This one’s kinda tough. This is the third tornado I’ve chased that killed someone, but this one’s different.
Left work at 5 PM, made it to just across the river from Blair at six, in pefect position to check out a SVR-warned storm that was passing just north of Blair. Organizing wall cloud…
There was one more storm to my north that had already been SVR-warned, and a string of pearls stretching to southwest of Lincoln that all went TOR quickly.
I kept repositioning myself as the storm moved ENE, getting back on I-29 at Modale, north to Mondamin, as the storm became more High-Precip (just like Every. Freakin’. Storm. This. Year.) Between Mondamin and Little Sioux, the storm just to my north was finally DITOR, but I had lost all visibility as I came up on the edge of a Niagara-style curtain of rain.
This might have been a wall cloud, probably not, but it definitely was inflow and it soon got eaten by the rainshaft. I looked at radar screenshots later, and unless you considered the storm-velocity readings you couldn’t tell there was a tornado in there. The was no classic hook echo.
I have driven through at least three tornadoes this year, and I was getting sick and tired of being so stupid, so I turned around. Pragmatically, I never chase through the Loess Hills anyhow, because you lose your nice gridded road pattern…and your escape roads… (Off into the hills. Easy come, easy go.)
I then crabbed south, hoping to catch the next cell to the southwest. Just to the southwest of Missouri Valley, I sidled up to a wall cloud, Doppler-indicated TOR-warned, electrified as hell. When you find Mike Hollingshead on the same storm as you, you’re having a good day. I got our of my car, not too excited but relieved to be in the right spot finally. (Mike wondered what the hell I was doing out of my car!) Here’s his story… so you can see my ugly mug:
You can see the Rear-Flank Downdraft trying to wrap around and a funnel just above the farmhouse. Tried to tornado…
We both bailed as we got cored, again. Crabbing south again meant a storm just leaving Omaha, DITOR-warned. I had a choice to make, and none of my options really enthused me. Wait for the Omaha storm to cross the river, try to catch something in mid-town Omaha (right), or try to get south of Omaha–toward home–and see what was there. North, I had a narrow corridor between the river and the bluffs, midtown was suicide, and south had better roads but I’d lose daylight.
Turns out the midtown storm tried to chase me but I beat it to I-80, only to find out that the nice little string of tornadic pearls were in the process of coalescing into a line, albeit a line with small tornadoes on the front of each storm. I drove west to 72nd Street, south to Cornhusker, telling myself that I don’t chase in metropolitan areas…
Wifey calls me about this time, I was trying to see what was going to kill me off to my west…or south…or southwest. She wants me to tell her which way to go to get home, and I honestly had no idea. Weather was popping up all over the place, and while I’d rather not corepunch, me doing it is one thing but I didn’t want to vector my wife into anything.
Turns out none of us had a choice.
I’m driving like my ass was on fire east on Cornhusker, another DITOR behind me, with signs vibrating, quarter-size hail pinging off the car, and the power going out all around. The corner of Cornhusker and US-75 means your east options are nonexistent, so I had no choice but to head south. And immediately the next storm to the southwest went spotter-verified TOR, near Louisville, heading my way with my house generally in between…the front of the storm caught me at LaPlatte, a few gustnadoes on the front end but mostly a ton of rain. NE-66 west to NE-50 north to Springfield and home.
By this time the radio is talking about the tornado that hit the Scout Camp, the rain-wrapped tornado up in the hills that I refused to chase. If I couldn’t see it, if Mike wouldn’t go after it, then those poor guys never saw it coming and never had a chance, with no shelter. A lady at my work (who had seen her first ‘nader the week before) has a son in the Scouts so we didn’t see much of her the next week. What a colossal downer and I hope to hell they rebuild with a shelter.
Video of all three intercepts: Youtube behaved long enough for me to upload this:
Thirty minutes with a chainsaw got a tree off my satellite dish and house from last night’s shenanigans. This time I dragged my brother along, left noonish to York then south on US-81 to Geneva. Storms took forever to get going, so we had time to train-chase and look for internet to borrow.
Taking county roads to get around Beatrice, this road had been flooded the night before and I didn’t trust the bridge–to drive on, at least 🙂
Just west of Fairbury, I thought this was a little high for my tastes, but there were other chasers here and it was rotating. However, not warned for anything.
And this was just east of Fairbury, nice base but moving off the front and crapping out.
Stacked plates! Inflow from a number of levels, condensing and becoming visible.
As I drove from Fairbury to Beatrice, finally two storms formed south of Beatrice in Kansas and headed north. Got near Beatrice as they became Doppler-indicated TOR warned; sirens going off in town (no risk to Beatrice since they were south of town heading northeast.) Got into the rain between Beatrice and Tecumseh, following a bunch of motorcyclists who got absolutely drenched…
Pulled up to the Super 8 in Tecumseh and got some internet just as a Doppler-indicated TOR was issued…for Tecumseh! Couldn’t see a thing, rainrainrain…the nowcast said it was heading just east of Tecumseh, I headed east on US-136…because…that’s what I do!
