OmahaTornadoChaser

I'm going for it!! Great Plains Tornado Tours

2011-12-22T21:14:00.000-08:00

Most of my closest friends and family already know this news, but I thought I would make an official post here on my blog. I have decided to try and start my own storm chasing tour company!! I'm going to offer the group tours in a van, and also individual guided tours in the customer's car or my car. It's something that I have thought about doing for years now. I feel like I finally have enough experience to be able to offer a good tour to my customers. Of course, each time I go out is another chance to learn something new from Mother Nature, so I know I will continue to learn more and more as I go out.
I'm not sure what to expect out of the company, especially at first until my name gets out there more. I'm just hoping it's something that I will be at least moderately successful and at the very least allow me to continue doing what I love, and that's to chase storms!!
Here is the address for the new site. Please feel free to leave me comments about the site, and if you or anyone is interested in any of the tours let me know. Also, pass on the address to anyone you feel might want to find out more about the tours!!

www.greatplainstornadotours.com

you can email me at the following adresses: greatplainstornadotours@yahoo.com or Jeremy@greatplainstornadotours.com

Lightning pics

2011-09-01T15:54:00.000-07:00

I'm posting some lightning pics mainly from a storm that moved through right about sunset on the 6th of August. Lightning photography is one of my favorite things to do, but this year it seems like either I have been too busy driving on a chase to get pics or the storms that have moved through when I have been home in Omaha have been in the middle of the night or didn't have very good cloud to ground lightning. The first series of pics again had mainly cloud to cloud lightning which still looked pretty cool with the line coming in. After the storm had passed by my house, it seemed to intensify with the cloud to ground lightning strikes. I should have gone out and gotten a better vantage point to look east but instead stayed in my driveway. A new set of storms formed to the southwest of town later that night and I tried to get some good shots from my back deck, but our stupid trees in our backyard are getting taller and taller!!

storm moving into town from the northwest

little bit of a shelf cloud coming into view

next couple of pics are from front driveway after first storm passed

should have gone to a better spot to look east over the city

2nd storms that formed west/southwest of town

The shot below was the lone good shot I got of a high based tstorm that moved through town on the night of the 23rd of August. The lightning with this, although not frequent, was very impressive. It had very sharp bolts that seemed to hit the Earth every time and then would make that loud boom of thunder. I barely missed 2-3 other good bolts with camera before coming inside after I no longer felt safe!

7/26/11 First July chase!

2011-07-30T09:24:00.000-07:00

Today was a day of firsts for me. It was my first chase in July, my first tornado this season, and my first tornado in South Dakota. It had been a month since I had last gone out chasing. I normally consider my chase season done at the end of June. That's when I stop trying to plan ahead for vacation anyways. The storm pattern moves north into South Dakota, North Dakota, and Montana, and it has been a pretty active month of July this year. However, I don't want to and financially can't continue to chase that far on what usually are marginal chase setups. This time of year there are more strong wind events and hail than tornadoes.
This day however showed one of the better setups in the past month. I was desperate to get out one more time, so I decided what the hell, I will go out chasing! I left Omaha about 945 in the morning, and made it up to north central S. Dakota about 430. I actually ended up in my hometown of Gettysburg waiting for initiation. I stopped by home and visited with mom for a bit, but within half an hour there was a tornado watch issued and storms were starting to form!
There were two initial cells, one southwest of Gettysburg and another northwest of Gettysburg. The cell to the southwest exploded more rapidly and as I watched it, it showed up to 3" hail on radar. The storm to my north however just kind of pulsed and never really got going at first. I was in a perfect position of being able to go after one storm and not be too far away from the other one. So I went after the first storm to my southwest. However, as I headed towards it, it weakened and by the time I intercepted it near Agar, there was only heavy rain and small hail. Also, other storms had formed to its south near Pierre that were now merging with it forming the dreaded line. I was already beginning to regret my decision to chase 7 hours from home.
I sat there as the storm moved onto the east and the storm to my north did nothing. I was treated to a cool double rainbow though and for a while an intense swirl in the clouds on the back of the storm that lasted for several minutes.
The line of storms now moving south of Gettysburg strengthened again and the storm to the north still didn't look that great on radar. However, I was getting a good look at the storm visually and it seemed like it was doing pretty good. I had to head back north a bit on Hwy 83 anyways if I wanted to go east on 212. I got to the intersection of 83/212 and decided that I would go for the storm to my north since it was by itself still. Also even though the storm wasn't that mature I could see it's base from about 15 miles away and it already had a lowering.
I approached the storm from the south as it tried to form a few wall clouds. It was in the perfect spot road network wise as well as it was right near the Hwy 20 intersection that went east and the storm was moving east as well. I would be able to follow along just to its south. It finally had a warning with it and was really looking impressive on radar. Also a large, slowly rotating wall cloud developed with it. I was sure this was going to make a large tornado!
I stopped once to get pics of the wall cloud and was right on the edge of the precip and gust front of the storm. The rotation in the clouds above me was impressive. However, I soon noticed that the wall cloud looked like it was beginning to be undercut by the cold outflow of the storm. The clouds were a bit choppy looking.
I went on ahead to the east stopping one more time just west of Hoven. I looked up almost directly above me and suddenly a small white funnel formed!! It was spinning pretty good and slowly dropped lower to the ground. I snapped some pics but didn't get any video. I realized though there was no tornado warning for the storm and it was right near the town of Hoven. I thought about trying to call the NWS, but didn't have their number so I thought it would be quicker to call 911.
I gave my report and location to the operator who had me hold while she called the sheriff. He was out spotting too and was north of town about 2 miles. He said he couldn't see anything from where he was at. I told them it wasn't a large funnel and wasn't on the ground. Right about that time though, a very intense dust whirl formed in the field in front of me, less than a quarter mile away!! I had my window open and was pretty sure I could hear the tornado!! I was caught without my video camera recording and while still on the phone tried to get some pics which turned out ok. I told the operator and sheriff what I just saw again. About this time another funnel formed above me a little further to the east. I also started to get blasted with rain and the RFD winds. The operator told me that the sheriff would call me back shortly.
I headed east on Hwy 20 towards Hoven. Suddenly, a fairly large debris cloud showed up in town!!! I could see what looked like part of a roof and other debris swirling around. This last about 45 seconds and disappeared. I drove into town and saw some damage including the business that lost its roof. The sheriff called me at this point and I told him what I saw including the tornado just going through town. There was a tornado warning out for the storm now, including text of my reportm, but when I drove through town not more than a minute after the tornado went through there were no sirens going off.
I headed on south a bit to the next east/west highway, but there was construction going on and the road was only one lane with a pilot car. I had to wait about 10 minutes and the storm moved on. It did become weaker though and didn't produce anymore tornadoes. I chased after a bit longer hoping to get some good shots but it didn't work out and I headed home with a long 7 hour drive in front of me. I arrived home exhausted at 345 in the morning after a 1,075 mile round trip. I was happy I went though finally catching my first tornado of the season.
I've been in contact with the sheriff and sent him by video and pics. Apparently the local paper is going to use my pics. I know, big time huh?! I also sent my pics and video the NWS in Aberdeen. I'm not sure if they were going to do a damage survey until they saw my media. But the storm survey that came out seemed to point to the fact they used it! The tornado was rated an EF-0 with winds of 80 mph or so.

text of the tornado warning issued:
TORNADO WARNING
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE ABERDEEN SD
703 PM CDT TUE JUL 26 2011

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN ABERDEEN HAS ISSUED A

* TORNADO WARNING FOR...
SOUTHWESTERN EDMUNDS COUNTY IN NORTH CENTRAL SOUTH DAKOTA...
NORTHEASTERN POTTER COUNTY IN NORTH CENTRAL SOUTH DAKOTA...
SOUTHEASTERN WALWORTH COUNTY IN NORTH CENTRAL SOUTH DAKOTA...

* UNTIL 730 PM CDT

* AT 658 PM CDT...TRAINED WEATHER SPOTTERS REPORTED A FUNNEL CLOUD
NEAR HOVEN...OR 17 MILES SOUTHEAST OF SELBY. A TORNADO MAY DEVELOP
AT ANY TIME! DOPPLER RADAR SHOWED THIS TORNADIC STORM MOVING EAST
AT 25 MPH.

text of the damage survey:
POTTER COUNTY EF-0 TORNADO...
MEDIA AND TRAINED SPOTTER INFORMATION CONFIRMED A BRIEF TORNADO
TOUCHDOWN ON THE NORTHSIDE OF HOVEN IN EXTREME NORTHERN POTTER
COUNTY. ONE BUSINESS SUFFERED ROOF DAMAGE WITH REPORTS OF TREE
DAMAGE TO THE NORTH OF TOWN. INDICATIONS ARE THAT THIS TORNADO WAS
ON THE GROUND FOR ONLY A BLOCK OR TWO BEFORE LIFTING BACK INTO THE
PARENT THUNDERSTORM. INSPECTION OF THE DAMAGE IS INDICATIVE OF AN
EF-0 TORNADO WITH WINDS ESTIMATED BETWEEN 70 AND 80 MPH.

Outlooks issued for this day:

800 am- moderate risk

800 am tornado probs- 10% hatched area showing strong tornadoes possible

800 am severe hail probs

800 am severe wind probs

1130 am outlook- moderate risk still in place

1130 am tornado probs

1130 am severe wind probs

1130 am severe hail probs

first storm of the day southwest of Gettysburg

I love to take these closeups of storms showing the boiling sky

backside of storm east of Agar now with double rainbow

storm strengthening to my north near Akaska

I'm about 15 miles away from the storm now. Storm is growing but already has a small area of lowering developing!

closer now to the storm and can see a wall cloud developing!

closer now to the storm just west of Hwy 83 and Hwy 20

storm looks like it was starting to form an RFD notch and inflow tail

new wall cloud trying to form. area to the left was intense area of rapidly rising scud forming

tried to get a better structure shot. I need a wide angle lens!

still a small area of intense rising motion just to the right of center

wall cloud getting larger

i had driven for about 5 minutes or so east on Hwy 20 and got out to take some pics. this was the large wall cloud I was treated too!! I thought for sure at this point there was going to be a big tornado that would form. I was already thinking Bowdle! The wall cloud wasn't rotating too rapidly yet, though you definitely see rotation

gust front of storm directly above me

directly above me were these intense roll clouds! i had to watch them to make sure they didn't spin up something that would reach towards the ground

another shot of these intense spinning areas

this was just west of Hoven now near the intersection of Hwy 20 and 47. I looked up above me and suddenly this small white funnel formed directly above me!

another shot of the white funnel extending down a little further

again. it was around this point that I realized there was no tornado warning for this storm and it was heading towards a town so I called 911

shot of the intense dust whirl from the tornado on the ground in the field across from me

another shot of the tornado continuing across the field. i was relaying all this info the 911 operator

new funnel that formed just a bit further east of me. I was still on the phone with 911 at this point telling them about the new funnel forming heading towards Hoven still.

shot of the tornado going though Hoven!!

still on the ground! you could see a part of a roof swirling around in the air and other debris!

one more shot

part of roof missing! i'm guessing this was the roof I saw flying around in the air

some radar grabs:

640 pm- storm rapidly becoming severe just north of me(I'm the white circle). the original severe storm I was on near Agar is to my south

720 pm- storm moving east of Hoven now with good inflow notch on front side. a new tornado warning was about to be issued to the east of the old purple box

720 pm- storm relative velocity image showing well defined couplet(red next to green in center of image). never did see confirmation of tornado on the ground at this point

video of the tornado going through Hoven

link to youtube video(in HD quality):
HD Hoven video on youtube

route taken. I only am showing the part of the chase in S. Dakota

total miles: 1076
tornadoes: 1 (YES!!)
largest hail: .75"
strongest wind: est. 50-55 mph

6/26/11 Eastern Nebraska chase

2011-07-29T22:38:00.000-07:00

This chase was huge surprise chase and then a huge disappointment in the end. I was out of town this weekend down in KC for the Cubs game. I had my laptop with me though and was keeping track of the weather. The days leading up to this didn't look that impressive and the best area for storms was believed to be up in the Dakotas. I woke up Sunday morning and my mouth probably dropped to the ground! I first saw the moderate risk right over eastern Nebraska, and then saw the 15% hatched area for tornado chances. This was the best tornado chances I had seen since the high risk chase down in Kansas a month ago. It's pretty rare each year to see a 15% hatched area(meaning strong tornadoes possible). The setup was for extreme instability and shear along a warm front across eastern Nebraska.
We drove home from Kansas City leaving late morning and arriving in Omaha by 230 pm. One thing that worried me was the clouds I drove through all the way home, which was through the target area. The clearing line though was slowly moving north but this held the warm front further south into southeast Nebraska. I left Omaha with an initial target of Beatrice. By the time I made it down there it was warm and sunny and incredibly humid. I was watching the different parameters for severe weather and they were off the chart!! Now if only something could pop. I was noticing one huge negative though. The mid level temps were really warm which could hinder storms from forming.
I sat around Beatrice for about an hour seeing nothing but blue skies and the mid level temps not improving. I finally accepted the fact that nothing was going to form in this potentially explosive environment. There was a line of storms with strong winds that was racing east and southeast from central nebraska though so I figured I would go intercept those. I headed north to northwest of Lincoln near Dwight and Ulysses Nebraska. The storms here were warned for strong winds and I was on the very southern end of the line. They became stronger though and showed potential for large hail along with the winds. I put myself in place for intercept and right about then a tornado warning came out for just to the south of me. It didn't look that great on radar so I stayed where I was. I was hit with probably nickel sized hail or so and winds that were 60-65 mph. The storm moved past me, but I caught back up with it again and this time ran into some larger hail up to quarters that put a few more dents in the car! After this I headed home, still with an 0-fer the season.
I was glad to get out again for a surprise chase. This was another frustrating weather day where seeming everything was there for a possibly huge tornado outbreak, but one ingredient was missing, a breakable cap. I was sure this would be the last chase of the season as we were now heading into July.

800 am outlook- large moderate risk right over eastern Nebraska

800 am tornado probs- scary chances of strong tornadoes in the red hatched area!

800 am wind probs

800 am hail probs showing very large hail for significant hail possible

1130 am- severe weather probs. still large moderate risk area!

1130 am tornado probs- still a large 15% hatched area. very impressive!!

