Omaha Tornado Chaser: June 2011

Monday, June 27, 2011

6/17/11 surprise supercell

This day was a surprise chase that ended up being pretty fun, but keeping with the theme of the season, NO TORNADOES!! However, we weren't really expecting one. I was sitting at home around 645 pm, when my buddy called me and said that there was a tornado warning for Fremont, Nebraska which is only about 25 miles from my house! This day eastern Nebraska was under a slight risk but it wasn't really anything that I was too interested in. I hadn't looked at the radar in quite a while so my friend's phone call took me by surprise.
I really didn't expect this storm which had a confirmed tornado to last too long. However, since it was so close we decided to go after the storm. We headed out west towards Fremont, and soon could see the base of the storm. To our surprise, there was a very well defined wall cloud but we couldn't tell if it was rotating or not. The storm was moving VERY slow. In fact storm motions ranged from stationary to 10 mph to the south. We arrived to the south of the storm and watched the wall cloud fall apart pretty fast. The storm still looked pretty impressive as it slowly drifted south and almost southwest at times. We eventually repositioned again to just outside of Wahoo. There again we were able to sit and just watch the storm for a good 20-30 minutes, it was moving so slow. It became apparent the storm wasn't going to do anything tornadic wise, so as it was getting later we decided to drive into the storm to see what it was doing. I forgot my charger cord for my computer so it had died already and we had no idea how strong or large the hail was. Earlier, it was warned for golf ball sized hail. We headed north up the highway and soon ran into rain and nickel or so sized hail. We stopped off to the side of the road for a while and soon turned south to head back out of the storm. Back where we were sitting we must have missed the strongest part of the storm, as on the way down the highway we suddenly ran into a very intense area of rain and hail up to quarter sized. The visibility was down to near zero and the sound was deafening! We were having to yell at each other in order to hear ourselves. About 1-1.5 minutes later we were out of the storm and headed home
I wanted to comment on the picture of the baby birds below. While we were sitting outside of Wahoo, we were parked next to a reflector sign that was bent up on the bottom making a kind of "shelf". We noticed there was a nest there and a few baby robins inside the nest. The mother was actually in the area and would come back and feed the babies. We kind of became "worried" about whether these birds would make it with the very slow moving hail storm moving towards the location of the nest. We didn't go back after the storm would have gone over their spot so we're not sure if they survived!

first views of the wall cloud south of Fremont

closer shot of wall cloud. it's actually becoming separated from the main updraft now

again

storm would tighten up every once in a while giving us cool structure

again

looking into the hail core to the north of wahoo

storm tried to tighten up again near wahoo

another shot

another couple of shots of the storm to the north of Wahoo

baby robins

Total miles: 85
largest hail: quarter
highest wind: 50-60 mph

6/13/11 BUST....

I'm not sure why I am making a post for this day, but I guess since I went out chasing.... This is really getting frustrating. Still no tornadoes for the season, although today there wasn't a single storm to see. This day had potential and the rapid refresh showed some big cells on several runs. I headed south and ended up just across the border in northern Kansas outside the town of Fairview. I waited outside a corn field for almost 2 hours and at 7 when nothing had developed I headed home. Yea....

