Last Day - Headed Home

We spent most of Thursday trying to catch up with the storms we intercepted in Murdo SD. After breakfast, we bugged out and headed east along I90 doing warp factor 9, however that storm front was really moving fast. Our target area was Wisconsin.

For those of you in Ontario, it was the storm that hit Toronto on Friday afternoon.

We finally managed to get ahead of it at about Madison Wisconsin. By that point in time, we had heard that it had done damage all around Wisconsin with trees being blown over in the North and buildings damaged to the south.

You really can't predict this type of storm, as it was not a traditional Tornado type of storm like we had been chasing for 2 solid weeks. There were very strong winds from the South that feed this front. Along I90, we had tail winds that my have hit at least 50 mph. Great on the gas mileage.

As we passed in front of it in Madison, we pulled into a farmers field to watch it pass. As it went by us, it fell apart and sadly, the storm behind started to do the same thing as the sun set.

We called it a day at that point and pulled into a Mexican food emporium for Margaritas and Burritos (as well as just about any other Mexican fare). What an amazing meal. You can ask Scott VE3IPE how is meal was. Apparently he had the joy of dealing with it again at about 2am Friday morning. There is some story about Pam being on the floor of the Men's washroom that she can explain if you ask her. There might even be video.

What was left on Friday morning was a very long drive back to Ontario. Nothing special other than we watched the live radar on the Baron on the way home. We could see the cells popping up around southwestern Ontario and all the rotation that may have caused some damage. It was too bad that we weren't half a day ahead and we could have done some chasing in Ontario.

Over the past 2 weeks, we travelled over 13,000km's and roughly $2500 in fuel. Hotels for the 9 of us was approximately $7000. We had been as far away as New Mexico and about 9000 washrooms (all looked the same-some better, some worse). Many wall/shelf clouds and all types of Funnel clouds. 1 Stove Pipe Tornado and 3 others. We had 9 people comfortably in 2 vehicles and no one killed anyone. It is very easy to eat bad food (ie: junk) on a trip like this. Hard to find healthy food all the time.

I invested in some new camera equipment (there is a surprise). The lightning trigger worked well on the Nikon D200. Not so good on the Nikon D1, however, I didn't spend much time trying it on the D1. The shot I didn't get was the daytime shot I was taking of a rainbow and then then there was a lightning strike in it. Had I used the trigger, I would have had an amazing shot. Oh well, that is photography.

There is nothing like sitting watching a perfectly formatted wall cloud rotating in front of you. Or, sitting in the car with hail pounding all around you with the incredibly strong winds from a rear flank downdraft shaking the car (this has nothing to do with Scott and Mexican food).

We saw a lot of Texas (as well as many other states). We all agree that there is a lot of poverty in that area of the US. Lots of abandoned buildings. We drove right through downtown Amarillo at high noon on a Monday in about 10 minutes. Where were all the people??

If your interested in going on a storm chase, don't do it alone and don't do it without someone who can do their own forecasting. Tornado Alley is a very large place and you can spend days driving around and not see anything. I would highly recommend Ron Gravelle (http://www.stormchasing.ca/). Ron is passionate about severe weather. He does his own forecasting and he will take the time to explain to you what is going on. Ron is even available for day trips in Ontario if you chose. As a client, he treated us with class. After 2 weeks, I consider Ron and his wife Sandra to be good friends. If you like a dry sense of humor, he is your guy!

We have just cleared customs at Port Huron. Next stop Tim Horton's for some tea (except for Dave who bolted for Starbucks). No big issues at the border. The wind is from the north and the temparature is the lowest we have seen in 2 weeks (16c). Nice sunset to west.

Would I do this again? Absolutely. And, I would make sure it was with Ron. What a blast. All good fun.

Wednesday's Chase - sadly, a bust

The day started out with a drive north. Way north into South Dakota. On our way, and a visit to a fire tower later, we visited some tornado damage from early in May. Pictures are on the web site at the bottom of page 8. http://www.portcredit.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=14&page=8. The owner of the house was in his tractor when the Tornado almost wiped out his home. He says he is luckly to be alive. You can see the damage on the shots. Just a reminder of how much force is actually there.

Make sure you check out the Pizza Hut delivery schedule as well on page 9! ;)

We had great expectations for Wednesday. It was a Tornado Armagedon. The (weather) models were all great. The timing was great. We intercepted the shelf clould right on time. The SPC had been using the OUTBREAK word all day long. Every forcast had identified areas for F2-F5 damage.