1130 am severe hail probs- large hatched area showing extreme hail possible

1130 am severe wind probs

3 pm outlook- note moderate risk downgraded to slight risk

3 pm tornado outlook- probs down to 10% but still hatched area showing strong tornadoes possible

3 pm hail probs

3 pm severe wind probs

5 pm significant tornado index. this index is a combination of different indices to give a scale of where the best chance of significant tornadoes could happen. It's very rare to see the numbers this high. I believe actually the scale might be maxed out at 12!

530 pm significant tornado index

530 pm supercell composite index- another gauge of the atmosphere showing the best area for development of supercell thunderstorms. Again this number was extremely high

Below are pics I took on my way home. I was behind the line of storms and the anvil overhead with mamatus clouds made for a brilliant sunset!

total miles: 260
tornadoes: 0
largest hail: 1"
strongest wind: est. 65 mph

6/20/11 Central Nebraska chase

2011-07-08T10:44:00.000-07:00

This chase was the second in a row in Nebraska and I had hoped would finally be my first tornado of the season. The day before a strong warm front was the cause of the tornadic storms. This day an unseasonable strong, springlike storm was ejecting northeast through Nebraska giving my local area the best chance for tornadoes this season.
I had returned home at about 4 am the night before from my chase in southwest Nebraska. I slept for about 6 hours, and then had to work a bit before heading out. My original plan was to head for northwest Iowa and leave about 2 pm. I'm sure I've mentioned in some of my other chases that I have the bad habit of waiting until the last possible minute to leave. I'm not sure why I do that but it's a bad habit that has cost me a few times in getting to the right spot early enough. I took a look at things about 1230 and there was already a monstrous supercell in north central Kansas that was producing long track tornadoes and heading north into south central Nebraska. I thought there was no way this storm would keep going far enough north for me and my target area which was now around Grand Island Nebraska along I-80.
I kind of piddled around a bit longer when all the sudden a watch was already issued for central Nebraska. It was a PDS watch too which is short for particularly dangerous situation. They issue these type of watches when there is a chance for strong to violent tornadoes and extremely large hail. I quickly showered and got my things together. I had to fill up and was on the road about 145 pm.
As I headed west down I-80 the initial long track storm was still producing tornadoes as it headed towards Lexington/Kearney Nebraska. Of course though, it eventually weakened but a new storm quickly developed to it's north and headed towards the interstate. About this time I was still an hour away from that area. What was amazing to see though was storms rapidly forming right in front of me along an east/west arc basically right along the interstate. The new storm that formed had a tornado warning for it within 30-45 minutes of its development and soon a confirmed tornado was on the ground headed towards Elm Creek right on the interstate. I was going to be about 30-45 minutes too late!! My hope was that this storm would be long track like the first storm that came out of Kansas and I would be able to catch up with it. However, the new storms that were forming to it's east eventually merged with this storm cutting of its inflow. This was bad for the tornado chances with this storm but it was good for me because now I was closer to the new area of possible tornadic development. I went north of Kearney towards Pleasanton where there was now a new tornado warning. As I approached the storm I could tell it was very high precip which can make it hard to see a tornado. I stayed on the south side of the storm, and at one point thought I saw a funnel but it quickly disappeared. However there was a report of tornado on the ground just northeast of Pleasanton.
There were new storms that were forming further to the east, but they were all in a east/west line that was moving north. Normally, when storms are in a line you want to be on the end of the line that is still receiving the best inflow of moist, warm air. So in this case that would have been the storms furthest east. I thought about leaving the area and heading east, but the area of storms that I was on continued to have tornado warnings and supposed confirmed sightings while the storms to the east didn't look that impressive and were only severe warned. I continued north and a little east with the storms all the way to Rockville, NE along highway 50 never seeing anything that impressive. At one point, I got into the outflow or maybe even RFD of the storm and experienced winds close to 60 mph, but never any funnels or tornadoes.
I hadn't been looking real close at the radar at the storms way to the east near Grand Island and York for a while as I was focused on my area. I took a look and there was now a tornado warning for a storm just southwest of York! The storm had a pretty good looking hook on it too. Within minutes a report came out of a confirmed tornado on the ground near the interstate southwest of Hampton. I was ticked!! I should have followed my instinct and gone back to the east when I saw the line forming. This storm was all by itself so it had a great environment to produce in.
So now I decided to try to race back east to catch up with this storm. Again, my hope was that this would somehow hold together for over the hour it would take me to get back to the storm. As I was meandering east, I was trying to figure out the best roads that would get me to point where I could meet the storm. I ended up meeting the storm near Silver Creek, but the storm had of course weakened and was no longer producing a tornado. I had hope that it would still be producing, as there were almost continuous reports of a tornado on the ground for that hour I was trying to catch up. I followed the storm for a while longer until just about Columbus when I decided to give up. I started to head towards home heading south. There was a line of severe thunderstorms racing towards Omaha and one more cell that had formed near York that was moving north. I decided to head south towards the cell since it was now severe warned for large hail. As soon as I left Columbus though the storm I was chasing became tornado warned, but it was too far away for me to turn back around. The cell I headed towards to the south rapidly weakened as I approached it as well and had no hail by the time I intercepted it. Dejected, I headed towards home ready to give up for the day. As I came into my neighborhood, I noticed everything was dark. The storm that had blown through Omaha had 65-75 mph winds and knocked out power to our neighborhood as well as taking down some trees and blowing out a few windows. Of course I missed that too!!
Looking back I could have done a couple of things differently. If I would have left 30-45 minutes earlier, I would have made it to Elm Creek area when that tornado was on the ground near I-80. If I would have left about 45 minutes later, I would have not tried to make it to that original storm and would have been on the major tornado producer that formed near York. Yet another frustrating chase day!!
In reality, there was only 2 storms that produced all of the tornadoes, so there really wasn't the outbreak that was potentially forecasted. Here is a storm survey of all the storms and tornadoes in Nebraska:(click on the link below)
Tornado surveys

some youtube videos of the tornadoes that I missed:(
Bradshaw tornado
I was in this immediate area and somehow missed this tornado by a few minutes:
Ravenna tornado
Osceola tornado

text from PDS tornado watch issued:
TORNADO WATCH NUMBER 523
NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK
100 PM CDT MON JUN 20 2011

THE NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER HAS ISSUED A
TORNADO WATCH FOR PORTIONS OF

PARTS OF NORTH CENTRAL KANSAS
LARGE PART OF EASTERN NEBRASKA

EFFECTIVE THIS MONDAY AFTERNOON AND EVENING FROM 100 PM UNTIL 800
PM CDT.

...THIS IS A PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION...

DESTRUCTIVE TORNADOES...LARGE HAIL TO 4 INCHES IN DIAMETER...
THUNDERSTORM WIND GUSTS TO 80 MPH...AND DANGEROUS LIGHTNING ARE
POSSIBLE IN THESE AREAS.

THE TORNADO WATCH AREA IS APPROXIMATELY ALONG AND 65 STATUTE
MILES EAST AND WEST OF A LINE FROM 50 MILES EAST NORTHEAST OF
ONEILL NEBRASKA TO 25 MILES SOUTH SOUTHEAST OF HILL CITY KANSAS.
FOR A COMPLETE DEPICTION OF THE WATCH SEE THE ASSOCIATED WATCH
OUTLINE UPDATE (WOUS64 KWNS WOU3).

REMEMBER...A TORNADO WATCH MEANS CONDITIONS ARE FAVORABLE FOR
TORNADOES AND SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS IN AND CLOSE TO THE WATCH
AREA. PERSONS IN THESE AREAS SHOULD BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR
THREATENING WEATHER CONDITIONS AND LISTEN FOR LATER STATEMENTS
AND POSSIBLE WARNINGS.

OTHER WATCH INFORMATION...CONTINUE...WW 522...

DISCUSSION...INTENSE SURFACE LOW OVER NCENTRAL KS WITH RAPID
DESTABILIZATION OCCURRING INTO NEB WHERE SHEAR IS VERY FAVORABLE
FOR SUPERCELL DEVELOPMENT. SUPERCELL THUNDERSTORMS WELL DEVELOP
AHEAD OF THE TRACK OF THE LOW WITH POTENTIAL FOR STRONG TORNADOES
INCREASING THRU THE AFTERNOON AS SYSTEM MOVES NNE. VERY LARGE HAIL
ALSO LIKELY GIVEN MLCAPES AOA 2500 J/KG AND LARGE HODOGRAPHS.

day 2 outlook- at this point i was sure I would be headed to northwest Iowa

day 2 severe probabilities- note high percentages of severe weather

day 1 outlook 7 am

day 1 hail outlook 7 am

day 1 tornado outlook 7 am/ was a little disappointed the tornado risk wasn't higher!

day 1 wind outlook 7 am

day 1 outlook 3 pm- note the risk area has really changed

day 1 tornado outlook 3 pm/ hatched probabilities showing risk of strong tornadoes!!

day 1 hail outlook 3 pm

day 1 wind outlook 3 pm

pic of developing storms

a couple of shots of the last storm I intercepted

again

last one

some radar grabs of the tornadic storms:

400 pm- tornado warned storm near Elm Creek w/ tornado on the ground. I'm the white circle to the far left side of the screen. I need to get there!!

422 pm-tornado warned storm north of Amherst with a tornado still on the ground. Again, I'm the white circle racing towards the storm. Note the separate storm to it's east. This storm would eventually cut off the inflow to the storm to the left and then become the dominant storm for a while.

434 pm- storms have merged now. the main area of rotation now is near Pleasanton in the center of the screen. I'm close now!

434 pm- storm relative velocity showing the bright red next to bright green in the center near Pleasanton. There was a report of tornado at this time but I didn't see it

549 pm- rapidly developing tornadic storm southwest of York with tornado near Bradshaw

705 pm- nice hook echo on tornado warned storm. I believe a tornado was still on the ground at this time, but storm soon weakened after this.

route taken:
part 1

part 2

total miles: 479
tornadoes: 0
largest hail: none
strongest wind: est 60 mph

Lightning pics from 6/19/11 chase

2011-07-03T21:47:00.000-07:00

Here are the pics on my drive home from my chase in southwest Nebraska. I love taking lightning pics and always wish I would go out more to try and get some shots. A lot of times however the lightning doesn't cooperate by not being fork lightning, clouds getting in the way, etc. It was already a very long day and chase, but the lightning with the storms was just too good to pass up, so I stopped about 3 different times on the way home. I actually took these with Sarah's point and shoot camera which does a great job when I leave the shutter open. I used my monopod and took them out my driver's side window usually leaving the shutter open for 3-6 seconds.

6/19/11 SW Nebraska

2011-07-01T22:39:00.000-07:00

This was the first day of what I knew would be a 2 day chase and possibly the last real good chance of tornadoes for the season. I always want to see tornadoes of course, but this season I needed to get some videos of tornadoes for my chasing site that I want to start to possibly use for my own tour company someday. So as the season has gone on, I've felt more and more "pressure" to get a tornado.
This chase was a classic warm front chase with a strong warm front setting up right along the KS/NE border. To the north of the front was strong easterly flow at the surface that caused a ton of low level shear for storms to work with. I left early in the afternoon and made it to Holdredge, NE by late afternoon. The area of potential storms was fairly large so I waited here for initiation. Finally storms started to form in SW Nebraska almost near the border with Colorado. I headed west towards McCook. After a while two separate storms formed with the storm furthest southwest becoming tornado warned first. The storm was in a horrible area for roads though and as I approached there was another storm northwest of McCook that looked good and became tornado warned so despite there being a tornado on the ground with the other storm, I went for the one that was closest. I eventually turned north towards the storm on the local gravel roads. Many of you know of my past experience with gravel roads so I have a real hesitation to use them, but there was no other choice. It hadn't rained here yet so the roads were fine. I made it to the storm and though it looked really impressive, I could tell it would be hard to see a tornado due to it's high precip.
I use Microsoft's Streets and trips for my mapping software and it's normally a very good software. However sometimes it shows roads that aren't there or actually section lines or some other type of very low maintenance road. At some point I had the decision of continuing to follow the first storm, or drop back southwest towards the other storm that was still supposedly producing a tornado. Well, I decided to keep on the first storm and thought I had a route picked out around this big lake and some kind of a rec area. My route around the lake though ended up being basically a wagon looking trail. So i had to bail back south as the storm overtook me. Luckily I made it out of the storm before the roads turned to soup.
With the first storm now moving away, I waited for the next storm to come in from the west. This storm allegedly had a tornado with it on the ground about 6 miles away from me. However, from where I stopped I had a great vantage point of the storm and the wall cloud and could see no tornado. This has happened on more than one occassion this year where I was seemingly in a good spot to see a tornado where one was reported but saw nothing.
I let this storm come just to the north of me and it visually kind of looked like it was weakening. The wall cloud had disappeared anyways. The storm also had started to turn a little to the southeast in it's direction. I continued to follow it though on gravel roads. I was almost back to the area around McCook. I didn't want to go through town though because I felt like I would lose the storm then. Again, I found a route on my mapping software and headed east. The road looked a little questionable, but I continued on. I came to my turn and the road didn't exist! The road I was currently on wasn't even a gravel road, it was just basically dirt. I turned around right away but the storm had started to come over me. It started raining really hard and immediately the road started to turn to mud. It was actually scary how fast the road turned bad. I began to slightly panic as I started to slide around a little bit as I drove back to the west. Thankfully I only had about 1.5 miles to go before I got back to the main gravel road, and I made it without getting stuck.
I found another road that brought me back to the main highway just east of McCook. By now I had run into the hoards of chasers that were out on this storm. The road turned to the northeast so the storm was basically following the main highway and I was now behind the storm. I would try to get through the storm but it was too dangerous, and there were constant tornado reports coming in with a tornado on the ground. I couldn't see anything from behind the storm and was very frustrated on how the day was turning out. Eventually, I decided to head south and weaved my way through more gravel roads until I hit the next main east/west highway. By now I was almost near the Kansas border. However the main storm that I had been following had turned southeast and actually wasn't that far away from me. It was still tornado warned and even though it was dark, I thought I would still keep an eye on it and try to get different views of the storm as the roads would allow me. The lightning was pretty spectacular so it allowed me to see the base of the storm. However, I never did see any tornadoes. I stopped and took a lot of great lightning pics that I will put in a separate post. With stopping so often to get pics and the long route I took, I didn't get home til almost 4 in the morning! Tired and disappointed again, I knew I would still have another, perhaps better chance the next day...

first storm of the day, HP supercell

another shot

again

wall cloud off to the west of me with 2nd storm

wall cloud falling apart as storm approaches

storm looks weaker

south of the big tornado warned storm as I had to drive around the storm. loved the bluish look to the storm

again

some radar grabs:

800 pm- the two big tornado warned storms

806 pm- large hook on storm

811 pm- I'm the white circle just below the storm. supposedly there was a tornado on the ground right around this time, but i didn't have visual of it

855 pm- tornado heading thru Indianola. I'm the white circle just to the left of the town

radar grab of all the tornado warned storms at once. an impressive shot!

