This past week I spent a few hours on the coast playing around with the camera, and I have to say I was really impressed from the beginning. Now, this is not going to be a big camera review for the GoPro3, just a fun video I shot on the south end of Hutchinson Island on the rocks at the "House of Refuge Museum" near Stuart Beach, FL.

I found that I enjoy shooting in the 2.7K and 1080 / 60P resolutions modes of the camera the most, with the "CamRaw" feature on. The CamRaw mode shoots a more flat picture style (not real raw) which makes color correction a lot more enjoyable during post-production. I did try the 720p @ 120FPS mode, but I was not pleased with the amount of noise that I would see in the shadows and overall "blocky" look to some of the shots even in decent sunlight.

The video above was completely shot at 1080/60p, and this allowed me to slow the footage down to 24p and give that nice smooth slow-motion effect of the crashing waves on the rocks. I attached the GoPro to an old monopod allowing me to lower it down into the rocks and the water from above. This wasn't the easiest when trying to keep the camera stabilized, as waves crashed into the it and the rocks all while trying to keep my balance on the on the sharp edge. 

You'll notice in a few shots that it looks a little "shaky", but then again this is just a test run with the camera for the first time at the beach. A lot still to learn. All post-production of this video was done in Adobe Premier Pro CS6, including color correction and slow-motion.

This powerful little camera won't replace my more pro Canon HD-SLR'S that I shoot with every day, but it will be the perfect "B" camera during hurricane chasing, severe weather, mobile blogging or just some fun on the water during the summer. The better sensor, lens, and shooting modes that come with the GoPro Hero3 Black Edition I think is the best choice if looking into getting one for your bag. Thumbs-up. 

I hope you enjoy my short video, because I had a lot of making it. Thanks!

Below will be the main blog post that I will update during my Hurricane Isaac chase / intercept over the next several days. Today (Saturday August 25, 2012) I am departing for the Florida Keys. I plan to intercept and film Tropical Storm or Hurricane Isaac in the central and lower Keys on Sunday. Later Sunday night I plan to leave the Keys (road conditions pending) and head northbound for the second forecasted landfall of Isaac in the Florida Panhandle region for Tuesday.

You can follow my quick updates on Twitter: @StormVisuals and more detailed updates with photos and some video here on the website. Thanks! - Jeff Gammons

Update: 8:43am CT - 8/28/12 - Made it to Gulfport, MS and now with Jim Edds. Stayed the night along the Gulf only a few miles to the west of where Jim and I filmed and survived Hurricane Katrina 7 years ago tomorrow. Very sobering to return here and still seeing the scars left by Katrina and the horror stories from local residents.

Waiting to see if Isaac gets upgraded to a hurricane at the 11am update from NHC, as Recon this morning has finally found some hurricane force winds to the east of the center. Jim and I plan to do some more scouting around the coast and revisit the Mississippi State Coliseum where we rode out and filmed the most impressive storm surge to date.

Update: 11:12pm ET - 8/26/12 - Made it back out of the Florida Keys after filming in Key West all day. Isaac brushed Key West tracking about 40 miles to the south with a few strong squalls. Now in West Palm Beach at the Turnpike Plaza looking over the latest Isaac data and forecast from the NHC. Looks like the track has once again shifted to the west closer to New Orleans, and this will add more miles to the trip. going to stop for rest after midnight and look over everything again in the early morning.

Update: 2:09pm ET - 8/26/12 - Several strong feeder-bands have move through Key West in the last hour. Nothing too bad these great Key West locals can't handle. Overall, Isaac's radar and satellite presentation has improved, but still taking some time to develop a more robust inner core. Waiting to see how close the surface circulation gets to Key West later today. Back out into the squalls to film. :-)

Update: 10:31pm ET - 8/26/12 - Currently sitting along the eastern beaches of Key West awaiting Tropical Storm Isaac. Isaac should make a very close or direct brush with Key West late this afternoon. Also waiting on the latest update from NHC coming up at 11am. Winds are slowly beginning to increase.

Update: 10:59pm ET - 8/25/12 - Resting for the night Keys Style for tomorrow's possible hurricane intercept of Isaac near Key West. Isaac remains a 60mph tropical storm late tonight, but expected to be near hurricane strength as it nears the lower Florida Keys on Sunday.

