I have many friends in the chaser community....many of whom are avid photographers who are as passionate about photography as they are about storm chasing. I love seeing their work in fact I think their photography is on par with Mike Hollingshead's photography to be honest. You would think they would be the talk of social media with what they share to the public, but the reality is they're either "under the radar" or seen as a misfit so consequentially their work doesn't get the accolades it truly deserves.
For them a good photo receives 15 to 20 likes while a well known photographer taking a similar or a slightly worse photo (or one that simply looks like shit) easily gets 100 likes. What I've noticed as of late is a few of my friends feeling discouraged about a hobby they love because to them getting little or no feedback in return sends the message that their photos suck or simply no one gives a shit. It reminds me of my struggle with shooting video....I know my videos are on par with other chasers you see on television but because I have no desire to be a "chaser celebrity" other than having my videos sold to news agencies and production companies (at the right price) I'm an afterthought and I know my photography friends feel the same way.
Of course if you're using a social media outlet like Facebook for exposure you're not going to go far because of how Facebook is set up to stomp on the little man with their business like platform. The number of likes dictate how good a post is and if it doesn't get likes immediately it disappears from your friends' news feed and because many of them are too fucking lazy to check out profile pages (hey, I'm that way too) they miss out on good posts at times and it makes the person making said post feel ignored (there is no worst feeling than being ignored IMO). You pretty much have to be in good company with someone popular (that's right a clique) to get exposure.
My observation of what I've seen is simple....a picture just isn't as good as the person behind the camera taking the picture and it's a shame. I've seen attempts by other people to give the little man a moment to
shine with photography groups and photo contests only to get taken over by the
elitist crowd and their fans.
I've seen my friends air their grievance over this matter....the responses they got vary from don't give up to who cares what other people think hell I've even seen some blow back from people who view their complaint as a cry for attention. It's obvious they do care what other people think otherwise they wouldn't post about it (like I said the worst feeling anyone can feel is being ignored). It is also easy to say don't give up, but if you keep trying and trying with the same result you're going to feel as though you wasted your time and eventually you throw in the towel. Quite frankly I hate to see that happen to my friends who invest their time and money on a hobby they love.
Travel Time: 30 minutes Result: Hail and Flash Flooding
Not much to say about this day really. We couldn't make it south for the tornadoes that occurred in North Texas so we hung around Norman in hopes for a small repeat of 2 days earlier. Unfortunately for us panicked drivers on I-35 ended our chase after a promising supercell moved into Norman dropping large hail that caused a traffic jam when drivers pulled over under several overpasses on the interstate blocking the road and preventing us from following the storm. Our supercell weakened after moving through Norman when it ingested junk storms to our south.
Our chase ended at the Robinson Street exit. Having nothing better to do we decided to go down south to Davis and check out the Arbuckle Mountains. Here are some photos I shot of Price Falls and Turner Falls. We stuck around long enough to make an attempt at capturing lightning from a squall line that was approaching the area but outside of that the trip back to Norman was uneventful.
Chasers Encountered: Bart Comstock, Ben Holcomb, Stephen Jones, Alec Scholten
Distance Traveled: Approximately 220 miles
Travel Time: 7 and a half hours
Result: multiple tornadoes, supercell structure, hail, hurricane force winds
This was a day mother nature welcomed me to Oklahoma with one of my best chases since I started in 2011. May 6 was on my radar for several days and it was one I really wanted to go chase, but there was one hurdle I had to clear before heading out and that was to find a chase partner. My original chase partner Christian Johnson was unable to go out that day and I didn't want to chase solo because I was unfamiliar with the road network in Oklahoma and Sprint doesn't have the best data coverage in the state (not to mention I suck at multitasking and I did not want to go through the pain of videoing and looking at my phone for radar updates and GPS while driving).
Christian was able to hook me up with a few of his chaser friends in the Norman area the night before and it seemed as though everything was all set for me. However on the morning of the chase I received a message from one of the chasers telling me that one of his chase partners who originally was going to sit out had a change of heart and decided to chase after all which consequently meant no room for me in their vehicle. Close to zero hour and I didn't think I would have been able to find another chase partner, which left me with three options....make a last ditch effort to find a chase partner by means of social media, go at it alone, or sit out completely with the hope something comes close to Norman for me to go after. I went with the first choice and posted up a message on Facebook and Stormtrack with the hope that someone would reply back. Within 20 minutes of posting my status I got a reply from Jon Stone who was planning to chase once he got off of work. We were in close agreement with our target areas (I targeted Woodward while Jon targeted Seling), but Jon was unable to get out of work until 4:00 which for all intents and purposes put us out of range of both of our target areas due to time constraints. It didn't matter though because I found a chase partner, and it was just a matter of waiting for him to get out of work so that we can hit the road.