Total miles: 765
no hail or tornadoes

6/17/11 surprise supercell

2011-06-27T21:42:00.000-07:00

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....

2011-06-27T21:31:00.000-07:00

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

6/1/11 Nebraska chase

2011-06-14T12:49:00.000-07:00

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

2011-06-14T10:08:00.000-07:00

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"

5/30/11 Memorial Day chase Nebraska

2011-06-05T08:04:00.000-07:00

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!

hodograph near Cozad, NE showing the strong shear in the lower atmosphere

Day 1 outlook 1 am

Day 1 tornado outlook 1am-note the 15% hatched area!! was very excited when this came out!

Day 1 hail outlook 1am

Day 1 wind outlook 1am

Day 1 outlook 1130 am

Day 1 tornado outlook 1130 am

Day 1 3pm thunderstorm outlook- moderate risk has been moved east to cover damaging wind threat

day 1 3pm tornado outlook-note chances down to 10% non hatched

day 1 3 pm wind outlook- 45% risk with hatched area showing poss. of extreme damaging winds

first storms of the day about 320pm. i'm the white circle in the lower right...

first tornado warning of the day about 430 pm

storm relative velocity on storm with good looking couplet showing rotation

storm looking even better- confirmed tornado near Rose on the bottom part of the screen a little earlier. storm was also dropping baseball sized hail

again showing strong rotation

storm wrapping up even more showing strong hook at about 5 pm

again with very good rotation

Total miles: 630
tornadoes: 0
largest hail: nickel
strongest wind: est. 70 mph

5/24/11 The I now hate Kansas chase!!

2011-05-26T22:07:00.000-07:00

This day was my 3rd chase to Kansas in the last 13 days, and perhaps the most disappointing. Today ended up being the feared high risk bust day. I had been watching this day for most of the week leading up to it. All the ingredients were coming into place for a potential outbreak of strong to violent tornadoes. At first, the best area looked like it would be south into Oklahoma, but the area shifted further north and the day before looked like most of Kansas and Oklahoma would be in a high risk area. When the first day 1 outlook came out it left most of Kansas out of the high risk except from about Wichita on south.
I decided my friend and I would head down towards Wichita. We left town about 1030, and by 2-230 storms were already firing and tornado watches were being issued. The first storms formed down in Oklahoma, and were expected to move into Kansas. Watching things on radar though, it seemed like it would be quite a while before those storms made it into Kansas. There was one storm though that had split left and was heading due north into Kansas. About the time we got to Kingman, more storms were filling in rapidly west of Wichita. The storm from Oklahoma had moved up towards Pratt, and was warned for baseball sized hail!
Around this time, I was looking at the parameters for tornadoes and there was quite an area in southcentral Kansas that didn't have very good shear for some reason. So we decided to try and head west to Pratt and then come in from behind on the storm moving north. There were also tornado warned storms that were moving east along the warm front in western Kansas. This would be our new target area.
As we headed west towards Pratt, the winds picked up dramatically from the south. It was very warm here and not as humid so the cloud bases were pretty high, in fact too high for tornadoes. But i knew as the storm moved north they would lower. With the strong winds, there was a ton of blowing dust and even some gustnadoes forming out in the fields. The winds continued to increase til they were probably averaging around 40 mph. As we passed a grove of trees small branches were breaking off and leaves and other debris were flying across the highway. A semi heading towards was actually pushed into our lane briefly as it came out past a break of trees. Luckily, he was able to correct himself!
We made it to Pratt and headed north and were probably about 15 miles or so behind the storm. It was moving around 45 mph so it took a while to catch up. We were finally within about 5-7 miles of the storm when traffic started slowing down and we could see flashing lights. Then we noticed some tree damage with some pieces blown across the highway. Also there was a large center pivot out in a field that had been blown over. It looked like a possible tornado had just come through here! A fireman, came up to our car and said the road would be closed for a while and directed us to take a county road to go around to the north. The road was dirt though and since the storm had moved through was really muddy. We made an attempt at driving on it and made it about a mile or so, but it was very sketchy at best and I didn't want to get stuck and ruin the rest of the chase so we turned around.
It was also at this point though that we lost our internet connection. Things were going downhill for us rapidly! Driving "blind" so to speak we went back south to the next main east/west highway and turned east. We found internet coverage again a couple of miles down the road and soon discovered there were more tornado warned storms to our north and west. We made our way back to Great Bend which was the original town we were heading towards before the highway was blocked, and then continued on northwest. We could see the intense storm that reportedly had a confirmed tornado with it minutes before. The storm was dark and mean looking, and once we were close enough we stopped to take video and pics.
The storm however had started to become outflow dominant and had turned to the east in it's movement. Also storms had rapidly started filling in to the south of the this storm. We found ourselves getting overtaken by the storms. We headed back southeast towards Great Bend, but the storms overtook us with very heavy rain and winds to near 50 mph. Eventually, we made it ahead of the line east of Great Bend. The storms had formed into a continuous line now as the dryline filled in, pretty much killing any chances of tornadoes. For the last hour or so of daylight we would get ahead of the line, stop and take some pics as it approached and then do it again one more time before letting the line overtake us with nickel sized hail and gusty winds. We then made the long drive home arriving around 130 in the morning.
To me the day was a high risk bust. There were tornadoes and a few strong ones in Oklahoma, but for all the wordings and warnings of an outbreak, this definitely did not meet up to it's hype. On the way home we did hear of 2 fatalities in Kansas due to a falling tree going through a van. It turns out this was the reason why the highway was closed in the direction we were going. The tornado couldn't have passed through there more than 5-7 minutes before us. We were left wondering both whether that could have been our car, or what kind of a view of a tornado we possibly missed. I don't feel like we would have been hit, because I doubt we would have been in the middle of the storm. Normally, I don't have a problem going into a storm with large hail however, this storm was warned for baseball to softball sized hail which is a size I won't mess with! So we would have probably stayed behind the storm if we had caught up with it earlier. Who knows, we might have seen a tornado then?
The last 3 trips to Kansas, I've traveled over 2400 miles, spent over 45 hours in the car, and didn't see a stupid tornado. Here's hoping June will give me better luck, but as it looks like right now most of the first week of June will be hot and dry over most of the central U.S.

day 2 outlook- huge area with a very high risk

day 1 outlook 1130 am

day 1 1130 am tornado outlook. note the 45% prob. this is rare to see!!

day 1 1130 am hail probs. note the 60% prob. again, very rare to see this high!

day 1 outlook 3 pm

day 1 outlook 3 pm tornado probs

some of the forecast hodographs in Kansas. Shear looked amazing as reflected by the long curving images

this hodograph actually had the shear going off the chart!

radar grab of the storms about 5 pm. we are the white circle with the dot in the middle north of pratt.

first pic of tornado warned storm as we approached

getting a bit closer

again

one of my favorite pics. we were now parked and almost directly underneath it!

again

view of the weaker line and shelf cloud

again

another image of the line of storms

last shot of the night

damage survey to the 2 main tornadoes in our area. the first survey is for the tornado that caused the 2 fatalities on the highway in front of us. The tornado was an EF-2 with winds estimated at 120 mph:
storm survey

Total miles driven: 864 miles
largest hail: nickel
strongest winds: 50-55 mph

5/19/11 another disappointing Kansas chase

2011-05-25T13:17:00.000-07:00

This day was my second marathon chase to Kansas in 2 weeks. Originally this day didn't look that great, but as the day approached the ingredients were looking better and better. I watched it close and decided this could still be a good day to go out. A friend of mine wanted to come along and we left town at about 1030 in the morning with an initial target around Great Bend, KS. The atmosphere in Kansas was rapidly destabilizing as we headed south. Wind shear was increasing and it looked like things could be even better than expected. We arrived at the town of Hollyrood, KS and storms were just starting to fire north and west of us towards Russell. About that time the Storm Prediction Center raised the risk to a moderate risk with a chance of strong tornadoes! We waited around to make sure the storms got a little better organized before heading towards them.
As we approached our storm, it was severe warned for large hail and strong winds only. There was another storm to its northwest that was tornado warned, but we opted to stay on the further south storm. We approached it from the east on a road right next to I-70. When we got close enough we could see rapid rotation in a wall cloud and little funnels dipping down briefly! The inflow into the storm was very strong as well, with the winds probably constantly being above 40 mph! We were sure a tornado was going to drop. We pulled off to the side of the road and watched the storm spin. Eventually, we realized it was heading right towards us but the rotation was weakening. We turned the car around to head east to get back out in front of it. We headed north of I-70 near Wilson and drove by Wilson State Park and the huge lake it sits on. The sky was green and created a beautiful scene as the storm moved over the lake. There were reports of a rain wrapped tornado about this time, but we didn't see anything. We headed towards the town of Sylvan Grove that was directly in the path of the storm, again stopping to take pics and video. We were at the back part of the storm and possibly saw the rain wrapped tornado as we saw rain curtains wrapping around rapidly. From Sylvan Grove we went north a bit and then east on Hwy 10. The storm had began to turn into a huge blob that made it seem even more impossible that we would see a tornado. We stayed out in front of it for awhile stopping every 5-10 miles or so to watch it, before it started to weaken and head north.
Suddenly there really wasn't any big storms to watch and we were looking at starting the trip home by 730. One last storm did pop though and we backtracked a bit to let it go over us in the town of Beverly. Radar showed this to have large hail, but not a stone fell where we were. I was getting even more frustrated! We made an attempt to follow this storm north as it grew as well but our closest option was a muddy gravel road, that we didn't want to drive on. So we headed back to Hwy 81 to head north and back in the direction of home. This last storm that had developed did cross the highway and we experienced nickel sized hail. It was heading northeast and I saw there would be another highway it would cross. We turned off on Hwy 24 to get back in front of the storm. I love getting into hailstorms with my car, since it isn't worth anything, I don't care about any dings!
The radar showed the storm strengthening and right before it was going to cross the hail size jumped to 4"!! I was suddenly a little worried about getting hit with baseball sized hail and losing a window. Especially since the wind was now howling at 50-60 mph! The hail began to get larger and larger as we drove east through the storm. I would estimate it was near golf ball sized and perhaps a bit larger, but we made it through without any loss of windows. We let the storm go on to the north as we headed east, and of course it was put under a tornado warning right as we left it. It was dark now though so we continued on home.

Some forecast hodographs below. They were long and looping signifying the amount of spin in the atmosphere

day 2 outlook

day 1 outlook 1130 am

day 1 tornado outlook 1130 am

day 1 outlook 300 pm

day 1 tornado risk 300 pm- risk was raised w possibility of strong tornadoes

first storm southeast of Russell, KS

just a mean looking storm!

changed it to black and white!

view out over the lake at Wilson State Park

green hail core with storm

the storm seemed to be scraping the ground at times

area of rotation that went overhead near the lake

picture of the TIV from Storm Chasers

storm still green and mean

2 broad areas of rotation trying to develop

last pic of the night

radar showing the areas of rotation. we are the white circle with the dot

couple of mean looking storms trying to form a tornado

hail core that we drove through on way home showing baseball sized hail

last storm of the night with a tornado warning as we drove away

map of the route we took down in kansas

Total miles: 729
Largest hail: 2"
strongest wind: est 50-60 mph
one funnel/ possible rain wrapped tornado

5/11/11 Kansas bust chase

2011-05-20T14:38:00.001-07:00

Today was almost a total bust of a day, stormwise. I say almost because but for a rather intense storm that got it's act together right before sunset, we would have gone home without seeing anything more than a few clouds.
A moderate risk was issued for this day the day prior, with a good chance of storms with very large hail and even strong tornadoes from Kansas down to Oklahoma. It seemed like a sure bet to see some tornadoes. I went to bed feeling great about the next day's chances, but then woke up in the morning to everything having turned for the worst. A large complex of rain and storms formed overnight in Kansas and Oklahoma, that wasn't forecast at all, and slowly moved across both states effectively wiping out the atmosphere. When I woke up in the morning the moderate risk was gone and the tornado chances were way down. I still decided to go since I hadn't been out chasing in a month, and with 2 friends left Omaha around 1030 in the morning headed for central Kansas.
On the way down we ran into some rather intense storms just south of the Kansas border. We stopped to watch them for a while and suddenly were hit with strong winds and blowing dust. For most of the day that seemed like it would be the highlight. We headed on south as these initial storms were supposed to weaken or only produce hail in Nebraska. As we continued on though, the storms instead strengthened and ended up producing a couple of tornadoes in central Nebraska and southwest Iowa.
The skies finally cleared early afternoon and we were hopeful that this would be enough to destabilize the atmosphere. But, unfortunately it was too worked over and more storms to the south in Oklahoma cut off better air as well. We ate in Russell mid afternoon and decided to head a little further west to Hays, Kansas. We figured since we drove this far already, we might as well wait around in case something decided to pop still. We ended up going to a Goodwill in Hays and then when we came out there was now a tornado watch!!
We had to head a little further northwest now to get closer to some rather weak storms that were trying to survive. We ended up in the town of Hoxie where my buddy Matt recognized 2 guys that are on the show Storm Raiders on The Weather Channel. He wanted to meet them so we stopped at the gas station and talked to them. We headed on north in the general direction of home and to drive through this last storm.
As we approached it, it began to organize a lot more and showed some broad rotation on radar. We drove through the town of Oberlin, which was experiencing some street flooding and hail to the size of nickels or so. We turned east on the highway out of town and ended up on the east side of the storm. It looked rather impressive but never came close to producing a tornado. So we headed on home. While driving through the town of Norton, we noticed that Reed Timmer and The Dominator(his armored vehicle), were at a restaraunt. Again we stopped to see if we could catch him and he was outside his vehicle getting ready to do some kind of interview. We talked to him for about 10 minute before heading on home the rest of the way.
We ended up making it home, dead tired and a little disappointed at 230 in the morning. 800 miles and 16 hours after we left! If not for meeting the people we did and that last little storm, this would have probably been my worst chase ever!! I'm sure there will be more though...