total miles: 235

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

6/1/11 Nebraska chase

This day was a pretty fun chase that almost ended with us being rewarded with a tornado. However, in the end, the streak of no tornadoes this year continued.
I was watching this day as a potential good day, but despite what looked like a good day, the probabilities issued had me wondering whether it would be worth it to go out. I watch a webpage that has forecast radar and other severe indices and as the morning went on, it looked better and better. My buddy that comes along with me when he can had the day off, and after initially deciding we weren't going, at 130 pm we decided we were going!
We headed west on I-80 with an initial target of Kearney, NE. Storms started popping on our way out there and the first warning was issued for Lexington about 20 miles or so west of our target. A tornado watch was also issued for the area! What was great about this day was the storms were usually moving at only 10-15 mph. This allowed us to get to a storm fairly easily. The initial storm died out so after we arrived at Kearney, we headed south to intercept some storms coming up from Kansas. The first storm was warned for some hail but didn't look that great. Meanwhile, as we sat off to the highway near Loomis, NE, our storm back near Lexington strengthened. Soon there was a tornado warning out for it so we flew up towards the storm.
Again the storm was only moving at 10 mph, so we were able to get to it within 30 minutes. It was still tornado warned and as we approached from several miles away, we could see a definite lowering and potential rotating wall cloud.
We found a place to stop roughly about 3-5 miles away from the back of the storm. No sooner did we get to our stopping place, then the storm started to fall apart. This was the general theme for the storms today. They would strengthen and for a while be very strong but usually would weaken within 30-45 minutes of developing.
Once we saw the storm was weaker and now north of I-80 we hopped up on the interstate and west of Lexington a few miles before finding an exit for a road north. It was here that we saw a fairly large chaser convergence including the TIV. It was also in this area where there came in a report of 2 rope tornadoes. If we missed those, it couldn't have been by more than a few minutes. I never did see a survey though. We headed back east into Lexington as another storm reformed and moved into town. We were hit with some pea sized hail and dangerous lightning, but nothing else. At this point we started to head back east down the interstate.
We made it to the town of Odessa, and again another storm had developed that looked fairly strong, so we pulled off and headed north a little ways to let the storm overtake us. It had some nickel sized hail and gusty winds but that was it. We then headed home.

first storm of the day east of Loomis, NE

again

strong updraft with storm

lowering on back end of tornado warned storm near Lexington. storm looked much better as we were driving up towards it before we stopped

again

new storm developing over Lexington

inflow cloud into severe storm near Odessa

beautiful structure on the storm!

you can see the hail core to the right where the whiter shade is in the storm

again strong inflow cloud going into the storm

radar grab of the tornado warned storm west of Lexington

route taken on trip

total miles: 469
largest hail: nickel
strongest winds: est 40-45 mph
no tornadoes/ wall cloud seen from a distance

5/21/11 Omaha local chase and lightning shots

I always like days like this where I can hop in the car last minute or even take pics from my back deck of storms in the area. On this day, a bunch of strong to sometimes severe storms formed southwest of Omaha and moved over the metro area. Also, storms redeveloped and moved near the metro area as well. The first storms moved right over my house in northwest Omaha. They were severe warned for up to quarter sized hail. I took the first couple of pics from my deck, but then decided I wanted to be out and about in my car so I could try to get into the strongest of storms and hopefully put some more dents in it!
As I was leaving the house, hail started to fall up to nickel size. I kept on heading towards southwest Omaha. A stronger storm was forming and moving into southeast Omaha. I ended up heading east on I-80 into southwest Council Bluffs. The storm was strengthening and dropped hail near to quarter sized as it headed east. I fell behind it for a while letting the hail and very heavy rain go over me. I eventually headed east on Hwy 92 and never did catch up with the storm again. However, I came across a ton of hail covering the highway and in the ditches. Not wanting to drive fast across the hail, I knew I wouldn't catch back up with storm so I pulled over to take a look at the hail and take some pics. The amount of hail was very impressive and was up to quarter to ping pong ball sized.
As I headed home there was another storm developing across Bellevue that dropped up to golf ball sized hail. I made it home and had a great view of the storms still going strong east of town, so I took a bunch of good lightning pics. Overall I drove about 50 miles and saw some pretty good storms and great structure!

storms south of town

strong storm forming east of my house

severe storm moving in southwest Council Bluffs

again

hail in ditches along Hwy 92

storms east of me along Hwy 92

again

another shot

new storm forming southwest of me heading towards Bellvue

the rest of the pics are of the storms east of me from my deck

total miles: about 50
largest hail: 1.5"

