Weather 24/7: My Life  "For the man sound in body and serene of mind there is no such thing as bad weather; every sky has its beauty, and storms which whip the blood do but make it pulse more vigorously."  -George Gissing

About Me

Like many meteorologists/storm chasers, my passion for the weather began at a very young age. As an infant in the late 1980's I was entranced by a tornado damaged forest at the Springbrook Nature Center in Fridley, MN (the tornado damage occurred on July 18, 1986). This tornado became the focal point of my early weather interests. I spent hours drawing pictures of the tornado and plots of its track. In the mid-1990's my interests shifted to floods with the Flood of 1993 in the Upper Mississippi River Valley and the Red River/Grand Forks, ND flood of 1997. In 1996, I launched a seven-year documentary series on the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific hurricane seasons which contained advisories, newspaper articles, and reports on each storm.

The July 1, 1997 Twin Cities Superstorm undoubtedly sparked my love for severe weather and tornadoes. The green skies, hail, and 100mph straight-line winds brought on a rush unlike any other. Less than a year later I received my first point-and-shoot camera, followed by an old VHS camcorder in December. Thus began my storm chasing career. Storm chases in my junior high years consisted of videotaping storms from my front porch or biking to a nearby field to witness an approaching system. Over the years I accumulated an impressive collection of photos and videos filled with a plethora of weather phenomenon from all the seasons. In August of 2001 I began experimenting with lightning photography and within a year these photos began appearing in various publications and websites.

Starting in the summer of 2004 I began to upgrade my weather equipment in order to capture the perfect storm. My VHS camcorder and SLR film camera, once the backbone of my photography arsenal, seceded to a new wave of digital equipment. I completely revamped my camera, video, and computer equipment between 2004 and 2007 to support longer and more intense storm chases, including the purchase of two mini-DV camcorders, a laptop, desktop PC, DLSR camera, and four point-and-shoot digital cameras (only two are still in use today). Despite finally obtaining a car in 2005, I did not head out on any long road chases due to work and a lack of money (college savings + equipment upgrade = sit and home and watch storms on radar).

I enrolled in the University of North Dakota's atmospheric sciences program in the fall of 2005 with the intent of receiving a B.S. in meteorology and was named the ATSC department's 2005-2006 Freshman of the Year. I finally got on the road for one chase opportunity on May 29, 2006, but sat and watched as the linear storm complex split in two, leaving me in a field of sunshine. However, I successfully managed to intercept one storm on the evening of July 25 in Isanti County. The 2007 storm season witnessed numerous storm intercepts, including one storm that produced an EF4 tornado in Northwood, ND. During the summer of 2008 I worked at the National Weather Service in Duluth, MN, researching severe weather climatology for their county warning area as part of the NOAA Ernest F. Hollings Scholarship program. I was also named the UND ATSC department's 2007-2008 Junior of the Year, received the K. Vic Ooyama AMS scholarship in early 2008, and was named the ATSC department's outstanding senior for 2008-2009.

After four long and fun years in college, I graduated from UND in May of 2009. A few short months later I was hired as a meteorological intern at the NWS in Anchorage, AK and began my new career in early November 2009.

Twenty-two years, eleven cameras, and hundreds of storms later, the passion lives on.

My Additional Sites:

AccuWeather Photo Gallery- Contains a huge array of my weather photos from 1999-2006.
YouTube- Hosts several of my videos.

Member Of:

Other Things About Me : Besides the weather, I am also an avid Great Lakes boatwatcher. If I am not in the field chasing storms, I will be up in Duluth, MN or anywhere else on the lakes watching boats (or "lakers"). My boatwatching and weather interests both developed in the early 1990's and have co-existed ever since. Of course, this means that the wreck of the laker Edmund Fitzgerald taps into both of my passions :-). I am an active member of the web site www.boatnerd.com and my knowledge of these boats can scare many people. Some of my best laker photos and videos can be seen via the link below. Great Lakes Vessel Videos/Photography As you may of guessed by now, photography is also a staple of my life. The art of capturing a moment in time on film or video, even after 14,000 photos and 60 hours of video, never gets old. Photography acts as my journal, telling the story of my life. I enjoy working with all sorts of cameras both old and new, but I have a soft spot for older cameras. The saying "they don't make them like they used to" rings true for many types of cameras. I enjoy the outdoors and nature, especially the forests of northeastern Minnesota. I was a Boy Scout from 1998-2005 and earned my Eagle Scout rank. My other hobbies include: camping, canoeing, fishing, biking, and computers. Contact Me: Email: kskow@weatherbum.com

About Northland Weather Central

On March 23, 2006, I launched the web site "The Lair of the Weatherbum: Northland Weather Central", a simple site designed to host several dozen of my best weather photos. Within a month it had grown to host my videos and a flood center that tracked the Grand Forks flood of 2006. On May 15 I launched my first storm chasing blog called "Chase Logs." Four months later I completely rebuilt most of the web site, a project that lasted for over half a year. During this time the site was also renamed "Northland Weather Central." Another major revamp took place in late February of 2007 that removed the site's dependency on the Microsoft Office Live site editor and changed the focus of the site more to storm chasing in general. The site consists of several components. First, it is designed to showcase the very best of my weather photography and cinematography. Its secondary purpose is to serve as a reference source for various weather material ranging from weather forecasts to weather forums.  In fact, the only links directly hosted on this site are my actual html files; all other links point to different web sites. Overall, the goal of the web site's user-interface is to be as clean and well-organized as possible. I didn't try to fill it with every conceivable object, but instead set up links to what I believe are the most important weather sites. Due to the nature of the site, it is not uncommon to see a few broken links throughout the page. This normally results from the host web site being down for repairs and usually these sites come back online within an hour. If major outages occur, I will post a notice in the news column about the problem and what aspects of the site are affected. As far as copyrights go for my personal material posted here (photos and video), I'm not too picky as to who uses them. I do ask that if you plan to use them for any purpose other than personal that you just send me an email describing what the photo is being used for--after which you are free to use it (or any others needed for that project)! Now for some technical information. Since the site was designed on my laptop, the optimal screen resolution for viewing everything is 1024 x 768 dpi. I design all of my web pages in Dreamweaver, so this site should appear fine in any internet browser. Thanks for visiting! The site is always being updated, so check back later for new additions and updates. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about me, the weather, photography, or this site. Additional Web Site Support: Microsoft Office Live- Domain Support Photobucket- Photo Hosting Flickr- Photo Hosting VideoWebTown- Video Hosting RSS Rapid Feeds- RSS Support StatCounter- Visitation Stats