136 takes a jog to the north just south of Johnson, which caused me to adjust my perspective on the wind direction, one the road turned back to the east I noticed a 180 deg wind shift within the space of ten feet! My brother was talking when he noticed me slamming the brakes and shifting into reverse…he asks “why are we backing up?” and I reply “wind…” I looked off to the north and the rain bands were twisting and braiding…hmmm.
Thirty seconds later the radio updates the TOR specifically mentioning south of Johnson, US-136 is one mile south of Johnson…! So, never having been inside a tornado before this season, this was the third one in two months! Don’t try this at home, kids. 😦
I’d rather have been a mile away and gotten a picture. High-Precipitation supercells, one after the other this year.
Got to Auburn as one more storm became Doppler-indicated TOR in Falls City, soon thereafter spotter-confirmed. Extrapolating meant I could get to it between Rock Port and Mound City, Missouri–until I came across US-136 being flash flooded and closed east of Auburn. That was it for today, Sonic in Auburn (ick) and then back home.
This was the first of two days of white-knuckle chases. Drove to York then Ayr, took these pictures below at the intersection of NE-74 and US-281. Towers starting to go up, and interesting bases already…
Look at those blues! Tornado warnings from these, south of Kearney and I didn’t want to go that far.
They were looking a little thinnish and at this time a TOR was issued for just west of Grand Island, so I blasted north, gas in Hastings and ‘borrowing’ internet from a Super 8 🙂
Between Hastings and Grand Island. Still TOR warned:
East side of Grand Island, TOR warned but I wasn’t seeing it. I was seeing a massive hail dump coming my way, and I chickened out and started bailing east. I was planning on finding a good road south to I-80, since it was clear that I was on the wrong side of this storm and I needed to get on the south end. More on that in a second…
Between Grand Island and Central City on US-30, still TOR-Warned but I kept losing contrast in the rain and occasional hail.
Close-up.
UP and BNSF have a practice of stopping their trains when a TOR is issued for the county their trains are in. The tracks alongside US-30 were a parking lot, and I’m not sure it’s a good idea, sitting duck v. moving target!
After this, for about three hours and the remainder of the daylight, I was in a struggle to keep in front of the storm. Relentless…
Heading northeast on US-30, turned south at Central City, my first attempt to get to the south side–the textbook favorable area for tornadoes–and immediately getting golfball hail. So much for that. East on NE-92, tried to go south again at US-81 and still golfball, AND a Spotter-Verified Tornado to my south, nowcasting to head toward me. And I couldn’t see a thing! Had to stop in Osceola, and the storm intensified and got on top of me.
Flash flooding in Osceola, and on the east side of town the inflow got cooking. Windbreak trees on the north side of the road were being shredded and sucked south, a constant rain of leaves and occasional branches, entire trees landing on the shoulder. More flooded low spots than I could count, and thankfully there was too much going on for law enforcement to close the highway or I would have been cored by the hail. As it was, I was in constant marble-sized–and larger–for those three hours! (Not to mention 40-60 MPH inflow, AND those confirmed tornadoes to my south heading northeast!)
One more time, at NE-15, to go south, but by now the warnings were indicating the tornado was right here and I didn’t dare turn. (As it turned out, there were two confirmed tornadoes about ten miles to my south.) Two things happened about now–the storms behind me took less of a tornadic characteristic, turning into what was termed a ‘land hurricane’, but storms were popping in front of this and they were tornadic, including around Omaha and south, where my family was! I could either keep heading east to Omaha, where who knows what awaited me, or say to hell with it, turn south and deal with the huge previously-tornadic and still nothing-to-mess-with storm. (I don’t feel too bad about not getting south, no video and only a couple of stills were taken of the tornadoes!)
At US-77, I was running out of open area to my east, beginning the western suburbs of Omaha, and restricting my options. I had to head south here and see what I got myself into, crabbed southeast on familiar county roads to Ashland. While the hail had stopped, the wind was still sucking into the storm off to my right, lightning all over the place, and close. I stole glances off to the west, and it was impressive, but too dark for photos and too dangerous besides.
(My family was in Omaha, they found a bank parking garage–which was soon blocked in by people from the neighboring apartment complexes parking their cars!)
(One of my co-workers, on her first storm chase, bagged at least one tornado in southwest Iowa…!)
I found a gas station canopy in Gretna and waited out the storm passage. I got home, to check out the damage to my place (flooded basement) when my wife called and told me about being blocked in. I said ‘so what’ until she mentioned she had the dog with her (?) So for puppy’s sake I drove into Omaha to switch cars, and of course by the time I got there the garage was empty!