Day 2 outlook issued in the morning before

Day 2 probabilities of severe weather. Note the hatched area representing chances of high end events

Day 2 outlook issued the afternoon before

Probabilities

Day 1 outlook issued at 1 AM the night before. I went to bed rather happy..

risk of tornadoes including possibly strong tornadoes

high probs of severe hail

our lone storm we intercepted

storm relative velocity showing weak broad rotation by the green in the middle surrounded by the pink coloring

Total miles driven: 827
largest hail: nickel

Super Tornado Outbreak 4/27/11

2011-04-28T22:30:00.000-07:00

Edit: I haven't seen a final death toll in a while and there were still several people missing(>100) last I heard, but I am going to put in a number that I heard last and that was 341 people killed and still some 100 people missing. Total damages are in the billions.

On Wednesday April 27th, 2011, a massive tornado outbreak occurred in the southeast U.S. As of this writing, there are 285 confirmed deaths and nearly 2000 injuries that have occurred in mainly six states. 207 died in Alabama, 34 in Tennessee, 33 in Mississippi, 15 in Georgia, 5 in Virginia, and 1 in Arkansas.
Alabama was particularly hard hit by several long track violent tornadoes. Many small communities were basically wiped off the map, and Tuscaloosa and the northern suburbs of Birmingham were also hit. Initial ratings have started to come out with a couple high end EF-4's already. So far there are no ratings for the Tuscaloosa and Birmingham tornadoes, but it is believed they were at least EF-4 and possibly an EF-5.
This day and storm system was forecast for days. The Storm Prediction Center had a high risk outlook for the areas of Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia the day before. Some of the composite indices used to gauge potential severe weather were literally off the charts. Often times, severe weather outbreaks that are forecast like this don't transpire to the possible levels that seem likely. However, this was one of those times where the large and violent tornadoes that were traveling across the countryside were hitting towns and hitting large cities as well.
Being someone who is obviously interested in weather and follows especially severe weather very closely, I was glued to the TV and internet all day. I watched the Weather Channel, even though I normally don't anymore, and I found the ABC channel out of Birmingham that was broadcasting over the internet on my computer. First off let me say both channels did an excellent job of broadcasting this event. TWC which has become a lot of times anything but weather stayed on the air for over an hour covering the tornado as it went from Tuscaloosa to Birmingham. I was watching on my computer as the local channel had a Tuscaloosa skycam up and watched with horror as the large tornado went into Tuscaloosa. It gave me chills to watch what was going on live before my eyes.
What's so horrifying about the numbers of casualties is this occurred with today's technology. Death tolls from severe storms like this haven't been seen since the 1970's and before. There were several factors that probably contributed to the high numbers of deaths. First. the sheer size and number of tornadoes that hit large populated areas. When tornadoes have winds over 200 mph the only way to survive is if you are underground. A lot of homes in the south do not have basements. Second, there are a lot more mobile homes in the South which provide no reasonable shelter. Third, there was a line of storms that went through earlier in the morning that took out numerous power lines, and communication towers. Also, supposedly one of the weather transmitter towers was taken out so warnings weren't being sent out to weather radios. The last thing I want to mention that almost certainly happened was complacency towards warnings. There will always be people who think when they hear a tornado siren that nothing is going to happen to them where they live. There have been numerous times when I have been out chasing, where I have seen people out walking their dogs, etc while tornado sirens were blaring in their city. People have got to learn to take warnings seriously!!
One other thing, I saw on the news tonight. There was a news reporter reporting from a particularly hard hit area in Tuscaloosa. It was low income housing district for people who receive government housing I believe. Most of these people have no vehicles to escape, no technology to receive warnings other than sirens, and again no basements for shelter. I believe more than 10 people died in this subdivision alone.
April 27th was a sobering, and utterly horrifying day to watch unfold. There were many times today where I was having to fight back tears watching and listening to some of the stories of the victims. I know this will be a day I will remember for a long time.
I'm going to post some of the radar images that I saved, and also links to stories and videos. As the storm surveys come out I will post those as well.

Tuscaloosa 509 pm

Storm Relative Velocity Tuscaloosa 509 pm

Tuscaloosa 513 pm

Tuscaloosa 517 pm

Storm Relative Vel Tuscaloosa 517 pm

538 pm

538 pm

555 pm nearing Birmingham

555 pm close up- the purple circle is a debris ball!!

616 pm north of Birmingham. the red nearly complete circle is the circulation

616 pm SRV north of Birmingham

a classic example of yet another hook echo on a supercell in Alabama

videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ohIVzIZLuQ&feature=player_embedded -very close up video of tornado going near the University. guy sounds very scared throughout and at the end seems like he is crying and shaking. one of the most intense videos i've seen, and the human emotion at the end is raw
http://www.cbs42.com/mostpopular/story/Tuscaloosa-tornado-caught-on-tape-wreaking-havoc/hsK7dFmlUku5YlvteTFy6A.cspx -news station clip of tornado entering Tuscaloosa
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIx26tN6pCk&feature=player_embedded - close call with tornado in tuscaloosa, lady comes running up to car near end of video hysterical
ground scouring Philadelphia, MS EF-5 tornado

damage surveys:
Birmingham WFO: http://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=BMX&product=PNS&issuedby=BMX
Jackson, MS WFO: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jan/?n=2011_04_25_27_svr
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jan/?n=2011_04_25_27_SVR_PNS
Atlanta damage survey
Huntsville, MS WFO
Eastern TN damage survey

Killer tornado outbreak 4/14-4/16

2011-04-18T22:05:00.000-07:00

I'm going to post some links and info on the tornado outbreak that occurred over a 3 day period, April 14th-16th. It started with tornadoes in Oklahoma on the 14th, moved to an outbreak on the 15th in Mississippi and Alabama, and finally the last day was the deadly outbreak in North Carolina and Virginia.
As of this posting, 45 fatalities have been reported. Of the reported 45 fatalities, 22 occurred in North Carolina, 7 in Alabama, 7 in Arkansas, 6 in Virginia, 2 in Oklahoma and 1 in Mississippi. Tornado reports initiated from North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri and Louisiana.

Here are some of the storm surveys:
Oklahoma: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/oun/?n=events-20110414 - tons of links at the top of this page!
another weather office: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=tsa&storyid=66688&source=0
Arkansas: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/lzk/?n=svr0411b.htm
Mississippi: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jan/?n=2011_04_15_tor
Alabama: http://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=BMX&product=PNS&issuedby=BMX
North Carolina:
http://www.erh.noaa.gov/er/rah/news/content/20110416_raleigh_survey.pdf
http://www.erh.noaa.gov/er/rah/news/content/20110416_fayetteville_survey.pdf
http://www.erh.noaa.gov/er/rah/news/content/Damage.Photos.from.Fay.Dunn.Tornadic.Storms.pdf

Some youtube videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hh29Ta9YpXs&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC52No_LdKw&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf5ebTswhSM&feature=player_embedded
guy sitting in his truck as the tornado passes right by. he seems to think it's not that bad as he can only see "leaves" flying around. then it hits a house and tons of debris get thrown at his truck! very lucky guy to not be injured!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgwJfoZ-12c
video taken by a 12 year old as his dad(?) drives right into the tornado! at the end you can tell one of the windows was knocked out of the car. more stupidity!!
http://www.wral.com/news/video/9456892/#/vid9456892

4/9/11 Iowa chase

2011-04-11T09:56:00.000-07:00

This day was already my 2nd chase of the season which is pretty impressive for this time of year in my area. Last year, I don't believe I went out until the end of April! This day was well advertised for almost the whole week with the only differences being on location, and also how strong the cap would be. The last part was a concern because it would be possible despite the unseasonable warmth and moisture, no storms would form due to the cap in the atmosphere. Finally, the night before the forecasts focused on northeast Nebraska into Northern Iowa as the prime area. Besides the extreme instability that was forecast to develop, there would be a lot of shear available for supercells with large hail and tornadoes.
I hung around Omaha waiting for signs of initiation. At about 430, i took off up I-29 with a plan to go to Onawa, Iowa. There was a storm forming slowly in northeast Nebraska west of Onawa, moving in the direction of that city. I made it up to the exit and went west of town about 3-4 miles. I had a great view of the storm the west and north of me. The storm didn't look all that great for about the first 30 minutes i was sitting there. The only thing that was impressive about the storm at first was the amount of lightning up in the clouds, and also soon after i was parked, the inflow winds into the storm increased like crazy to consistently 30-40 mph. There were new storms firing back by Madison and Norfolk Nebraska. I was just about ready to leave the original storm i was watching and head west about 50 miles towards the new storms which were supposedly in a better environment for tornadoes. I was literally typing in the new city in the garmin when i looked up at the back of the storm and started to see all kinds of rotation. At one point I almost felt unsafe enough to move as an intense area of rotation that looked like it was trying to form a funnel was right above me!
I filmed this for a bit and then looked out to the northwest and saw all kinds of dust blowing around. I immediately noticed that rather than it just being blowing dust, what i was seeing were gustnadoes forming. These aren't true tornadoes because they normally aren't attached to the cloud base but are still signs of strong shear, updrafts, and rotation very near to the ground.
I proceeded to take some really cool video over the next 10-15 minutes. Near the beginning of the video, I am suddenly hit by one of these gustnadoes as it goes right over the top of me! I also filmed a strong RFD go across the field and into the trees about 1/4 to 1/2 mile away. It was cool to see all the debris and dust being carried by this and when it hit the trees a bunch of birds went flying out! The storm was now really getting its act together and was tornado warned. I checked the radar and the main area of circulation was right over the top of me!
The storm was beginning to move into western Iowa further now. I hopped in the car and headed back east through Onawa. The sirens were blaring, but of course I saw several people including kids out playing and walking around still. I got out east of town a few miles and had another great view of the storm to my north. It was again kicking up these gustnadoes. I pulled over and started filming and not more than 30 seconds two very large, intense ones formed in the corn field in front of me. They were intense enough and large enough that for a while i thought for sure I was seeing a tornado form. I kept looking up at the clouds though and didn't see any real strong rotation. You could even see these little tiny suction vortices form right in front of me about 50 feet or so and kick up some dirt and old corn stalks. The other circulations were strong enough that there was now old corn stalks falling from the skies!! The larger gustnado kindof fell apart and moved onto the east so I hopped back into my car and went east as well.
The storm was heading towards Mapleton, Iowa, so I continued east down Hwy 175. This is where I made my "mistake" of the night. 175 turns north and comes into Mapleton from the southwest. I was taking a look at the radar and felt there was no way I could beat the storm to Mapleton, so I continued east on Hwy 37 until county road L32 where I headed north. This road would take me into Mapleton from the south and also give me options to go east if need be. As i got within a couple of miles, I began to see reports of tornado going through Mapleton. I was approaching the storm and could begin to see a very dark area that was kindof fuzzy/hazy in the center of the storm. Along the edges of this dark area, it seemed to be rotating. At first, I wasn't sure whether this was the tornado. After seeing other reports and video, though I am sure I saw the ending of the tornado and what I was seeing was all the dust being thrown around in the air from the tornado. I still wish I would have gone up on 175, but I wanted to make sure I could go east if I wanted to and not have to take a gravel road, so who knows what would have happened.
It was now nearly dark, so for a while i headed east(on mainly gravel roads) and wanted to find a good spot for lightning shots. I was close enough to the storms yet though that there was usually strong winds or light rain falling, so I never did stop for pics. I did stop at one point because i could see a wall cloud being illuminated by the lightning, but never saw a tornado. I started heading home all the while watching on radar and online the reports of a major tornado outbreak ongoing. I never chase at night if possible, but this night I wish I would have kept on chasing. The storms continued to allow great visibility of the tornadoes even after dark. There was constant lightning with the storms and the flatter terrain allowed great visibility as well.

Below are some of the radar grabs of the storm and the severe weather outlooks:

curved hodograph showing the amazing directional shear

moderate risk from Omaha on north and northeastward

tornado probs

very high probs of large hail

severe storm just as it was developing at 615 pm(i'm located at the white circle with the dot in the middle)

storm relative velocity grab at 647 pm. notice the purple box is a tornado warning. i'm still located at the white circle. the small purple triangles are signals of strong rotation

hook starting to form as storm heads towards Mapleton

large hook on storm as possible tornado heads towards Mapleton

monster supercell heads towards odebolt and arthur, with tornadoes later confirmed

Here are some of my pics. I didn't take a lot as I was mainly videotaping the gustnadoes, etc. I have my brand new HD camcorder for this season, but it didn't come with the cord I need to transfer video onto my computer, so my video will be up in a week or so.

view of storm to the west near Onawa

storms really starting to grow

view of a somewhat lowered base to the storm

multiple cells starting to form

view of back side and flanking line going into main cell

swirling dust in field west of Onawa

one of the first gustnadoes

here you can see the RFD really kicking up the dust on the ground to the left, and a gustnado forming in the middle of the screen

another one forming east of Onawa

2 of them at once!! the focus isn't the best I was trying to record video at the same time

here are some links to damage surveys:
Mapleton tornado: http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=oax&storyid=66512&source=0

other Iowa tornadoes:
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=dmx&storyid=66541&source=0

cool twin tornadoes near Pocahontas, IA:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF5kEbCBYMI&feature=player_embedded

Mapleton tornado:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_NWt0JRP2Y&feature=player_embedded#at=38

TOTAL MILEAGE: 272 miles
TORNADOES: 1
HAIL: NONE
WINDS: estimated 50 mph

First chase of the season!! Iowa 3/22/11

2011-03-23T12:43:00.000-07:00

Today was the first chase of the 2011 season. It was an earlier chase than usual, as a seasonably strong storm system moved through and temps were more like April or May. The high today in Omaha was 78!! This time of year chasing can be tricky because often times storm motions are very fast due to stronger storm systems that have faster upper level winds which steer the storms.
Today was no exception. The storms were forecast to move at 40-50 mph, but most of the time were moving at 50-60 mph and sometimes even 65 mph!! This can make it hard to catch up to a storm if you're behind it or to stay out of its way if you need to be safe!
I went out chasing with a buddy and we left town around 330. We immediately had a tough decision. There were storms west of Omaha moving almost due north, and there were storms in southeast Nebraska moving northeast into southwest Iowa. We decided to go to southeast Iowa. We went south on I-29 and then went east on Hwy 34 towards Red Oak. On our way there, the storms up by Omaha turned east and were now tornado warned with a confirmed tornado by Missouri Valley, Iowa! Again, with the fast storm motions there was no way to get back up that way even though we were only about 40 miles away.
We continued on to Red Oak just barely staying in front of our initial storm. The storm was only severe warned for large hail. We decided at that point to head back north towards Atlantic, Iowa to get closer to the warm front where there should be a better chance for a tornado. While driving north we were overtaken by the original storm, and it was now tornado warned! The storm didn't look that great though for a tornado and we were hit by some quarter to possibly a little larger sized hail. We made it back to I-80 and at this point thought we could make it back to the tornado warned storm that was heading towards Harlan. It was weakening though, so in an effort to still get a tornado and with enough daylight left we headed east on I-80 towards more storms coming up from the south. One of the storms was massive and went through Greenfield with a report of a rain wrapped tornado. Just exactly what we didn't want. A tornado you couldn't see and moving at 50-60 mph! We positioned ourselves south of the storm on Hwy 92 and tried catching up with it as we continued east, but never did. We finally ended up in Winterset, Iowa where we decided to fill up and get something to eat. One more last storm moved over us while we were there with tons of marble sized hail. The back edge of the storm looked pretty interesting so we went out east of town to look at it. The motions in the clouds were absolutely intense! It was almost enough to make you motion sick with the way clouds were spinning and rising and falling. Nothing came close to producing a tornado though. While we were sitting there, we hadn't noticed an intense line of storms that were forming along the cold front that was moving in from the west. These storms were producing large hail and for a while went tornado warned as well, but again didn't look real great tornado wise. We went north on Hwy 169 to let the storms come over us. Using my radar we tried to position ourselves in the main hail core which the radar was showing to be up to 2.5" in diameter!! While driving into position, I saw something I've never really seen before. Often times when storms produce really big hail, there aren't as many stones falling to the ground. So you can be driving and not actually be getting hit by hail despite seeing these large chunks of ice falling all around you. This is what was happening to us as we were driving. We finally ended up getting hit by a couple of the large stones, that I'm sure left some more dents! Lastly, as we continued north we ran into some damage to a farmstead right along the highway. There was a report of a tornado hitting the house here. We stopped and took some pics of damage to the buildings and telephone poles in the area, before heading home. Overall, it was a fun trip with lots of activity. We were in hail several different times and experienced hail golf ball sized and even a bit larger. We didn't see any tornadoes, but it was a tough day to chase.

