Kiowa CO wallcloud!!

streaming now on TVN!

Big day in northeast CO!

Yesterday Eric, Joe and I chased down three waves of storms that went absolutely insane over the temperature boundary that setup early in the day along hw86 from Kiowa to Limon, CO. The first two waves intensified from crisp towers to monster mesos in just a few radar scans across the boundary.

Today the upper level trough pulls out into the plains in earnest causing lee cyclogenesis and a good fetch of 50s dewpoints into the ne corner of the state. Will be picking up Eric and 9am and Joe at 10 and then heading up I76 to an intial target of Big Springs, NE

Equipment:

• Dash and Cab cam live streaming at TornadoVideos.Net
• Scarecrow - up
• WW3 - up
• FM Blade 400 - up
• FM Trex 600 - down, motor arrived but no time to install.
  

SPC:

FORECAST PROFILES
SUGGEST SUPERCELLS WILL EASILY DEVELOP WITHIN STRONGLY SHEARED
ENVIRONMENT CHARACTERIZED BY SBCAPE VALUES ON THE ORDER OF 1500
J/KG.  IT APPEARS SCATTERED SUPERCELLS WILL EVOLVE BY MID-LATE
AFTERNOON THEN SPREAD/DEVELOP EWD INTO SWRN NEB WHERE LOW LEVEL
SHEAR WILL BE MAXIMIZED.  LARGE HAIL SHOULD ACCOMPANY MOST STORMS
THROUGH EARLY EVENING...AND WHERE DEW POINTS CAN HOLD IN THE 50S
THERE APPEARS TO BE A REASONABLE THREAT FOR AT LEAST A FEW
   TORNADOES.

Tornado risk from Denver to Cheyenne today!

Denver is included in the 5% tornado risk this morning! Looking out from my house this morning the plains are completely fogged over with sunny blue skies above. 50Tds and 50Kt flow above will set the stage for supercells and possibly tornadoes as early as noon today!

I will be picking up Eric from Lafayette at 10am and then meeting Joe Pohlen at I76 and Brighton at 11:00am and then we will be sitting in the target.

Chase season 2009 roars back to life today!

Equipment:

• Dash and Cab cam up at tornadovideos.net
• Scarecrow - up
• WW3 - up
• FM TRex 600 - down, motor coming today or tomorrow
  

SPC: IT APPEARS THUNDERSTORMS WILL EVOLVE OFF THE
HIGHER TERRAIN OF SERN WY AND THE FRONT RANGE OF CO FAIRLY
EARLY...POSSIBLY BY 18-20Z.  THIS ACTIVITY WILL THEN SPREAD SEWD
WITHIN A MODERATELY SHEARED ENVIRONMENT SUPPORTIVE OF DEEP STORM
ROTATION.  SUPERCELLS APPEAR LIKELY AND WITH SELY LOW LEVEL FLOW AND
RELATIVELY LOW CLOUD BASES...ISOLATED TORNADOES CAN BE EXPECTED.

DEN/BOU NWS:
SCATTERED THUNDERSTORMS WILL DEVELOP IN AND NEAR THE MOUNTAINS THIS
AFTERNOON AND SPREAD EAST ACROSS THE PLAINS DURING THE LATE
AFTERNOON AND EVENING. THERE IS ENOUGH INSTABILITY AND WIND SHEAR
TODAY TO ALLOW SOME OF THE STORMS TO BECOME SEVERE. THE MAIN THREAT
TODAY IS LARGE HAIL...BUT DAMAGING WINDS AND ISOLATED TORNADOES ARE
ALSO POSSIBLE. THERE IS SOME THREAT OF SEVERE WEATHER IN ALL AREAS
FROM THE FRONT RANGE FOOTHILLS EASTWARD...BUT THE THREAT APPEARS TO
BE GREATEST FROM WELD AND MORGAN COUNTIES SOUTH TO THE LIMON AREA
DURING THE LATE AFTERNOON AND EARLY EVENING HOURS. THE THREAT FOR
TORNADOES WILL INCREASE ON THE PLAINS DURING THE EARLY EVENING AS
LOW LEVEL WINDS INCREASE.