Sunday, June 5, 2011

5/30/11 Memorial Day chase Nebraska

My string of frustrating chases and chases ending with no tornadoes continued this day. I was fairly excited and optimistic in the days leading up to this chase as very strong instability and wind fields would lead to a good severe weather day. The only negative was the upper level winds were fairly unidirectional, so there was a likelihood storms would turn into a line fairly fast. My hope was to be in the right area when the storms first formed. I originally chose central Nebraska, but then changed my target to northteast Nebraska/ southeast South Dakota the day before. However, when I woke up the morning of the chase, it looked like central Nebraska would be the best starting point to get the initial storms.
I unfortunately had a pretty crappy chase partially due to bad road network, bad internet coverage, and a horrible time trying to find a gas station!! I originally targeted Broken Bow, NE, but left Omaha late by about 45 minutes. I was hoping this wouldn't cost me and the storms would hold off but of course they didn't. The initial storms that fired and kept refiring were up near Brewster. I headed north towards Taylor and then west towards Brewster. As I was heading west I could see a nice lowering and what looked like a wall cloud forming to my north. This was the storm that went on to produce the tornado near Rose. The only way to go north though was to backtrack to 183. I attempted this but realized the storm was going to get away from me. I figured I might as well wait along 183 for the next storm to move through. However, I was getting low on gas. Back when i first came into Taylor from the south, I somehow didn't notice the OPEN gas station that was about 1 mile south of town and my garmin didn't even show it existed. When i started looking for a gas station, I didn't find one in Taylor, so I ended up all the way north in frickin Bassett, having to drive through the severe line of storms. This "detour" to get gas cost me easily more than an hour and half. I made it back down to Taylor and met up with a friend, who of course was waiting at the gas station, but by now the line was overtaking 183 all the way south towards the interstate.
Here's where the fun started. I knew we would be in the line forever as we headed south, so we made a turn to the east towards Ord. The road was winding though and the line was picking up speed so it took forever to get out in front of the line. We managed to get out in front right in Ord, and as we came out on the other side of town, I saw the largest gustnado I have ever seen! For a while i swore I could see a broad lowering and a "nipple" like funnel(kindof reminded how the Aurora tornado started out), but I'm not sure. Apparently right after we left Ord, an 83 mph wind gust came through and damaged the airport.
We were riding the gust front again, struggling to get out in front of it. Finally we had to stop briefly in the town of Fullerton. We stepped out of the car and it was warm and humid again. No longer than a minute later though the cold air and winds slapped us in the face and we knew the squall line that was warned for winds up to 90 mph caught us again. This time though we had to head south on Hwy 22/14. About 5 miles or so down the road, I suddenly saw a HUGE power flash to my right up ahead! I began to worry whether there was a possible tornado that had spun up. Soon the winds picked up like crazy and visibility went down to about 100 feet in blowing dust. Then there was another power flash in about the same spot as last time! We reached our east road, Hwy 92, and headed on. The insane winds continued though, and suddenly out of nowhere there was about a 6-8 ft branch lying across the center of the road. At this point it was dark, so I had little time to react and drilled the end of the branch with my left tire as i swerved to the right. Luckily, it didn't do any damage to my car or tires. A little bit after that, there was a grove of trees on the north side of the highway. As we were driving through that area, the winds really picked up again and suddenly tons of debris were flying across the road. I was waiting to get hit by a large branch or hit one lying on the road again, but made it through ok. At some point, after what seemed like forever, we made it back out in front of the line. My buddy stopped in Osceola at the gas station, but I kept on, not wanting to get swallowed back up by the line. My friend did fall back into the line though, and told me that as they were driving down the highway they saw a couple of street signs get blown over by the wind. There were reports of 70-80 mph winds again with the line. I made it back home to Omaha, no more than 15 minutes before it hit my house, but by then the storm had weakened and the winds only gusted to about 45 mph at home. What a way to end what would have been one of my worst chases ever!