Here are some pics below. I didn't end up with very many because we were constantly on the move and never had time to stop and take pics. These are from the last line of storms that we waited to overtake us north of Winterset, and then some of the damage to the farm.

Omaha shelf cloud 9/15/10

2010-09-15T22:55:00.001-07:00

a nice little severe storm blew threw omaha with 60 mph winds and penny to quarter sized hail. i worked til 7 and watched the storm on the radar. unfortunately, i waited too long to get out to take some pics, so i had to kindof take pics while driving. it was one of the cooler looking storms i've seen in quite a while! you could really see the rotation of the storm as it approached overhead, and on the northern edge of the storm where i was closer too at one point, there was scud rapidly rising in the updraft of the storm. sarah and i went north for a while before i could see that the storm was going to go further south so we went back south down 132nd street. we ran into very heavy rain and soon hail up to penny sized. it was coming down so hard that we had to pull over in our church parking lot until it let up! we headed home, and as we were coming down our street we first noticed one tree that had a fairly large branch broken, and then 2 houses down from us we saw an entire 15-20 feet tall tree was uprooted from the ground. i wish i would have gotten out about 1o minutes earlier to get some better pics, but it was still a nice little storm!

radar grabs of the storm as it moved through the town

Selling my photos!!

2010-08-20T20:02:00.000-07:00

i've decided to start to try and sell some of my storm chasing pics. i found a site that allows me to post my pics for free, and when i sell a pic they keep a commission out of the sale amount. it kindof stinks to have to pay a commission, but at least this way i'm not paying a monthly fee when i'm not selling my stuff. hopefully i'll get a few orders. i'm not expecting much, but even a handful of sales is better than nothing! as a side note to my friends and family, if you see a picture that you want, let me know and i am sure we can work out a deal on the price!! tell your friends too!!

here's the web address of the photography site:

http://omahatornadochaser.blogspot.com.instaproofs.com/

Wilkin county Minnesota EF-4 tornado

2010-08-14T23:11:00.000-07:00

On August 7th, an EF-4 tornado touched down in western Minnesota near the border with North Dakota. I am making a post of this because it was, I believe, the 12th EF-4 rated tornado this year. This year has been pretty normal for numbers of tornadoes but for the number of violent tornadoes, it has been a very high number. 5 of those EF-4's were in Minnesota too, which has become the new tornado central for the U.S.!! There is also some amazing video of this violent tornado. this time of year, there aren't a lot of chasers out, so it's always a treat to be able to still see pics and videos of these storms. the tornado was a very narrow, "drill bit" tornado. normally people think violent tornadoes are large, very wide tornadoes, but this one was a slow moving, narrow, but very violent tornado. luckily the farms that were destroyed had no one home at the time. a pickup truck at one of the farms was thrown 1/2 a mile with the engine block from the truck thrown 2/3 of a mile. a sugarbeet field was heavily scarred with some of the beets pulled out of the ground! i've posted some links to videos and pics and storm info below:

damage survey:
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/fgf/?n=20100807_tor_wilkin

some videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-4Nu1r3510&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=509woimlfD4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjvlsBIEss4&feature=related

pics:
http://www.mnwxchaser.com/10august07.html

http://www.chasethestorms.com/Other/Spring-2010/12006343_P5snn#962067920_WzMwo-A-LB

Omaha intense heat wave 8/8-8/13 and lightning pics

2010-08-10T08:04:00.000-07:00

So, I've decided to keep posting on my blog, even though i'm not chasing anymore this year. I am going to try and post "interesting" weather events that happen, even if I don't chase them or involve severe weather and tornadoes. This past week Omaha, and most of the midwest experienced an extreme heat wave that lasted most of 6 days. Here in omaha we were under an excessive heat warning from Sunday 8/8 to Friday 8/13. This type of warning is issued when daytime heat indexes are forecast to be over 105, and nighttime heat indexes are not supposed to drop below 80 degrees. This was one of the hotter, and most humid streaks I've experienced in a while. What's interesting is that even though it was so hot, highs never went above 100 here in Omaha. This was because since it was so humid, the air couldn't warm up as much as drier air. Several evenings at 10 o'clock during the week, the air temperature was still near 90, and the heat index was between 105 and 110 degrees, still at 10 o'clock at night!! I've posted the temps and a link from this past week highlighting the heat and humidity.

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/images/oax/news/OAXHI080810.png
** note some heat index values were 119 degrees up to 122 degrees in southwest iowa. it's normally always more humid there due to the transporation of moisture from the thick corn crops!!

Sunday- Low 76 High 96, max heat index= 117
Monday-Low 73 High 95, max dewpoint= 81 max heat index= 115
Tuesday- Low 78 High 95, max dewpoint= 80 max heat index= 108
Wednesday- Low 74 High 99, max dewpoint= 75 max heat index= 107
Thursday- Low 76 High 97, max dewpoint= 79 max heat index= 113, temp at 10 pm 89 heat index 104, temp at 11 pm 87, heat index 97
Friday- High 94, low Friday morning was 81!! max dewpoint=75 max heat index= 104

on tuesday night there was a severe tstorm that developed in southeast nebraska, and moved northeast towards omaha. it ended up going south of town and through the suburb of bellevue, nebraska where it produced 74 mph winds and knocked down some trees and branches. i went out on our back deck and took some pics. i had a perfect view between the trees in our backyard of the lone thunderstorm. it was cool to see surrounded by the stars, and this huge thunderhead lit up with nearly constant lightning. i only got a couple of pics though before some low clouds from the storm blew out and eventually blocked my view of the lightning in the storm.

8/3/10 Omaha big hail and lightning pics

2010-08-08T12:08:00.000-07:00

omaha had a small, but very intense storm move over parts of southwest and southern areas of town this evening. the day was very warm and the atmosphere was extremely unstable. right at sunset, storms started to fire over the area. one storm formed northwest of town and became severe as it moved southeast. the first reports of large hail were in elkhorn west of town where ping pong sized hail(1.5") was reported. the storm strengthened until there were several reports of baseball and larger sized hail up to 3" in diameter. the area affected was small but there were several reports of busted out windshields, and one car dealership had severe damage. the area hit hardest was in ralston, which is a southern suburb of omaha.
i went out to take lightning pics, first north of town up I-29, then headed back towards northern Omaha. the storm that was dropping the hail stayed far enough south that i couldn't get any good pics. i headed south down I-29 and started to run into heavy rain. i had to turn on my wipers on high and not more than 10 seconds later, the wipers crossed each other causing the drivers side wiper to basically explode off the windshield, leaving me blind driving down the interstate! i was able to pull over safely to the shoulder, and had to wait til the rain let up to continue onto an exit that i could park at. i was with a friend, and we continued on to south of council bluffs where we got some decent pics of the storms.
here's some links to some pics and a news story:
http://www.wowt.com/home/headlines/99916209.html

http://ulocal.ketv.com/_Giant-Hail/p.../62922.html?b=
http://ulocal.ketv.com/_hail/photo/1.../62922.html?b=

U.S. record sized hail and fatal Montana tornado

2010-07-30T08:39:00.000-07:00

There were two extreme weather events within a couple of days of each other this last week of July. First off, a huge supercell thunderstorm formed in central south dakota on the afternoon of july 23, 2010. This storm moved into the town of vivian, south dakota where it dropped the record hailstone. vivian is 30 miles south of pierre on I-90 and i've driven by vivian numerous times in my years of living in south dakota. the record stone ended up being 8" in diameter, and 18.625" in circumference! it also weighed almost 2 pounds. as a comparison, a volleyball is only about a 1/2" bigger in diameter, but is much bigger in circumference due to it being perfectly spherical. The previous record was for a 7" diameter stone that fell several years ago in Aurora, Nebraska, and that stone still has the record for circumference at 18.75"!! one home had 18 holes punched through it's roof, with a few of the holes coming through the ceiling, so the stones were laying on the floor inside the house! the record setting stone was actually larger, but it wasn't found until an hour and a half after the storm ended. also the person that found the stone, lost power during the storm so his freezer wasn't working for several more hours!! it is believed that it was possible for some of the stones to be as large as 10 or 11 inches!! many 6" or larger stones were also found. for those who don't know how hail forms, intense updrafts in a thunderstorm are needed to push the hail higher and higher so it can continue to freeze and add more ice. meteorologists estimate that the updrafts in this storm had to be 160-180 mph in order to hold hailstones this size!!!

here's some links and pics from this storm:

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/abr/?n=stormdamagetemplate

http://www.mitchellrepublic.com/event/article/id/45038/

divot left in ground from stone

Then on july 26th, an EF-3 tornado touched down in northeast montana, killing 2 people and injuring 1 other. Tornadoes in Montana are fairly rare, but are more common in july. However, especially strong tornadoes are very uncommon. This was only the 3rd EF-3 tornado ever recorded in the state. The tornado was in a very sparsely populated area of the state, but it did hit a large ranch, where the fatalities occurred. i've included the damage survey and the cnn story with a video below:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/07/27/montana.tornado.deaths/?hpt=T2

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/ggw/PRSheridan_Tornado.pdf

Omaha wind storm 7/14/10

2010-07-17T10:44:00.000-07:00

first off, i wanted to post a thought. i noticed in my last post that i said severe weather season would be done more than likely. that was back in june. i wanted to clarify, especially since there has been a lot of severe weather throughout july. i meant the threat for widespread tornadoes was basically done, especially in nebraska and neighboring areas of iowa and kansas. the severe weather can still continue anywhere, especially to the north of me in south dakota, north dakota, minnesota, and even montana. i guess yesterday, 2 people died from a tornado out in the prairies of montana.

we had our worst wind storm in a couple of years blow through Omaha between 7 and 730 pm. winds were measured between 65-80 mph across most of the county, especially the western half, west of interstate 680. it was the hottest day of the summer and combined with oppressive humidity made it feel like 115 degrees outside, even though the air temp was "only" 97 degrees. the storms developed west and northwest of town and slowly strengthened until they started producing 70 mph winds about 20 miles west of town. i went out west of town down to 226th and maple. we live near 156th and maple. i left too late to get a lot of good pictures or video, and actually it was so muggy out that my lens on my camera immediately fogged up anyways the second i stepped out of the car! i was not that impressed with the structure of the storm compared to some others i've seen. normally storms that are this strong have a really nicely developed shelf cloud. as i was watching the storm come in, it was kicking up a lot of dust out in the fields several miles away. i was watching the radar, and the storm started to bow out as it was getting closer, signaling the winds were getting stronger. when the winds started to pick up at my location, i got back in the car and tried to race back home down maple street. i hit several stoplights of course, so i never really got back in front of the storm all the way. as i was driving, leaves and small branches were blowing across the road and one big gust of wind actually pushed my car over quite a bit. i made it home to the sirens blaring, which they activate if winds are forecast to be over 75 mph! i watched the storm out our windows and after the inital surge of winds that were maybe 50 mph, the winds let up. i thought this was it, but after another 4-5 minutes or so, the main damaging winds hit. winds at my place were near 70 mph i would say. my weather station on our roof blanked out, and still isn't working, so i don't know exactly what the strongest winds were. as i watched out our back door, i could see the neighbors house losing its shingles. a few small branches broke, but i was surprised how few branches there were on the ground. back west along maple street, there were a couple of large trees that blew over a few minutes after i had passed. the storm had seemed to let up a little at our house, when suddenly the power went out. it went out for not more than 5 minutes when it came back on. however, it only stayed on for another 5 minutes or so again, before going out again. this time it stayed off until after 11 pm! it was odd to notice where the power went out too. literally if you went 2 blocks north, east, or west there was power. however if you headed south, everyone was without power for quite a ways. i believe oppd said at one point there were 43, 000 people without power in its district, with 27,000 of those here in omaha. we went over to sarah's sister's house since they still had power. the backside of the storm was amazing! first there were intense cg lightning strikes. i was inside, and after hearing about the 4th or 5th loud boom, i went out to try and capture one on camera. of course the lightning really let up then. the sun then started to come out and created almost a full double rainbow. it was awesome to see, but i wasn't quite as excited as this guy in this video!! seriously watch this video, and try not to bust a gut laughing:

http://www.wimp.com/lovesrainbows/

anyways, the lighting from the sun after the storm was also awesome. here's some pics below.

here's a link to the wind gusts across the area:
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=oax&storyid=55153&source=0