While I was waiting on Jon I went to go grab lunch at Dickey's Barbecue Pit on 12th Ave SE in Norman. During that time frame I noticed a cell had popped up in SW Oklahoma north of Lawton. It was the only storm around the area but I didn't think anything significant would come out of it. Once I got home I checked the radar again to find that storm had been tornado warned and there were numerous reports of tornado sightings with it. It was heading northeast into a more favorable environment, I told Jon about it and he was able to get out of work an hour earlier than originally planned. I met up with him shortly after 3:00 and we immediately headed south dodging Norman traffic along the way.
We headed south on I-35 for about a mile before getting off on highway 9 at the Riverwind Casino exit. After going several miles on highway 9 we headed southwest on US highway 62 through Blanchard before that turned into US highway 277/highway 9 (we wanted to avoid taking I-44 because Jon did not have his Pikepass with him and we didn't want to waste time paying the toll on the turnpike). While all of this was going on the supercell that had a history of producing several tornadoes was entering Chickasha. By the time we got on the storm it was cycling. I did manage to get a shot of this wall cloud outside of town.
We observed broad areas of rotation in Chickasha with at least two areas of vertical motion. We stayed in Chickasha for about 15-20 minutes before we followed the storm as it was heading towards Amber.
We observed our first tornado of the day near the intersection of CS 2900 and CR 1290 ESE of Amber. As much as I hate to use the word "insane" to describe a rotating meso I can't think of another word to describe the intense rotation taking place before and after the tornado touched down. Jon told me he hasn't seen rotation like the one we saw since the El Reno tornado. It stayed on the ground for a minute or two before dissipating.
After trying to figure out how to stay with this storm we decided to continue on north on CS 2900 before turning east on CR 1280. We pulled off the road in an attempt to upload our videos to our broker Kendra Reed of KDR Media, while doing so we noticed another intense area of rotation almost on top of Jon's jeep. I spotted a funnel to the left of the rotation.
I saw another funnel down the road just as Jon was about to continue on eastward, this one did touch down briefly (tornado #2) as noted by the power flash and the brief spin up.
We continued east for a few miles before pulling over outside of the Lumen Energy Plant east of Amber to make another attempt at uploading our video to Kendra. Just as Jon was stopping his jeep tornado #3 touched down in a field about a mile or two away. This would be the most intense tornado we would see on this day. It was eventually given an EF3 rating on the Enhanced Fujita Scale after causing significant damage in Bridge Creek. It started out as a multi-vortex tornado with a broad circulation up to a half mile wide before growing to a mile wide wedge. It also spun up a short lived satellite rope tornado.
We observed the tornado wedging out on North 2920 Road when things got a little intense for us. We were getting blasted by inflow winds of at least 70 mph when we saw a roof from a house getting ripped apart by the inflow winds. We retreated back south and west through the heavy rain and high winds when we made an attempt to turn back around to catch up to this large tornado only to be greeted by a fallen tree on the road which prevented us from going any further. We had no choice but to back track which in turn cost us an opportunity to see the tornado go through Bridge Creek as well as missing out on the next tornado that touched down near Newcastle. This storm made a right turn which put Norman under the gun for what we thought at the time may have been a long track damaging tornado. OUN already had a tornado emergency out for Bridge Creek and Newcastle while we were desperately trying to catch back up with it (not going to lie, the thought of will I have an apartment to go home to after our chase did cross my mind).
We finally caught back up with the supercell outside of Norman. We kept hearing reports on the radio of a large tornado exiting Newcastle and entering the western sections of Norman. After negotiating through the traffic we jumped on Robinson Street to watch the storm move in. At this point the storm was HP and was cycling again when it entered the west side of Norman. From our location we saw the rotation getting more intense and brief tornado touched down to our south (check out my video Brief Tornado West of Norman on the YouTube videos I provided). After the tornado dissipated we headed east for a few miles when we saw a funnel cloud to our west near I-35. We then started seeing multiple power flashes around and underneath the funnel. Our 6th tornado of the day had touched down in the northern sections of Norman, we were about a mile away from it on 24th Ave NW watching transformers explode near the interstate and causing damage to the Norman Hotel and Norman Regional Medical Center.
We followed the storm into Moore where it eventually weakened, but our day wasn't over yet. Another supercell had fired up to southwest in an almost identical track as the first one. We proceeded southwest towards the new supercell. I captured this shot of the supercell somewhere between Newcastle and Blanchard.