High plains chase-fest in June coming up!

The GFS has been hinting at a pattern change for a week and now that we are within the range of the NAM model it looks more and more like it's going to happen. Storm season will turn around from the worst chase May in 20 years to a decent June that could bring us a week of chase days with southwesterly trough flow all the way out to the middle of June.

The 0z NAM tonight shows the trough overspreading into eastern CO atop 60 Tds and capes to 2000 with a strong cell breaking out over Limon, CO.

Thurs - Sunday looks like constant chase days in the CO/KS/NE/WY areas with a short break on Monday and then Armagedon resumes on Tuesday!

2009-06-01 Report

Put the new Subie into action today on a 5% downgraded to 2% tornado risk that turned out to be not a bad chase with lots of explosive storms! Headed up to the Ogalala, NE area and had some fun on the back roads of the Sand Hills near Arthur where I chatted with Michael to the south and got a little pea-size hail and a funnel back near Ogallala (extra credit for spelling that Ogallala town!).

Storms were explosive and with deviant motions from the near 4000 capes and barely any cap or steering winds. Michael ended up down in the middle of Armagedeon northwest of Hill City where tornado warned storms were rooting on boundaries and moving all directions!

I ended up at home by 9pm and look forward to Thurs - Sunday for the first REAL trough to come into the plains since the last week of April!

My new chase vehicle!

Introducing my new chase vehicle for 2009 and going forward! A new 2009 Obsidian Black Pearl 2009 Subaru Outback! With gas on the rise and the 1999 Red Subie dead and the Ford Expedition approaching 200,000 miles - it was time to go ahead and bite the bullet and get a new chase vehicle. I could not be happier with the setup. My video bar fits across the front dash holding my streaming cams. A new PVC pipe laptop mount above the automatic transmission stick holds my laptop nicely. All equipment is installed and ready to go. Let's go June - bring in some tornadoes!!

Classic severe weather setup returns to the plains!

After a month of May that saw less than 200 tornadoes when it typically produces over 400 the plains may finally get a real trough and dryline setup once again. The GFS has been trying to break down the blocking pattern that has been setup since mid-May for weeks now but this time it looks like it may actually happen.

June 4 and beyond looks like a return of chasing tornadoes to the plains. Crossing my fingers!

Storm season is on hold for awhile

Vortex 2 is parked in Hays, KS doing laundry. Discovery Channel Storm Chasers teams have all gone home. I am back at work and doing chores around the house and flying my helicopters for fun. This friday is the 1 year anniversary of the Windsor, CO tornado and things could not be more quiet.

While not a 'death ridge', this pattern of zonal flow far up into Canada will kill things off well into June. We may get a few upslope days along the front range but that will be it. I was to do some helicopter video for DC this week but that looks unlikely until some sort of severe weather gets the teams back out into the plains.

I feel very lucky to have chased April and already gotten a respectible 11 tornadoes including our most intense close encounter on April 26th in Roger Mills county, OK.

So for now storm season is on hold until June rolls around and/or a western trough appears.

Herington Kansas supercell!

in a tornado watch now live streaming on tvn!

Tornadoes possible today in central Kansas!

Michael and I will be heading out east today in what has been a dreadful May pattern so far. The zonal flow that has setup across the plains yeilding only scraps to chasers that find the sweet spot between the capped instability to the south and overcrossing 5oomb flow to the north.

Today looks like the pick of the next couple weeks acording to the GFS model along the cold front in central KS. I'm liking the CF - dryline intersection and points east for a target today. Dodge City to Gread Bend KS looks pretty good for a start.

After today I may only be out to do Helicopter video for the Discovery Channel Storm Chasers show. I am tentatively to start next weds or thurs depending on conditions.