Southeast South Dakota 6/26/10

2010-07-07T20:33:00.000-07:00

this will possibly be the last chase of the 2010 season. not because i can't go anymore, but because the actual season is probably done. the weather pattern now through september will mainly not be conducive for severe weather. in september there can be a second season, so there might be a chance or two to go out again then. today was another moderate risk day chase. i had missed a day the week before that looked like it could be really good, but luckily for me nothing huge happened. the chase before this one in northern kansas also showed potential for a big day, but was basically a bust. so i was hoping today wouldn't continue the streak of "bad" moderate risk days. i left kind of last minute around 2 pm, as i wasn't even going to go out today until i saw the forecasts more closely. my target was southeast south dakota. here a warm front was forecast to set off storms in an extremely unstable environment with some of the highest amounts of energy in the atmosphere that there's been all year!

outlook issued at 1130 am

tornado risk issued at 1130 am. this was a higher risk than was issued for minnesota outbreak)

hail risk issued at 1130 am

severe wind outlook issued at 1130 am

outlook issued at 3 pm. notice the moderate risk expanded into nebraska

high risk tornado area expanded!!

hail risk area at 3 pm

severe wind area expanded as well!

map of extreme instability

again

i went up I-29 and into southeast south dakota. a storm developed and quickly became severe near parkston, south dakota moving east. i went far enough north on I-29 and then headed west towards the storm. i could see the tops of the storm from more than 60 miles away!! the storm went tornado warned as i was about 25 miles away! i thought i was timing this perfect. i continued west having to take some gravel roads to get into position. as i approached the storm, i could see its base, and there was a very low hanging cloud underneat the storm. i couldn't tell if it was rotating or just scud. then as i got within 10 miles or so, the storm began to look less impressive and there was no longer anything hanging under the base of the storm.

pic of storm from 50+ miles away. the tops of the storm were estimated over 60, 000 feet tall!

getting closer

the base of the storm as i approached. notice the lowerings underneath the storm!

getting closer, storm still looks good

storm looking less impressive

i followed the storm back to the east, staying along to the south of the storm. it never looked real impressive tornadically, but it had some reports of large hail and winds of 70 mph as it moved into sioux falls, south dakota. meanwhile storms began filling in everywhere. this is bad for tornado chances, and i was beginning to doubt this day. i gave up on this storm and headed back south down I-90. there were a couple of more severe storms near yankton moving northeast towards my direction. i stopped in beresford, south dakota and let these storms overtake me. they were warned for quarter size hail or larger, and i thought i would like to get some more dents!! the hail never got larger than marbles or so, though. the line of storms continued to backbuild down to the south, and since there was nothing else going on i followed them into western iowa to see if i could get lucky. these storms did nothing else either and so i headed home, tired and disappointed!

some more pics from the chase:

storm heading towards sioux falls

one of the cooler things i've seen chasing! a "hole" in the middle of the storm

again, closer. this lasted for more than 5 minutes!

facing storm to the north towards sioux falls

new storms near lennox, sd

again

partial map of route:

north central kansas 06/20/10

2010-07-05T21:54:00.000-07:00

this was my first chase after my epic tornado day just 3 days earlier. another huge moderate risk area was forecast, and the percentage odds of tornadoes were almost as high as the day in minnesota. with such a large target area it was hard to pinpoint a place to go. the days leading up to this event, i thought i would be heading into northeast nebraska/extreme northwest iowa. the warm front that was going to set off the storms though, didnt make it that far north. the day of the chase my friend casey and i went west along I-80 and then south into north central kansas. storms had fired in northwest kansas by the time we left, and it was still cloudy in omaha and had rained off and on most of the day pretty much killing the chance of anything good happening close to home. here is some of the forecast risk graphics:

first risk outlook issued just after midnight the night before

risk area issued at 1130 am that day

hail probabilities, notice the huge "hatched" are meaning a high risk of very large hail

tornado chances showing a fairly high risk of tornadoes

the chances were also very high for large area to get a line of extreme damaging winds over 80 mph, including the possibility of a derecho developing which is a long lived, large line of damaging winds

i was a little surprised that the risk area stayed as far north as it did, for as long as it did. like i mentioned clouds and rain ruined the really strong instability that was supposed to develop. anyways casey and i continued on south and west of omaha, finally arriving in north central kansas on hwy 181 west of a town called dentonia. the storms that were moving in from the west were only severe warned for 60 mph winds. we found a gravel road to head west on from the hwy that allowed us to get a good view of the incoming line of storms. it was a fairly cool looking storm but nothing outstanding.

the line began to come over us and we didn't want to stay on gravel in the rain so we got back to the hwy and headed back north. i knew we would be driving in the storm as it moved across us to the east. the storm had fairly strong winds and very heavy rain. suddenly after a few minutes on the highway, the nws put out a tornado warning for the storm we were on! the storm had really bowed out now and on the northern end of the line was a notch where tornadoes can form. the winds which had been howling in from the west, switched to the north and then east and then south as we were driving. about this same time a report came out of a tornado on the ground right near our location.

radar grab of the line of storms right after the tornado warning came out. we're located at the white circle inside the purple box under the red lines! the tornado would be in that notch in the bright colors to the left of us!

a little bit later as we are heading east, the tornadic part of the storm is now to our northwest behind us.

it's very possible we were right underneath the tornado or at very least very close to where it developed! we never saw a tornado, but the reports of the tornado on the ground were rain wrapped tornadoes, so in other words very hard to see. we continued to head east on the highway trying to stay in front of the storm. we would stop every 15-30 minutes to try and take pics, but it always seemed like the storm would be right on top of us again! eventually we ended up in marysville, ks and headed north towards home from there. since the storms were moving east and we headed north the line overtook us. the lightning was some of the best lightning i have ever seen. unfortunately of course this was in the middle of the rain so i couldn't stop and get any good pics. overall, this wasn't a horrible chase, and was actually kind of crazy for awhile, but i was disappointed with the overall severe weather that developed.
some pics from the rest of the chase:

maps of the route(minus the very end on the way home)

Best chase day ever(so far)!! Minnesota tornadoes 6/17/10

2010-06-18T22:37:00.000-07:00

Today was it!! My dream chase day finally happened, even though for a while this day, it looked like it wouldn't. My new chase partner, Matt and I left town around 1 pm with an initial target of northwest Iowa up to southwest Minnesota. At one point we almost stopped heading north to go east into Iowa earlier, but decided to keep going up to I-90. storms had started firing about 300 pm, but were surprisingly further east into Minnesota than what I expected. Here's the risk area issued at 1130 am. we thought we would start on the western part of the red area, but everything formed almost in the middle of the moderate risk.

very large moderate risk area

high risk hatched area of tornado probabilities

very large hail chances were high too

later in the evening storms were going to transition to big wind event

i've included the link to the minneapolis nws damage survey page. the tornado reached a max intensity of EF-4!! appears this was during some of the pics and video we took!!

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/mpx/?n=10june17

here's my videos finally!! they were too big to just upload to my page, so i had to split it up and post them to youtube. there are three parts:

part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjTClVBdsSw
part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0wwjLX0Bx4
part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxqXRyXcCRg

according to the storm survey the tornado was at its strongest 2 miles north of Conger, MN. I have video of the tornado as we are going through Conger! highlights of the damage here include a car being thrown 3200 feet and trees completely debarked! the tornado continued on passing north of Interstate 90 and eventually grew to 1 mile wide!! Of note, the tornado was not as strong when it was at its widest, producing only EF-2 to EF-3 damage. this is a common misconception that the wider the tornado, the stronger the winds!
unfortunately one fatality occurred with this tornado, right after where we first had to turn around.

onto the pics!!

pic of storm growing as we approach south central minnesota

pic i did some crazy editing with!

close up of cumulonimbus exploding

again

again

we were now approaching the storms in central minnesota, and there was a tornado warning! unfortunately the radar on my computer was almost 30 minutes old, so we didn't know if it was entirely safe to drive through the storms on the interstate to get to the east side of the storms. we wanted to get in front of them to get a better view.

getting pretty close to the storms now near blue earth minnesota

huge hail shaft(white area) in storm crossing the interstate

we started to drive into the storm before deciding it would be better to not try it. i turned around on the interstate and we headed back west eventually finding another exit where we went south and back east towards blue earth, minnesota. we felt it was safe enough to start heading east again, despite the radar still being not up to date. as we were driving down the interstate, a wall cloud formed behind us, and we started to get into heavy rain again. here's a pic of the wall cloud:

so again we pulled off the interstate and sat and waited. listening to the radio, there were more storms down to the south of us that were warned for tornadoes. there was going to be no way to head east it looked like. we sat for about 10 minutes, watching the storms to our east and south. this was directly above us:

when suddenly looking south we saw the beginnings of a wall cloud on the horizon!

wall cloud and funnel starting to form

beautiful first tornado!!

starting to lift. this was actually already the 2nd tornado to form

still a good looking funnel!

2nd tornado dissipating

3rd tornado!!!

now a needle like tornado with several another funnel next to it!!

we were stopping and taking pics, driving forward for a while and stopping again to take more pics. the third tornado lifted, and now a massive wall cloud almost on the ground formed. it looked like a massive wedge was about to form. we were just west of bricelyn, minnesota now.

pic of large wall cloud

again

one more time

the black pickup was an emergency vehicle racing east towards bricelyn

we had to drop south briefly in bricelyn due to road network but then headed east and met up with the storm again. it was here where we ran into all the other chasers in the area including roger hill's tour group! we watched the meso rotate rapidly as one wall cloud to the right in the pic below tried to make another tornado.

dual wall clouds, the whole sky seemed to be rotating!!

huge rotating wall cloud

funnel forming!

suddenly a tornado on the left there comes out of the haze!! didn't even see it coming!

close up of tornado number 4!!

more pics of the 4th tornado

we caught back up with the storm, and the tornado was still on the ground. these are some of my favorite pics below:

got fairly close to the tornado below. the motion was so violent and there were almost always multiple vortices.

in the pics below there are storm chasers and other people right up next to the tornado

probably my favorite pic of the tornadoes

violent motion in the tornado!

close up of violent tornado

multi-vortex tornado!!

could have been my favorite pic if it was less blurry!

the tornado was still on the ground as we now headed north. along the way we had driven through a couple of small towns, i believe conger, minnesota was one of them, that had some tree damage and some poles were leaning over, etc. as we headed north on hwy 46, we ran into a bunch of the other chasers turning around. there were tons of wires and power poles down across the road in front of us!! we had no choice but to turn around and therefore give up on the storm. we turned around in a driveway of a house that had this damage below:

we decided to start heading home towards omaha. it was now after 7 pm and we had been chasing the same tornado producing storm for at least an hour now. as we headed south we ran into a cell that was only severe warned at the time. suddenly the hail started. it grew and grew so at the end when only a few stones were falling, they were nearly golf ball sized. i finally put some dents into my car!!

after the storm passed the back side of the storm came into view and another large wall cloud was starting to form. again the rotation was amazing, and we were sure this would make another tornado on this new storm. we turned back around to follow this storm north. unfortunately this led us into albert lea minnesota. after a few wrong choices we finally ended up on the east side of town, almost to I-35 that would take us north to the storm again. there was now another report of a large tornado on the ground again! here we came up to a bridge and suddenly had to stop bc of cars stopped. there were a couple of cops sitting at the bottom of the east side of the bridge not letting traffic go any further east. rather than letting everyone go further another 100 feet where they could turn everyone back around to the west, THEY HAD US ALL SIT AND WAIT ON A BRIDGE, THE TALLEST STRUCTURE IN THE AREA!! soon the sirens started going off again, and the cops started coming up to us and saying it might be safer for us to get out of the car and walk down to the end of the bridge and go wait under the bridge. so we sat there for nearly 15 minutes. finally we said something to one of the cops about letting us go the 100 feet down the road so everyone can turn around. the one cop talked to the other and sure enough they finally let us go and turn around. we made a full loop, driving by the cops and started heading north again. there was still a report of a tornado on the ground about 10 miles northeast of albert lea. we tried to catch up to the storm again, but eventually ran into more power lines down so we had to turn around one last time. we started home happy but exhausted!! the tornadoes we saw today were the first my buddy matt has ever seen, and for me i had only "kindof" seen a tornado last year near kirksville. so this was the day i had dreamed of, seeing multiple tornadoes, moving slowly, with plenty of chances for pics and video!! what a day!!

new wall cloud forming on last storm

another shot of wall cloud forming

storm now past us moving north

last storm we tried to catch up to before we had to turn around again

shot looking back to the east towards des moines, along I-80. was trying to catch a big bolt, but of course those stopped when i stopped to get pics!

some videos taken by my chase partner matt!! i will hopefully add mine later, it's a lot longer though!

first good video matt took

2nd longer video as we get within 1 mile of the huge tornado!!

last video taken by matt of the tornadoes!

here are some of matt's pics taken. some are similar but i tried to pic out some different ones!

strong updraft on a thunderstorm

first tornado of the day!!

awesome shot of elephant trunk tornado!!

chasers close to tornado!

violent tornado!!

lightning pics at the farm

2010-06-06T22:42:00.000-07:00

i am going to post a series of lightning pics i took this past weekend at sarah's grandpa's farm in central iowa. storms were forecast all night, and after a few evening storms went south of town, the low level jet did it's magic and formed storms within 10 or so miles south of me. the storms were basically stationary and kept redeveloping. in fact there were areas south of me that received 5-6 inches of rain! i did get several good pics, but unfortunately my best pics, which had 4-5 good sharp bolts of lightning ended up blurry! i was trying to take pics while sitting in the car without a tripod. then i got a tripod, but still it's nearly impossible to stay completely still when leaving the shutter open. then i moved the tripod and camera to the top of the car when it quit raining, only to have the camera not be in focus. i didn't notice til after about 5 great pics that turned out a blur, and when i did refocus the camera the best lightning was done and there were low clouds blocking the lightning as well. on some of the pics you can see small green spots or lines. these are some of the hundreds of lightning bugs that were flying all over(along with nasty, huge june bugs) i was pretty mad despite the shots i did get. oh well i guess i am still learning my new camera....

