Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Chaselog June 7th, 2009

Chased with Chris White. Our target was Holton, KS and with the long drive ahead of us we headed out a little after 8:00 am. On the way down we decided to just stay a little farther north and changed our target to Hiawatha, KS which was about a half our shorter drive. Ended up being a good decision as two storms fired just to our west. We went after the northern storm first as it looked best on radar and went TOR warned about 20 minutes later. We setup to watch the storm about 4 miles northwest of Dawson, NE along highway 4. Watched the storm for about 20-30 minutes. We didnt have the best view of the storm since we were watching it from the northeast, but we were still able to see the wall cloud. After about 30 minutes the TOR warning was dropped and the storm started to look like crap on radar so we decided to jump southeast to try to intercept the storm heading in to Missouri. By this time there was a constant stream of chase vehicles going the exact same direction we were headed. Imagine the movie Twister but times about 100. It was a fucking circus out there. But anyways, we continue east, and lose data. Not sure what happened but my phone didnt want to recognize that my computer was trying to tether it. Stupid technology. So we try to intercept the storm without data and with visual aids only. We pass Tony Perkins and his partners in Oregon, MO. They were there looking at the very large hail that had fallen. We stop to say hi and measure some of our own stones. Biggest we measured was between 2.75"-3.00" but there were reports up to 4.25" and someone at ST even said that they measured 5.25". All I can say is I'm glad we didnt get stuck in that core. The rest of the day was spent playing catchup trying to get in front of the storm but unfortunately we were never able to. We ended up just west of Maysville, MO watching the backside of the storm. I got some video of what I'm thinking is an updraft but I honestly have no idea what it is, but whatever it is, it is rotating. Just down the road from us at this point was the DOW, and numerous Vortex 2 trucks. After this we head east as I35 is just a couple miles from us, we stop to get some sunset pics and then head on home. It made me feel a little better after not getting a whole lot since nobody else really got much. Still some powerful storms but it didnt seem like anyone was able to see the storms very well. But it wasn't a complete waste, got to see the TIV in Oregon, MO, the DOW in Marysville, MO, numerous V2 vehicles, and numerous V2 probes near Oregon, MO plus chasing for the first time in Missouri, something I figured wouldnt happen unless there was a 30% hatched tornado risk. Pics below.

Wall cloud to our southwest on the northern storm:





Storm to our southeast:

Updraft on the dying storm we were just on:

Looking east at the TOR warned storm. We are just west of Maysville, MO at this point, time is somewhere around 8:15 pm. I'm not sure what this is, I have a timelapse video that shows it obviously rotating.

Sunset before we head home:

3 comments:

Timothy Burr; northlandweatherblog.com said...

Very nice pics Dean. I was watching the coverage on TWC Sunday Evening on the supercell that went thru Northwest Missouri. That supercell had a monster hook on it for a while. Still waiting for some action here in Minnesota..lol, ummmmm anytime now would be nice..

Midwestchaser said...

Thanks. It was frustrating playing catchup with that storm. I'm waiting for a setup up here, I'm so tired of driving 1000 miles to get a storm.

Unknown said...

Well, I did 8 states in 4 days...I feel your pain