Friday, August 5, 2011
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
April 19, 2011 Chase Summary
Before getting into the chase summary for April 19, I need to describe the lead up to it for a bit because it would greatly affect how this day and the rest of my 2011 chase season would play out for me. Before the 2011 storm chasing season began, I had made the decision to finally try and get to know some people in the chasing community. I had just begun to chase on my own in 2010 and up to this point had not really made any attempts to get to know anyone and get my name out there as someone from the Milwaukee area who liked to chase storms. In the winter of 2010-2011, I joined a website called Stormtrack, which was basically a forum for other chasers and weather enthusiasts. I spent part of the winter reading people's posts on the site and getting to know some of the names in the chasing community without really putting myself out there.
I was checking out the site in early April when I came across a forum topic entitled "Chase Partner Thread". It looked to be a listing of people searching for chase partners, and since I was interested in finally teaming up with someone every now and then, I gave the topic a read. Among the hundreds and hundreds of replies I came across one from a Danny Neal out of the Chicago area. The post was not him looking for a chase partner. It was more him describing the type of person he would and would not take on a chase. Danny's name was also familiar to me because I knew him to be one of the site moderators. I spent a few minutes checking out his personal site and learning about the storm chasing group he belonged to called Convective Addiction. After watching some of their videos from the past couple of years, I thought they seemed like a cool laid back group of guys to go on a chase with who also knew what they were doing. I also saw that Danny's post in the Chase Partner Thread was 2 and a half years old and that there was probably not a chance in hell he would ever reply to me. Either way, I wrote up an e-mail letting him know who I was and that I was interested in going on a chase or two with someone more experienced to learn some of the ropes.
I waited about a week and a half and when he hadn't responded after my April 10 chase in Wisconsin, I decided I would give it one more shot just to let him know that I was serious. So I sent him one more e-mail. I was pretty surprised when he responded back 2 days later letting me know that he had gotten my e-mails and that I was welcome to go on a future chase with him as long as I was willing to drive to Chicago to meet up beforehand and as long as there was room in the car for me.
He told me to send him another e-mail before a future chase setup and he would let me know at that time. Well, that didn't take very long. In a few days a severe weather setup looked to be coming together in Illinois not too far from home. On April 18 I got back in touch with Danny and asked him if he was planning to chase the April 19 setup in his home state. He said that he was and that there happened to be a spot in the car. However, I would need to get in touch with a guy named Adam Lucio because it was his vehicle we were taking and I would need to run it by him first. So I sent Adam an e-mail letting him know who I was and how I had met Danny etc. etc. Lucky for me Adam was gracious enough and trusted Danny enough to let me come along. He told me to meet him at his place in Chicago early on the morning on the 19th, and we would take his SUV out to chase.
The plans had now been set in motion and I was getting psyched to finally go chasing with a group of people, not just my lonesome self. I was also getting psyched for what was looking to be a severe weather day with some decent potential not far from home.
I woke before the sun rose on the 19th and checked the RUC before leaving for Chicago. The Storm Prediction Center had issued a Moderate risk for severe weather and a 10% risk for tornadoes.
I drove the 2 hours south to Adam's house and left my car there as we took Adam's SUV, which he nicknamed "The Beast", to pick up Danny. Mike Boik was the last to be picked up as we drove south to Effingham, IL targeting the warm front in central IL. Several others were hanging out in at the McDonald's in Effingham, as well, waiting to see what the atmosphere would do. Here I met some other chasers for the first time, including Skip Talbot, Jennifer Brindley, Nick Nolte, Allan Detrich, and Dave Marshall. We hung out for what seemed like a couple of hours. Storms started firing much farther to the west and north in eastern Missouri at the triple point with reported tornadoes. All of us started to get antsy and decided to make a dash west and north towards the line of tornado warned storms now entering Illinois.
Along the way we all got scattered and went own own direction. Some chose a more northern cell taking a path towards the Girard, IL area that was a little more packed in the line of storms. Adam, Danny, Mike , and I decided to play a more isolated southern storm that was taking a path towards the Lichfield, IL area. We stopped for gas in Lichfield and then drove west of town to observe the storm heading in our direction.