We ended up going too far south and was too far east of it, so we jumped on the H.E. Bailey Norman Spur and headed northwest towards Bridge Creek. As we were heading northwest we encountered some of the damage that occurred from the earlier tornado we had to bail from. We stopped outside of Bridge Creek where we met up with Ben Holcomb. We chatted for a few minutes when suddenly a tornado touched down to our west southwest in the distance. In the suddenness of the touch down I forgot to hit record on my camcorder and missed getting video of it. Ben did capture the tornado on video, you can find his video of the tornado on his YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rx5nQf4KZAQ). Shortly after the tornado lifted Stephen Jones and Alec Scholten pulled up completing the chaser convergence that was going on at the time (I saw Hank Schyma pulled over next to us but he stayed in his car).
The storm continued northeast and wasn't showing signs of weakening, so we jumped back in Jon's jeep and headed north. While we were heading north I noticed what possibly might have been a tornado east of Tuttle.
The funnel looked like it was down to the ground, I think I saw power flashes underneath the funnel (could have been lightning as well), and OUN has a tornado on the LSR 4 miles ENE of Tuttle to 2 miles NE of Bridge Creek from 8:11 PM to 8:21 (close to our location and I believe the time on my video is a match).
After observing that maybenado the storm had closed in on us and we turned around to stay out of its path. But by that point it had made a right turn and the storm hit us head on. We were getting slammed with high winds (possibly RFD) and blinding rain as we headed back east on the turnpike towards Norman. Once we got back to Norman we called the chase, stopped at Jon's apartment to upload more video to Kendra, and to have a celebratory dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings.
I counted 7 possibly 8 tornadoes on this day which broke my record of most tornadoes seen in one day (previous record was 5 on April 14, 2012) and I even got a taste of national exposure when my Norman video of the power lines exploding was shown on Good Morning America. Needless to say after having to go through a tornado drought that lasted approximately 710 days I had made a triumphant return.
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and to a smaller degree Instagram are good ways to interact with new people and to make a friend or two along the way. It gives you an opportunity to let total strangers know exactly what kind of a person you are by posting up the goings on each day, opinions about important matters that are going in the world, and even posting up jokes, quotes from someone famous, and lame bible verses. Unfortunately there are people out there who go overboard by posting ridiculous garbage that has made the social media websites I mentioned into a social media wasteland.
Whether it's posting up minute by minute details of an individual's day including every bowel movement they've made, bashing President Obama every chance they get, or posting up nothing but pictures of their fucking cats I feel as though I'm walking into a landfill every time I log onto Facebook and for the most part I see nothing but garbage (not everyone I know is guilty of abusing Facebook in this manner but there are a few who do stand out). Then there's the occasional Facebook fights or "drama", although I will admit I enjoy seeing those because I find humor in adults acting like immature teenagers.
Does it bother me yes it does to a degree otherwise I would not be spending my Saturday typing up this blog entry, but people have every right to post up whatever they want to so I bite my tongue most of the time. And to be honest, posting this makes me a hypocrite because I'm guilty of posting up garbage statuses. However I try to keep my daily life short and sweet, I cut back on posting religious or political posts, and I'm not a crazy cat person so cat posts are a once in a blue moon deal for me.
Last year the trend in storm chasing was a bunch of wannabe chasers making police badges in order to add a bit of authority to the various dumbshit weather enthusiast groups they were apart of. This year the new trend is crowdfunding, or what I prefer to call online panhandling. Kickstarter, GoFundMe, IndieGoGo....no matter which site you use the idea is simple. Some noob comes up with either a sad story or try to sell their audience the idea that they are "doing research" or "saving lives." They find enough people to buy their horseshit story and cha ching....they get to chase as many setups as they want to without spending a dime out of their pockets (or their parents' pockets).
Disclaimer: as a preemptive strike I want to go on the record by saying I have no problem with people using crowdfunding as a way of helping themselves out if they have fallen on hard times (ie. medical hardships, crime victims, and those needing help paying their college tuition for one semester). I don't even have a problem with legit storm chasers starting a crowdfunding campaign for a project they are a part of (even though there is one in which one well known chaser is offering a 30 minute one on one chat on skype for whoever pledges $1,000 which I find to be absurd).
Now you're probably asking yourself right now "well Adam is okay with a few chasers doing a crowdfunding campaign, but why is he picking on other chasers who are crowdfunding?" Whenever I hear about a chaser quitting his job just so that he was able to have an "epic" 2014 season and then reality bites him in the ass by having no money and still no job, I have a hard time being sympathetic about his story. And then there was a campaign created by a kid in Mississippi playing the chase to save lives card. He has since withdrew his campaign after he got caught using video of a tornado from another chaser in his campaign vignette without the chaser's permission.