6/1/10 Eastern Nebraska Moderate risk

2010-06-03T22:05:00.000-07:00

I had a pretty fun chase today, but yet again mother nature left me empty handed with no tornadoes! I was going to go out today regardless of the potential of severe storms, as it is now pretty much down to the last month of what has been a pretty average season. i would say below average for me, especially locally there hasn't been any storms in town, and the there has been really only 2-3 bigger tornado days all spring. of course i missed those days, too! the original forecast for today was pretty "average". there was a slight risk of storms issued 3 days in advance but it was only for hail and wind, even up until the night before the storm prediction center made no mention of tornadoes. i was looking at the models and one model basically showed what the spc was talking about however the other model, the gfs, showed a fairly decent set up for tornadoes. this model showed CAPE over 4000, and the helicity or rotation needed for tornadoes became rather high by evening with values over 250 m/s2. a few other chasers began talking about this day and its potential. when i woke up in the morning there was an average 5% chance of tornadoes across the area. it was supposed to become rather warm and humid, but the question was how much moisture would be here and how close would the temperature and dewpoints remain then. some early morning storms moved through over parts of the area in s central nebraska and also along the nebraska/sd border. this actually helped keep the temps down so the spread wasnt so bad then. later in the morning the spc upgraded its outlook to moderate!! the potential was now realized by the spc and there was a 10% hatched area for tornadoes meaning a risk of strong tornadoes, and also a very high risk of large hail. by mid afternoon temps were in the low 80s and dewpts were near 70, so it was very good for the tornado potential. the night before and even the morning of i was going to head out to near the kansas/nebraska border where there was the best chance of tornadoes. i got off work and went to pick up a buddy. we looked at things and there was a line of storms up near norfolk, ne that was becoming stronger. soon and before we were going to start heading south, there was a tornado warning issued! we changed our minds and decided to head north. sarah just got off work so we picked her up and headed out. we headed up I-29 after some debate of whether to go up hwy 75 towards blair. we didn't know if we could beat the storm there so we went further east and up the interstate. the storms were moving at a perfect speed of less than 30 mph so we got to mondamin, iowa in plenty of time to wait. the storm was still tornado warned with a tornado on the ground near craig, nebraska. unfortunately the stupid missouri river kept us waiting about 15 miles east as we had no place close to cross. we stopped and got some pics and video before realizing the storm started turning southeast. we dropped south to missouri valley iowa, and came out on the highway just west of town. we pulled off on a gravel road that gave us a perfect view of the storm to our west over a field. right as we came around the trees on this road there it was, a funnel more than half way to the ground!!! we all screamed out at the same time, "there it is!!" we quickly got out of the car and sarah started videotaping while i took pics. the storm was amazing and looked mean! it had this deep green hail core and intense lightning. whenever i have been near a tornado warned storm, i've noticed the lightning is totally different than at any other time as there are tons of very large bolts that hit the ground every time. we still all stood outside though! the original funnel dissipated with a couple of minutes, but that same area of the storm kept rotating. eventually another funnel started to form and it looked like this could drop a tornado, but it too fell apart and soon there was just a lot of scud left. the lightning seemed to be focused on that part of the storm too, but i could never seem to catch any of the bolts. even when the lightning flashed where i was shooting continuously, i seemed to miss them. the storm was almost on top of us and looked to be getting a new area of circulation to the south of us, so we hopped back in I-29 and headed south. here we had a dilemma on where to go to stay ahead of the storm. we started to take 680 east but realized that we wouldn't probably have a ways to go to drop south so we turned around. eventually we took the honey creek exit which only led us to county gravel road on the east side. we had no choice but to follow this road south and east now. the storm was on top of us with amazing cloud motion right above us. the storm caught up with us and we could see the rain curtains moving across the road in front of us. the winds also picked up to at least 50 mph. i waited for the hail to come and the winds to increase more as we continued slowly down the gravel road. eventually the map showed us heading into crescent, iowa. it was now dark as night at 530 pm as we pulled into town. it was only raining heavily though so we continued on to council bluffs. as it turned out we were still just far enough ahead of the storm that we avoided the worst of it. there ended up being wind damage that came through just after we passed though town. now in council bluffs we wanted to stop at a gas station quickly before heading on. looking at the radar, it showed part of the line of storms blowing up right over eastern omaha. the radar showed the hail reflectivity maxed out and estimating hail to 3.25"!!! i thought well we're here and we have a place to park the car in a car wash building, let's wait for the hail to come over us. to this day the largest hail i have actually seen fall is just a little bit larger than quarters. i was so excited to see something at least as big as golfballs. soon the hail started but it never got bigger than marbles?! what a disappointment that was! we got back out on I-29 and started heading south again. the storms had formed now into a complete line and the part that we had been chasing and had passed over us was really bowing out now. winds were estimated at 80 mph now! since we were behind the line we decided not to chase it, also thinking that the risk of tornadoes would be better at the end of the line in southeast nebraska. this was the original area we targeted, so we headed that way. we made it to nebraska city ahead of the storms that were only severe warned now for ping pong ball sized hail and strong winds. again we decided to let this come over us, but again nothing happened with hail no bigger than dimes. this time however the radar did show it weaken basically right over the top of us! we headed west now, but watching the storms they weren't doing much to impress me, so we decided to head back north towards home. behind the line of storms was one of the most amazing lightning i have seen! there were these lightning crawlers that would spread out over what seemed like the whole sky. numerous times while one of these bolts was spreading out over the sky, several other lightning strikes would happen at the same time. we stopped briefly and took a few pics, but of course right when we stopped the lightning seemed to stop. we started driving again, and the lightning started going crazy again. at this point we needed to get home, so we didn't stop again for lightning pics.

shot from just west of mondamin, ia looking west towards the tornado warned storm near craig, nebraska. tornado was on the ground at this point

first shot of storm west of missouri valley. notice the white lowering on the right side of the storm

another shot

the only "good" pic of lightning i got. it was so frustrating to keep missing them, even when i was taking continuous shots, i was not getting any

scud forming in the middle of the storm

close lightning bolt! that is a pickup truck passing in front of us

close up pic of the scud

second lowering developing

closer shot

again

rotation falling apart

green core of the storm as it gets closer

shot of tight rotation on storm near fort calhoun. there was no confirmed tornado with the storm at this time but it looked very impressive. our location is actually the white circle with the dot in the middle just to the right of the storm. we were very close at this time and could see a wall cloud to our west!

shot of the rotation with that storm. the red next to the green in the middle of the screen shows strong rotation

clouds were basically scraping the ground!

first of the two good lightning shots i got on the way home

second shot

moderate risk outlook issued at 1130 am

tornado risk issued. hatched area with higher risk right in southeast nebraska. tornadoes occurred outside this area

hail probabilities. very high risk of large hail, forecast were of greater than 3" hail possible

wind probabilities

tornado watch issued

route taken. once again my program froze up in the middle of the chase, and i had to save and restart so therefore there's been two maps lately. how annoying

5/22/10 SD tornadoes

2010-05-27T22:09:00.000-07:00

If I had this one to do over...... Today was a day that every chaser dreams about and wishes they were there/ regrets that they didn't go, me included. Originally, this day looked like it was going to be a good chance to go chasing relatively close to home in central nebraska. with each successive model run though the best ingredients were coming together further and further north. i hadn't been chasing in a couple of weeks, so i thought i will still go. it was a saturday, and chase season is already down to about 6 weeks left. i went to bed thinking i would have to go up west of yankton further in s. central south dakota. when i woke up saturday morning though, the best area looked to now be north of pierre, in fact i set a virtual target of right around gettysburg, sd. i still almost wanted to go with the idea that after a seven hour drive and chasing, i would at least have a place to stay if i ended up around home before driving back to omaha on sunday. alas though, i decided to sit this one out. the potential was there with some of the best ingredients seen anywhere in the plains this spring, however there was still some concern of the cap. throughout the afternoon i kept checking things and became increasingly worried about what could happen in northern south dakota. the storm prediction center raised the tornado probabilities and also added a hatched area, which means the potential of strong tornadoes. finally around 430-445, the first blips showed up on radar around akaska, sd about 20 miles northwest of gettysburg! i watched the storm explode on radar and within 30 minutes, the storm was tornado warned. i had to leave home for about 30-45 minutes and came back to a monster supercell on the radar with a huge hook, located west of bowdle, sd. reports were coming in of a large, dangerous tornado on the ground. i was able to watch it live on streaming video and it was extremely large! the storm went on to produce tornadoes over the next roughly two hours, producing 7 separate tornadoes. luckily, the large, violent tornado went one mile north of bowdle and all the other tornadoes missed any major towns. the bowdle tornado was rated an EF-4!! i've included links to info and pics as well:

damage survey results:
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/product.php?site=abr&product=pns&issuedby=ABR&format=CI&version=1&glossary=0

my favorite part of the damage survey:

TWO LARGE GARAGES WERE COMPLETELY DESTROYED WITH THE
CONCRETE SLAB WIPED CLEAN. THE VEHICLES IN ONE GARAGE WERE
ROLLED/TOSSED FROM 25 TO 100 YARDS AWAY. IT IS ESTIMATED THAT ONE
VEHICLE FLEW THROUGH THE AIR 75 TO 100 YARDS RESTING IN THE TREE
SHELTER BELT TO THE NORTH OF THE RESIDENCE.

LOCATED JUST NORTH OF THIS RESIDENCE...SEVERAL METAL POWER
TRANSMISSION TOWERS WERE TOPPLED. ONE TOWER WAS SHEARED OFF FROM
THE CONCRETE FOOTINGS AND TRAVELED AN ESTIMATED 400 YARDS AWAY.
THERE WERE 6 TO 8 OF THESE TOWERS TOPPLED. GROUND SCOURING WAS
VISIBLE ALONG THE PATH OF THESE TOWERS. THE DAMAGE TO THE TOWERS
IS CONSISTENT WITH AN EF4 TORNADO RATING WITH WIND SPEEDS FROM
166 TO 200 MPH.

more info on the tornado:

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=abr&storyid=52954&source=0

some of the amazing pics, videos, and stories of other storm chasers that were there:
http://stormtrack.org/forum/showthread.php?t=24152

few videos off of youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGqINBsCPFg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiYY6uisMYo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8U8FK47vfzA

radar grabs:

5/24/10 Western Nebraska

2010-05-27T21:48:00.000-07:00

Today was kindof a last minute chase. Originally, i wasn't going to head out bc the best chances of severe weather was up in western south dakota, but i had a buddy contact me who i hadn't gone out chasing with in a couple of years, so i said yes. we headed out with an initial target of north platte, nebraska. this was on the southern edge of the 10% chance of tornadoes, and i figured we could hopefully catch the storms that would be racing north at 60 mph out of kansas just as they entered this area of higher tornado probabilities. storms fired really early in the day and tornado watches were out by 1pm i believe. as we headed west several tornado warnings were issued in the panhandle of nebraska north into south dakota and even in eastern north dakota. after these initial cells moved out of nebraska, nothing further developed for several hours and the storms that came out of kansas died as well. the clouds would start to go up but would get choked off after about 15-20 minutes it seemed. we made a decision to start heading north where there were a few small cells that would hopefully do something. one of the cells actually had a tornado warning issued briefly for it, but it was already about 20 miles away from us and moving at 65 mph so it was impossible to catch. eventually we ended up at broken bow nebraska with still mainly blue skies over us. we ate and were going to head back home defeated. there was a line of storms that was developing pretty good along the cold front that was now moving in from the west. after only heading back east for about 15 miles we decided heck with it we're this far west let's go and intercept the line moving through. we went back down to I-80, and headed west towards north platte, eventually reaching the town of cozad about 30 miles east of north platte. there we targeted the southern cell of the line moving towards the interstate to our southwest

this was the first view we had of the base of the storm. notice the very slight lowering. it was obviously very hard to tell what this was from this distance

a view of the storm heading towards us

again

again

pic of another cell trying to go up back to our east, this one would also die shortly after

we moved down the highway closer to the storm and got this pic

this was the next stop down the road. we are southwest of cozad, and southeast of gothenburg. about this time the storm went tornado warned

velocity grab on the radar a little after this. notice the white circle, that is our location. the green next to the red in the middle just above our position is the rotation in the storm

this looked to be mainly scud, but you could see the broader rotation in the storm

about heare is where a persistent wall cloud developed. hard to tell the rotation from this point

again

we headed back east to stay ahead of the storm and to try and get back to a road that would take us north across the interstate to try and stay with it. again this storm was moving at near 60 mph! it had ping pong ball sized hail with it as well

we're now north of cozad on the other side of the interstate. the storm is no longer tornado warned, but still has large hail and gusty winds

another pic north of cozad

driving down the interstate taking a pic out my window!

stopped one more time back ahead of the storms to try and get some lightning pics. of course here it wouldn't drop a bolt at all. back in cozad, i experienced some of the most intense lightning ever just as we pulled up to a gas station. i actually didn't feel safe running to and from my car! i wanted to try and get a pic of one of these bolts, but again i FELT TOTALLY UNSAFE, even just having my window open.

here is a link to the storm reports from that day:
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/archive/events/100524/index.html

this is the website for stormchaser reports. there was another rather large tornado in south dakota this day that was seen by a lot of chasers. this one was only rated a EF-2, though i bet it was probably stronger at points when it was out in the open country.
http://stormtrack.org/forum/showthread.php?t=24186

so another chase without a tornado, and none again this year. as i write this report it is almost june and probably only a month left in the season. the forecast is calling for severe storms this tuesday, and then the flow turns to northwest. this weekend i'll be watching for any storms as there will be very high instability and strong shear over iowa where i will be staying with sarah's family. it could be a big event that day! last night and today omaha was missed by more tstorms. they weren't severe but it was rather amusing to watch the storms die right before they got to omaha late last night and early this morning, then sure enough this afternoon the front moved through with nothing, but then 30 miles east and southeast of here storms formed and of course then missed us again. i think i've seen 2 storms here in omaha so far this spring. c'mon june, don't disappoint!!