So back home, couple hours of sleep, more fun on the 5th…
Another High Risk day, SPC mentioning violent, long-track tornadoes–second day in a week! Took spring long enough to get here, but Ma Nature made up for Her late start.
The target didn’t change much as the days counted down, I guessed York to Concordia but it was actually a little farther west. This was my third trip to at least as far west as Kearney within the last six weeks, having not driven that far west in the last twenty years! I-80 to the Hastings exit, south to HSI, then west to Minden then northwest to Kearney. Once I got to Minden, I started to see the towers going up, and for the first hour or so the warnings were mostly SVR, and a little further west than I wanted to go, but to be honest I didn’t see a need to!
I had one of my few premonitions the day before–last week there had been at least twenty tornadoes that essentially missed any town of consequence, and the thought occurred to me that someone’s karma was running out. Not mine, necessarily, but…someone’s. And the closer I got to the east side of Kearney, and the SVRs turned into TORs…
Here’s your obligatory TIV pr0n, for those of you so inclined…
Southeast side of Kearney, about a block north of I-80, looking west:
Wall cloud right in front of me, look at the grass and notice how the wind is flowing into the mesocyclone. Tornado in the middle of the picture, moving dead east, right toward me. I had plenty of options to get out of here, though. Just behind the cell tower is a second meso, soon to be a second tornado.
Here are a few very short-lived funnels, just behind is the ‘real’ tornado. Can’t see on the still photos, but about this time the first of about fifty power flashes got cranked up as the tornado moved through downtown Kearney.
Better look at the tornado. just before it became rain-wrapped. Story of this season so far, no chaser has seen any structure to speak of, and only short glimpses of tornadoes before they get rain-wrapped. That just means I have to take a trip to Montana or Saskatchewan in August, LOL.
Finally disappearing in the rain:
Here’s the vid:
Looking straight up. Jaw-dropping:
Hastings’ report on the tornado tracks mentioned three tornadoes hit Kearney. As I was leaving my vantage point where I took these pictures, to find a spot to take the video, I came across some wind shifts and a flying trampoline! I didn’t think that was a marker for a tormado–it doesn’t take much for one of them to go flying–but apparently in this case it was!
Back on I-80, not actively trying to chase because of all that rain, but looking for a south option to get out of the way and wait for other storms further west to come this way. Apparently there was damage on the north side of I-80 but I never saw it, good thing–ignorance is bliss! (Good thing I didn’t chase–hard to get off the road in a hurry if you’re on the interstate.) As soon as I headed south, the remaining storms in the area became high-based and then crapped out totally, storms further south stole their moisture.
So 2+ hours to get back home. Most of the other chasers had bailed on my storm and headed to north Kansas, plenty of other storms there that moved into southeast Nebraska just after dark. I don’t know why I didn’t go, other than the fact that I don’t chase at night (rrright…). One tornado was more-or-less continuously on the ground from north Kansas to east-central Nebraska, and the remnants eventually got to Springfield around 1-ish. I had to pick up my daughter after a school trip to Warshington DC at 3 AM, it was still raining, with more storms coming!
Ma Nature woke me up 5-ish, the discrete supercells had coalesced, as they usually do, into a squall line that made it as far east as Russell. Waited for the 1300Z SWODY1, which told me to stay put 🙂
Looked at the buffet, found it wanting. (I miss my Fairfield!) Crossed the road to check out the Oil Patch Museum, disappointment there, too (open four hours each day during June-August.) Apparently it was self-guided, or it was once I got done with it! Sixty-five degrees and a brisk east wind, I forgot to pack jeans! Mickey D’s for Cinnamon Melt, OJ and 1% chocolate milk, breakfast of champions. (Blood sugar at 115, thankyewverymuch.)
Checkout at eleven, twenty miles to Hays. Mercado del Walton for more mini-DV tapes. Lunch at Arby’s, firing up the laptop to steal their internet, and finding that there were ten networks in the area with chasing-related names within pinging distance! Stood in line with countless other chasers, mentioning what I’d seen the night before (every county out here names their county seat (county) Center or (county) City, and I gave directions by mentioning “One of them Citys”!) Literally every other car at lunch was from somewhere other than Kansas, and I’d see most of them at least once that afternoon.
It was a great day already, had my mojo working, I was going to bag today, just knew it. US-183 south to Rush Center, KS-96 west through Ness City (see, am I wrong?) to Dighton, in Lane County. Wonder why they didn’t call it Lane Center? Beautiful drive, and the few cars out were mostly chasers. It was just after two by now, initiation was expected around three from Scott City to Liberal, in other words, about twenty miles west of me. Mike Gribble holds to the belief that you stay a little downstream of the dryline, and head to the storms as they fire. Made sense to me, unfortunately the storm motion for today was still dead north at 45+ MPH, just like yesterday.