Then, it just died. Right in front of us. Died. Dead. Nada. Nothing. We figure the summer students must have been running the models. Thanks for coming out. Let's head home.

Not sure what is on tap for today. We might have to press to make it to the west side of Lake Michigan and see what we can catch up to.

Wednesday morning update

Not much to post from yesterday, other than it is a long drive from New Mexico to Kansas. Just to give you an idea, you have to remember that Tornado Alley is 1 driving day wide and 3 driving days long. It is easy to get into the right state to look for a Tornado, but to get to the point were you can see a 15 minute event takes real art. This means finding the intersection of 2 roads and being safe at the same time. This is one of Ron's most amazing skills.

As an example, there is a team from Australia here. When we talked to them a week ago, they had been here for 6 weeks and had not seen 1 Tornado. I hope that they have honed their forecasting skills in the last 6 weeks.

What else is pretty strange, is that with all the hotels and restaurants, we continue to run into the same chasers at the same hotels and restaurants. Just plain weird.

Today, we expect an outbreak of Tornados. We also expect this system to track west and possibly be in Ontario by Friday or Saturday. This is good as we can start to work our way home and track this storm system at the same time.

We continue to get good flow (of wind) from the south east which brings the moisture up from the Gulf of Mexico. This is one key ingrediant to producing a Tornado. There are about 6 other key things you have to throw into the pot before you start to stir it and get a Tornado.

Time will tell.... Off to breakfast.

BTW, yesterday's pics are at http://portcredit.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=14&page=8

Monday - nothing special

Short update today. We are headed north. Way north. All the way back to North Platte South Dakota. The forecast is for a large outbreak for tomorrow and Thursday.

Highlight of yesterday was our visit to the Alien capital of the world. Roswell New Mexico. Pictures are on page 7 starting at http://portcredit.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=14&page=7.

We watched the funnel clouds to the west of us on our drive into Roswell. They were about 100kms away. We chose not to chase it, but it did drop a small tornado.

We've done almost 7000km since we left.

Sunday June 3rd - success

We had great success today. Although we only got to within 18kms of the Tornado, we could see that it wa a big one. It only stayed on the ground for a few minutes and likely would have produced significant damage had it been near a populated area.

Then, as the wall cloud approached, I managed to get some pretty good shots of this anti-cyclonic rotation. I'm trying to assemble them into a movie and hope to have that posted shortly.

Ron is absolutely amazing with his ability to get us this close. You have to imagine the forecasts that come out daily from the SPC are very broad in nature. You can drive for days in each directon with the forecast area. For him to get this down to just an intersection is amazing.

Today's pictures start here. http://portcredit.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=14&page=6.

You'll see that I'm getting more and more daylight pictures with lightning in them. However, I also managed to get some dust on my camera CCD. Hopefully I can clean that off while I'm on the road.

Saturday's Chase - June 2, 2007

Well, we thought Saturday was going to be a bust, but it worked out OK in the end.

Lessons learned yesterday. It is faster to do a take out order at a very crowded Denny's and then go join everyone else to eat it. Scott was volunteered to drive some of us to Starbucks and then come back and meet everyone at Denny's. When we got back, they had ordered, but the place was packed and the service was slow. So, Scott ordered his Egg's over MyHammy, got it in about 4 minutes and then sat down with everyone else to eat it. Now, I might question eating at Denny's in the first place, but this is the US of A.

Next, you can find wireless Internet at McDonald's (yet another fine eating establishment----not). However, if you go ask for the coupon, you can get an hour of free Internet. The trick is finding someone at the counter that knows what the Internet or WiFi actually is and then finding a manager who actually can find the free coupons. We are 1 for 3 in actually getting online at McDonald's. So, we continue to go to our backup plan. Just about any hotel now has free WiFi.

The drive from Wichita Falls to Lubbock is one of the most boring drives I've been on. Not only that, there is hundreds of miles of 4 lane highway for almost no cars. Just amazing. Must be the home of the President.

Ron got to the camera store he wanted to visit (thanks Stuart and Michele--you both gave us the same information, however Ritz camera is no longer in business). Not that it was a competition, but Michele came through first. He is now the proud owner of a new 10-22mm lens for his Canon Camera, not without an argument with Scotia Visa who decided that it really wasn't him at the end of the card.