5/10/10 High risk chase day

2010-05-11T22:00:00.000-07:00

Today was one of those "less than a handful" of days of chase opportunities that come along every year, but for me it was still borderline on whether to go. the spc issued a high risk early in the morning of may 10th. a seasonably strong low pressure with a very intense jet stream over 100 kts was going to move through the central and southern plains. unlike a few of the previous storm systems, moisture would not be a problem, and the shear needed for storms to rotate would be off the charts. about 5 or so days before, forecasts showed the best place to be across most of kansas. as the date arrived though the forecast changed to having the best chance of an outbreak down into texas and oklahoma. even the day before the models were slightly different, but eventually settled on most of oklahoma and extreme southern kansas. i knew i couldn't go all the way down to oklahoma, but when the first day one outlook was issued, there was still a 10% chance of tornadoes across most of kansas increasing to 30% in southeastern kansas in the high risk area. i decided i would wake up in the morning and see how things were looking and then decide whether to go. looking at the models, i tentatively decided to head a little west/soutwest of wichita, kansas somewhere around the kingman, ks area. i woke up to see a lot of cloud cover over most of the risk area which worried me, but this was supposed to clear out. i had a time that i wanted to leave by but unfortunately didn't get going until about an hour later than planned. this would come back to bite me! i left town around 1245 and headed west on I-80, and then south on hwy 81 through nebraska and into central kansas. it was rainy, windy, and very cool all the way to central kansas. storms were starting to fire in southwest and western kansas already. as i got closer to wichita some of the first storms were starting to reach me with heavy rain and lightning. there was finally one monster storm that developed southwest of wichita heading towards the east/northeast at 50-60 mph. one of the reasons there was a high risk that day was for strong, long track tornadoes, and the reason for the threat of long track tornadoes was because of the storm motions expected to be near 50-60 mph. back to the storm heading towards wichita, it was located near kingman, kansas! as i raced south to try and get it front of it, i couldn't help but think i should already be there. this is a bad habit i've developed storm chasing where i don't leave when i want to, and then miss something big. this usually happens on longer trips where i try to debate whether i should even go or not because of how far the drive will be. it's something that i need to fix! well, i didn't make it down there in time to get in front of the storm where i wanted to. i was approaching wichita at rush hour and didn't want to have to worry about being on a crowded highway with a possible tornado bearing down on me and no way to escape. so i decided to head east and then south around wichita. unfortunately the storm died as it approached and then passed by wichita. by the time it reached me there was just some gusty winds and small hail. i was given a taste though just how dangerous it could have been. the storm bases were basically on the ground. it looked like i could have thrown a baseball up into the clouds they were so low. also they were moving extremely fast and the shear was obvious in the clouds as they were moving in all different directions. so after driving for four hours, i spent about 45 minutes east of wichita, and then turned around to make the long drive home.

the first day one outlooks tornado chances hail chances

1630Z outlooks

here are some radar grabs of the storm near kingman, ks. look at that hook!!

velocity images, notice the couplet(green next to red) strong signs of rotation!

on my way home there was one last small line of tstorms that became warned as i was driving towards them. i was heading north on I-135 and the storms were heading east towards me. i stopped right near mcpherson, kansas on a highway overpass to let the storm come over me. it was warned for quarter sized hail and winds up to 60 mph. at one point the hail indicator indicated over 2" hail as it was approaching. of course, the storm weakened once it finally reached me, but winds were still over 40 mph and there was some pea sized hail. i took a series of great pics as it approached.

meanwhile there was a tornado outbreak ongoing in oklahoma. several suburbs of oklahoma city and other areas of north central to eastern oklahoma were hit by strong tornadoes. i grabbed some radar images of one of the first storms that was ongoing while i was approaching wichita. again a textbook example of supercell with an amazing hook!!

finally on my way home, i was stopped and received a stupid speeding ticket! i was just pulling into some small town where the speed limit drops down to 55. i had just started slowing down, but not fast enough bc there was a cop basically right on the other side of the sign where it changed. so he got me for going 69 in a 55, a $123 ticket!! he asked where i was coming from and i told him storm chasing but he only seemed mildly interested and then gave me a ticket anyways! so what did i learn from today's chase? commit to a chase earlier, high risks chase are always "risky" bc they can involve storms that move way too fast to even keep up with, and lastly follow all posted speed limits!

4/29/10 Southeastern Nebraska

2010-05-01T10:02:00.000-07:00

I went on a pretty fun chase today in southeast Nebraska. A powerful storm had been forecasted for days to move out onto the plains. Unfortunately, there wasn't going to be a lot of moisture so the cloud bases were going to be pretty high, and also the winds weren't going to be backed to increase the near surface shear needed for tornadoes. with the lower moisture, i figured i would still go out and hopefully get some good storm structure pictures. i left omaha around 415 after the first storms started firing down in north central kansas. on the way to southeast of lincoln, the severe storms moved out of kansas and weakened. the winds had veered to the southwest and caused the dewpoints to drop all the way down to the low to mid 40's.

pics of what was left of the first storms, taken east of Adams, NE

i was seriously planning on heading southeast towards nebraska city or in that area, bc there the moisture was way better with dewpoints in the mid to upper 50s. i messed around taking some pictures and there were more storms that had developed in nearly the same spot as the first storms in northern kansas. these storms were strengthening and heading towards the border. nothing else was looking great so i decided to head south of beatrice and meet these storms. i took a couple more pics of the high based storms developing.

the storms continued to strengthen down in kansas as the moved north. one cell became tornado warned and soon a report of a tornado on the ground was reported! i ended up south of beatrice and met the storms, but unfortunately they had weakened again in the lower moisture and was no longer tornado warned. the storm still had some good rotation, and i took some good video of scud forming out of mid air and rising into the storm as it tried one more time to form a wall cloud. below are a couple of pics of this happening near odell, nebraska.

again more storms had fired in the same spot in kansas and were moving north towards southern nebraska, this time a little further west. at first i figured these storms would die as well as they came closer, but they were looking really good on radar and were tornado warned as well. so after briefly heading north towards beatrice to start heading home, i turned around and thought i would try to meet the storms again and at least get some more pics before dark. as i headed back west on hwy 8 towards odell, i looked up and saw these amazing mamatus clouds.

the storm was still looking really good as it now headed towards fairbury, ne. i contunued to head west on hwy 8, stopping at little county roads to get pictures of the amazing shelf cloud that was coming into view. the anvil of the storm had amazing lightning shooting out of it and i was able to get one shot of it.

here are some pics of the shelf cloud coming into view

the last stop i made was just east of the town steele city. i couldn't see the town from where i was at but could hear the sirens blaring. the storms were moving at 50-55 mph, and suddenly the storm was basically on top of me just to my northwest. i hadn't been looking at the radar real closely, but looked at it now to see an amazing hook on the storm and it was still tornado warned. radar was also showing almost baseball sized hail!! the shelf cloud was bright grayish-white when compared to the dark storm clouds behind it. i had turned onto a gravel county road that was pretty muddy from the previous storms that had already passed through. i headed north about 1/4 to 1/2 mile. the storm was now passing directly to my north, and had some of the most intense motions i've ever seen! i could hear the wind coming and it became really windy at my spot. i was near some powerlines so i drove backwards back down the gravel road to the highway and headed back east on hwy 8 so i could head north towards beatrice. here are some pics of the storm from the gravel road. apparently there was a tornado that was on the ground at this point that was rated an EF-1. it took out a ton of powerpoles and knocked over a center pivot. looking at the map it was only about 4 miles from me!
the pics below show the storm crossing the road in front of me. on the last 3 pics you can see a lowering thats basically above the road. that might be the tornado?!

link to damage survey of tornado: http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=oax&storyid=51691&source=2

as i headed back east on hwy 8 and then north towards beatrice, there were continued tornado warnings and report of a tornado on the ground near beatrice, but i haven't seen that confirmed. i stayed behind the storm and it eventually weakened a little. it was dark now so i headed towards home. on the way i stopped to take some lightning pics as there were storms all around me that had amazing lightning. the first spot i stopped was along the hwy on the shoulder. i got out of my car to set up my tripod. there was a house down a gravel road about 1/2 mile and i could hear a dog barking presumably at me. i ignored it at first but it sounded like he was getting closer! so i hopped back in the car and used my little tripod to rest sarah's camera and took some pics there. the clouds were moving so fast though they came out blurry. i also got out my new camera and was able to get one good pic before the rain started again.

as i headed north there was one more impressive storm that was going to cross in front of me. this storm would have been amazing to see in the daylight! it had a huge shelf cloud that was being backlit by constant lightning. this shelf cloud was huge and looked like it was basically on the ground!! i should have just gotten out and taken some pics with sarah's camera, but i wanted to take them with my camera. i pulled over onto the muddy shoulder, and had to try and set up my tripod and attach the camera, etc. then i went to take the pics and my camera wouldn't work!! by the time i got it figured out, the storm was on top of me and the wind was howling and it started raining. i was so mad!! the rest of the trip home was spent driving through pouring rain, and oddly enough areas of really dense fog, which was odd for how windy it was and how hard it was raining.
here's some images of the outlooks issued, the tornado watch issued, and the forecast hodographs which did show the low level shear really increasing after 7pm.

map of route driven

4/23/10 Eastern Nebraska

2010-04-24T09:12:00.000-07:00

I had another "disappointing" chase today, so to speak. Everything looked pretty good for several tornadoes, and even a couple a days prior the Storm Prediction Center was worried about a lot of tornadoes with some possibly strong. The day of the chase they backed down on their wording, but there was still a 10% chance of tornadoes, which is pretty darn good! i asked sarah to come along since it was going to be a close chase and this seemed like a pretty sure bet to see something cool. it's been pretty ironic though, everytime sarah has come with nothing has really happened! we left about 130 and headed west on the interstate past lincoln. there was a tornado watch issued for central and western nebraska and the storms were supposed to form along an arc from western to central to southeast nebraska and then move north. we went as far west as seward, nebraska and then waited. and waited, and waited...... at first the clouds were mushy looking, but finally they started to get bigger and taller. we looked back towards the east and thats where they were really starting to look good. so we started heading back towards omaha! i had several small computer issues today and that slowed me down a few times, how annoying! once the radar wasnt working, another time my internet quit, another time my gps mapping software quit. each time i had to restart the computer. we eventually ended up back on hwy 6 and 30 just north of elkhorn(only about 10 miles from home!) and waited for a small thundershower to move over us. the storm clouds were looking alot better, but didn't show much on the radar. finally a few more cells popped up southeast of lincoln and those at first didn't do much, but suddenly went severe. so we started heading back south. i took hwy 92 i believe west towards wahoo, nebraska. then we headed south. it was getting dark at this point(8 oclock), but just to see something we were going to drive in front of the storms and let them come over us. they were severe warned now with quarter sized hail. as we headed south and found a road to sit on and wait, the storm went tornado warned!! the circulation was going to pass just west of us, and knowing storms can turn right without warning i wanted to get a little further east. we meandered east around memphis, nebraska(town ive never hear of!) and waited there. the hail size was now showing 2" which is bigger than golf balls so we sat there and waited to get hit. unfortunately the storm weakened a little and the biggest hail was marbles with maybe a few quarters. finally we headed back home, stopping along the hwy between gretna and elkhorn to get some lightning pics. i am still learning my fancy camera, and so there were several times once it got dark where i just couldn't do anything with it so eventually i had to use sarah's trusty ol camera. it does take good lightning pics though!! so we did end up on the only tornado warned storm of the day, but couldn't see much bc it was already dark. didn't get any real good lightning pics, and oh yeah sarah and i almost got hit:( it wasn't as bad as it sounds, but when we were pulled off at the last spot taking pics, i should have put on my hazards, but didn't. a car was heading towards us down the gravel road and we were sure they would see us in the headlights, but apparently they didn't til the last couple of seconds. it was close enough where i flinched and stepped on sarah's toe!! i will always put on my hazards now, especially at night!! here's hoping to an active may and june!

forecast sounding for omaha at 4p, notice the large curved hodograph, lot's of CAPE, and no cap. unfortunately there ended up being a cap between 700-750 mb level

tornado risk for the day

hail risk for the day

towers finally popping!

tall, leaning tower of a storm near omaha now

first big tower to go up

another storm trying to develop

tornado warned storm south of wahoo, ne

pic of storm west of omaha

again, notice the hail shaft just to the left of the middle

again

4/5/10 First chase of 2010 season

2010-04-08T12:58:00.000-07:00

Well i went out on my first chase of the new season this past monday. Unfortunately didn't see much, but it was nice to get out since the last time i had gone out was back in may of last year, before the malibu was wrecked. the day before i set up the laptop mount, with some great help from my wonderful wife, and got the car "ready". i was excited to try out some new stuff i had received over the the past several months. last year i had a garmin that i of course used for navigating. it was pretty helpful obviously, but using it had some restrictions, like map details and having to type in stuff while trying to drive, etc. so i bought microsoft streets and maps and put that on my computer. it does alot of the same things as the garmin, but it also has maps that are alot more detailed and easy to navigate around. the other nice thing that came with it was a gps puck. this is just a cord with a small gps receiver on the end of it that i can plug into my computer and then i can use gps on the streets and maps program. thats the other reason why i bought this software bc i can also use the gps function to then plot where i am at on my fancy radar program i have, grlevel3. this is nice bc then i know exactly where i am at in relation to the storm.
alright back to the chase! the setup today was a strong warmfront that was lifting north during the day into southeast nebraska and eastwards along the missouri/iowa border. south of the front temps were into the 80's and north of the front omaha basically stayed in the upper 50s all day. there was incredible shear along this front. at one point the 0-1 km helicity was 600 m/s2!! that's at least 4x the amount normally needed for rotating storms and tornadoes!! unfortunately there wasn't really anything to kick off storms that day so it was a "hope and pray" day for tstorms. hope that there would be something little to set off the storms or enough heating to get em to go up. i headed south along I-29 and as i reached just north of falls city, it became sunny and very warm instantly. i stopped at a place called oregon, mo, to wait for storms. the storm prediction center was monitoring the possiblilty of storms firing soon. i waited for about 45 mins watching the data on my computer. i decided that the front was getting a little to far north of me so i started to head north and east a little bit and ended up east/southeast of maryville, mo. for a while things looked promising as towering cumulus started to develop. but, unfortunately they couldn't sustain themselves and would fizzle out. finally around 7 i decided to call it a day, when my radar updated with some storms rapidly developing back to my southwest in northeast kansas. i was running out of daylight but thought i could race back to falls city, neb and meet them in that area right around sunset. i made it back in time, but on my way back they didn't really get much more severe than some hail. i stopped along the interstate at one point to try and get some pics of the storm but it was already too close. i am still getting familiar with all the settings on my new camera that i also got over the winter, so i spent most of the time fiddling with the camera rather than taking pics. it wasn't long though before the storm overtook me with heavy rain and some pea sized hail. it was here where i really used the gps feature now on my radar to drive back exactly into the core of the storm, but again it was only small hail. i continued to head home to omaha, arriving around 1030 pm. some elevated storms with small hail developed southwest of omaha and moved into town after midnight with some intense sheet lightning and heavy rain and small hail. i received 1/2 inch of rain at my house. so overall not a great chase but it was nice to get out for the first time in 10 months. the season is still real early, so i hope it gets better! here's a picture to the path i took that day, another nice thing about this new program i have!! i also included the risk probabilities and some of the hodographs that showed the intense shear in the sky.

path i took

severe probabilities for the day

tornado chances for the day

hodograph along ia/mo border

hodograph near carrol, ia-this was way north of the front though so no real chance of tornadoes here