| | May 14 - 4:00 PM ET | |
| | 11 days to go.... Figured I would archive off the old site and start a new one for this year. I am hoping to have some nice litte additions to the blog this year. More later. Back to work. | |
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| | May 25 - 8:41 PM CT | |
| | Just crossed into Indiana, half way to Kansas City. Stopped for dinner outside of Louisville, Kentucky at the Cracker Barrell. Looks like we will be getting to Chris’ house on schedule around 5:00 AM, even after the ‘Grand Faux Pas 1 mile east of Millpaw St.’. Greg’s flight is supposed to arrive around 5:30 PM tomorrow, so we have time to get a decent amount of sleep tonight. All for now. | |
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| | May 26 - 2:25 PM CT | |
| | Coming to you from old Shawnee, Kansas again, where we started last years trip and now home to the Chris Hovanic. We got in around 4:00 AM this morning, making the drive time from Fairfax to Kansas City about 20 hrs even. Luckily we got to enjoy a decent amount of sleep last night, no telling when we might get that luxury again. We are trying to do some analysis and get a rough idea as to where we will be going over the next few days, and yay for us it appears we might get to hang around Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico area for a few days. Anything that doesn’t involve driving for hours on end is a nice thought right about now. Also need to run by a Target or something and get a couple last things to finish rigging the monitor and all in the car. I will take some pictures today or tonight so you have something to look at. | |
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| | May 28 - 2:30 AM CT | |
| | Late update for today, sorry for anyone who was hanging in suspense there. We left Shawnee headed for south western Oklahoma today trying to get to an outflow boundary that looked at least a little promising. On the way we noticed a cell that seemed to be doing alright, so we pushed on and got into position to intercept. Unfortunately our cell took a quick turn for the worse as soon as we got there and pretty much dissolved when we got under it. So we turned farther south and decided to ride along the southern edge of a multi-cell system and see if anything would develop, while figuring we would push as far west and shorten the trip to New Mexico we have planned for tomorrow. Ended up in Lubbock, Texas again, so we went out for a few drinks and decided to enjoy the abundance of time that is rarely found while we are out here. We did have some fun pushing through the southern edge of the storms, and rode through a large up-kick of dust from the RFD of one of the cells. Oddly enough it seemed like most of the other chase groups had decided to stop and watch the dust storm, but you know whatever floats their boat. On a more depressing note it seems that an inverter beefy enough to run the 21inch monitor would be a couple hundred bucks, so we abandoned it at Chris’ apartment. Luckily we still have our flashing yellow light, and that amuses me. Here are a couple pictures I have taken so far, nothing really exciting but it’s something. | |
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| | May 29 - 12:30 PM CT | |
| | Recapping for yesterday, left Lubbock and headed into New Mexico, on the off-chance that something might fire up along the dry-line. Expectations were pretty low and most chase teams opted to use yesterday as a travel day and did not even venture into New Mexico. Luckily for us, our chance paid off and a few cells kicked off around Santa Fe later into the afternoon. Our first cells dissipated quickly after crossing some sort of boundary but our radar was down so we didn’t even know until we reached another township on the road. We toyed with the idea of just packing up and heading out to Oklahoma, where today’s target is, but stuck around when a particularly nasty cell was tornado warned off to our west. Terrain in northeastern New Mexico can only be described as less than enjoyable when it comes to chasing, but we were able to luck out and catch the storm as it crossed the road in an opportune spot. Once again, however, we watched strong rotation almost shape itself up into an actual tornado, only to occlude itself after a few minutes. After the cell had passed in front of us, we drove north on our road and ran into what looked like snow-covered hills behind the storm. It was in fact a layer of penny to golf-ball seized hail that was covering the ground, the road, and all of the landscape. We set up for another cell that was following the first, and stuck around until the precip and hail core was starting to rain on us. At this point we decided to turn south and tried to find a way to get back around in front of the storm since it was continuing to strengthen. Unfortunately we were at the mercy of the sparse road system, which led to our ill-fated decision to try and cut between highways on a dirt county road. Instead of getting in front of the storm, we ended up climbing a mountain trail up to the top of some bluffs that took so long the storm was right on top of us by the time we got to the top. A lack of radar and any data connection forced us into turning back down the mountain to avoid being overtaken by a storm we had no data on. After getting back to a highway, we had to high-tail it east to try and get in front of the cells so we could head north towards Oklahoma. After an hour of nervous driving through some blinding rain and vicious RFD winds, we cleared to the north of the cells and sped off towards Pratt, Kansas, where our hotel room was waiting.