Update: 1:34pm ET - 8/25/12 - Currently en-route to the Florida Keys to setup for tomorrow's first U.S. landfall. Tropical Storm Isaac remains a 60mph storm moving northwest just off the northeast coast of Cuba.

Southern Florida and the Keys have already been experiencing very heavy tropical rainfall from a disturbance tracking just ahead of Isaac. This heavy rain will slow my travels into the Keys by a few hours, as traffic will be heavy coming out of the Keys tonight.

Anticipating The Boundary Collision

Last Friday (August 17, 2012) I setup my camera to shoot a timelapse video sequence of an outflow boundary colliding with the east coast sea-breeze boundary over southeast Florida. The outflow boundary developed from earlier thunderstorms over Glades County, and this boundary raced eastward across the Glades portions of Palm Beach County during the late afternoon hours.  The boundary was well defined on radar, and I knew I only had about an hour to get into position for the shot.

After shooting some storm photos in the Canal Point region near Lake Okeechobee, I packed up and got ahead of the gust front out into clear air. On radar I could see a sharp sea breeze boundary almost stationary about 15 miles inland from the coast and this was my target. This boundary extended from Jupiter southward to Boca Raton, and I knew this was going to be the next intense afternoon convergence zone for storms.

The outflow boundary (gust front) racing eastward looked to be bowing out just a tad in central Palm Beach County, so I decided to stop along S.R. 80 about 7 miles west of Wellington. There was a small park on the south side of the highway, and this allowed me to setup my tripod and camera away from traffic, plus it was a wide open view to the east and in view of the eastern boundary.

Camera Ready...Time For Some Storm Action

It wasn't long before the gust front blasted through my location with gusty west winds and some dust from the sugarcane fields. To my east I could see the small line of cumulus clouds lined up along the breeze boundary and knew it was almost showtime. I checked my camera settings while taking a few test shots.

Sure enough, the entire line of clouds began to rapidly build upward as the two boundaries collided forcing everything upward into the atmosphere. It was an amazing sight and I knew at that point this would be a very interesting timelapse video of the east coast convergence zone.

The video isn't very long and I added some music to spice it up some, so, let me know what you think and I hope you enjoy it. 

I am finally able to get a new update posted after a crazy busy schedule the last 8 weeks working on 2 video projects for release later this year, and a new interactive iBook for iPad about hurricanes called "Hurricane Journey - Life In The Danger Zone" which I am happy to announce is now available in the iBookstore. 

The new book was a fun and learning experience working with fellow hurricane photographer Jim Edds, taking on a whole new road developing a visual interactive book for the iPad. It wasn't easy, but I'm very excited all that hard work is done and now can be shared with everyone.

Getting Back Into The Grind with Weather

I have ventured out the last month to shoot Florida storms like I usually would, but significantly less than last year being tied to a office the last month. I plan to head back out starting today and get back to covering the afternoon storms while in the peak of the wet season. I still need to update some of my photography galleries with new pictures captured in June and July, so look for those over the next week.

Luckily, the hurricane season hasn't been very active, with a few tropical storms and just recently Hurricane Ernesto tracking into Mexico. We're now moving into the peak portion of the hurricane season, and I will be closely monitoring the tropics through the end of September for any possible chase intercepts. The best way to keep tabs on me is either checking here or my Twitter feed for the latest on the tropics, especially if a storm becomes a threat to the United States.

Speaking of hurricanes, today marks 8 years since powerful category 4 Hurricane Charley slammed into Punta Gorda, Florida. Charley is one of the cyclones featured in our new book, with amazing videos and pictures of the historic weather event.

That's it for now while I get back into my summer weather groove, and please, if you do download our new book I would love to hear your feedback being this is our first time working in this format. I really think you'll enjoy it! All the best - Jeff

Florida had numerous tornadoes on Sunday (20 reports per SPC) that were associated with Tropical Storm Debby currently in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico. These tornadoes where short-lived, but were still very dangerous. One EF2 tornado that ripped through the small south-central Florida community of Lake Placid killed one person and damaged nearly 10 homes along with surrounding structures and trees. Fire Rescue and power crews as seen below worked through the late day rushing to get power restored and begin the cleanup process for local residents.