The Kwik Shop in Dighton wasn’t set up for a score of chasers descending on the gas pumps to top up. Ran into Shane Adams there, so I knew I was doing something right 🙂 Good people. There were cars from California, New Jersey, Shane’s Oklahoma Taurus and too many Texans and Coloradoans to count. Shane told me that he was heading toward the west side of town, since I didn’t want to be a fanboi I headed east. By the time I parked a mile east of Dighton on KS-96, the Red Box was up, and two storms were popping just to my southwest. Still a little early, I thought, so of course one went SVR and the other went TOR within ten minutes!
I decided to halfway-commit to chasing one of these, but the better conditions were still southwest and I didn’t want to get too far out of position. Gravel again, but I’ll say this for the roads, they drain well, so I had no issues today. Made it to Utica on KS-4, same road I was on yesterday, first two storms long gone. Bounced around, ran into some other chasers who said stuff was building southwest, as promised, near Garden City and heading this way.
But there was still stuff in between us and Garden City, half of the other guys were wanting to stay until the Garden City storms came northeast right to us, some others wanted to head to just north of Dighton to catch the closer storms, then beat it back to Utica. Those guys took off, I decided to follow at a non-leech distance.
I began to see some structure on the south storm everyone was mentioning…
closer…
When I was five miles north of Dighton, Lane County went TOR for a spotter-indicated tornado just to the west of Dighton. Hot diggity! Sixty-five to the city limits, (Shane still parked on the west side of KS-23, just like he predicted), whoa’d down to twenty-five in town, hard right on KS-96 and one mile west of town:
Actually two wall clouds southwest of town, had to make sure I didn’t fixate. Total of eighteen minutes to go over the road, sure didn’t act like it was moving at 45 like the radio said. South of the road, fingers came down, went back up, multiple-vortex structure. Just about as it went over the road, the RFD kicked in and on the video you can hear me saying “Here we go again!” I could hear the tornado roaring as it passed just west. North of the road, there was more rain between me and the tornado, but it still was producing, just can’t see it as well or as constant.
Three videos:
This wall cloud looked a little more glaciated that it was south of the road, so like an idiot I took this moment to pack up and start heading north. Within seconds–that is, with buildings in the way–this wall cloud spit out another tornado, that a ton of other people taped!
With an eye toward Utica, like those other guys had said, I headed back north on KS-23. Where 23 splits with 4, the guys I had come to Dighton with were looking off the the northwest, and here was this–same mesocyclone, waaay off in the distance, no-roads-ville:
Video, unedited and lousy contrast:
After this, I decided to change locale, I hadn’t been to Garden City and there was still more storms along 23. In retrospect I wished I’d done something else, since the storms passed me going north as I was going south. I wasn’t about to go on gravel in all that rain. While they were TOR-warned, I never came close to seeing anything except hellacious amounts of rain, and by the time I got to KS-156 and headed east they were long gone, or so I thought. My daughter at home texts me at this time asking where I am, I thought a second and replied that…I was about 60 mi. from Colorado and 60 mi. from Oklahoma. Oh, my…
Turned north on US-283 at Jetmore, 99% resigned to go-home mode. I had seen two hoses, after all! But the storms which were now north of me went spotter-confirmed TOR, which caused me to grit my teeth a little. (But not too much, there were even more storms to my south, both nearby and all the way to the Texas panhandle. Wind was still southeast, the Red Box was extended until 4AM! Incredibly, I was making ground on the storms to my north! Got to Ness City (second time that day) while they were still TOR warned, and made it to Ransom ten minutes after they were hit by the first of two tornadoes within twenty minutes. You do the math, while you do that, here’s number two cranking up:
Sorta boxed in by now, but my judgment was clouded somewhat by wanting to go home. Should have bailed south, because this one was west, both east and and west of my location had damage from the first and the that one was heading north! So, south in hindsight would have gotten me in the clear the quickest, but that seemed counterintuitive since it was about to produce…and get rain-wrapped!
..And soon overran me. Thirty miles in torrential rain, baseball hail, spotter-confirmed–at least the road wasn’t gravel. Car never hydroplaned once. However, I did notice one or two unsettling wind-shifts that meant only one thing. I’d wager that the storm on my tail passed me at some near distance off to my east. One day, go home mode will kill me. More of the same along I-70 east once I got to WaKeeney. Radio had mentioned a truck overturned on I-70–which I saw, but two miles later I saw two others which weren’t mentioned, both tornadoes crossed the interstate and I must have been minutes behind the second one. This time, when the wind shifted I pulled over, like that was going to help. (One of my rules is that I don’t chase at night, and technically I was quitting the area. That’ll look good on my headstone, I reckon.)
Diesel fuel all over the side of my car, from the trucks. These tornadoes, out of all the storms the past two days, had managed to stay together north of I-70 and I could see the back end of the storm as I headed east. Made Hays, got a room (Fairfield still sold out) just in time for the obligatory squall line and the Ten-O’Clock news.