Today we are headed towards south central Oklahoma for what appears to be the most promising day of the chase so far; at least according to all the projections. SPC has even upgraded today’s outlook to severe, which should be a good sign. I will try to get another update in later today. | |
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| | May 29 - 6:45 PM CT | |
| | Quick update from the road. Sat around in Hastings, Nebraska for a while today waiting for things to start firing off in western Nebraska and Kansas. SPC had today as high-risk, and we were under a PDS watch, which the SCP issues to denote an area with the Possibility of a Dangerous Situation. You can’t get a much better forecast than that when you are looking for tornadoes. Once a couple cells were shaped up enough for us to go chase, we headed out west to intercept near Kearney, Nebraska. Beautiful storm, beautiful structure. We took position right below the notch and had a perfect view, but unfortunately this supercell was HP and everything was obscured by rain. While we were trying to take some pictures and pick out what we thought might be a tornado, we started seeing power flashes in the town of Kerney. From what we can gather a large and destructive tornado moved directly though the town, but we were unable to discern any features because of the precipitation. On one hand I am very frustrated, but on the other hand I know my frustration is petty compared to what the people of Kearney are facing right now. We always want to see a nice big tornado but never in a town. Currently headed south back into Kansas to try and intercept some supercells down there that might be producing tornadoes. | |
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| | May 30 - 2:00 AM CT | |
| | Wanted to get in today’s update so everyone can see it in the morning. Moving into Kansas was a huge success, and we can now say we have watched a well-contrasted tornado form right in front of our eyes. Definitely one of the most awesome moments of my life. We watched the tornado form, strengthen, and then turn and head right for us. We repositioned and watched the storm produce a short-lived cone tornado, another stovepipe tornado, and then possibly a massive wedge tornado. We chased well into the night, which is usually not a good idea, but our radar and the storms movement enabled us to stay mostly out of trouble. Tracked east through some tornado damage as we followed the wedge tornado through northeastern Kansas. Then we booked south to get away from the storms and head towards Missouri where we will catch some shut-eye. Next update might be from Indiana. | |
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| | May 30 - 10:20 PM CT | |
| | First off, I am planning on adding a full account of the tornado story whenever we get time to sit down and retrace the whole incident. Second, today was pretty much sitting around in southeastern Kansas waiting for a lot of nothing to happen. Stayed in Chanute, Kansas at some gas station for a few hours then tried to chase a couple cells that just piddled around till they died out. So not exactly exciting, but way better than driving all the way to eastern Illinois or Indiana and trying to chase out there today, then coming all the way back to Oklahoma tonight. Right now we are headed down into the edge of Oklahoma, to a town called Bartlesville for a hotel room and some relaxation. No pictures today. | |
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| | May 31 - 12:45 PM CT | |
| | At the Jiffy Wash laundromat in Bartlesville, Oklahoma; finished out last night watching a very low wall cloud near Independence, Kansas, as it moved southeast away from us. Woke up this morning to the sounds of hail and people shouting outside our hotel room, turns out an overnight cell had strengthened and was dropping baseball-sized hail in parts of Bartlesville. Luckily we only had maybe quarter sized hail but we definitely jumped up and checked the radar to make sure we weren’t about to get hit by a tornado in our hotel room. All was well though, and we got a couple more hours of sleep. Looks like we will be spending the next few days in the Kansas / Oklahoma area so we are pretty excited about not have long, long drives ahead of us. On top of that, sources are hinting at the possibility of outbreak-style conditions later in the week, so things may get very interesting here. Hopefully today will shape up and there will be something to take pictures of. | |
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| | June 1 - 1:30 AM CT | |
| | Today turned out to be nothing exciting. We sat around in Ponca City, Oklahoma, until about 6 PM before finally deciding to go chase the only cell in the area. It seemed like it was going to produce, and even earned a tornado warning at one point, but before long it was dissolving into nothing and the light was fading as well. So we moved on back to Bartlesville and got some supper, then drove on into Wichita, Kansas, for the night. Looks like we will be headed to western Kansas and maybe eastern Colorado tomorrow.