Now, to the chase (no pun intended). We had thought that today was a bust, but at about 7pm (with Dave and I looking to find a hockey game to watch), Ron came by and said there was a supercell north of the city (about an hour away). We tore out of town to the north and just barely crossed in front of it as the sun was setting. That included running down some very narrow dry dirt roads (you don't want to be on them when it rains as you will get stuck).

We kept in front of it trying to get some good pictures. At one point we could hear the 1" hail pinging the ground all around us and off the cars. Dave took a direct hit on the lip as well. Then, there was this noise...and we could hear this wall of hail headed towards us. We all scattered into the cars just as it hit. Wow, now that was impressive.

We tracked this storm as it merged with 3 others for about 4 hours. Apparently once it got into Lubbock, it produced a Tornado (yet to be confirmed) to the west of us. We also heard that there was 3" hail in it at places.

Pictures are at http://portcredit.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=14&page=6.

We are headed to the west of Lubbock today.

Friday - Witcheta Falls TX

Home of the 1979 F5 Tornado that went right through the town.

The day started with what looked like an 8 hour drive south again towards and into Amarillo. Just as we left the hotel, we ran across the TIV - Tornado Intercept Vehicle. You read more about this here. Not sure if I would go for a ride in this thing or not. Short story is they are trying to get some Imax video from the inside of a Tornado. And, 2 guys get to go along for the ride.

At lunch time we could tell from the Threat Net (our mobile radar) that the only possible Tornado in our area was to the SE of Amarillo and it was moving away at about 20mph. So, that means we really had to haul butt to overtake this storm. The road gods were in our favour, so we managed to do that by about 5pm. We had to stay to the paved roads as all the secondary roads were just flood from the storms previous this week. If you've never been here, Texas, like the rest of the plains, is just 1 flat bowl with no where for the water to flow to. So, it just sits in the fields and ditches.

We punched one of the smaller cores (of the storm) and then stopped to get gas. Now, this station doesn't look like much (photo here), but it also served dinner. I saw an amazing meat and potatoes dinner on several plates, and I could have stopped there for dinner, but we had to go. If it hadn't been the only gas in town, we wouldn't have even thought about having dinner here.

Just as Ron was pumping gas, there was one great nearby ligthning strike.. and I mean near. We all scattered inside while we left Ron holding the nozzle. Ben added his encoragement by telling him he was recording him on video just in case something happened.

Sadly, this storm just didn't want to get organized for us. It was the only Tornado watch box in the US at the time, so, we were in the right place. The scud cloud was trying to get sucked in, but again, no joy. As it started to loose definition, we called it a day and headed back north and had to punch another core. Lots of water... little hail.

I also got a chance to get the daytime lightning trigger to work. I was able to take pictures of the lightning from a moving chase vehicle. It took alot of setup on the Nikon D200 to get it to work, but it is doable. Here is one picture of it in action.

Our Garmn Nuvi coughed up a Steak House for us to chow down at. The Garmin has about a 50/50 chance of actually giving us something current. This time there was success and we had a great meal.

Yesterdays pictures start here.

First Major Storm

Long day today. If you look at the shot here, you'll see the rain core and the funnel attempting to form just to the right. This picture was taken with a very wide angle lens.

We drove north to do an intercept in the Oklahoma Panhandle. To say the least, we weren't disappointed. Once we got to Hooker (home of the Hooker Horny Toads), we headed west into Colorado and intercepted a monster set of cells.



Like flies to honey, we ended up with at least 40 cars of chasers driving down county dirt roads. At one time we were all parked look at a wall cloud that just wanted to drop a tornado. We saw many funnels, but no luck on a Tornado.



The short story is that we chased this storm for 5 hours until the sun set. We punched the core several times as we had no choice. Several times we had dime sized hail and the odd time up to a quarter. The rear flanking outflow winds were nothing short of amazing. Wild guess would put them in the 70mph range.



We chased it all the way into Guymon KS, where, at that point, the sun set and we called it a day. This storm oh so wanted to spawn a tornado, but it was not to be. Ron had said the actual core was over 20 miles wide at several points.



This is the short story tonight. We got in late, and have to depart early for New Mexico for tomorrow's tour.



Today's pictures are at http://portcredit.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=14&page=4.

Wednesday - it must be Texas

The short story is, is that there really is no weather story from Wednesday.

