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

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

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!!

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

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

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

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=