Chaselog 5/20/09 North Central, Nebraska

So, where to begin? Headed out with Andy Gabrielson of Severestudios.com and Findthetornado.com. First off, MAAAD props to Andy for how well he handled the backass hillbilly slick narrow mud "dirt roads" that the Nebraska DOT for whatever reason feels the need to call "roads." I know for a fact if I had been driving we would've ended up in a ditch atleast a couple dozen times. So, thanks Andy for handling those roads like champ (and doing the majority of the driving)!! Alright, left my house at 9:00 am to get down to Andy's place in southwest Minnesota. Got down there around 1:00 pm, jumped in his car, headed west on I90 towards Plankinton, SD. We dinked around for a while driving through some corn fields Twister style. Headed south towards O'Neil, NE where we saw some turkey neck towers starting to go up (again, props to Andy for seeing them through the haze). Nearly hit the only car in the south central part of SD on a dirt road on the indian reservation. The towers tried about 5 times before they actually broke the cap and got above 20,000 ft. We got on the storm closest to us around Atchison, Nebraska and got a rotating updraft that was on the northeast side of the storm. Thanks to Brad Nelson at F5chaser.com it makes a little more sense about why the updraft was where it was. We watched the updraft for about 6 minutes, then headed east to try to reposition as the storm started to move. There must've been some boundary or stronger cap just to the east of us that killed every storm that hit it the entire night. Bailed on the first storm and headed south towards the O'Neil area as more storms were firing and we could see inflow nortches on the reflectivity. To make a very long and frustrating story short, thanks to the horrible road networks in north central Nebraska, we barely got any views of these storms. Twisting, winding, dead end dirt roads+hills=no view. We did get one quick view of a wall cloud that was near North Platte, NE that had some danglies under it but being so far away and hills in between there was no way we could tell what was happening. We continued to head towards the storm but it was getting dark and the storms were falling apart. Started heading home between 9:30 and 10:00. Headed towards Grand Island, NE in hope of finding some food but nothing worth eating was open, so we continued east on I80 towards Omaha hoping to find something good to eat. Nope, we kept going towards Sioux City, IA on I29 and finally gave in and got some McDonald's. Got back to Andy's around 5:00 am just as the sun started rising. I kept going on I90 to make it home, got home just before 10:00 am, then slept for 21 straight hours. All in all I'd say it was worth it. If we could've gotten just a little more moisture I'm sure we would've seen a tornado (or noodle as Andy would say). But we got some nice structure. Keep in mind this is the short version after we left the first storm. If you want to hear our adventures on the dirt roads in Nebraska, leave a comment. But I figure I better not get in to it since we have enough to write a fricken book. Stats: 1374 miles, 27 straight hours up, 25 of that in the car, saw the sunrise 2 days in a row, got ZERO sleep in between, no watch ever issued, but still some cool storms. Pics:


Turkey neck towers start going up:



















Towers looking better:


Towers looking more crisp:


Rotating updraft:












Storm starts dying as they hit some sort of boundary and so does the updraft, all in less than 10 minutes:



Cropped picture of the wall cloud near North Platte, NE. View is from about 12 miles away and you can see the annoying hills we had to deal with.



Click here for a time lapse of the rotating updraft!!

Chase forecast/update from the road

Left my house at 9:15 to head down towards Luverne, MN to meet up with Andy Gabrielson. Current plan is to head towards the Butte, NE area hoping for some elevated sups. The hope is starting to fade though with the new model runs, the arrowhead is starting to look better than Nebraska. But we're going to hold out hope, heading west on I90 towards the Lake Andes,SD/Butte, NE area, may try to head a bit further west but we will see. Nothing like a 1000 mile drive to a 2% TOR risk. If we get a severe storm I'll be happy, if not I wont be. Winds were a fricken pain in the ass getting down to Luverne, blowing my car all over the place. May update later once we stop otherwise I will post a recap tomorrow. May end up sleeping in the car tonight, either that or get home at 4 or 5am.

