The Storm Patrol

What a very long and rewarding weekend.  This chase  began Friday evening after I (Jordan) got off work and headed towards Southeast/South Central Kansas.  I was a little late to this event and by the time I arrived at the storms it was nearly nightfall and the majority of them had began to lower in intensity.  I called the chase east of Wellington, KS and began the drive home.  Tyler was under the weather during this time frame so I was flying alone the entire weekend.  After looking at the weather models early Saturday morning I decided that anywhere from Lincoln, NE to near the Iowa/Minnesota border could be the chase target for that day.

I set out from my house that morning around 8 AM, arrived in Lincoln, NE at around 1 PM and ate some GREAT Middle Eastern food at a little restaurant named Sinbad’s.  If anyone is ever in the Lincoln, NE area and Middle Eastern food is their thing I would HIGHLY suggest checking it out.  During my meal of hummus and Falafel I looked over the new model runs and determined that I should head farther north, I headed towards Sioux City, IA.  While looking at the models I considered the possibility that the cap might not break before nightfall but figured that since I had already came this far that I had nothing to lose, and boy am I glad I made that decision.

Just as I was arriving in Sioux City a storm began to form in the extreme southern edge of South Dakota.  I began to pursue this storm but quickly another storm began to form in eastern Nebraska.  The storm in Nebraska quickly began to strengthen and was looking much more potent than the storm I was on so I decided that I would wait just on the other side of the Missouri River for it.  This storm went on to produce four tornados that I witnessed, all but one of them were after dark and at one point there were two tornadoes on the ground at the same time, and many more that I was out of position to intercept.  I stayed on this storm until nearly 12AM at which time I headed to Webster City, IA to get some sleep before having to head to Wisconsin for the next days chase.

After looking at the weather models and current surface observations I determined that the low that would be partially responsible for triggering that days severe weather might track a little farther southeast than originally was thought so made my initial target Dubuque, IA.  Once I left around 9 AM from Webster City, IA to head towards Dubuque, IA to give myself plenty of time in case I needed to re-adjust my chase target, and sure enough I did.  After arriving in Dubuque I determined that I needed to get farther north so I set my target to Le Crosse, WI.

I arrived just west of Le Crosse at around 3 PM and now the waiting game was on, just had to hope that I made the right decision on my chase target while waiting for storms to fire.  Storms began to fire in eastern Iowa and southern Minnesota around 3:30 PM and quickly raced off to the northeast.  Maybe quickly is not the term I should use, at light speed would be more like it.  Some of these storms were traveling faster than 80 knots, which is around 92 MPH.  It was one of those days where you have to try to keep your distance from the storms until they begin to tornado and then hope for the best.  Well I was not lucky that day, the cell I picked did not produce a tornado and merged with a tornado producing supercell.  I followed this storm complex as best as I could, hoping that a tornado would possibly form on the back edge which I still had a view of.  This ended up not being the case, I called the chase near Merrill, WI at around 7 PM after the storm was well out of my grasp.

I decided to drive to Minneapolis, MN that evening then drive the remainder of the way home the next day.  Arrived in Minneapolis at around 12:15 Am, grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed to bed.  Got up that morning and hit the road at around 10 AM, arrived back home in Carterville, MO at around 7 PM.  If I had to do this chase over again I may passed up the Sunday chase in Wisconsin just because on the extreme storm speed, I should have looked at the models closer in this aspect.  I cannot complain though, that supercell up in Iowa may have been the cell of the year.  Heck if that supercell had been during the day it could have been the supercell of a lifetime, not a storm I will forget about any time soon.  All in all it was a very successful weekend for an early April chase.  This has been the most rewarding chase season so far for me since I got into storm chasing all across the midwest, hopefully it is just the beginning of a very successful year for The Storm Patrol.

Miles Driven: 2,495

Tornadoes Intercepted: 4

Well the 3-22 Iowa chase was a success I caught the tornado near Creston, IA as you have problem noticed several chasers also caught the Creston, IA tornado on video. Even though the tornado wasn’t a Storm Patrol exclusive the chase was allot of fun.

A little meteorology, the storms formed in NE KS then moved NE at 50+ mph. It wasn’t long after initiation that the storms took on supercell characteristics but they where high based with really only a wind / hail threat. It wasn’t until the storms got close to the warm front that they began to develop low level rotation this is a common occurrence with chases in a small warm sector and storms riding over a warm front there is only a narrow window to see tornadoes as the cells interact with the boundary. I read the other day that they now think that only 5% to 10% of supercells produce tornadoes in the 1990’s it was thought that supercells may produce tornadoes up to 50% of the time! As an avid storm chaser I can tell you the 50% value is WAY too high I would even lean towards the 5% or LESS value.

Tyler.

SPC Slight, 10% tornado

750 Miles.

Left home 8am 3-22

Returned 3pm 3-23

Well my phone kept ringing at 9am over and over so I rolled out of bed and picked it up. Turns out it was Andy Gabrielson letting me know that there was a nice supercell a county to the west.  So I jumped into the car went after it. Around Altamont, KS I ran into quarter size hail which was so heavy it covered the road making it really weird to drive on. Anyway that was about it just some hail rain and some lightning.