Saturday morning, Wifey had called to wake me up, mentioning that it was our wedding anniversary and all and would I like to come home, hint hint? So, back to Omaha. Neal Peart had mentioned one of his favorite artists is Jeff Buckley, and I managed to find a copy of Grace at the Hays Walmart the day before. Now, with the atmosphere catching its breath, I had time to listen as I drive I-70 east. What a revelation…
Saturday’s SWODY1 had mentioned two areas to pay attention to on the 24th: NC-C Oklahoma…and E Nebraska. The Stormtrack.org playas were split, and since one target was closer, LOL…in retrospect, I should have taken a hard right on I-135 at Salina!
Steak ‘n Shake in Topeka, then arrived home to find the house empty…happy anniversary, my azz. Okay, if that’s the way you want to play…so I headed out to Wahoo. Red Box west of Omaha never fired. I was pist by all the ‘naders in Oklahoma Saturday, that was such an easy drive from KS and I still had three days of vacation. But catching Oklahoma on the 24th would have meant missing Parkersburg, IA on the 25th–not like I chased on the 25th–but you can’t catch everything! Parkersburg was a hard tornado to chase, anyhow.
Five day weekend, courtesy of the Pelosi/Reid economy. My man Dubya handing me money and telling me to go stimulate…something. And the first legit outbreak progged this spring in the upper midwest. Time to Head Out To The Highway.
Given all the woofing on the Stormtrack.org message boards for the previous ten days, I had the feeling that if I could get to a storm, I’d see a tornado. Didn’t matter that my drive from Omaha to Kearney to Holdredge was drizzly and cold. The promise of the south side of the warm front awaited me. Literally as I crossed the Kansas border the skies cleared, the temp went up 15 deg and the dews up 10. Limbaugh on the radio with an ever-increasing backdrop of static.
One thing that hacked me off was that not only did the Marriott Fairfield in Hays not have any friend-of-employee rate rooms, but they wouldn’t take my points, either. I tried up until the last second to find a room there, but no dice. (The ballers with the government grants got the good hotel!) I did use Fairfield’s wi-fi to check the 3PM SPC update, once again confirming that I was where I needed to be. (Neenerneenerneener.)
Storms were expected to start on the dryline from a Colby-Garden City line about 4-ish, so I moved west to WaKeeney then south, looking for towers to go up. Yep, here came the Red Box, followed by towers right on schedule. Took US-283 south to KS-4, in no great hurry, enjoying the oilfields, and abandoned rail lines, soon the sun was blocked by building thunderstorms. So flat, so beautiful…
I would rather that the storm vectors were a little more reasonable, all the warnings I heard mentioned speeds of 40-60 MPH. And storm motion practically straight north, instead of northeast. Not so much a chase day, rather a ‘get-in-front-of-something-and-let-it-corepunch-you‘ day. Done it before, no sense whining about it.
Still pinballing along KS-4, decided to check out one of the few working drilling rigs only to find that oilfield roads are even worse than ‘unimproved’ roads, a realization that I didn’t make until I was stuck on one as the rain…and hail…started. Finally, a SVR for this storm, which I understood, this was a little high-based for my liking. But still, there was some handsome cloud motions, spotters in town thought so, too, because within five minutes the SVR was updated to ‘mild rotation’ then further to a TOR! That’s why I’m here, baybee…
Wall cloud parked right on top of KS-4 in Healy, I finally had something to use my new digital camcorder on. Taping straight up, I remembered to keep my head on a swivel–and the storm must have found some lower-level moisture because as the storm moved north the wall cloud got lower and began rotating! Ho ho…
(Listen to that siren. Worth all the $4 gas just for that!) It didn’t produce then, I looked for my first north option. In retrospect, I should have given up some ground and headed east to KS-23, but I found a gravel road and headed north. I didn’t think it had rained that much, but apparently the rain that did fall, combined with the pea-gravel made this road all mud and nearly impassible. They must oil the road down with straight crude oil, I thought.
I can laugh about it now, but at the time I had to face twenty miles of muck. I had to keep up a certain speed or else gravity would have aimed me toward the ditch, and it was white-knuckle to keep the car straight. There are live-cam videos of others on similar roads that didn’t make it, so I feel a little better. My DeLorme atlas was less than it could be, road names on my map didn’t correspond to real life!
Made it to a marked crossroad, which took me to KS-23 just south of Gove, which had been under a TOR from the storm I was trying to chase 20 minutes previous. Blasted north on 23, made it to I-70 at Grainfield, which had been under another TOR 10 minutes before! I didn’t want to chase north of 70, because I wanted the dryline rather than the warm front and there was more stuff southwest still coming. (On both days, tornadic storms crapped out within seemingly a mile north of the interstate!)