These two examples show to me a sense of entitlement (a trait I despise out of people). Now I love to chase, I love traveling to different parts of the country I have never been to before, I love meeting up with my chaser friends or meeting new chasers while I'm on the road. But I also love having a roof over my head, not going to bed every night hungry, and I love not receiving harassing phone calls from bill collectors. I'm not at a point in my life I can chase anywhere I want to for as long as I want to and still make ends meet. So consequently my chase season consists of 1 maybe 2 Dixie Alley outbreaks, a 2 week vacation on the Plains, and a surprise summer storm in my backyard. Now the point I'm getting at is I refuse to start up a crowdfunding campaign to fund my chase season. If I can't afford to chase a setup I stay home.
Just because I won't do it doesn't mean everyone else will follow suit. If you want to start panhandling people on the internet it is your right to do so. However be prepared for harsh criticism from your peers, and don't be surprised to see this trendy hashtag.....#GoFundYourself.
It's February 1st which means that the light at the end of a long, cold, and boring tunnel called winter is near. We have 27 more days until the start of the meteorological spring, and for some chasers (including myself) it will be the start of chase season.
I don't know if the season is going to be an active one or if it will be a repeat of 2014, but for this year I'm cautiously optimistic about getting out and chasing more and to accomplish my goal of documenting at least 10 tornadoes. I cannot be overconfident in my expectations because whenever I am overconfident Murphy's law strikes (it has already struck once two weeks ago when my brakes went out costing me $500 to replace the brake pads, rotors, calipers, and a wheel cylinder). As with every year since I started chasing in 2011 I've made a few changes whether it was adding or upgrading equipment or having new chase partners. This year is no exception.
New Equipment- I finally got a DSLR camera for photography. A Nikon D60 I bought from my good friend and chase partner Wes Carter. He has offered to sell me a 18-200mm lens to go with the camera that I plan on buying in the near future.
New Chase Partners- Technically they're not new since I did chase with them last year in Nebraska on June 3rd, but for this year I'll be teaming up with Christian Johnson, Jake Riley, and April Cullers for my yearly trip to the Great Plains for my chase vacation. Christian and Jake were Meteorology students at UT-Martin and have been chasing together in the Plains and Dixie Alley for several years. A former member of StormChaseTN Christian created SevereWXChasers in an effort to provide daily weather forecasts nationwide and live chase updates while out in the field (https://www.facebook.com/SevereWXChasers). April is a firefighter and paramedic out of Memphis, TN (a great person to have with us in the event we come across a town ravaged by a tornado while chasing). She has also been chasing for a few years on the Plains and Dixie Alley.
This will be my 5th year having KDRMedia handle the selling of whatever footage I get while I'm out chasing. Even though my footage has yet to sell Kendra Reed is the only person I trust in selling my video at a price that's fair for me (not a low ball figure just to have my video and my name tattooed on television screens across the country). I will be live streaming my chases again this year. You can find my live steam at either https://tvnweather.com/live or on my website http://borochaser.net/live-chasing-2/. Even though a good number of chasers I know have opted not to live stream their chases anymore I will (live streaming has gotten easier and less of a headache for me after switching from ChaserTV to TVN).
And there you go, my annual pre-chase season expectations that I highly doubt I'll get to accomplish. But I'm going to fucking try my best to achieve my goal. After all there's that saying from a famous storm chaser, "Never Stop......" you seriously thought I was going to say that annoying quote didn't you? :P~
It's New Years Eve which means time to do my year in review blog. This is going to be a short blog because outside of a few bright moments this year has been uneventful. I'm going to highlight some of the bad moments and some of the good moments (yes despite me bitching about how this year sucked I did have some good moments).
Bad Moments- This was the worst year for me in chasing. A combination of a slow season and bad timing financially resulted in only 5 chases with 3 of them in Tennessee. I had to postpone my yearly chasecation due to lack of severe weather activity at the time of my scheduled trip. I was also left empty handed in the tornado department despite coming close on April 28th and June 3rd. In early March the water pump went out in my car while I was on my way to Franklin to help Mira Lee and her girlfriend Akiko Numata move into their new apartment. The timing sucked because it happened one month before chase season got underway and I was stranded due to a mini winter storm that moved through Middle Tennessee making travel hazardous. Despite spending approximately $400 in towing and parts needed to replace the water pump I was reduced to chasing locally in my car. $400 in my chase fund spent to fix my car.