We drove from Colby, KS to Amarillo TX. That does including passing through Oklahoma. One thing we can all say, is that there isn't many trees. It is possible to do a 360 view and only count 2 trees. Impressive when you think that the horizon is almost 15 miles away.

Highlights from yesterday. Fedex came through and I picked up my package at the Kinko's in Amarillo. We did a detour to the Cadillac Ranch (a must see). And, not that I'm trying to sound sexist, but I did notice a blonde lady about 5'5" wearing white flip flops who came out of the truck stop we were in and then jumped in her Rig (ie: 18 wheeler towing a pup) and took off down the interstate. That is just something you don't see every day.

Weather wise, we were hoping to get to some possible storms to the SE of us, but they just didn't pop and likely were not going to do that until about 2am. Sooooo... that meant a stop at the Big Texan (http://www.bigtexan.com) for dinner.

Now, at the Big Texan, you can eat for free. That is if you eat their 72oz steak, shrimp cocktail, salad and don't forget the bun all in 60 minutes. Just as we arrived, 3 guys got on the stage to give it a go. All 3 were denied. When we checked the 'who done it' board, we found out that some 70 year old lady who barely broke 90 pounds, did it in about 35 minutes. At, that was just this week.

We have been a little internet challenged here at the Super 8 here. Increadibly frustrating once you go into geek mode and analyze how they set up their wireless. What a mess. I thought of pulling a 'Skunk' (some of you will know what I mean), but I just didn't have the energy. I can get some internet if I stand with my laptop in one hand and my right foot in the bathtub. What a joke.....

Today, we head north back into the panhandle of OK. Wish us luck.

Yesterday's pictures start here http://www.portcredit.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=14&page=3

Tuesday May 29th - South Dakato - Colorado to Kansas

Yet another long drive. All the way from South Dakota to Kansas into Colorado and back to Kansas where we are currently at the Super 8 in the middle of a Severe T-Storm watch. Nice lightning show going on outside. Winds to 70mph and driving rain... so bad, it looks like a blizzard back home. But, that is how the day ended.

On our way south out of SD we weren't sure were exactly we were headed. Just that we were headed south. In Valentine NE, we stopped for a snack only to be overtaken by 5 trucks carrying blades for wind turbines. One very long load.

Attached is the picture of the rocket scientists who locked their keys in the trunk of their car. They were trying to get into the trunk via the back seat.... Wait, what about the electric trunk release??? Well.. that doesn't work. We spent a few minutes trying to help them, but then we had to bug out to the south and into Colorado south of Denver.

Today's pictures start on page 2 http://portcredit.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=14&page=2.

I got a voice mail from a friend in Denver who told me the Interstate was closed due to the Hail that fell. Apparently 3" of it.

As we headed west on I70 into Denver and past Burlington Co., we started to see what we were headed for. Wow, the leading edge shelf cloud was almost horizon to horizon. Even the drive West was interesting due to the very strong cross winds from the North.

We made 2 stops to take pictures. Temperature had dropped significantly to possibly 50F and the winds were gusting from 30-40 knots. There was almost a wind chill factor. The gust front had an amazing amount of dirt and dust in it that were picked up and driven in our direction.

On our way back East to Colby KS, we run into the back of a pretty good Thunderstorm. And, more amazing cross winds followed by a pretty good light show. No lightning pictures yet, but I'm hoping to get on that shortly.

4 weeks ago I ordered a Daytime Lightning Trigger so that I would have it in time. Well, long story made short, it arrived the Monday after I had already left. Thanks to Stuart Crabbe, he has retreived it and is shipping it to me in Amarillo and hopefully I can pick it up tomorrow.

Monday - First Intercept

What a day. We drove north out of North Platte Nebraska to Murdo South Dakota. Nice drive on 2 lane road most of the way with little or no traffic. Even managed to maintain digital cell phone coverage.

We arrived at the Super 8 Motel in Murdo about 3pm. Radar and all our other toys said that we would not have anything to chase until after about 6pm, so we laid low until then. I've attached a pic of some local transportation that we dubbed the hail catcher. One look inside and it seems that it has done that already.

I was across the street at the truck stop just before we left. I heard the staff talking about the weather and just how bad was it going to get. Apparently one of the young staff saw our chase vehicles and was now really worried about the weather and what should he do if a tornado comes. His partner told him to go run out back and hide.