However, my nerves were shot from all the wheelwork on that gravel. These weren’t ‘unimproved’ roads, this is what you get for a gravel road in western Kansas! There were still a number of chasers at I-70 intersection at Grainfield, I ran into Dr. Persoff, he and his buddies showed me pics of the hose I had just missed. Everyone I ran into at the Grainfield exit was giddy, imploring me to be patient, stay in the area…A look at their radar confirmed we were nowhere near done, they mentioned that they were heading a little east, so I decided to drift that way.
It didn’t take long for the next storm to show up, me and about twenty others ducked south on a county road at the Park, KS exit to check out another wall cloud. To my eye, and apparently most of the others, it looked like this storm had gusted out–I looked behind me and the others had left! To the next exit east, Quinter, I got gas while the patrons in the C-store wrung their hands about the storm that had just missed them.
Back on I-70 east. While there was that same gusted-out storm off behind my right shoulder, I was planning on heading to WaKeeney to spend what I assumed was a few hours waiting for the dryline to move east. I saw a group of cars on the side of the road, I took a look over to my right again…and hello Mister Mesocyclone! Not so gusted-out after all…Lazarus risen to tell us all…to head for the shoulder, NOW!
Listen to that wind. Damn near sucked my glasses off. I drove through a freakin’ tornado. (Like a Texas Tech professor told me the next day, “I tell my students, ‘Do as I say, not as I do…'”) Some kind of psychological warfare, aural overload. I had been bracing myself on Tony Laubach’s car, he said “High five! Gotta run!” but I knew better than to think I could chase that bad boy north and, as I mentioned, it soon crapped out.
At the next exit there was the largest chaser convergence I’d ever seen (Mike Hollingshead was apparently on the north side of I-70 here, but I never saw him). Still, the wind was out of the southeast, meaning that the dryline wasn’t coming east at all. Long night ahead, but I was done. I had storms in my bank, so to speak, so I could afford avoiding temptation by not chasing through the night. Indeed, there was at least one more tornado that night in the area, at WaKeeney. One of the hundreds of meteorology students told me that Friday’s storm motion should be in the twenty MPH range, which made me feel better.
I drove to WaKeeney, ‘borrowed’ the Super 8’s wifi to get a room at the Days Inn in Russell (!). I wanted to hit the Oil Patch Museum in Russell the next morning, and after all, Russell is the birthplace of Bob Dole and Arlen Specter (Represent!). There was a tractor-trailer in the parking lot hauling tanks of catfish, Mississippi plates, wish I’d taken a photo. Pizza Hut next door for dinner, good stuff.
After June 4th 2005, the rest of the year crapped out big time, and 2006 was just as bad. Ma Nature was having one of her moods, and the way I chase and the equipment I use and don’t use means that sometimes I miss things…
Beatrice had a lot of tornadoes in 2006, I tried to get to one on the 6th but never could get south of it. So, Saturday, nothing to do but go hose hunting!
Ran into Gene Moore at Fairview, KS. Gene is so old-school, he was contributing to Stormtrack when it was still on paper! He kindly let me look at his laptop–I had no idea that there was a line of storms west of us…I was about ready to park and let what was going to happen come to me.
Crossed back into Nebraska, caught a cell and funnel SE of BIE about 20 mins after the tornado that did all the damage there. Kinda hard to shoot stills *and* take vid while in 40MPH inflow…
Lot of chasers out, my jaw dropped when I saw a Honda with Ohio plates on this state road in the middle of BF County, Nebraska…
Ducked back into Kansas, this photo below was the storm that moved from Jackson Co, KS through Nemaha/Brown/Doniphan counties. I was just E of Robinson, KS about 710PM, listening to a radio station out of Hiawatha that did a great job of nowcasting and interpreting radar–except for this storm. According to their nowcasts, this moved from 10 mi. S of US-36 to 10 mi. N within ten minutes…I went from worrying about being in the bear’s cage to tsk-ing about missing the storm! But…
At the time, I had no idea what this was a photo of. I was aware that I was near the circulation, but it was raining like hell and I had my head on a swivel looking for windshifts or worse. I was amazed that I managed to see any cloud structure in the middle of this rain. In the years that have passed, I’m willing to entertain the idea that this is either a weak tornado or one that was dissipating, the radar seemed to bear that out…
Came across a waterlogged raccoon walking down the shoulder of US-36, never have seen one in broad daylight before or since, LOL. Drove to Saint Joseph, US-36 into town will bring any chase to a screeching halt, going right through small towns instead of bypassing them, so it was Mickey D’s and I-29 back home. Bought gas at BP stations in four states…
This was it for 2006…and 2007–there were chases where my cameras never came out of their cases! I wondered if I had lost my skill, and if I’d lose interest before those skills came back…but that’s for another post…
Kinda proud of myself–I came within 30 miles of two Steak ‘n Shakes and I didn’t waver…
Left Springfield just before 2PM, at the time I had no specific idea when initiation would start, and had been putting around the house that afternoon. Various WFOs and MDs had mentioned initiation in the 4-5 PM time frame, and generally south of Omaha–but not as far south as the first red box happened to be issued…
Imagine my chagrin when this appeared in front of me!
