What A Difference A Decade Makes

My then-13-year-old son Ryan Alliss accompanied me to the top of the roof of our house on Inwood Court NE in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on the evening of May 30, 2002 to view and film a beautifully structured "mothership" mesocyclone, part of an isolated supercell storm that passed just north of town. In the upper group of Sony Handycam camcorder videotape stills captured by my camera from our TV, the Harding Middle School 7th grader takes in the long-lasting memories of the storm. This, and many other storms, left a lasting impression on Ryan, who soon decided what his future career was going to be--in weather. He studied for his meteorology degree at Iowa State University from 2007-2010, graduating on December 17, 2010. His first "captured" tornado would be during a school-influenced storm chase near Medford, Oklahoma on May 10, 2010 (left photo in bottom group of photos). The middle bottom photo shows one of about 10 tornadoes viewed during an amazing chase in southern Minnesota on June 17, 2010. Almost duplicating that tornado count was a memorable storm chase in western Iowa on April 9, 2011 (right bottom photo). Ryan has been a meteorologist with Rockwell/Collins in Houston, Texas, since May, 2011 and is currently working there as an aviation meteorologist. Dreams realized.