Yes, ideally you need to chase the set-up, not the season. A good season may only have 2 or 3 good set-ups and these can occur anytime from March to June. Hence book your travel 48hrs before the chase.Short notice, more expensive but you get a quality set up.
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Filmed a Rope / Stovepipe tornado on the ground for 19 mins today. My location 10 miles SE of Wall with the tornado being 20 miles to my SSE – there were no roads to get closer – Cell then became HP with a neat shelf etc.
Going to push myself hard tonight to stop in Sioux falls as I don’t know if I will be in Iowa or Kansas tomorrow!
This solo chasing is a blast and I defiantly do this again next year. Trouble is that it is costing me a fortune.
Chase Report: June 7th 2007
Started the day in Sioux Falls, SD for a much anticipated high risk day. Two targets were apparent – the high risk area (obusaly ) and South East Kansas, North East Oklahoma – given that I have NEVER seen a tornado in Oklahoma and the area looked to be well capped until after dark I picked the high risk area.
Driving towards Albert Lee I saw towers going up over the frontal boundary – I hung back a while to see how they would develop – but they didn’t as they were all lining out due to the VERY high winds speeds aloft.
I took the decision to cut across the line so that I would be able to see any Tornadic circulations that may occur. A keep peek at the radar told me that there was a weakness in the line so off I went. The core became VERY intense – so much so that I was forced to drive at no more than 10 mph as the rain was so bad. After 10 mins of this slow progress I noticed that my internet connection was off and that my radar was not updating – no problems just reconnect. Once the radar had reloaded I had a “Oh my God†moment – the cell to the south was in fact racing North at 50 mph and I was in fact right in the middle of the very care – only small hail was falling so I decided to plod on. The wind then shifted a full 180 degrees and was blowing hard from the North and the rain started to atomise… then it started blowing hard from the South and the small hail returned. I plotted an immediate route out – which was south. Once back into the rain free air I stopped and loaded up a radar loop – sure enough I had just driven through a low level mesocyclone which is a precursor to Tornadic formation.
I spent the next hour staying ahead of the line – watching couplet after couplet wiz by me to the North at approx 50 – 70 mph – unchaseable and uncatchable.
I decided to give up there and then on the day but I noticed a broken line segment to my South West with a Supercell on Southern end that had rotation – Again I punched through the line with no drama and portioned my self so that I could look down the Southern couplet. As I creasted the hill I was confronted with what looked like a Wedge tornado right in front of me – I stopped to shoot some video and I am convinced that this was properly a large wedge funnel cloud – perhaps in contact with the ground but my view of the ground was blocked by trees so I can’t confirm this as a tornado – video does show strong and violent rotation however. This funnel / tornado occluded and a new funnel started to form – this time is was a cone that reached half way to the ground.
NWS at Quad city phoned me (got my cell number via Spotternetwork.org) and asked me to confirm visually the wedge tornado – I was unable to do so as I could not see the base.
The funnel that I saw before come rain wrapped was reported as a tornado 7 miles to my NNE.
Call off the chase and am spending the night in Cedar fall before relocation to Denver Colorado (775 miles) ready for another few gang buster days of chasing starting Early next week
see photos in this thread:just saw Stu's funnel receding to cloud base S.Dakota. Awsome wall cloud
photo's. Got slammed by hail and strong winds as we tried to get out ahead
of precip as the core started spreading. Another tornado dropped just behind
us apparently as we hacked east.
Flew on down to original target zone in Neb where a perfect line of
supercells developed and dropped a tornado on tail end Charle near Broken
Bow. But we missed that part.Mamma to die for!!!!
Yesterday, great day SE Kansas. Stood and watched 1st cell fire on dry line.
Perfect positioning. Slow evolution toook it into dark hours. Got some of
the best cell top photo's ever. Got rotation overhead but decided to call
off after dark. Cell produced TN an hour later. TN warning over hotel around
11pm Caffyville.
Brief as I am shattered – again no pictures as they are all on the camera and on video – will have to wait fro my return to the UK on the 24th
Started day in North Platte, Nebraska – targeted Western Oklahoma
Filmed large horizontal funnel for 10 mins West of Ashland, KS
Core punched new cell that formed South of Ashland – had to drive on the pavement to avoid flooding in town – then had to stop east of town as strong meso rotation passed just 200 yards to my East. Roger filmed a stovepipe tornado ( 1 minute) East of Ashland – I missed it as I was west of the meso in the core!!
Then punched the Fairview Tornadic storm – but missed the three tornadoes L - got very wet !!!
Stopped in Okeene, OK as tornado sirens flooded the town
Dropped south to I40 for overnight stop in Weatherford – more cores formed and so had to drive through them again.
Another great days chasing chalked up! – 2007 is deff. my best case year EVER in terms of tornados seen and just really great high octane chase days.
--More of the same tomorrow in SW Oklahoma.