For all I knew, it would be a matter of minutes before this started dropping hoses, and I was still 90 mins. away! Nothing to do but drive…even had the NWS radio off, I didn’t care about what I was missing, after all…
As it turned out, I had time to punch the core of the storm along US-75 south of Fairview near the casinos, catch a few nickel-size hailstones before turning around to check out the back end of the storm. I ran into Jeff P at the corner of US-75 and KS-20, he was mentioning a monster near Salina that was TOR-warned already, and we knew it was heading this way generally. There were other storms between here and there–but I had no intention of going to Salina when it was coming this way anyhow. Meanwhile, this storm north of us was looking interesting and I had time, sooo…
Looking southeast-ish…
Looking north-ish…
This was SVR-warned at this…second…Notice the two trees–you’ll see them in most of the rest of these pictures. Tells you a little about the storm motion.
In my video, you can see a radio antenna flashing. Just so happened I was listening to that station, (really good coverage today and in 2006, but they’d gone downhill when I was in Hiawatha in 2009). Two guys reading bulletins, the storm went from SVR to DITOR to “Hey, there’s a tornado two miles south of here!” within 3 minutes. That was it for that station for a few minutes…
Kicking up debris. Roads were too muddy to chase, and the road network led something to be desired anyhow. I had to fiddle something fierce with these pictures, the sun was shining off the cumulus and blowing out the light levels on the video. Even worse on my vidcaps. I don’t know why I wasn’t shooting stills…Mike P and others got this storm from the east, and the contrast was beautiful. Sigh…
The storm headed toward the Missouri River bottoms. Going after it would have meant 1. Going through Hiawatha and I didn’t want to get in the way of any rescue/cleanup 2. Crossing the Missouri at Rulo, which would have meant corepunching or 3. Crossing at Saint Joseph and letting this storm get 75 miles ahead of me.
None of these options blew my skirt up, especially in light of the two mesos southwest coming northeast! All the guys who blew this storm off in their haul toward Manhattan and Salina were sure of jackpots later on, and I was feeling good myself, having bagged one already with four more hours of daylight left.
Didn’t happen that way, but that’s life! I played pinball along KS-63 between Kelly and Havensville for the better part of two hours, trying to decide between two DITOR storms and seeing neither–but missing out on hail and the storms never verified, anyhow.
The storm from Manhattan finally moved toward me.
This is the intersection of KS-63 and KS-16. This looks worse than it was–this is the leading edge of the storm. Sometimes you see gustnadoes here, and it was interesting looking. I planned of heading east toward Holton as soon as the rain hit, but the storm was too fast for me.
Thirteen miles to Holton in a 60 MPH wind and 4.5 inch/30 min rain–my Focus never hydroplaned once.
Interesting how nickel-sized hail doesn’t really count as hail anymore, LOL. I love Kansas roads–65 MPH in this mess? Can’t do that in Nebraska…
NE/KS border–glorious mamma clouds–the anvil from a DITOR storm near Lincoln and a hailer south of Omaha. Mamma are supposed to be a sign of a severe storm, but I’ve seen them in snow showers! The TCU on the horizon are from another line that got to Omaha around midnight–nice light show driving back home.
“A hot and windy August afternoon
Has the trees in constant motion
With a flash of silver leaves
As they’re rocking in the breeze”
–Neil Peart’s lyrics, RUSH, “The Analog Kid”
August? Are you smoking crack? I don’t know if this was a rilly late spring or an early fall…
Since everyone else was either busting on marginal setups all week, or like me, staying home, I kept looking for reasons to downplay the Moderate Risk that SPC had issued for Thursday. However, I had made arrangements to get off work at 3PM, with an eye toward Atlantic, IA. Previous days’ MDTs had kept getting scooted farther away from Omaha as each afternoon passed, and I was just sure that Thursday’s target of Atlantic would turn into Des Moines or Mason City…
The 1630Z SWODY1 came out, still no change. Stormtrack.org ‘s regulars were downplaying the dynamics, and SPC’s Mesoscale Discussion indeed…moved it north…and pooh-poohed the TOR chance. So, I went to a meeting at 3PM. At 425PM, I was planning on going home—but by 430PM I was out the door, babe!
Two things: SPC coughed up a Red Box from the KS border NE to Wisconsin, and Mike H. pointed out a cumulus field west of Neb City and a small yellow blip on OAX radar! Within minutes, that yellow had turned into a SVR for Neb City, and guess where I was going…
456PM, backsheared and backbuilding:
I was still 20 miles from this thing, in broad daylight, but I could still see the lightning!