Good Moments- Despite no tornadoes June 3rd was a good moment for me this year. It was my first chase with new chase partners who are an awesome bunch of people (Christian Johnson, Jake Riley, April Cullers, and Jason Bernal), I added another state I chased in (Nebraska), and we convoyed with a pretty cool group of chasers (Steve Worthington, Stacy Valentine, Lisa Dimmitt, Jeromy Carter, and Aaron Gilliland). I did see multiple gustnadoes this day; in fact it was the first time I've ever seen gustnadoes on a chase. All in all a lot of funny moments came out of this chase. Some of which Steve has on video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AOePsF2dmY and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8intircsfjs). I got in touch with my oldest sister Ruth which was a special moment for me. She was the last sibling I was able to make contact with. It all culminated to an almost 4 hour skype chat in which we talked about our lives growing up as well as sharing some stories about my father who died when I was young and never had the opportunity to meet. It was a chat I wished that it didn't end and I'm hoping to make a trip to California to go visit her. I also knocked out a state I had never visited before when I made a trip to Indiana to attend The Indiana Storm Chasers Convention and a night of shenanigans with a bunch of noobs in Indianapolis. That night ended in noob poisoning but I had fun.
There you go, this year was full of ups and downs (as the title stated). I hope 2015 will be more on the upward side especially in chasing.
The Urban Dictionary defines a hater as a person that simply cannot be happy for another person's success. So
rather than be happy they make a point of exposing a flaw in that
person. Hating, the result of being a hater, is not exactly jealousy. The hater
doesn't really want to be the person he or she hates, rather the hater
wants to knock someone else down a notch.
Now this is what I've noticed on social media...people have paper thin skin. They cannot handle any criticism (no matter how constructive) from a friend or an acquaintance without feeling butthurt. All they want is positive feedback, and when they don't get it they either a) throw a bitch fit, b) throw in the towel and try their hand at something else that will bring them good feedback, or c) assemble an army of close friends to go after the individuals who dared to say "this sucks" or "you could do better." The most common phrases I hear when this type of drama goes on is "haters are going to hate" or "don't let that hater put you down, you're doing a fantastic job."
**Just a word of caution if you are offended by offensive language then
I wouldn't recommend reading the next part of the blog because this is a subject that
has me pissed off, and I've seen enough on social media over the past
several days to help fuel the venom I'm about to spew on this matter.**
Since when does offering up constructive criticism label you as a hater...are you fucking kidding me?!?!? That's what pisses me off about this hater horseshit, instead of listening to the criticism and the advice given afterwards the butthurt individual's inner-defense mechanism goes off and a fuck you contest ensues between the butthurt individual and his/her friends as well as the critic and his or her friends (throw in the occasional spectator with Michael Jackson eating popcorn memes). I get it people are assholes, but once in a while those assholes do
offer up good advice on how to improve whatever job or hobby it is
you're doing. And I also know that in the virtual world of social media people act like they're a bad ass with a dick as long as a yardstick when in the real world they're the biggest pussy you will ever meet.
Here's a word of advice for all the butthurt individuals out there who may stumble upon this blog.....man the fuck up. Stop taking shit personally and actually listen to or read the negative feedback that could help improve your skill at whatever it is you do that you are passionate about. This type of feedback is coming from people who share the same passion as you do and are 10 times better at it, and for the most part they see potential in you and they want you to succeed.
You may think I'm a dick with the way I wrote this blog, but hey sometimes you gotta bust somebody's balls in order to get the message across.
It's been over 5 months since I've done a blog....well nothing has gone on for me to write up a blog. I could always rant about the never ending chaser drama but if you heard it before you're not missing much it's same horseshit drama (pissing contests between chasers, photo thieves, one brand versus another, blah blah blah Rico Suave).
After what was an awesome 2013 chase season for me where I got to see my dream tornado with the Rozel, KS event I was ready for what I expected to be a dream chase season. I finally got a car and my drivers license, I decided to give live streaming another try switching from ChaserTV to TVNweather, and put back money for a two week vacation. Well mother nature and life in general had other plans.
The water pump on my car went out in March; I had to spend close to $400 on my car in total just to get it running again. More repairs need to be done in order for me to comfortably drive it out to the Plains so I was forced into having to buy a plane ticket for my trip. That ruined my plans for a two week vacation because I couldn't afford it. Then I had to scramble to find new chase partners for my trip because the chasers I previously chased with were unable to host me during my week and a half long trip.
As bad as those misfortunes were the absolute worst was the fact that this year sucks as far as tornadic activity goes. This year is rivaling 1994 as one of the quietest storm seasons on the Southern and Central Plains. You can literally count the number of tornadoes in the state of Oklahoma with one hand. As I'm writing this blog I should be on my way to Oklahoma City for the start of my 10 day vacation, but nothing good is in the forecast that is worth me taking the time off. This makes the second time in two weeks I had to postpone my trip and needless to say I am pissed off about it.