Rich Hamel (driver van3) posted the following to the SLT forum (I was driving Van 2 today)
The following sums up a GREAT days chasing
Day 4:
Wow!!! What a long, exciting chase day. Probably the most difficult chase driving I've done though. We started in North Platte with a target of Woodward, OK, so we had a long 240 miles drive just to get into position. As we drove down, we noticed an outflow boundary left over from yesterday's mosh-pit of convection and decided to play it, getting there just as it started to light up near Englewook, KS. We were soon posed with an unusual problem: We had 3 cells nearby, and all three of them looked great both visually and on radar! We started to head north with the idea of playing the east most storm when the storm right in front of us produced a funnel right in front of the vans. The white cigar shaped funnel didn't make it down, but the storm then produced a second long, horizontal funnel that eventually became sort of an aerial horseshoe. Everything near us was spinning like crazy all day, and this storm was no exception. We then decided to push on to Ashland and the storm to the east.
On the road to Ashland, we were somewhat cut off by the core and would have to punch it. Roger ordered vans 2 and 3 to wait while he went and sampled the core. As he and Steve headed off, we started to get hit by small hail, then we heard Roger screaming over the radio, "Big hail a mile in, turn around now!!". As this came over, we started getting hit by some bigger stuff, maybe a few quarter sized stones. While we waited for word from Roger, the storm had developed 2 meso-markers on GRLevel3, one which was now just north of the town, and one which was rapidly approaching the town. As Stu and I decided to start inching towards the town. Roger came over the radio again: "We're east of the town, get over here right now, this thing is going to tornado any second!" With that, we went plowing into the town, which was totally flooded. As we entered the town we were getting blasted by winds from the north. Suddenly, they stopped and the winds changed and blasted us from the south as we came into town. After I saw Stu's van hit about 1 foot of water, I noticed that the business to the side of the road all had elevated driveways, so I pulled off and zipped down them to get past the flood. Then, as we popped out of the rain, Roger came over the radio again "You guys be REAL careful, the meso is coming right over the town!". Immediately as the rain cleared we could see the meso straight in front of us over the road, forcing us to come to a screeching halt. We waited for a couple of minutes and blasted east with the meso spinning like crazy and producing funnels that made it about 1/2 way to the ground. Unfortunately it did not produce for us, but the first meso had produced a truncated cone tornado for Roger! Hopefully he'll post a shot of it here.
We were then posed with a tough decision between blowing north and taking the long way around the storm to get east of the enormous blob of storms now underway, or the short way through the core to the south. We chose the south option. After stopping in Buffalo, OK, we punched the core of the cell to our east, only to find we'd have to punch another core to get in front of what was now a beast of a storm near Fairview (which actually produced 2-3 tornadoes that we never got to see). The second core punch was wild: 70-80 mph winds, flooded roads, torrential rain, no visibility, and trees and debris in the road. The lightning was amazing, with repeated strikes within a mile or so of the vans, over and over again.
As we passed through the remnants of the cell in Orion, it spun up an impressive meso and for the 3rd time of the day we stopped as a meso right in front of us tried to get it's act together. I noted wrapping rain curtains below the meso, but never did see and debris on the ground. Finally we made it into Fairview, but the storm to the north had finally given up and we decided to head south and call it a day.... we thought!
As we entered O'Keene, we realized we were going to get cored by a new storm coming into town with reported ping pong ball hail, so we decided to hole up the vans and wait in a local convenience store. As we gathered, the tornado sirens went off (we knew there wasn't really a threat for tornadoes), and the locals started getting ready to head for the shelter of a concrete store room. There were a few tense moments but eventually we realized that the cell had missed us to the north and we decided to head south to the hotel, unfortunately there was a monster core in our path, and after briefly considering driving through it, we started getting hailed on and were forced to run for it, finding an east bound paved road to try and escape but again we ate part of the core with blinding rain and once again an incredible amount of nearby lightning strikes, the kind where they are so close that the bolt and thunder are near simultaneous. On the several cores we punched, that was a consistent theme, very, very electrified.
We finally escaped east and then headed south through Kingfisher and into El Reno. Problem: The storms were not done with us yet and we had to pass through the lines of big cores AGAIN on the way to the hotel. Same story, blinding rain, heavy wind, and crazed lightning. The storms are still going on as I type here in Weatherford (ironic name).
What a long adrenaline filled day! 3 hours of fast driving to get to the target area, then almost 8 hours of non-stop chasing! 644 miles for a total of Some pictures below, more when have time to make some video stills:
Yea that would be pretty much about right. The local chasers can obviously read the conditions and what the storms are going to do to better put themselves in the right position. But then I dont think the last season is anything they are raving about, thats why there is always next year!!tgsnoopy wrote: Did you guys get close to any good twisters? I kind of got the impression you were always close, but not quite in the right place.
