Funnel / tornado ratio

I just read through a thread on one of the main stormchasing forums that asked the question "What is your ratio for funnels seen to tornadoes?". (For clarification the circulation visible as a funnel is not a tornado unless it reaches the ground. To make it even more confusing, the visible condensation funnel may or may not reach the ground in all tornadoes; sometimes the only way to know that you are seeing a tornado is a debris cloud at ground level underneath a funnel.) The answers provided to the question caught me by surprise, as most chasers stated they had rarely seen a true funnel without seeing a tornado. To date my experience here in the Mid-Atlantic has been just the opposite: I've seen probably 5 or 6 funnels for every tornado I've witnessed. This divergence of experience started my chasing brain juices flowing and I've come to the preliminary conclusion that maybe the other chasers are right and I'm wrong. The difference could very well lie in that chasing on the Plains provides wonderful visibility and convenient roads while chasing in the Mid-Atlantic can try one's patience and nerves given the random road networks and the ever-present treelines and rolling topography. Perhaps some of the features I've labeled conservatively as funnels were actually tornadoes as I couldn't see the ground under the circulation to verify a touchdown. Here are a few examples:

Aug 5 2003 Stafford county: My daughter and I had seen a very substantial funnel from this storm about 3 minutes before this picture but we were trapped behind a tree line. This shot across an open field just before dark showed a lot of rotation and I called in a spotter report that was used as the basis for a tornado warning.

This was a storm we core-punched in northern Culpeper county on Sept 17 2004 during the Northern VA tornado outbreak from the remnants of Hurricane Ivan. There was an earlier tornado reported about 6 miles south of here, but we couldn't verify that this funnel actually touched down. Maybe it did...if so, it would be our second tornado of the day.

On June 24 2006 I nearly wrecked in southern Stafford county as I was heading toward home after having already chased a severe storm in King George county. I glanced south through the trees and was astonished to see this wall cloud and funnel, which was likely across the Rappahannock River over Spotsylvania county. I actually videoed it but couldn't see underneath it (and this was the best vantage point for several miles). Maybe it too touched down...

This funnel in northern Spotsylvania county was one of several I photoed in the funnel fest of July 23 2008. This was snapped as we were speeding east on Route 3 to find a place to pull over. About 3 minutes later I jumped out of the car (we had stopped by then...) and saw what I determined to be a tornado from this same storm: that funnel was less substantial than the above but reached all the way to the ground as far as I could tell. Given the above funnel's size (it looks like there might have also been another funnel to its left partially obscured by rain) there may have been a circulation on the ground underneath this one.

This was the last funnel I shot during the 23 July 2008 funnel fest, way after dark but happily backlit by lightning (again in Spotsylvania county). The blue lines delineate the wall cloud and the red lines show the funnel, which was substantial enough to have dropped a circulation on the ground. Maybe this too was a tornado...

So, maybe if I was less cautious I would be able to notch down several more tornadoes caught than I have given us credit for. But I'm really not into keeping statistics as the chasing and the storms are my attraction, not the numbers.

One week later...

What a difference a week makes this time of year! Seven days ago I was out storm chasing, but since then we've been shivering through below-normal temperatures and have seen snow showers at least two days. It looks likes temperatures will moderate a bit this next week for Thanksgiving, but we will still be slightly below normal. The Veterans' Day bookend for chase season seems to have been borne out again this year, altho' I was a few days ahead of myself when I began my seasonal whining about SDS (supercell deprivation syndrome).
I am continuing to write up the 2008 chase narrative and have updated my severe weather briefing, so I have found activities to keep me going during the short days and long nights. I still haven't totally decided whether I'm going to publish volume two of my chase book or not; guess that depends on how much I need to keep my mind off cold weather this winter!

More pix from yesterday's chase

Another look at the rotating wallcloud that caught my eye as we were calling it a chase.

The updraft that produced the wallcloud; none of the cells were very high, which is why we never saw any lightning or heard any thunder...no charge separation.

Another look at the wallcloud that sped by west of us; note the rainshaft to the left (south) that shows the wind shear from ground level to cloud base.

Requiem for the Culpeper to King George chase

I didn't expect yesterday's chase until the SPC came out with their Day 2 convective forecast showing our region under a slight risk. The models really converged at the last minute and the local forecast texts even sounded good for both instability and shear, so I picked up my son at 1100 and headed west to the Culpeper area. We arrived at 1200 at our favorite rural viewing spot at the edge of a corn field and settled in to watch and wait. Little did we know that the SPC had issued a Mesoscale Discussion (MD) just about the time we left, but we found that out just before we heard my trusty weather radio blare the announcement that our entire region was under a tornado watch. We stayed put for 45 minutes as an oncoming line developed, and then we retreated eastward as the rain approached. Stopping once in extreme eastern Culpeper county to snap a couple of photos we continued on to a fast food joint at Wilderness to hit the bathroom and grab some chow. As we exited the facility the approaching rainshaft was literally a couple hundred yards to our west, so we boogied eastward on VA Route 3 to stay dry. Given the afternoon traffic we knew we'd have to pass through Fredericksburg traffic to get east of the city and give us room to position ourselves, so we didn't stop again until we were in eastern Stafford county. We parked again to observe and watch as a wallcloud formed just behind the line:

This feature developed and fell apart several times as it flew northward just west of us, but there was already another wallcloud coming our way borne out by both visual and doppler radar evidence (radar view shows our position with the "X" and the rotation circled):

As the rain approached we drove east a few miles into King George county, where the "magic hands" appeared (my son being lazy and not getting out of the chasemobile):
We let the main rain shaft pass by - mainly north of us - and then headed back west as I had dinner guests coming and needed to get home. While driving back toward Fredericksburg I had a "Look at that!" moment and pulled off the road back in eastern Stafford county to watch the rotating wallcloud which is shown in yesterday's post. After I arrived home at 1530 I dumped off the following doppler radar view which shows that, yes indeed, we were watching a rotating feature.
I was sorely tempted to keep chasing, but I did need to get home. There were never any tornado warnings or reports yesterday, but a non-chaser friend who lives in King George county confirmed that he too saw rotation. All in all it was a great way to (probably) cap off the 2008 chase season.

From Culpeper to King George: The "final" chase

Remember my previous wailings about the 2008 chase season being over? Well, I was a bit premature. My self-described Veterans' Day bookend to the northern Virginia chase season was extended four days as my son and I tracked a squall line ahead of a strong November cold front from just east of Culpeper all the way into King George county. More to follow tomorrow, but I had to post this photo of a rotating wallcloud that surprised both of us as we were ready to wrap up (no pun intended) the chase around 3:00 pm today. I didn't call in a report to the Sterling WFO as my son didn't see any obvious rotation on his cellphone doppler radar connection, and I was certain the Sterling mets would call us crazy for reporting it. When I got home I did find some rotation on another radar representation, but I'll wait until tomorrow to post more.

Whoops! Chase season may not be done yet...,

Okay, where did this setup come from? When I last looked at models yesterday nothing looked very promising except that a strong November cold front was to blast through here, sweeping out the low clouds and moisture hanging around. Now we have a potential chase setting up for tomorrow: whether it's early in the day or later depends on which forecast model you believe as the two models I depend on are showing frontal passage about 6 hours apart. I guess I'll haul myself out of bed early on a Saturday and check out the setup, the radar, and the local forecast discussions to see what gives. The kicker is that we have company coming around 5:00 pm, so I need to be home before that. Stay tuned....

Wistful thinking...Plains chasing

Wistful nostalgia always seems to set in this time of year as the realization that the chase season is finito hits pretty hard. Having written the first draft of my account of our 2008 mini-chase in the Plains I've reviewed a plethora of photos from those four days. So, to assuage the empty feelings I decided to post a few pictures from our April jaunt:

My brother and the chasetruck

Overhead mammatus near sunset

Westering sun

Another November Saturday

This photo shows that fall foliage has finally fleshed out in the Fredericksburg area...how's that for alliteration? We've had sunshine yesterday and today after a pesky coastal storm kept clouds, drizzle, and a few showers over the Mid-Atlantic all week, kinda like Seattle weather. The storm system that spawned a decent chase day in the Central Plains earlier this week didn't provide any excitement around here with a cold frontal passage early this morning, and I don't see anything in the models for any further chasing opportunities around here. That probably means the end of the 2008 chase season, since the Veterans' Day holiday pretty much bookends our convective chances. Of course, the National Hurricane Center probably felt that way about the 2008 tropical system until Paloma fired up this week (Category 4!). I'm settling into the fall/winter mindset at the moment, reviewing my chase logs and planning my writeup for this past season. I already have a first draft of our April mini-chase in the Plains, but that wound up being fairly short as we didn't have much luck out there (again!). Oh well... wait 'til next year!!

All Saints' Day in the Blue Ridge Mountains

Today was what my wife calls a Mid-Atlantic "Chamber of Commerce" day: beautiful blue skies and temperatures in the low 70's. It wasn't much good for storm chasing, but it certainly was a great day to visit the Blue Ridge Mountains to check out the fall colors and pick up a couple of bags of fresh apples. Altho' a bit muted due to the dry conditions of the past couple of months the foliage was still bright enough in spots to turn our heads.
As far as chasing goes I have started my narrative for our mini-chase this past April in the Plains, and I'll begin the overall 2008 chase season writeup sometime around Thanksgiving. I'm still not sure if I'm going to publish volume two of my chasing book "Confessions of a Storm Junkie". We'll see how ambitious I get this winter (and how bad SDS hits me!).