Christmas Snow

BUST

Only fitting on a day after a great chase. We sat in western Iowa along I-80 for a couple of hours this afternoon before dropping down into the town of Atlantic, IA to get some Mexican food, a beer or two, and a room for the night at Turkey Creek Lodge. One last chase day tomorrow in the same region before we head back to Norman and back to work.

REPORT: June 5, 2009 Goshen Co. Wyoming

My dad and I watched the entire life cycle of the Goshen Co. WY supercell and tornado yesterday afternoon. Incredible chase for sure, here's a brief summary.

Chasing into Wyoming for the 2nd time in my career.


We got bored waiting for the cap to break and did some sight seeing in Pine Bluffs, WY.


Dad point to the wall cloud saying 'that's where its going to be'


Sure enough, not long after, a few funnels came down and then the main tornado dropped.


We enjoyed watching tornadogenesis from a distance but I had to move up the road for a closer view. The tornado became partially rainwrapped but we still managed some shots.




We continued north where the weakening rain-wrapped tornado crossed the road near the north of us. It emerged out of the rain again while roping out giving us some great shots.




I'll get some video up sometime next week once we get back from our chase-marathon.

Tornado in WY

Got on a great tornado earlier near LaGrange, WY. I'll get some pics and vid stills up ASAP.

Heading Towards Wyoming

This afternoon's chase will take us to ne CO, se WY, sw NE region. Currently on the way to Pine Bluffs, WY. Looks like a better threat for some nice supercells in that area today.

REPORT: June 4, 2009 Elbert County CO

Update from the Front Range

We're on a couple of severe warned storms west of Limon, CO. Got some nice shots of Pikes Peak as well as some structure shots. Heading towards Limon currently on a SVR storm.

Back on I-70 towards Colorado

Was doing some tests on the blog earlier with the cell phone but not having great luck with posting pictures to the site via phone. Back to the chase today, we're back on I-70 near Hays currently and will head for a initial target between I-76 and I-70 just east of Denver. We might be a little late but hopefully storms may stay a bit more isolated with better shear finally making its way back to the plains today and throughout the next week or so.

REPORT: June 2, 2009 TX

We ended the first half of our chase trip yesterday in western TX chasing a couple of SVR/TOR warned storms along an old outflow boundary. I think the boundary moved too far south of the better vertical shear therefore causing the storms to become quite HP in nature and fail to produce any tornadoes. Here's a short video of some of the highlights:


The second half of the chase vacation will start tomorrow and last through the weekend. Hopefully this leg of the trip will offer more tornadic potential. Check back for more updates and reports from the road.

Chase Trip Update

We chased around north central KS yesterday evening getting on a few severe warned storms early that had a decent look and even some rotation before quickly lining out and becoming a mass of crap. Stayed overnight in Newton, KS and now we are on our way south and will get to OKC then head west along I-40 towards the TX/OK border. Not much high hopes for today but maybe we can catch a surprise in the TX panhandle.

REPORT: May 31, 2009 South Dakota

We got on a few severe warned storms in se SD yesterday. The first was an isolated cell near Lake Franics Case just to the north of Platte. Seen here is a shot of the high based storm growing.


We continued to stay on it for a while and it had a small lowering that was reported as a 'wall cloud'. Not sure about how accurate that was though. Here is a shot.


We decided to bail on that storm as it became a bit more outflowish and decided to target the tail end of a severe line north of I-90 near Huron. Driving up on the storm near Mitchell the updraft was fairly impressive and the storm became tornado warned displaying some decent rotation and and intereting lowering back in the rain. We were trying to get into better postion so no pics were taken but I might get a video still up later. The storm quickly became outflow dominant and we decided to just call it a day and headed towards Sioux City, IA to get some sleep.

This morning we are targeting the nearly stationary frontal boundary in southern NE. Currently on the road driving towards Lincoln, NE or somewhere near there. More later...

Update from Plankinton, SD

We're currently watching the first cumulus clouds of the day on I-90 near Plankinton, SD. Got to see some South Dakota countryside and went by Lake Andes earlier. We expect to see at least some isolated high-based storms within the next few hours.

Good morning from Cedat Bluff, IA

Woke up at the Motel 6 in Cedar Bluff, IA this morning and now we are hitting the road. Initial targets this morning are north central NE to south central SD. We'll make it up to Sioux City Iowa and then decide to go west into NE or continue to I-90 in SD. More later from the road...

On the Road

My dad and I are currently on the road heading towards Omaha, NE where we'll stay the night. Tomorrow holds a few different options but I have a feeling we'll end up in South Dakota near the cold front. Things look hopeful for at least a supercell or two early on in initiation before a larger complex forms.