We are still waiting for that big bowling ball trough to come into the plains and give us chasers what May is best known for!

Equipment:

• Dash, Cab and new Windspeed cam - up
• WW3 - up
• Scarecrow - up

2009-04-29 Report

Gustnado #1 00:33z

Landspout #1 00:44z

Landspout #2 00:45z

Gustnado #2 00:45z - Rated EF1, apparently it hit a dairy farm injuring one person and killing 100 cattle. Details >> HERE <<

Gustnado #2 00:45z

Got off work at lunch and shot out to Burlington, CO where I thought there was an outside chance of a landspout. The Jim Reed foot chase day of last year was in my mind. I liked the forecast capes on the RUC up into the surface low.

With Michael nowcasting for me I jumped on the rapidly developing cells around Leoti, KS and almost called it a day when the cell near Garden City looked like it was worth a check.

On arriving from the west side I was greeted with marbles, then golfballs and then a few near baseball hailstones and 4" drifting! I positioned myself out of the hail and on the southeast side of the meso and saw my first dusty spinup out on the forward RFD push.

While following this gustnado I observed off to the west a nice laminar landspout with translucent tube fully connected to the ground. Out from this spout a small gustnado spun out rapidly ahead of it.

Continuing south out ahead of the meso an RFD push again turned into the huge dusty gustnado that Michael posted in the NOW thread. This weakend a bit and spun out more little gustnadoes. I decided to drive right through the dying large gustnado and got sprayed by straw and dirt!

The cell splitting and mergers or lack of mergers after that were something I can't wait to review on radar!

Michael did an analysis of the setup HERE

TORNADO ON THE GROUND

My dad has seen four tornadoes already and is still chasing the tornadic supercell south of Garden City Kans.





My dad scored major today a lone supercell that produced multiple tornadoes. The whole thing was live streamed.

Michael Carlson

Bigger than golfball hail!

Garden City, KS hail drifts to 4 inches too!

Hamilton county, KS

Chasing this severe warned storm. Tornado watch issued. Live stream on TVN.

Would like to in AMA today - but eastern CO will have to do!

Had I planned a little better I would be down in AMA for the 5000 cape and 10% tornado risk. Instead I'll be trying my luck at the secondary target on the nose of the moisture plume around Burlington, CO today.

Live Streaming above and at TVN!

Equipment:

• Dash and Cabcam - up
• Scarecrow - up
• WW3 - up
  

2009-04-26 Report

A high risk of severe weather was issued by the SPC this day.

A rarely seen 30% hatched risk for tornadoes plus most of the central plains under PDS tornado watches!

5000 Capes forecast by the RUC by 4pm CDT!



Tornado #1 21:29z west of Roll, OK on hw33 - funnel forms and touches down just to our southeast.

It tears up trees and throws sheet metal in the air.

Two cows can be seen standing to the lower right of the ground swirl. Shortly before this I saw the tornado rip a 30 foot high tree into the air and it completely disappeared before my eyes!

I punch the accelerator and floor it back east barely staying in front of it as it passes within 5o feet of the rear of our car. Dirt, rain and grass are blasting against Eric's side of the car and his face as he films!

I swing the car around as Eric films the tornado pass just behind us.





Tornado #2 21:41z south of Arnett, OK on hw283 Reed Timmer is just ahead of us coming up the hill from the Canadian river as the new stronger tornado passes just ahead of us. The RFD winds were howling from the west here!

Tornado seems to pause for a bit in the valley to our east as it climbs the hill. Unfortunately at least one house is hit. A mobile home apparently. There were no known injuries with either of these tornadoes thankfully.

The tornado is on the ground for 15 maybe 20 minutes.

A long lived stout cone that might rate as EF3 maybe low end EF 4 at it's strongest. Damage surveys will tell.

The entire meso exposes itself for a bit and we can see how powerful this tornado is!


You have to see this video!!