Also, I finally got around to uploading some of Neil's pics onto the site as well. They are the ones with a grey background on the gallery page. | |
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| | June 1 - 4:45 PM CT | |
| | Driving from Garden City, Kansas, to somewhere north of here right now because southwestern Kansas is lacking in convective fun. Things are firing off in far northeastern Colorado currently, but that’s about a 4 hour drive from us and we are debating how far north we want to commit since tomorrow’s target looks to be somewhere back in central Kansas. We will keep heading north and hope something comes down towards us. Maybe we get some luck here. | |
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| | June 1 - 10:20 PM CT | |
| | No luck here today. Nothing really shaped up outside of South Dakota, and even that stuff wasn’t too pretty. Around 7:00 PM we decided to pack it up and head towards Salina in central Kansas to put us into position for tomorrow. I think if we had not had such success on Thursday the mood would be quite different in the car right now. Three straight days of bust would have left us all incredibly frustrated in the past, but noone is really upset right now. Yeah its kind of an annoyance that we’ve driven across Kansas twice now, but at least its not North Dakota to Texas in a night. On the upside, we knew that the last few days were marginal for storm development, but if the cap will break tomorrow things should shape up nicely. And then we still have Wednesday and Thursday forecasted as outbreak conditions, which will require us to be on top of our game or there are serious consequences. At least we get to sleep well now. | |
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| | June 2 - 3:10 PM CT | |
| | Hanging out in Hayes, Kansas, right now. Just had a nice lunch and we are waiting to see what develops around us. Models are kind of worthless today, no hard fast system moving in and like 18 boundaries all over the place. Almost more worthwhile to go based on visual observations than forecast models at this point. Looks like we might have to drive back to Salina because the cumulus field is more impressive over there. Now its just waiting on water vapor loops to load and watching the radar to see if and where something develops. Everyone is getting a little antsy now, its been a while since we have seen a supercell. More free time this week than any other chase trip. | |
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| | June 2 - 2:30 AM CT | |
| | Back in Hayes, Kansas. We struck out west when a cell popped up in eastern Colorado that looked particularly nice. Drove all the way back to Oakley where we had been just yesterday. The cell was looking nice on radar, then instead of rooting along the boundary like we figured it would, it crossed the dryline and ingested nasty cold air which killed it. we made it just in time to watch the cell evaporate into a weak shower and pass by us. Disappointing by all means. we have driven the same stretch of I-70 for two days now with no luck. Came back and got a hotel in Hayes so we could get a nice steak dinner and go out to forget about the last 4 days of bust. At least we got those tornadoes on Thursday, and the net few days will be outbreak material so we need to get ready for that, but this it the longest dry spell ever. Feels like we are actually on vacation now, not just running around, what an odd feeling. Took a couple pictures of us standing around and the damage to the car after Chris hit a bird on 70, which knocked out a fog light. | |
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| | June 3 - 2:30 PM CT | |
| | Hanging out in our choice camping spot - a Dairy Queen - in Abilene, Kansas. Like the past four days, we are just waiting for the cap to break and hoping the conditions are still right and we have some daylight left. If anything we will be headed into far eastern Kansas and possibly western Missouri. Outlook is still shaping up for a Wednesday maybe and Thursday certainly severe weather wise. Putting a little hope on for today. | |
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| | June 3 - 9:53 PM CT | |
| | Today was a success compared to the last few days at least. Ended up driving all the way to Kansas City to chase, and intercepted four supercells while hopping southwest from Kansas City to Ottawa, Kansas. Eventually night caught up to us so we headed north for southeast Nebraska. Tonight we get ready for the next couple days, we have to be very sharp coming up. I will upload the pics when we get to a hotel. | |
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| | June 4 - 9:20 PM CT | |
