL
  Camera Used: Cannon Ultura digital vidcam (dash-mounted)
  Camera Mode: Auto-focus/auto-iris
  06:19 [ 66 MB ] [ standard format ]

  (Same as above - smaller MPEG file)

• Backyard Morning Sounds - Whitney MHP
  Date: February 17, 2008 - 0649 Hours EST
  Location: Whitney MHP, Gainesville, FL
  Camera Used: Canon HV-20 HD vidcam
  Camera Mode: Portrait
  01:20 [ 40 MB ] [ widescreen format ]

  I loved the sights and the sounds associated with living in Whitney MHP. I was living in a mobile park that is only a land zone description away from a real Park. It included all SORTS of wildlife - deer, large owls, eagles, hawks, egrets, ducks, wild turkeys, raccoons, foxes, a rare bear on occasion, the ponds even had a few alligators. And the sounds of the birds in the morning was just beautiful.

• Sunrise & Birds - Whitney MHP
  Date: April 28, 2008 - 0639 EDT
  Location: Whitney MHP, Gainesville, FL
  Camera Used: Canon HV-20 HD vidcam
  Camera Mode: Portrait
  02:38 [ 78 MB ] [ widescreen format ]

  More of the same - this time with a really pretty morning sunrise.

• Multi-cellular Thunderstorm & Gust Front - Archer Rd Wal-Mart
  Date: July 06, 2008 - 1844 Hours ET
  Location: Wal-Mart, SW Archer Road, Gainesville, FL
  Camer Used: Canon HV-2 HD vidcam
  Camera Mode: Portrait
  Lens Used: Raynox wide-angle lens
  16:10 [ 474 MB ] [ widescreen format ]

  While in front of the Wal-Mart on Archer Road in Gainesville, FL, I took time out to video a large thunderstorm to the southwest. I used a Raynoc wide-angle lens and I'm definitely NOT happy with it. You can see why in this video. You have the "binocular" shadow (the effect is actually called vignetting), and there is pretty bad lens aberration (called in lens parlance chromatic aberration). But I wanted the wide-angle shots. Later in the video I recorded an approaching gust front from the storm.

• NASA Saving Lives - Science Daily
  Air Date: September 01, 2008
  Channel: NPR (syndicated on other nationwide TV news shows, too)
  01:57 [ ? MB ] [ standard format ]

  Earth Scientists And Meteorologists Create Historically-Based, Realistic Weather Animations
  42-seconds of the episode is an NPR interview segment with me which includes video shorts from the May 14, 2000 hail event, the July 17, 2000 microburst event, and the July 6, 2008 gust front event.

• War-zone Thunderstorm
  Date: January 21, 2010 - 1303 Hours EST
  Location: NW Gainesville
  Camera Used: Canon HV-20 HD vidcam
  Camera Mode: Portrait, Manual-Focus
  10:34 [ 305 MB ] [ widescreen format ]

  January 21, 2010 - 01:03 PM. When storms have nearly non-stop thunder and lightning they often sound something like a 'war-zone'. Thus, I like to call them 'war-zone' thunderstorms. It occurs when lightning strikes occur so often - many times a second - that the sound of the thunder crashes don't have a chance to completely abate before another thunder crash occurs on top of or right on the heels of other thunder crashes. The thunder crashes can often sound like train wrecks, or like a bowling alley, or...like bombs being dropped all around you. This is ten minutes worth of video that I shot mostly for the sounds, and not so much for the show. Start this video going and turn the volume up on your good stereo speakers and just sit back and close your eyes.

• War-zone Thunderstorm (YouTube Version)
  10:34 [ 67 MB ] [ You Tube version / widescreen format ]

  (Same as above. Smaller file size. Audio is about half, though; so you won't get the full audio experience as in the larger version.)

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