Crew's cleanup after Lake Placid tornado spawned my Tropical Storm Debby. - June 24, 2012

Tropical Storm Debby's eastern circulation continued all day Sunday sending bands of heavy tropical showers and thunderstorms into the west coast of Florida. These long bands had embedded mini-supercells that would produce the tornadoes. Some of the cells yesterday also produced some impressive tornadic supercells just offshore Juno Beach and Miami Beach. There are a lot of pictures circulating the web this morning of impressive tornadic waterspout structure and inland tornadoes from the central and southern part of the peninsula.

Tornado Watches Continue For The Sunshine State

Florida is once again under the gun for a threat of tornadoes as Tropical Storm Debby remains almost stationary, and is only forecast to slowly track toward the Florida Big Bend region over the next 4 days. This sets up a major flooding threat after already two days of significant rainfall up to 10 inches and several more days expected as the storm will be very slow to move.

Update 11:07 pm EDT:  The latest advisory on Debby keeps her as a 50 mph storm, but the pressure is down now to 998mb making the system a little deeper. Also, the National Hurricane Center now develops Debby into a hurricane by Tuesday well south of Louisiana moving westward towards Texas. This is just a long-term outlook and things can change significantly that far out in the forecast, but it will be very important for everyone to keep tabs on Debby the this upcoming week.

A very disorganized Tropical Storm Debby continues to struggle with hostile wind-shear in the east-central Gulf of Mexico tonight. Debby has winds of 50 mph and is producing heavy rainfall across portions of central and south Florida this evening. Locations from Tampa to Fort Myers and Miami could see some impressive rain overnight and possible street flooding from training rain-bands. The last advisory on Debby had the cyclone stationary, and this will allow additional bands of heavy weather to affect the west Florida coastal counties.

Colored IR satellite image of Tropical Storm Debby pounding Florida with heavy rain and isolated severe weather. - June 23, 2012

Tornado Dangers In Bands Moving Onshore

Earlier in the day, several strong bands of storms associated with Debby's eastern circulation moved onshore southwest Florida producing a tornado in eastern Naples, FL. One person was hurt, along with several trees, power poles knocked down and some roof structure damage. Tornadoes can be common with tropical storms or hurricanes especially on the right- front side of the circulation embedded in the feeder bands moving onshore. 

As I write this post, there is another concerning embedded cell that is showing signs of rotation just offshore Sanibel-Captiva Island, and looks to near the coast not far from Cape Coral if it holds together. I wouldn't be surprised to see a tornado warning issued by 9:00 pm EDT for the area up to Englewood. Everyone should pay attention overnight to any warnings issued for isolated storms rotating onshore.

The National Hurricane Center has Debby moving very slowly in the forecast over the next few days, and there remains a lot of uncertainty on the forecast track with such a disorganized system and flip-flopping computer models. It's a big guessing game right now, but everyone along the Gulf should pay close attention going into the new work week.

No Plans For A Debby Chase, Still Monitoring

As of right now, if Debby was to take a more eastern track as a tropical storm and cross the Florida peninsula, then I will likely chase the storm. If the landfall takes place outside of FL, then Debbie would have to be at least a minimal category 1 hurricane for me to make departure plans. I will keep you posted if I plan to hit the road.

Related Post(s):

Tropical Storm Debby In The Making For The Gulf?

Impressive Rainfall Totals From TS Debby Across Fla

Update 5:25 pm EDT: We now have our fourth named storm of the season. Tropical Storm Debby confirmed, and a tropical storm warning has been issued for the southeastern Louisiana coastline.  Debby looks to be a very slow moving storm through the weekend into next week and will need to be closely watched.

Update: 3:41 pm EDT: It looks like the National Hurricane Center will upgrade to Tropical Storm Debby at 5:00 pm EDT per incoming data. The system remains very disorganized at this hour, but expected to be upgraded with possible watches and warnings along the Gulf coast. Previous post below.

I have been spending my Saturday so far looking over the latest computer models, current satellite loops and surface data for the area of disturbed weather in the east-central Gulf of Mexico. This system is labeled Invest 96L, but soon could become Tropical Storm Debby if the right conditions prevail.