I'm not privileged like the other chasers who can chase any setup they want to. I have to work for a living, and since I'm a single man I have to fend for myself which financially doesn't give me a lot of leeway to chase every major outbreak that goes on especially with me living 12 hours away from Tornado Alley. I have to plan my trip far in advance storms or no storms....so having to postpone my trip twice due to the lack of decent tornado producing storms is frustrating and I'm going to fucking rant about it.
This year should make all the chasers who moaned and bitched about the last two chase seasons yet still saw tornadoes appreciate 2012, 2013, and 2014 (if they were lucky enough to score) more than they ever will publicly. It's almost the end of May and I have still yet to see a tornado this year. Nothing I can do about it other than to "quit my whining" and see if the month of June finally breaks through for the year.
Milestones For The Year- First time I saw tornadoes on consecutive days (5/18-19)
**Brief Synopsis**
Like 2012 the 2013 season was a quiet one. There was a local outbreak of tornadoes from a QLCS system that moved through Middle Tennessee on the morning of January 30th that resulted in 24 confirmed tornadoes in the mid-state. There were several events that did affect the South (Adairville, Georgia 1/30, Hattiesburg, Mississippi 2/10) but I couldn't chase any of them due to work. Due to the lack of activity in the South I opted to skip on Dixie Alley chasing for 2013 and gamble on my 10 day chase vacation in May....the gamble paid off.
At first I was worried that there wouldn't be much of an opportunity for me to chase due to the fact that the 2013 season got off to a slow start on the Plains. Outside of a small outbreak of relatively weak bird fart tornadoes on April 17th in Southwest Oklahoma and North Texas it was quiet all the way up to the middle of May (around the time I took my trip). I honestly wasn't looking too forward to making the trip until May 11th when I read a tweet from Scott McPartland that mentioned the possibility of an active severe weather pattern during my first weekend out. As the week leading up to my trip progressed I began to get more excited as it looked as though the season was starting to crank up just in time for my return to the Plains.
I teamed up with Shane Adams and Bridget Geaughan during my trip; I got to chase with them in 2011 after an invitation they sent me on The Debris Show. I had a great time with them and I wanted to go chasing with them again. They're good company to be around, and Shane's old school techniques are always a benefit in this era of storm chasing in which those with the latest technology tend to have the most success.
**May 18th**
My signature chase to date. It was a Moderate Risk day with a 10% hatched tornado probability. When we arrived in our target area which was Greensburg, KS the town was already overran by other chasers. While in Greensburg we ran into my friend and occasional chase partner Wes Carter who himself was on a little vacation from work to chase the weekend setup. He ended up joining us on the chase as storms began to fire up on the dryline. We focused in on a weak looking but isolated cell west of town while ignoring a messy looking tornadic cell near Hays and several high based severe cells near the OK/KS line. We jumped on highway 183 as the cell was moving northeastward staying almost parallel to it. It got larger and stronger becoming severe warned taking on a supercelluar look as we approached the town of Kinsley. After filming several mid level shear funnels in Kinsley we stopped between Rozel and Sanford to setup shop while witnessing our storm merge with another nearby storm. The merger helped kick the storm into overdrive as it finally began to tap into the low level jet and a little after 7:20 PM the storm we tracked for over two hours dropped the most beautiful tornado I have ever seen.
It was on the ground for approximately 35 minutes thankfully missing Rozel. After the Rozel tornado dissipated we saw another tornado outside of Sanford. It stayed on the ground for about 20 minutes; the rope out is among the best I've ever seen. Getting to see this tornado with Shane, Bridget, and Wes made it hands down my dream chase.
**May 19th**
Another moderate risk day this time with a 15% hatched tornado risk. Our original target was Southeast Kansas around Independence, but the storms that day opted to fired up west of I-35. Our lone tornado of the day formed over an hour later near the town of Viola. It lasted roughly a minute before dissipating.
Two more tornadoes touched down from the supercell but we had to give up
on it after it rapidly moved northeast cutting off our one road that
allowed us to keep up with it. The day went downhill from there as none of
the other storms we went after could produce anything before congealing
into one big squall line. A frustrating day as we had to let go of a tornado producing supercell while being too far away from the big tornado producers in East Central Oklahoma.