Got to the outlet mall in Neb City in time to get hit by a hot NW wind—60MPH for three minutes, 80 for one, followed by dead calm. At the time, I had no idea what it portended; I didn’t think it was RFD because the sky still wasn’t clearing. Must have been, though—as events would bear out…
Headed east on NE-2, was going to go as far as the truck stops on I-29 before reconnoitering. The river bottom afforded a great view off to the south; I could see a ton of lightning and a lowering. At this moment I also felt that it was still winding up. Just needed official sanction, which I got as soon as hit the truck stops, DITOR for Fremont County, IA! Rotation north of Hamburg—that’s my wall cloud! Kept east on IA-2, with the wall cloud just a mile south of the road, close enough to touch…but I was heading into the bluffs, and I had to worry about the visibility and the fact that this might head northeast and cross IA-2. I needed to keep an eye on the trees—so far, all the debris was still heading south, LOL…
Stopped at the intersection of IA-2, US-275 and CR-46, the wall cloud finally put down a funnel halfway down that lasted a second. Between the intersection and Riverton, I saw this:
Not soon after, I was on gravel west of Riverton and finally saw ground circulation for a second—not long enough to photograph it. Called it in to Fremont 911, and that was the last call I made as I lost cell coverage. Kept heading generally east, got to Riverton and it was OMFG time:
Notice in some of the pics the second wall cloud off to the SSE. This was the one that produced the TOR that hit Coin and College Springs. The first wall cloud got absorbed into the general morass of clouds, but I had to check both sides of the road as I kept going east.
Took unmarked county roads until I got to County J-52, occasional funnels but too much rain and way too much lightning to justify the risk/reward to me—and my cameras!
Got to Coin, and this wall cloud got serious. Right on top of the road. Stills don’t do this justice—the wall cloud was rotating at least 60MPH for at least an hour:
(you can see the multiple-vortex ground circulation, in between raindrops…)
Never saw the damage near College Springs. The wall cloud got more diffuse after that, I actually lost my bearings and drove through it as a result. Made it to US-59 before the rotation…This was never in any danger of becoming a F5 or anything, but if the initial development had been 20 mi west and 5 mi north, Neb City would have gotten whacked something fierce. The Arbor Day City would have been the Sapling City…
So, after an epic month of May, it was time to come back to earth and adjust the hose-to-bust ratio to something more realistic!
I had gone to work that Saturday morning, upon leaving Bellevue at noon I was greeted by a squall line and a Red Box already, for crying out loud! There had been a DITOR at the comma-head south of Fremont, which I wasn’t buying (and never verified). I punched the middle of the line–sure, that was born to lose but I did it anyhow…
Back home, checking the SPC outlooks. Saw a cell pop up SW of Crete, which was an easy chase…I-80 to US-77, get south of Lincoln and reconnoiter. Felt sorry for the poor sods in Wilber and Hallam, I’m sure they were getting sick of all the attention!
Got to the corner of US-77 and NE-33, started crabbing SW. This storm was DITOR’ed, here’s the inflow:
Here’s the wall cloud:
Tried to rationalize some rotation out of this, but I’m not that impressionable…a lowering, at least, with a state-of-the-art weather station in the foreground:
The wall cloud getting shoved ahead of the storm:
Ran into Mike Peregrine in the middle of 1×1 gravel roads, he was as disgusted as I was. I decided to get back onto the pavement before this storm turned the gravel into mud.
Back on US-77, if I were optimistic I’d say this was a dry punch into the back of the wall cloud, but I wasn’t and it wasn’t:
Project ROTATE had one of their DOW’s out (look just above the time-stamp):
(This means that even the professionals busted today!)
Being so close to Lincoln and on a weekend, there were a ton of yahoos acting like idiots, blocking roads, parking in the road just past blind crests. If the Hallam F-4 had shown up on this day, there would have been about fifty Darwin Award winners.
Here came the hail. Ma Nature getting payback for my successes! It wasn’t gorilla hail, more like chimpanzee hail, LOL…Golfball hail dimpled my car—upside to this is that the laminar flow would improve my gas mileage! I blasted east on a county road to Hickman, where I found a gas station canopy. My idea was to wait out the hail core, then drag race back to US-77. Was a little too late on the front end of that transaction (and a little too early on the back end)!
Back on US-77, about 30 cars were trailing the DOW truck south, (after all, if the researchers know where they’re going…?) Sheetmetal from two weeks ago was still stuck in fences along the highway. All sorts of clown chasers, leeches and ricers musta been hella chagrined when the DOW truck pulled into a Beatrice gas station and called it a day!
ADDENDUM TYPE THANG–13 June:
Next day, wifey and kids went with me to Kansas City for a RUSH concert (my sixth, wifey’s fifth, kids first!). I’m watching the kids swimming at the Fairfield Inn while keeping an eye on TWC. And I’ll be damned if there’s not an isolated right-mover crossing I-80 near Greenwood, cutting across Cass County—spitting out a wedge within 15 miles of my house! That would have been so easy to nail…
Damon Hynes, Cyclone Ranger 