WTF is going on at Stormtrack?

Anyone else noticed the increased tension over at Stormtrack this week? For whatever reason people are being extremely anal about everything, and it only got worse with the many close tornado encounters yesterday in Missouri and Oklahoma. And to think this is happening in the heart of chase season, can you imagine what it's going to be like during the offseason?!?! We better hope for a December tornado outbreak, otherwise we going to have the Chaser Massacre of '09. I mean holy shit, I cant believe people are so uptight about some of these things. I understand people being pissed off about the infamous "Camaro Chaser" (the moron who videotaped himself driving 115 mph, and I hope you see this you SOB, you deserve the ridicule you are getting you fucking dipshit!) but even still we cant change what happened, Darwinism will take care of it, we dont need a 20 page thread going back and forth. Debate is good, but at some point (roughly after 4-5 pages) you're just beating a dead horse. The sad thing is is that we went through the exact same thing last year, and I am making a prediction right now, we will be having the EXACT SAME ISSUE AT THIS TIME NEXT YEAR. Mark my words, except the threads will be 40 pages long because John Q. Public saw another "chaser" do the same thing but this time we was killed while trying to get within a few yards of an EF5. But we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. I guess I dont really know what the point of this post was, except people need to lighten up. There is so much more going on this part of the year for us chasers than getting in to a 200 post bitch fest about Vortex 2, a couple of dumbasses who got too close to a tornado, or just dumb random arguments that are going on at ST right now. Come on people, just chase and dont care what other people are doing. Karma's a bitch, but its necessary. This was a really disorganized post but its just incredibly annoying seeing this crap go on.

Is it winter yet?

I mean damn, see as how Minnesota isn't going to have a storm season, it mine as well be winter so I can snowboard and play some pond hockey, it'd be a hell of a lot more fun that sitting here watching the GFS and waiting for something to finally show up. Hell, if we were lucky we might even get a snowstorm which again would be more entertaining than our current "storm" season. But maybe it's for the better for me that it's not active yet, it makes me focus a little more on the end of the year for school (kind of). But it'd still be nice to see SOMETHING that didn't completely vanish on the next run. So... given that we have had no storms its given me a lot of time to think about random stuff...The thing I've thought about the most is the Lutsen trip I went on with some friends back in January and thinking about how much I'm looking forward to next year. Ugghh, I want to be back up there. And with no storms, it mine as well be winter so that I have something to keep me busy. I do have a little hope, the 228 hour on the GFS shows some 80's creeping in to Minnesota (however without a cold front crashing through). Hoping to make it down to Kansas with Rich this season, looks like sometime around the 20th things might finally get a little more active as right now I dont see much anywhere between now and about the 20th. Lets hope something actually pans out, I'm so tired of driving a hundred or two miles to see rain and a little lightning just to patch my SDS a tiny bit. Anyways, suppose I should go study for my business final I have at 8:00 in the morning and try to get some sleep. I think Tuesday will be the first day in over week I haven't had to wake up to do something. Its gonna feel GOOOOD...Pointless post on my blog...DEAL WITH IT

You don't see this too often

The only thing more rare than a PDS TOR watch is a PDS Severe Thunderstorm Watch, especially two at the same time for the same squall line. The weirdest part is that these were issued for a slight risk, not even a moderate risk. Intense squall line ongoing in Kansas and Oklahoma. Its not a huge line, but it will be crazy where it does hit. Bet there is a nice shelf on it! The watch text and a couple radar grabs below:



PDS Severe Thundestorm Watch 266:

THE NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER HAS ISSUED A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH FOR PORTIONS OF NORTHERN ARKANSAS SOUTHEAST KANSAS SOUTHERN MISSOURI NORTHEAST OKLAHOMA EFFECTIVE THIS FRIDAY MORNING FROM 455 AM UNTIL NOON CDT.