**May 20th**
As frustrating as May 19th was the 20th was even more frustrating. Our target was Southern Oklahoma around the Ardmore area; we made a stop in Norman for lunch early that afternoon. Storms began to fire after 2 PM and we proceeded south hoping to get in position of one of the many rapidly firing supercells that day. We ended up missing the tornadoes near Marlow and Duncan; adding insult to injury was the fact that if we stuck around Norman a little bit longer than we did we could have made a play on the Moore EF5.
**May 21**
We did make an attempt to chase this day as yet another moderate risk was issued for areas south and east of the Metroplex. The chase ended south of Fort Worth after a non severe line of storms moved through the area.
This ended up being my last chase for 2013 as things had quieted down outside of a local severe event in the Texas Panhandle. The rest of the trip was spent chilling at Shane and Bridget's apartment taking in a little RnR. Towards the end of my trip we went to Oklahoma to attend a storm chaser picnic in Piedmont hosted by Rocky Rascovich. Later on that night we hung out with Scott McPartland, Dave Lewsion, Mark Robinson, and Jaclyn Whittal from The Weather Network (Canada's Weather Channel) in Norman for a night of beer, food, and just shooting the shit over chasing and several other topics.
Although this year I saw the fewest tornadoes out of my past two years in chasing this season for me was all about quality over quantity (Rozel was definitely a quality tornado). In what was a quiet year going by the number of tornadoes that touched down I was lucky enough to strike gold on a few of the chases I was able to participate in.
**Personal Note**
As noted by the title of this blog this was a dark year in chasing. While there were beautiful photogenic tornadoes that did provide a ray of light to the chasers who were lucky enough to encounter them there were tornadoes that brought with it tragedy. Most notably the deaths of Tim Samaras, his son Paul, and Carl Young as a result of taking a direct hit by the 2.6 mile wide tornado that hit El Reno, Oklahoma on May 31st.
It's been over two months since my trip to the Plains that resulted in my signature tornado grab to date (Rozel, KS 5/18). Since I returned from my ten day chase vacation in North Texas I've gone back to my normal routine in between chases (work mostly although I have had time to unwind and party it up with my bosses and coworkers). During the little downtime I have had I've been busy getting everything together for a little project I'm looking forward to getting started on.
In the near future I'm going to get started on my creating my own little storm chasing website. Nothing too big just a website to share some of my weather photos I've accumulated over the past four years, chase logs, bio, and a live stream page (if I want to continue streaming) to name a few ideas off the top of my head. I planned on getting to work on my website in the next coming weeks however there's been a change of plans that has my money tied up for a little while, and quite frankly I don't mind the delay one bit.
I've been chasing for three years now, and those three years consisted of me riding either shotgun or in the backseat. I don't own a car nor do I have a driver's license (got a permit but was never able to get my license). Well my days of hitchhiking to a meso may be over soon; my friend and occasional chase partner Wes Carter is selling me his old chase vehicle. A 1996 Ford Taurus station wagon....I've rode in that car plenty of times in the past few years and I'm so excited he's offered to sell it to me. I'll have my own car which in turn will allow me to get my driver's license. I'll be able to chase on my own which is something I want to do.
I'll still chase with my chase partners every now and then (if they want me around), but for the most part I'll no longer have to chase around their schedule. Which hopefully will mean I'll get to chase more than the 3 or 4 times like I've been doing over the past two years. I'm also hoping my new found freedom will lead to more Rozels in 2014 and beyond.
Chase Partners: Shane Adams, Bridget Geaughan, Wes Carter
Chasers Encountered: Andrew Revering, Randy Denzer, Verne Carlson, Chris Rozoff
Travel Time: Approximately 9 hours
Miles Traveled: 371 miles
Result: 1 tornado, several wall clouds
Personally I felt like I was on top of the world with the tornadoes we grabbed the day before, and when you're on top there's only one direction you can go....this would be the best way to describe our chase on May 19th. We spent the night in Great Bend after our 5/18 chase; we left shortly after 10:30 AM and headed south on I-35 towards Wichita where we stopped for lunch. At the time our thinking was south and east of Wichita somewhere around the KS/OK line as a starting point (Shane even at one point thought about heading towards Missouri to start out); the updated SPC outlooks still had Eastern Kansas as the primary target for severe weather.
We left Wichita around 1:30 and continued southward; shortly after passing a toll booth on the Kansas Turnpike we noticed towers firing up to our west (this setup like the day before was an MCS type system where if you see a storm fire you need to jump on it and hope it doesn't turn linear quickly, but unlike 5/18 the storm motions were a little faster which made this day complicating and somewhat frustrating). We proceeded west for about 18 miles before heading north on highway 49 towards Conway Springs. At that point the storm became severe warned; we stopped north of town to film the storm as it quickly intensified to a supercell.