Upcoming Chases

Tomorrow I'll be heading north to get into position to chase on Sunday and Monday. Looks like a stay in Omaha, NE on Saturday night then north (Sioux Falls?) for Sunday's chase. Monday will be somewhere in IA/NE/KS along a stationary front and hopefully another chase day will come on Tuesday in the southern plains along the cold front or dryline before returning home to Norman that night. I'll be updating daily with forecasts and reports.

REPORT: May 26, 2009 north TX

Brandon McClung and I chased around the Fort Worth area and got on some marginal, but photogenic, supercells that produced some 2" hail and strong winds.

Along I-20 on the west side of Fort Worth. People taking cover from ~1" hail.


Some 2" hail scattered along the road south of Decatur, TX.


Structure shots north of Decatur.


Some chase opportunities seem to be on the horizon going into early June. A possible chase marathon coming up soon for me.

May 15th Video from near Pampa, TX

May 15th was one of my favorite chase days so far this year. A slow moving tornadic supercell tracked across the northeast TX panhandle displaying beautiful structure and dropping numerous EF0-EF2 tornadoes.

(Many sections of the video were highly contrasted to view some of the tornadoes)


A few marginal chase days may be coming up on Monday and Tuesday of this week. Not sure if I'll be chasing yet as it will likely be day-to-day decisions.

May 13th Videos Up

From my birthday chase on the 13th.

-Landspout near Fay, OK-


-Close call in Anadarko, OK-

REPORT: May 15, 2009 TX panhandle

Awesome chase day! We were on the Roberts/Gray Co. TX cell for most all of its life. Initially got a good view on HWY 60 southwest of Miami where a nice meso was cranking. Viewed a brief tornado off to the west a few miles with a high based funnel and associated ground circulation. Moved southwest and watched a rapidly rotating wall cloud produce another short lived elephant trunk type tornado somewhere just east of Hoover. Rain began wrapping around the meso and obscuring the view but another funnel/possible tornado was seen somehwere near 60 south of Hoover. I was only shooting with the video camera when the tornadoes touched down so I'll get some vid grabs up later. Here are some of the structure shots I took though.



Some video grabs of the brief tornadoes. I'll hopefully get some video up from 5/13 and 5/15 chases here soon.

Chase Plans for Today

We are currently on the way to Woodward for an initial stop then will decide on what to do from there. Marginal shear today will be the problem with keeping storms discrete for long.

REPORT: May 13, 2009

SHORT: Nice birthday chase. Got on a brief landspout west of Watonga. Well defined funnel with intense ground circulation. Saw some good structure and then came into Anadarko during the tornado/macroburst watching multiple power flashes and had to take cover on the west side of town while sitting through insane winds! Widespread major damage in town. Took us forever to get through town because of downed trees, powerlines, sheet metal, roofs, and just about everything else. A few pic of the landspout funnel and associated ground circulation...



Preliminary ratings from OUN:
Landpout - TORNADO - DEWEY COUNTY OK - 1E FAY 700PM-702PM THIS BRIEF TORNADO WAS OBSERVED BY STORM CHASERS AND REMAINED OVER AN OPEN FIELD. THE PRELIMINARY RATING IS EF0.
Anadarko - TORNADO - CADDO COUNTY - NEAR GRACEMONT TO ANADARKO 922PM-940PM THIS TORNADO LIKELY DEVELOPED NEAR GRACEMONT AND MOVED SOUTH ALONG AND JUST EAST OF HIGHWAY 8. THE MOST SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE WAS NOTED ALONG COUNTRY CLUB ROAD IN ANADARKO WHERE SEVERAL HOMES HAD SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE. THE PRELIMINARY RATING FOR THIS TORNADO IS EF2...ALTHOUGH THIS IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE PENDING FURTHER REVIEW OF DATA. MOST OF THE DAMAGE IN ANADARKO WAS LIKELY THE RESULT OF STRAIGHT LINE WINDS ASSOCIATED WITH A LARGE REAR FLANK DOWNDRAFT

Stuff

Currently I'm working on finishing the setup for my new car. Will finally get my Verizon internet setup and WxWorx working here soon for the remainder of the season. With finals next week, I will be somewhat limited to when/where I can chase but it doesn't look like I'll miss much. There is a possible setup on Tuesday 12th that I will probably end up chasing but the pattern looks somewhat quite and not conducive for an large outbreaks in the next week or so.

REPORT: May 5, 2009 northwest TX

Another decent setup on the 5th led us down to an initial target of Throckmorton, TX. A dryline was forecast to mix east to near ABI and points south with a slowly retreating warm front setting up in north TX. The cap held strong and we sat in Throckmorton getting a nice sun burn. A few Cu started to bubble just south of there and Brandon McClung and I started to ease south towards Albany, TX. An initial storm went up between Albany and Breckenridge but quickly died. However this first attempt was enough to weaken the cap sufficiently for a second storm to fire back west of Breckenridge a half hour later or so. We made our way underneath this storm just east of Breckenridge where it quickly became severe warned producing quarter sized hail. A rotating wall cloud quickly came into our view before rain wrapped around the back side and the storm began its southward movement. We retreated east with plans of going south but our road options sucked due to a bridge being out on the best south option. We continued east even more and finally dropped south beating the storm to Strawn, TX where it produced baseball hail. Our view from the I-20 south of Strawn was great with impressive shots of the updraft....