I was checking out the site in early April when I came across a forum topic entitled "Chase Partner Thread". It looked to be a listing of people searching for chase partners, and since I was interested in finally teaming up with someone every now and then, I gave the topic a read. Among the hundreds and hundreds of replies I came across one from a Danny Neal out of the Chicago area. The post was not him looking for a chase partner. It was more him describing the type of person he would and would not take on a chase. Danny's name was also familiar to me because I knew him to be one of the site moderators. I spent a few minutes checking out his personal site and learning about the storm chasing group he belonged to called Convective Addiction. After watching some of their videos from the past couple of years, I thought they seemed like a cool laid back group of guys to go on a chase with who also knew what they were doing. I also saw that Danny's post in the Chase Partner Thread was 2 and a half years old and that there was probably not a chance in hell he would ever reply to me. Either way, I wrote up an e-mail letting him know who I was and that I was interested in going on a chase or two with someone more experienced to learn some of the ropes.
I waited about a week and a half and when he hadn't responded after my April 10 chase in Wisconsin, I decided I would give it one more shot just to let him know that I was serious. So I sent him one more e-mail. I was pretty surprised when he responded back 2 days later letting me know that he had gotten my e-mails and that I was welcome to go on a future chase with him as long as I was willing to drive to Chicago to meet up beforehand and as long as there was room in the car for me.
He told me to send him another e-mail before a future chase setup and he would let me know at that time. Well, that didn't take very long. In a few days a severe weather setup looked to be coming together in Illinois not too far from home. On April 18 I got back in touch with Danny and asked him if he was planning to chase the April 19 setup in his home state. He said that he was and that there happened to be a spot in the car. However, I would need to get in touch with a guy named Adam Lucio because it was his vehicle we were taking and I would need to run it by him first. So I sent Adam an e-mail letting him know who I was and how I had met Danny etc. etc. Lucky for me Adam was gracious enough and trusted Danny enough to let me come along. He told me to meet him at his place in Chicago early on the morning on the 19th, and we would take his SUV out to chase.
The plans had now been set in motion and I was getting psyched to finally go chasing with a group of people, not just my lonesome self. I was also getting psyched for what was looking to be a severe weather day with some decent potential not far from home.
I woke before the sun rose on the 19th and checked the RUC before leaving for Chicago. The Storm Prediction Center had issued a Moderate risk for severe weather and a 10% risk for tornadoes.
I drove the 2 hours south to Adam's house and left my car there as we took Adam's SUV, which he nicknamed "The Beast", to pick up Danny. Mike Boik was the last to be picked up as we drove south to Effingham, IL targeting the warm front in central IL. Several others were hanging out in at the McDonald's in Effingham, as well, waiting to see what the atmosphere would do. Here I met some other chasers for the first time, including Skip Talbot, Jennifer Brindley, Nick Nolte, Allan Detrich, and Dave Marshall. We hung out for what seemed like a couple of hours. Storms started firing much farther to the west and north in eastern Missouri at the triple point with reported tornadoes. All of us started to get antsy and decided to make a dash west and north towards the line of tornado warned storms now entering Illinois.
Along the way we all got scattered and went own own direction. Some chose a more northern cell taking a path towards the Girard, IL area that was a little more packed in the line of storms. Adam, Danny, Mike , and I decided to play a more isolated southern storm that was taking a path towards the Lichfield, IL area. We stopped for gas in Lichfield and then drove west of town to observe the storm heading in our direction.
Under the anvil as the updraft base heads in our direction.
The horizon turns a brilliant green hue as the updraft base gets closer.
The base comes into view with a nice looking wall cloud underneath.
An inflow tail starts to develop into the wall cloud as the storm goes tornado warned.
The rotation under the wall cloud begins to tighten up as it approaches us.
We reposition east ahead of the area of rotation. A clear slot starts to become visible now as rotation tightens even more.
