Scanning the Skies
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"It was never my ambition to be a weatherman." John has a high-tech chase vehicle to go in search of his passion - the severe weather of Wales.
Transcript
"It was never my ambition to be a weatherman. One bolt of lightening or clap of thunder and I'd end up behind the sofa. But that was thirty years ago, somewhere else. Many things have changed in my life since then and I have grown to love the ever changing Welsh weather - sometimes peaceful, sometimes violent and sometimes just indifferent.
Some weather I don't like, like perpetual gloom-laden skies in a biting north-easterly in the depths of the winter, but I love watching the sea in the teeth of an autumn gale and listening to the west wind in the trees overhead in darkness and most of all, I like thunder storms.
Storms are special. They are big uncontrollable things in a world where we think we can control everything. They set there own agendas which we, the storm-chasers, have to follow.
Days before a storm happens you will find us on the internet downloading the essential charts ... and on message boards we speak in conspiratorial terms of atmospheric instability and target areas - of single cells, multi-cells and super cells.
Forecasters often speak of clouds bubbling up. That means that convection is under way and it sees me looking out on the road looking for action.
I'm on my own now in my high-tech chase vehicle.
Now it's no more a case of sunny intervals and showers but of gust fronts, of squall-lines, of mammatus clouds, of rotating updrafts ... and the ultimate - funnel-clouds and even tornadoes.
But these terms of meteorology only gesture towards the beauty, that wild untameable beauty around me, and I'm lost in the middle of all and no longer fearful.
It was never my intension to be a weather man, until now."
An interview with the author
Please tell us a little about yourself.
I'm a freelance Geologist based in Machynlleth, mid-Wales. I also work in I.T. and interpretation of science. In spare time I like sea-fishing, writing and performing poetry, chasing after weather photographs or hanging out in the pub.
Why did you choose to tell this particular story?
The story is about my passion for weather photography and especially about storm-chasing, something most people would not have thought is done in the UK. Making this digital story is a good excuse to indulge my passion for weather-photography, combined with the fun of learning something new. Welsh weather's often underrated - I hope my story tries to blow that myth out of the water!
What did you find most rewarding about the workshop?
Toning up editing skills with the script, learning about a new piece of software and getting all the ingredients in the mixing bowl and having a tangible product emerge at the other end.