Visible satellite picture of developing Invest 96L in the Gulf of Mexico. - June 23, 2012

Currently, there is an ongoing recon flight mission into the system to see if we truly have a tropical cyclone. Everyone has been closely monitoring this system for the last few days when it first started its very slow trek northward out of the Caribbean Sea. As of this morning it is a little further north than what I was expecting, but definitely looking more organized, at least on the eastern portion of the system, with exposed low-level eddies rotating outward on the west side as convection continues to be sheared of to the east.

Recon will give us a better idea of what is going on inside the disturbance later this afternoon, and I'll have another update here on this post by the evening. 

After several hours trying to keep ahead of outflow dominate storms up in south-central Florida, I finally found my way back south into western Palm Beach County where a very impressive lightning storm lit up the Glades night sky.

Vivid cloud-to-ground strikes light up Glades region of Palm Beach County. - June 13, 2012

I started in the late afternoon hours chasing up in Highlands County, and this is where the first round of west coast sea-breeze storms had developed and were slowly tracking southeastward. The storms pulsed up and down along this boundary for several hours displaying some interesting shelf cloud structures and gusty outflow winds, but my main goal of the day was to film lightning at sunset or after dark.

Don't Give Up Just Yet

I continued to stay ahead of the line in hopes of the gust front that was now well out ahead of the main convection would at some point interact with the breeze boundary further south in Palm Beach County moving northwestward towards Canal Point. I stopped in Port Mayaca to look over radar and surrounding visual mescoscale features and was not impressed. It felt really cool and dry to me, and the outflow winds from the north were blasting at time near 25-30 mph. I wasn't sure if it was worth sticking around with everything so liner and "outflow-ish" along with the loss of heating beginning.

I stayed put for about 30 minutes watching a mess of storms develop over the south end of Lake Okeechobee, but again nothing that screamed to get out my camera's. I opened up Radarscope once again to look over the data and this time switched the radar site over to the TPBI where I had a better view of the low-level features over western Palm Beach Co. Sure enough, there was another boundary slowly tracking over Canal Point and the cells over the lake were heading right for this area.

Summer Lightning Showtime

I quickly repositioned southeastward out into the sugarcane fields east of Canal Point, and boy did I have a great view. Things began developing quickly and the sun was now below the horizon, so at this point I'm feeling pretty stoked that I might get that lightning show after all. I was back in warm inflow air and the upward motion just to my west was amazing. I repositioned again further down highway 98 to give me a little wiggle room with the storm and stopped on a dirt road about 6 miles northwest of the Highway 98 and S.R. 80 intersection. 

Here I setup my camera and tripod next to the car window, and this allowed me to remain in the driver seat while pulling the camera trigger out the window. This also kept me a little more safe from what ever might be roaming around in the cane fields and the approaching lightning strikes.

The lightning was in full on now, and extremely vivid (CG) cloud-to-ground strikes where all over my frame. I knew the updraft was just to my west and this window of opportunity to see all this visible strikes wouldn't last long. I kept shooting, and quickly checking exposures and then back to shooting. I couldn't believe the amount of CG's that were directly in from of me, and now thinking I should of setup for a timelapse. Ugh!

Keep It Safe and Respect The Lightning

I continued to shoot for another 10 minutes or so, and then the lightning began to overtake my location making it way to dangerous to continue capturing pictures. Just this past weekend a Miami resident and Pro Bass Angler was killed by lightning when fishing on Lake Okeechobee in a tournament. I didn't learn of this terrible news until just yesterday, and my thoughts are with Mr. Magdaleno and his family. 

As much as I enjoy shooting lightning photography, I also always keep safety in mind first, and have great respect when in a thunderstorm environment. Please be carful out there this summer season listening for those thunder rumbles and seeking shelter right away.

It was an amazing evening for me, and I'm sure glad I didn't hang it up earlier in the day when it wasn't looking the best. Patience and persistence.   

I'm only here for a few days and was hoping for a opportunity to capturing some ocean lightning and mother nature came through for me once again. A large complex of storms moved in from the eastern Gulf triggering a severe thunderstorm warning, and at one point a tornado warning for Ft Myers and Sanibel. 

The best lightning action was off to my northwest and I didn't want to drive over to Captiva Island and get out in the rain, so I waited for the storms to move just south of Sanibel to get my shots. I kept it simple staying up on my second floor hotel balcony that faced south-southeast, and shortly after 1:30 am the light show was in view and I was shooting away.

Stormy summer nights in southwest Florida are always fun. :-)