The wall cloud is now showing strong rotation with three vortice fingers rotating around it. A tornado is imminent.
A power flash illuminates the ground underneath the rotating wall cloud. The tornado has touched down.
The tornado almost immediately fully condenses to the ground.
The next several shots are the rest of the lifecycle of this tornado that lasted approximately 6 minutes.
The tornado doing damage along the I-55 corridor.
The tornado crosses I-55 and inflow begins to really pick up at our location. I had to brace myself against the car to keep from falling down as inflow was sucking me towards this tornado.
The line of storms was overtaking our cell and the other cells in the area just as our tornado lifted. We drove north a little ways to check out the damage path where it crossed I-55 to see if anyone needed any help. The tornado had done damage to some outbuildings at a farmstead on the left side of the highway and had torn a whole side off of a home to the right side of the road. There were no injuries, however. This tornado eventually received an EF2 rating.
It was getting dark so we decided to head back north for home. We stopped for some food and talked over the days events while watching some of the video we had gotten. This was my first up close, major tornado and I was on the biggest adrenaline high I could ever remember being on. We got back to Adam's house in Chicago where I said my goodbyes and headed back home for Milwaukee. This adrenaline would continue overnight after getting back home in Wisconsin as I worked on editing video and pictures. It was not until the sun came up that I finally was able to get to bed. Needless to say, I was hooked, line and sinker.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
April 10, 2011 Chase Summary
After all of the preparation I had made during the offseason once 2010 ended, I was eager to go on that first storm chase so that I could test out my new setup. I was looking forward to having a more reliable internet source with a much larger screen in my laptop to view weather data and radar on. My confidence was high and my spirits were up. I had passed on a chase in Iowa the day before that ended up producing some nice tornadoes (most at night) so I was ready to get going. The 2011 chase season had begun for me!
There couldn't have been a better weather setup for my first chase of the year. Things were shaping up so that I wouldn't even have to leave my home state of Wisconsin. The Storm Prediction Center had issued a Moderate risk for serve weather across Wisconsin and extreme northern Illinois with a 15% hatched tornado risk. I was chomping at the bit. However, there was one rub with today's setup. Storm motions were expected to be INSANELY fast. I'm talking storms moving at speeds of up to 65mph. This was going to make chasing these supercells incredibly difficult/impossible, and positioning ahead of the storm was going to be key in seeing any tornadoes.
I decided that I wanted to play the triple point close to the warm front up to the north around Eau Claire, WI where I thought storms would initiate first and have more helicity before building down to the south. The corridor from Eau Claire over to Wausau is also decent chasing terrain for Wisconsin standards being flat with several openings through the trees for viewing angles. So, I left the Milwaukee area in the morning and got on the highway getting into Eau Claire around 3:30pm. I filled up the gas tank and then found a nice rural area just a little to the east outside of Eau Claire to sit and wait for initiation. It was not a very long wait. Around 4pm, storm towers started to go up just to my southwest heading straight for me.
Four distinct supercells developed in a north to south line extending down from the triple point. One cell in particular looked the most intriguing to me on radar and it was looking to pass just to my south so I decided to head southeast a ways to let the developing hook pass over me. On my way, the storm went tornado warned, and I was getting excited. These storms were FLYING and as I drove for my target the storm overtook me faster than I anticipated. I ended up having to clip its core briefly to get into position, but I only encountered pea sized hail on the still maturing storm. Finally I reached my target north of Augusta, WI with just enough time to get out of the car and take a look around as the updraft region came into view and began to pass by overheard.
A small developing wall cloud had begun to corkscrew its way out of the base of the storm but it was obvious that it still had a little growing to do. Unfortunately for me it was moving at a 60mph clip and took off away from me just as fast as it had arrived.
