I figure writing an entry about storm chasing and its associated risks/dangers would be appropriate, considering the activity that happened in NE/SD on Friday. Many people feel they can simply jump into a car and go after storms. Well, there is much more to that than they think. Those people, often referred to as "yahoos", do not realize just how dangerous this hobby can be. Not only do you have to deal with rapidly changing weather, you also have to deal with issues like other chasers, wildlife, terrain, fatigue, poor road networks, and potential vehicle break-downs. Let me explain.
Friday, May 31, 2013, was the last chase day for the Tour 4 group. We had had a very busy and successful six chase days, but we were still missing the nice “cherry on top” tornado. We were in Ardmore, OK, and the outlook for severe weather and tornadoes looked pretty darn good later in the day, not too far away.
This Baca County supercell had been in progress for four hours at least, but it had not produced a tornado in the previous two-and-one-half hours. Low-level rotation in the updraft base continued quite hard. I knew that the cell might indeed produce another tornado, but I certainly was not expecting one.
Crazy, crazy, crazy chase period from May 22 to May 24! I saw five tornadoes on the 22nd in NW KS, two on the 23rd in SW KS, and then ten or more in NC OK on the 24th. On the 24th we picked up the Tour 3 folks in OKC, got on the road northbound at 1 p.m., and were on the prolific tornadic storm in Garfield County (east of Enid) in one hour.
A classic, large negatively tilted upper-level trough was progged to move into West Texas by late in the day today. I wanted to focus on the area just south of the Texas Panhandle where I expected better instability and more discrete, right-moving storms. My morning target was Plainview, updated to Tulia by early afternoon. A steady steam of information was delivered to me via cell phone by William Reid to keep me on track.
I never really thought that I would see a storm like I saw on Tuesday evening. Ever.
On Tuesday, June 24, I watched the same storm produce tornado after tornado after tornado for more than an hour, with two or more tornadoes on the ground at the same time, THREE different times! It was simply unbelievable.
Dean Cosgrove and I caught the Happy, TX, tornado for the Tempest Tours folks on early Sunday evening, May 5.
Like many other chasers, I was not exactly confident in my "target area" for Sunday, even into early afternoon. I liked the southeast Texas Panhandle, somewhere in the Amarillo-Childress-Shamrock vicinity.
Becoming a storm chaser was the natural course for someone fascinated by severe weather and tornadoes since childhood. My interest in storms developed during that time as a result of many days spent viewing dark, ominous Texas skies, and nights spent awake watching vivid lightning from the window of my room while thunder, hail and howling winds combined in a cacophony of incredible noise that shook our home.