One thing about Scott's Astro Van is that if we are running the AC to keep cool in the back, those in the front have their winter clothes on! ;) Scott attempted to put on a shell while driving without removing his seat belt. Not a good idea. He was so twisted up that we had to pull over so that he could get untwisted. Too funny!

At that point, we headed west along I90 until we intercepted a couple of large cells that took up at least 1/2 a county. Excellent view of some shelf clouds and we noticed at least half a dozen wall clouds. Pretty cool.

I took several time exposures with a 12mm (very wide angle) lens. The inflow was amazing and I'm guessing that it was at least 40 knots. It was pretty hard to keep the tripod stable while doing this despite putting all my body weight on it.

All todays shots can be found on my gallery at http://www.portcredit.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=14.

Tomorrow morning we are off to Oklahoma. Another 9 hour drive. As well, don't forget to check out Laura's blog at http://laurawx.blogspot.com.

Mike

End of Day - Sunday

Sunday - wow, it feels like a week. We've travelled over 2000km since yesterday morning and are now in North Platte, Nebraska. All I can say is flat, flat flat.

Just after we got gas, Ron spotted a storm that was worth looking at on our way west. We could see the top of the tower over 50 miles away and headed in that direction. Ron has radar and his data feed is via XM radio. As we blast down I80, he is giving us updates on the radio.

We turn north of I80 just before North Platte and travel about 10 miles. As we are starting to catch up with the lowering, it starts to fall apart. We stop to capture some pictures, however they are too far away to be exciting.

We call it a day at that point and head to North Platte to stay at our 2nd Super 8 hotel. At least they have free WiFi (hey, this isn't London England or Germany where they charge 15 Pounds (about $35 Cdn) for 24 hours). Ouch!!

As we wait for our dinner, a nice set of Mammatus clouds show up just above the Perkins we are having dinner at.

We knew that dinner was going to be a problem when the waiter comes to the table and says "Wow... this is the largest table I've ever served". And, he didn't disappoint us.

As it turns out, today was Scott's birthday. And, that included the pie and very very bad rendition of Happy Birthday sung by the Perkin's staff and some of us.

Until tomorrow. Looks like we get to sleep in. We are in "They Alley".

What is wrong with this picture??

Stopped for gas and noticed the gas prices here per gallon. What is wrong with this picture??

We are headed west to the west end of Nebraska and should be there about 10pm tonight.

So far, we have travelled 1800km's since yesterday morning.

Sunday - travel day

Short update from my blackberry.

Another travel day. We are headed to the western edge of Nebraska.

It was a nice cool morning to go for a run at 6am. At this time it is
a very nice sunny day and about 65F.

Interesting that this is the first vacation I've been on where your
looking for bad weather.

Saturday Evening

You spend all day in the back of THE astrovan, and you end up in Davenport Iowa. The world is truly flat out here.

We managed to drive through a line that had a signficant amount of rain in it. The weather service was reporting some rotation just to the south of I80 as we drove through it. The purple box is the tornado watch box and the round circle to the north east is the our GPS location.

The hotel is on the north side of Davenport. Dave and I go for a walk at about 9:30pm. Partly cloudy and very humid.... and, no sidwalks to be found. We cut our walk short in fear of being hit like a deer and headed back to the hotel via the gas station. No Dairy Queen to be found, so we put up with an ice cream from the freezer. I guess they are still allowed to smoke in enclosed places here.

As we walk outside we listen to a couple who are driving a loaded pickup truck talking about the burnt out headlight. Apparently the headlight is burned out due to the deer they must have hit at about 45mph. Her last words as she lights her cigarette "he must be dead...there is blood everywhere".

Saturday - on the road

We've left. 2 chase vehicles loaded for bear!

Dave and I are in the car with Scott and his wife, and 2 others. Dave and I have jammed ourselves in the back of the Astro Van. We get to heckle all those in front of us. I'm pretty certain that if we sell all the electronics we could buy 2 more vans.

We are just approaching Sarnia and have been through some rain. At this point, we are still not sure were we are heading other than west.

More to come.

Mike

One week 2 go

Well, here we go. After 2 trips to Europe in the last month (where I managed to get a great 2 days of skiing in on April 21/22 on the Glacier in Stubai) and countless trips into the US for work, I'm starting to look forward to my 2 week tour into Tornado Alley.

Cameras are packed (almost), the lightning trigger is on the way (for taking daytime lightening photos) and one more trip to Boston for work this week.

We leave on Saturday morning from Kitchener. All I can tell you is that we are headed west.