So after all that excitement build up I realized I had made a noob move and jumped the gun on getting off the highway and driving south to intercept this still maturing tornado warned storm. In retrospect, I should have intercepted farther east a ways and also in a place with a better road network of east-west options. Too late now. I got back in my car and sped off to desperately try and catch the storm again. My road network was really bad and the roads curled and went all over the place. The storm was getting a pretty good lead on me at this point but I wasn't going to give up on it. On the way, I couldn't help but stop and grab a video still of some of the beautiful storm clouds with the sun shining through.
Driving on the curvy back roads was also a little surreal. It had snowed in Wisconsin earlier in the week and there was still a good amount of snow on the ground this day that was evaporating into the air and creating some cool looking fog over the roads.
I pressed on and sped past it trying to get ahead of the storm again so that I could drive north in front of it and let it pass me by. At this point I was trying to decide what to do. I could either get just ahead of the storm again and blast north on back roads or I could wait, drive a little farther east, and take Hwy 51 north towards Merrill, WI and intercept along that main Hwy there. Tornado reports were coming in through the radio so I again made the decision to intercept sooner rather than later and exited prior to Hwy 51. As I cut in front of the storm again, I grabbed a video still of it approaching me from the west.
This is when I encountered some bad luck. I was forced to alter my route because of road construction. I didn't have time to figure out the best route so I just typed the town the storm was moving to into my Garmin and prayed it would take me on a decent route. Unfortunately after backtracking around the detour, the roads my GPS took me on where just as curvy and annoyingly slow as the ones I had been on earlier. The storm had once again overtaken me by this time and again I was chasing it instead of being in position to intercept. I drove as fast as I could on the back roads and was gaining a little ground as I neared the town of Hamburg, WI. However, just before I got into town I crossed the tornado's path.
At this point it looked to have been a little rope tornado that had crossed the road and taken out a narrow strip of trees and power lines.
After crossing the road, the tornado then did some minor damage to a farmstead. The owners were VERY lucky as it looks like the tornado passed just in front of their house and only blew out some windows and ripped some shingles off. It also did some damage to the farm buildings caving in the roof of an outbuilding, tipping over a very heavy looking truck bed full of hay bails, and wrapping debris around the silo. Some horses had escaped their pen and someone was helping to lead them back to the pasture. You know I am continually amazed at the sixth sense that animals, like horses and cows, seem to have with tornadoes. I've seen farms leveled and the horses will just be across the street in a field hanging out waiting to be helped after they jumped the fence in an effort of self preservation to avoid harm. Some human beings can learn a valuable lesson here from horses. I stopped and asked the people on scene if I could help in any way but they said that they had the scene under control and that no one was injured. So, I continued on. Here are a few video grabs of the scene.
I continued down the road into the town of Hamburg. After stopping at the farmstead to check on them and being slowed by tornado damage, I knew my chase was pretty much over but I figured I'd give it a shot. Driving into town there were numerous trees down. It didn't appear to be tornadic damage but more a result of straight line winds. I figured Hamburg had been right there in the RFD and that's what probably caused the damage. This downed tree fell onto a house but luckily the house only got the very top of it.
Just up the road from there my chase officially ended as downed trees had completely blocked off the road and an officer was getting out his chainsaw to begin cleaning it up. I got out and assisted for a bit and then turned around and headed home after a very frustrating chase during which I seemed to be playing behind the 8 ball the entire time. Storm motions of 65-70mph are so annoying and nearly impossible to chase without the right road network. And since I was by myself as always and doing everything myself (driving, navigating, forecasting, monitoring radar, etc. etc.) storm motions of 65-70mph make it very hard....especially for a noob like me.
As I drove home I grabbed some video stills of the cool convection I saw on the drive.
This was a bittersweet chase for me. I got home and started seeing the tornado video from the day near Merrill, WI along Hwy 51 from the Storm Riders crew, Simon Brewer and Juston Drake. They were sitting right there along Hwy 51 and got great vid of the rotating bowl of a wall cloud that dropped several tornadoes right there in front of them on the road. I couldn't help but think "what if". What if I had decided to be patient and take the Hwy 51 exit north towards Merrill instead of dealing with the backroads again? Ah well. Such is chasing storms.