I noticed two areas of rotation at the base of this storm after grabbing a shot of this wall cloud. We couldn't picked a better spot to view this storm but because of the 40-45 mph movement we couldn't stick around very long (we also noticed a precipitation core to the southwest which gave us a clue that more storms were firing behind this one).
We watched the storm for a few more minutes before we headed north to stay with it; about 2-3 miles in Shane spotted a weak tornado that touched down to our northwest near the town of Viola. It only lasted about a minute but it was enough time for me to get video of it before it dissipated (My video of the tornado can be found at this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrwqyoZl2ys)
It was a great start to the day but unfortunately the lone highlight of the day in regards to seeing a tornado. This storm would produce two more tornadoes at it moved northeast towards the Wichita Metropolitan Area but we had to give up on it because more storms were rapidly firing to our south and we didn't want to get in a situation where we would be stuck on the northern fringe of the southern cells (especially with a large tornado threatening Wichita).
At that point the remainder of our chase in Kansas consisted of trying to get in position to view an HP storm that came up from Oklahoma. The photo below is one of the HP storms we saw near Arkansas City.
We then proceeded south into Oklahoma to make a play on storms that were a little more on the isolated side. We stopped near the town of Newkirk as we saw one storm grow into a supercell. This storm showed promised; it had a nice wall cloud to it and we even saw some of the same motion we saw on the Rozel storm the day before as it was about to produce, but outflow from the storms further north hit it and it slowly died out.(Another 5-10 minutes it very well could have produced a tornado.)
Our last shot of the day was with this storm near Tonkawa that quickly went linear.
After that we called it a day and headed south towards Guthrie where we spent the night. I really can't complain too much about this day; it was the first time I saw tornadoes on consecutive days. It was very frustrating though to have to give up on the storm that gave us our lone tornado as it went on to produced two more defined tornadoes including a large tornado that threatened Wichita. It was also frustrating that the storms in our target area quickly became linear as it moved east of I-35 while the storm of the day was in Central Oklahoma around Shawnee (an area I really didn't pay that much attention to). Still though I did accomplish a first in those two days of chasing and so far I'm a perfect 3 for 3 on chases in the state of Kansas; a state known to have given many chasers headaches.
My first full day of a 10 day chase vacation started off with a bang; we left North Richland Hills at around 8:30 that morning and proceeded northward on I-35 to OKC before hitting I-40 west towards El Reno and then hitting highway 281 toward our target area which was in the Pratt area as a starting point. We made it to Pratt at around 3:30 and hung around in town for about 45 minutes before heading west on US Highway 400/54 to Greensburg where there was already a chaser convergence in the city.
While we were in Greensburg Shane, Bridget, and I got to meet up with my friend and occasional chase partner Wes Carter. I would have never known Wes if it weren't for Shane and Bridge so this meet up was a significant one for me and one of many highlights of my trip (I've known Wes for about 3 years and during that time the one thing we
haven't done was see a tornado together in person. I felt that the stars
had aligned for the both of us that day).
Around 5:00 was when what would be the storm of the day fired up around Greensburg; it was the lone cell of what was an MCS mess that fired up in West Central Kansas that day.
It was moving NE at a snail's pace (only 20 mph) as it became severe warned; we headed north on highway 183 towards the town of Kinsley as these shots were taken.
As we stopped to set up shop we all started seeing shear funnels to the right of the base. (From this noob's prospective it was so fucking cool to see that ;-)~)
We headed NE towards the town of Sanford to reposition; shortly after 7 PM the fun began as the storm we followed for over an hour finally began to show us some love.
At 7:22 PM our first tornado of the day touched down near the town of Rozel; for the next 25 minutes we got to film from start to finish the entire life cycle of that tornado....this is hands down the best tornado I got to see and the first one I saw from start to finish. It was initially rated at EF2 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, but wind measurements from a Doppler On Wheels truck detected winds in the 165-185 mph range thus it was upgraded to an EF4.
We initially thought this was a separate tornado but after further review from the National Weather Service Office in Dodge City; they determined that the tornado below was still the Rozel tornado as it began to rope out. We were about 7 or 8 miles away from this tornado. When it disappeared before roping we weren't able to see the ground circulation other chasers closer to the tornado saw.
After the Rozel tornado roped out another tornado touched down at around 8:00 PM near the town of Sanford....the rope out on this tornado is up there with Goldsby as the best I've seen.
A new tornado warning was issued on the storm but that point it turned into an MCS crap that signaled the end of our chase. We headed up to Great Bend for the night for food and beer to celebrate our epic chase day.
This was a chase I can tell stories about 20 years down the road....it was after all the best chase I've ever been on.