| | OK so I lied. I got those pictures up this morning sometime because we didn’t get a hotel till 4AM this morning. Turns out the only place to stay in Falls City was the Stephenson Motel, which was the creepiest place I have entered in a long time. It was like walking into 1930; the building, the decorations, the phones and cash register and everything. Maybe in the daylight it looks neat cause it’s all historic, but at 2 am the place was just outright scary. Plus the only setup was either a single queen bed or two twin beds, and noone was anxious to sleep on the floor of a building from sometime early last century. We decided a resounding no to the Stephenson Motel, and called around till we found a safe Holiday Inn over in Beatrice, Oklahoma. Got up this morning and prepped for today, which was looking pretty good for severe weather. On the way out to our target location though, Chris’ laptop power supply died and we had to drive all the way back to Beatrice to find a Wal-Mart and replace it. Now crunched for time, we struck out to some storms in south-central Nebraska that were starting to pick up. On the way we noticed some cells going up to the east of us, but at the time they looked less than impressive visually and we figured they would cross the boundary and die out. Those storms are still going now east of Omaha producing large tornadoes. The cells we did intercept first today failed to produce until about ten minutes after we had left them to go after another storm, which promptly fell apart as we got to it. Needless to say we are all quite frustrated at today’s luck. That’s how things go when you play this game, but it is still painful nonetheless. I did get a few pictures of some nice looking storms today, but at this point I am not quite as satisfied with pictures of nice storms. I think I speak for everybody when I say that I want some real meat to bring back. | |
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| | June 5 - 10:30 AM CT | |
| | Quick update for this morning. As we left Hastings last night and started south, we noticed a line of storms moving north towards us that was intensifying every scan. We decided to play it cautious based on earlier experiences and turned around to seek shelter somewhere. For about an hour we sat in a car wash while the storm rolled towards us, and when we felt like the worst was by we headed south to avoid another even stronger storm coming in from the west. Now we are here in Belleville, Kansas, where we spent the night. Today has already gone high risk from southern Minnesota to the Kansaas / Oklahoma border. Storm motion today is 50 - 60 kts, and the likelihood of a tornado outbreak is very high. Our plan at this point is to try and head a little south maybe to Salina, and set up along the dry-line somewhere near a triple-point down there. With the way these storms will be developing, it’ll be less ‘chasing’ and more ‘careful dodging’. The entire chase community seems very excited about today. Wish us luck. | |
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| | June 5 - 6:30 PM CT | |
| | Sitting in a Starbucks in Wichita, Kansas, where we took cover from the approaching line of severe weather. The cap broke early, convection fired quick, and everything lined out immediately. We made an attempt to chase the most discrete storms we could near the bottom of the line, but with storm motions of 50 – 70 mph we had maybe five minutes to view the storm before it blew past us. We repositioned a few times, and then went to Wichita to plan our next move and let the current line roll over us so we could go back west. As it got here it intensified and a couplet passed just south of us, so we might go down and check out what happened down there before we head back to Kansas City. I think I got some pictures of the wind and rain here outside the Starbucks, hope so cause I got myself drenched doing it.
Now starts the long drive home. | |
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| | June 6 - 2:00 AM CT | |
| | Back at Chris’ house in Shawnee, Kansas. This is the official end of the chase trip for 2008. Hard to believe that it has gone by so quickly. Today was officially a bust, nothing else developed after the initial storms developed and lined out. The 30% hatched tornado area that SPC was forecasting had about 0 actual tornadoes. I guess it’s a blessing for the people of the Midwest, easy to forget that while we want to see these storms the people who live here would really rather not. Right now Neil and I are waiting for the line of storms that rolled us in Wichita to get on farther to the east before we go behind it trying to get home. Greg’s flight leaves for Toronto sometime tomorrow afternoon, but he will probably be home before us. 1,086 miles to go before 2:00 PM Saturday. I will do the last update sometime Sunday probably, during the train ride from DC to my hometown where I am going to visit Ms. Faggart’s science class to talk about the trip. Here are the last of the pictures. | |
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