There were some good moments of this chase, however. It was the first time chasing with my new mobile internet connection/laptop/GPS puck setup as the days of using the small iPhone screen with Radarscope on chases was over. I was very happy with how much easier it was to see things on radar and make decisions and confident that this new setup would yield better results this season. So on that good note, I awaited the next chase. Little did I know the next chase would change the course of my 2011 season and storm chasing life completely.
There couldn't have been a better weather setup for my first chase of the year. Things were shaping up so that I wouldn't even have to leave my home state of Wisconsin. The Storm Prediction Center had issued a Moderate risk for serve weather across Wisconsin and extreme northern Illinois with a 15% hatched tornado risk. I was chomping at the bit. However, there was one rub with today's setup. Storm motions were expected to be INSANELY fast. I'm talking storms moving at speeds of up to 65mph. This was going to make chasing these supercells incredibly difficult/impossible, and positioning ahead of the storm was going to be key in seeing any tornadoes.
I decided that I wanted to play the triple point close to the warm front up to the north around Eau Claire, WI where I thought storms would initiate first and have more helicity before building down to the south. The corridor from Eau Claire over to Wausau is also decent chasing terrain for Wisconsin standards being flat with several openings through the trees for viewing angles. So, I left the Milwaukee area in the morning and got on the highway getting into Eau Claire around 3:30pm. I filled up the gas tank and then found a nice rural area just a little to the east outside of Eau Claire to sit and wait for initiation. It was not a very long wait. Around 4pm, storm towers started to go up just to my southwest heading straight for me.
Four distinct supercells developed in a north to south line extending down from the triple point. One cell in particular looked the most intriguing to me on radar and it was looking to pass just to my south so I decided to head southeast a ways to let the developing hook pass over me. On my way, the storm went tornado warned, and I was getting excited. These storms were FLYING and as I drove for my target the storm overtook me faster than I anticipated. I ended up having to clip its core briefly to get into position, but I only encountered pea sized hail on the still maturing storm. Finally I reached my target north of Augusta, WI with just enough time to get out of the car and take a look around as the updraft region came into view and began to pass by overheard.
A small developing wall cloud had begun to corkscrew its way out of the base of the storm but it was obvious that it still had a little growing to do. Unfortunately for me it was moving at a 60mph clip and took off away from me just as fast as it had arrived.
So after all that excitement build up I realized I had made a noob move and jumped the gun on getting off the highway and driving south to intercept this still maturing tornado warned storm. In retrospect, I should have intercepted farther east a ways and also in a place with a better road network of east-west options. Too late now. I got back in my car and sped off to desperately try and catch the storm again. My road network was really bad and the roads curled and went all over the place. The storm was getting a pretty good lead on me at this point but I wasn't going to give up on it. On the way, I couldn't help but stop and grab a video still of some of the beautiful storm clouds with the sun shining through.
I finally made it back north to Hwy 29 and shot east at a fast clip to catch back up. Hope had begun to return that I would be able to catch this storm again. As I caught back up to it, I noticed a scuddy looking funnel shaped lowering to my 10 o'clock. I kept an eye on it but could not discern any rotation and could not see the ground underneath it.
I pressed on and sped past it trying to get ahead of the storm again so that I could drive north in front of it and let it pass me by. At this point I was trying to decide what to do. I could either get just ahead of the storm again and blast north on back roads or I could wait, drive a little farther east, and take Hwy 51 north towards Merrill, WI and intercept along that main Hwy there. Tornado reports were coming in through the radio so I again made the decision to intercept sooner rather than later and exited prior to Hwy 51. As I cut in front of the storm again, I grabbed a video still of it approaching me from the west.
There were some good moments of this chase, however. It was the first time chasing with my new mobile internet connection/laptop/GPS puck setup as the days of using the small iPhone screen with Radarscope on chases was over. I was very happy with how much easier it was to see things on radar and make decisions and confident that this new setup would yield better results this season. So on that good note, I awaited the next chase. Little did I know the next chase would change the course of my 2011 season and storm chasing life completely.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)