Tyler.

120 miles

Left home 9 am

Returned 12:30 pm

What a great start to the season this chase was, in fact me and Tyler said this chase was probably better than nearly all of last seasons chases combined!  This chase was also a great example of why not to put all of your confidence into the weather models, they can be wrong.  Nearly all of the weather models had shown that Eastern KS and Oklahoma were going to be nearly void of storms because of a stout capping inversion, this did not end up being the case as weather soundings from Oklahoma City were showing.  We began this chase at around 2:00 PM Sunday afternoon, headed west out of Pittsburg, KS to near Howard, KS where we observed a super cell approaching the Oklahoma/Kansas Border which we decided to attempt to intercept.  This ended up being a great decision and we ended up with some great video and still of a weak tornado forming and coming to the ground north of Grainola, OK right on top of the Oklahoma/Kansas Border.  We kept up with this cell and chased it back toward the home base of Pittsburg, at many times this cell regained a very strong looking couplet but it does not appear it ever produced a tornado again.  The storms began to speed up once we were into the overnight hours and it was impossible to keep up with them.  There ended up being one more tornado warned cell that approached Baxter Springs, KS from the West we were able to intercept but it never produced.  This was a very rewarding chase, and one not that far from home.  I wish all of our chases were this successful!

TOTAL MILES TRAVELED:  400

LEFT HOME: 2:00 PM

ARRIVED HOME: 11:00 PM

This was the first chase event of the year for The Storm Patrol Co-Host Jordan.  The Storm Prediction Center in Norman issued a moderate risk for severe weather for this event, with a 15% hatched area for tornadoes over Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentucky.  I just could not resist a chase event this early in the year.  The weather models had been all over the place as to where and when this event would take place, we had been watching this event unfold for nearly a week.  It originally looked like it might setup in western Oklahoma, but as the days went by the severe threat began moving farther and farther east.  My chase Target was initially Little Rock, Arkansas for this day.  I knew the initial storm mode would be linear but I figured there was a possibility of a few discrete super cells forming in front of the line.  My plan was to head to Little Rock and make adjustments from there.  This ended up how it played out, except the lone super cell that did form popped up in Tennessee which was way out of my range.  I left Carthage, MO at around 8:30 AM and headed to Little Rock, dropped south to Malvern, AR and began traveling east to keep some distance between myself and the line of storms that was currently stretching from northeastern  Texas through Missouri.  I continued east in Arkansas until reaching Stuttgart, AR.  By this point night was quickly approaching so I knew that if I was to be able to see anything it would have to occur in the next couple of hours.  The area around Stuttgart is known for rice farming and the terrain is very favorable for chasing, there are few trees and few hills.  I began heading northeast from Stuttgart to the town of Brinkley, AR at which time I only had about 1 hour of daylight left, and no super cells had popped ahead of the line except one lone tornado warned cell in Tennessee.  A tornado warning was issued for a segment of the line that was now nearly over Little Rock, I knew that if I was going to see anything before dark it would be now or never.  I got on I-40 and began racing towards the warned cell, it was near the town of Lonoke, AR when I arrived.  The couplet appeared to be completely wrapped in train both according to radar and my observations.  I could make out the definition of a wall cloud within the rain, and possibly a funnel, but that was the extent of it.  The line of storms was traveling very fast so there was no possible way of keeping up with it at this point and it was nearly dark so I decided to call the chase and head back home.

TOTAL MILES TRAVELED:  830

LEFT HOME: 8:30 AM

ARRIVED HOME: 12:00 PM

Well 9-18 wasn’t too bad we saw an amazing wall cloud that was dragging the ground, golf balls finished off the windows and, some really nice cloud to ground lightning.

Here are some pics from the road.

Well this has to be one of the most worthless tornado videos of all time but just in case there is any doubt here it is. Jordan and I where ENE of Beaumont, KS a few miles trying to figure out where in the heck the rotation was in the supercell. As Jordan was turning the car around to head back south to the highway I saw this little tornado out of the corner of my eye. I have no idea how far away we were from the tornado but I would have to guess quite far as it looks tiny in the video.

Other then the brief tornado and one amazing long lived wall cloud on the wrong part of a storm we didn’t see much. Their where some 60-70mph winds blowing the car all over the place and causing some nice dust blows and a some really close lightning strikes we got some pics of and that’s really about it.

Here are the videos and stills from the chase click more to see you guessed it more!

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Jordan was on this tornado warned storm in Jasper County, MO 2010-09-02

Jordan took this video from near Jasper, MO looking SW.

When the rain stopes in a 70dbz core with a nice couplet over head you know something is going on! heh.

This was one a blink and you will miss it event! It was a needle touching the ground for 1 min or so! I don’t really have a good pic of the touchdown but the pic’s and video of the funnel 3/4 the way down came out good!

This was 2 miles ENE of the junction hwy 43/160 in Barton County, MO just west of Iantha, MO.