...THIS IS A PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION...

EXTREMELY DAMAGING THUNDERSTORM WIND GUSTS TO 80 MPH...LARGE HAIL TO 2 INCHES IN DIAMETER...AND DANGEROUS LIGHTNING ARE POSSIBLE IN THESE AREAS

DISCUSSION...A LARGE CLUSTER OF INTENSE CONVECTION OVER SOUTHEAST KS WILL LIKELY ORGANIZE INTO A BOW ECHO THIS MORNING AND RACE EAST-SOUTHEASTWARD ACROSS SOUTHWEST MO/NORTHEAST OK/NORTHWEST AR. HIGH INSTABILITY AND RATHER STRONG WESTERLY FLOW ALOFT SUGGEST THAT A CORRIDOR OF SIGNIFICANT DAMAGING WINDS IS POSSIBLE THROUGH THE MID MORNING. LARGE HAIL WILL ALSO REMAIN POSSIBLE IN THE STRONGEST STORMS.



PDS Severe Thunderstorm Watch 264:

THE NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER HAS ISSUED A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH FOR PORTIONS OF

A LARGE PART OF KANSAS NORTHERN OKLAHOMA EFFECTIVE THIS FRIDAY MORNING FROM 1205 AM UNTIL 800 AM CDT.

...THIS IS A PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION...

EXTREMELY DAMAGING THUNDERSTORM WIND GUSTS TO 80 MPH...LARGE HAIL TO 3 INCHES IN DIAMETER...AND DANGEROUS LIGHTNING ARE POSSIBLE IN THESE AREAS.

DISCUSSION...TSTMS/SUPERCELLS EXPECTED TO FORM IN THE NEXT 1-2 HOURS IN WAA AREA ALONG SRN FRINGE OF UPR DISTURBANCE AMPLIFYING ESE ACROSS THE CNTRL HI PLNS. COMBINATION OF INCREASINGLY RICH MOIST INFLOW...DEEP EML...AND SEASONABLY STRONG/LARGELY UNIDIRECTIONAL WLY MID/UPR LVL FLOW SHOULD SUPPORT RAPID STORM INTENSIFICATION ONCE CELLS FORM. ALTHOUGH A RISK FOR ISOLD TORNADOES WILL EXIST DURING EARLY STAGES OF STORM DEVELOPMENT...SFC-BASED CIN AND LIKELIHOOD FOR NUMEROUS STORM INTERACTIONS ONCE ACTIVITY DEVELOPS SUGGEST THAT MAIN SVR THREAT EARLY-ON WILL BE VERY LARGE HAIL. SIZABLE DCAPE SHOULD FOSTER SUBSEQUENT EVOLUTION INTO A FORWARD-PROPGATING MCS...WITH FAIRLY WIDESPREAD DMGG WIND/HAIL



Base Velocity from Tulsa:















Radar from Tulsa:

LMFAO

So, I was sitting on the internet just a little while ago bored, thinking of what to look up. For some reason the past couple of days I've been thinking about the old days when I used to go a million different weather forums (I only go to 3 or 4 now) and remembered when I used to go to Storm2K.com. I get on to the site and try to start looking around only to find out that guests only have privilage to view a couple areaso of the forum. I really wanted to see some of my old posts since that was about the time I first started chasing and using weather forums, and I hadn't been on there for about 2 years. So, sitting there trying to remember my user name and password. What do you know? I get them both right on the first try. Surprisingly I had over 350 posts before I deserted the site. I read some of my posts, particularily my chaselogs from 2006. LOL, good stuff. All I can say is I think I have learned A LOT about communicating via weather forums since then. Some of my posts were pretty ridiculous. It was weird for me to be back on there since I hadn't logged in since May 2007. Long story short, there were some fucking morons there who had control/power issues, but that's for another time. Anyways, just thought it was interesting to be back on there for the first time in such a long time and see some of my really old posts.