A nice wall cloud was located just to our northeast as well. It had decent broad rotation but could never tighten up enough for tornadogenesis.

We followed the storm south of I-20 a few miles where multiple occlusions occurred with strong RFD's cutting around the back of the storm killing any decent shot at a tornado. We let the storm pass and got in behind it to shot some late evening structure.

Overall, it was another good May chase in Texas. I got to meet some chasers from Saskatchewan, Canada along with fellow Oklahoma chaser Michael Ratliff.

Another North Texas Chase Today

We're heading south again to a starting target of Wichita Falls, TX. Many factors with the retreating warm front, convection currently over Oklahoma, and strength of cap will play into the target area decision so I'd just rather get down there and see how things play out. More Later....

Past Weeks Videos Up

April 26, 2009


April 29, 2009


May 1, 2009

REPORT: May 1, 2009 Gorilla Hail

We chased northwest Texas yesterday with the high hopes of seeing some monster hail and weren't let down. Racing south out of Seymour, TX a supercell had started to develop in Knox County just to our west-southwest. This storm quickly became tornadic dropping a small tornado before we could get to it. We stopped south and west of Munday, TX to observe a well-defined meso. The storm was a prolific lightning producer and I tried to get a few daytime strikes and managed to get one faint return stroke.

This storm continued its strange storm motion to the south (and at time moving to the ssw) and we followed it along ending up near south of Rule, TX. We viewed what was possibly a rain-wrapped tornado near somewhere near Rule but cannot confirm this. Following the storm to Highway 6, we decided to ease north just a bit to see if we could find a swath of larger hail. Most were around quarter to golf ball sized but we ran a across a few baseballs as well.

We continued to search for larger stones when I spotted a monster laying in the grass. Golfball were still being chunked out of this storm but I couldn't resist jumping out there after this one.


We continued to follow this storm to near Stamford where we viewed some intense motion and RFD picking up dust.

A brief tornado may have occurred with this feature but we could not confirm it. We bailed of of this storm and headed to one north of Throckmorton, TX only to find it also dissipating. Ended the chase at Chili's in Wichita Falls with other from OUN and seeing some fellow Colorado chasers.

REPORT: April 29, 2009 TX panhandle Tornadoes

I started the day off near Ralls, TX (just east of Lubbock) watching early convection fire along an old outflow boundary to the south of there. A couple of severe warned storms were ongoing early but I had my main focus on more leftover outflow boundaries in the Plainview to Childress area. Before long, a few towers started to erupt on another boundary in my target area and I intercepted a few of them in the Floydada area. We were in between two nice rotating supercells near Whiteflat, TX when I noticed the one to my west about 10-15 miles quickly producing a large barrel tornado.


It slowly transitioned into a tall, dusty looking stovepipe with more intense circulation just near the ground.


Quickly changing over to a stovepipe cruising through the windfarm before it got wrapped in rain and roped out.


The crazy late April week of chasing may continue today with a marginal setup in the southern plains. I'll be looking for and outflow boundary or just playing the slow moving cold front in central Oklahoma somewhere. Things may once again fire off a front tomorrow in Oklahoma before it crashes south for the weekend.

Storm Chances this Week, Website Stuff

We went ahead and called off today's chase in southwest TX / eastern NM. Hopefully it was the right decision and plus I have a lot of stuff back here in Norman I need to take care of. That said, there are multiple chase opportunities coming up this week. Wednesday presents a nice dryline stretching from western KS back south into the TX panhandle. Morning cloud cover/precip may make this a difficult forecast though. Thursday and Friday will be centered around a slow moving cold front in the southern plains.

Sunday's chase in western Oklahoma was a great success for us and other chasers who were on that particular storm. Other than that the high risk for tornadoes across much of Oklahoma was a bust. I'll have video up hopefully within the next week or so of that event.

Went ahead and said goodbye to capturethestorm.com. I'll be instead sticking with the blog and posting videos to youtube (both are free). Visit both sites frequently as I'll update here very frequently since my original site is no longer around.
http://www.youtube.com/user/capturethestorm

Western Oklahoma Tornadoes April 26, 2009

Just a few quick video grabs of the nice tornadoes Cassie, Brandon McClung, and I intercepted yesterday.

A small rope tornado touches down north of Roll, OK.


Rope tornado rotates around new tornadic circulation.


Beginning of next larger tornado.


It grows as we race towards it.


More shots of nice tornado ripping across the countryside.