A delightfully fun chase with an isolated supercell on the dryline NW of Ogallala. We chased this storm through Arthur, Keith, and Perkins counties, staying just ahead of (most times), the hail core, that was dropping quarter sized hail. One funnel and a short-lived gustnado later, we were treated to a gorgeous sunset mammatus show and one of the best light shows for a long time. What a treat!
Target SE Nebraska. Left Valentine early and were rewarded with quite the show. We sat on the front and the low developed with isolated supercells firing. Beautiful! NE of Nelson, NE, right after 5 pm, we got ourselves a brief tornado that formed right in front of us. Whoa! I’ve never been close enough to hear one before. What a treat – especially when it wasn’t strong enough to do much or in a populated area. We played with these storms and with strong gustnadoes (debris flying), beautiful mammatus, and ran into TWC’s Mike Bettes at a gas station in Hebron, NE where he was taping for the Great Tornado Chase 2012. 
Finally! Back at it. Has it really been 10 years? Well, this is a first for me – no Ian this year. All work and no play for him. Decided to head up to Valentine, NE to play with some storms in the Sand Hills and then in the Badlands of ND the next day. A nice start for coming back.
Yesterday, we saw a very low contrast tornado at Guthrie, OK. The sky was filled with haze, the storms were amazingly difficult to deal with due to the energy in the system and the cell mergers, and we refused to try to chase in the Oklahoma City urban area due to traffic issues, although we started the day in Oklahoma City. Chasing in urban areas is almost as bad as chasing in the trees and hills of Missouri, Arkansas, etc. Therefore, we are heading home. We have seen tornadoes four days in a row. A record for us. It has been an active season and we are tired. A good kind of tired but tired nonetheless.
People keep asking me why I chase storms. Days like yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that….are the answer. The sky is alive with raw power. Nothing else matters but the energy. In my profession, there are conference workshops dedicated to learning how to “be in the moment” and “mindfulness.” Storms are elemental, a part of the soul of humankind that requires no learning. Being in the moment is essential to stormchasing if one wishes to truly understand this elemental part of nature, stay safe, and experience the energy of these beasts. Standing in wind that threatens to whip my shirt off my body, driving through rain that falls harder and harder and faster and faster, hearing the first dings of hail and knowing that bigger and dangerous hail is just behind, knowing that there are tornadoes wrapped in rain that no one can see until they destroy, or seeing columns of twisting air rotating from a cloud to the ground with dirt and debris coloring it to make it visible…this is the power of energy that mother nature produces and that I experience while chasing. It is real and these beasts speak to me in a way that other things don’t. That’s why I chase.
Yes, we were chasing the storm that hit Joplin, MO. We veered off of it a few miles from Jopin when any tornado that developed would be rain wrapped and very dangerous to chase. The storm was a beast and kept evolving and expanding. The beast that hit Joplin ate 3 more cells as it grew. We have seen from the field that cell mergers appear to contribute to tornadogenesis, and Ian has done a bit of research and found some articles on this topic.
We were sitting on top of a hill watching beautiful storm structure when we turned on the radio and learned about what happened to Joplin. Speechless, with tears in our eyes, we could only say our prayers and look in awe at the power of mother nature. We talked about whether we could help in any way but none of us is a qualified first responder and we knew that the chasers in our community who are would respond generously, as they did.
We carried on the chase with mixed emotions, knowing that we couldn’t change what mother nature brings to us. Many ask why did this happen and why are there more deaths this year? It’s an active year – La Nina is one reason. And, for all of the unpopulated and sparsely populated land in tornado alley (and what they have now coined dixie alley), storms and tornadoes don’t determine their paths by whether structures and people are in front of them. It’s probability. The vast majority of the time, tornadoes hit noting but fields and many go unreported unless someone happens to see it. Sometimes, it hits a town. Like in Alabama, Joplin was under a tornado warning for quite some time. In this end of the world, there is a bit of a “it won’t happen here” mentality, which we hear all the time.
Yesterday, while watching storms develop on a dirt road and looking at some holes in the ground (armadillo dens?), an elderly man stopped to check that we were ok. I told him that we were watching the storms and he said, “You know what I do when those bad storms come? I go to bed and say my prayers.”
Many people don’t have tornado shelters. A tornado as strong as the one that hit Joplin requires a basement or a reinforced storm shelter to be really safe. Most important – it requires that someone actually be in one of these. A few years back, we met a woman who showed us her storm shelter. It was filled with junk. She was using it as either as extra storage or a junk bin. We were watching a storm that could produce a tornado right where she was. I hope that she decided to clean out here shelter.
We went on to see a beautiful tornado just on the other side of a lake in Bernice, OK and a beautiful sunset.
We were lucky to come out of this day alive! Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration but it was fast, furious, and wild. In Nebraska, headed north to Lake McConaughy to watch a storm cross the lake…but it didn’t. However, saw a lot of whitecaps on the lake. The wind was howling. Headed further north on Rt. 61/92 trying to stay ahead of the storms, which were moving at 60ish mph. We stayed on Rt. 92 at Arthur, heading east. Before reaching Rt. 97, we got ahead of one of the north tracking fast moving storms and captured a brief tornado on camera while almost being blown away by 70mph winds. Shirts were being held on by hand. The tornado was near Tryon, NE and we were looking NW.
We continued east on 92 through hail and suddenly, out of nowhere, a fast moving shed roof passed in front of our eyes. This thing was close! Debris. At that point, we decided to head on to Oconto to let the storm roll over us and ended up sitting under the whale’s mouth. What a day.
brief tornado
60-70 mph winds sustained!
whale’ mouth
Fist “real” chase of the chasecation (translation – intended chase), we targeted just northwest of Scotts Bluff and found ourselves on a lonely (no other chasers in sight after passing Vortex 2 at the turnoff) and beautiful dirt road with a gorgeous tornado warned storm just NW of us that produced a couple of very brief tornadoes in Goshen Co, WY. A delightful way to start with a bonus sunset.
