Overall Virginia storm chasing statistics

The snowy weather we've been dealing with has occupied my weather thoughts recently, but I did have time to put together a spreadsheet that sums up my Virginia storm chasing experience over the 9 seasons from 2002 to 2010.  (Note that I said "Virginia" chasing; this summary doesn't include results from Tornado Alley trips.)  It turns out that I've witnessed a total of 4 confirmed tornadoes and 25 funnels during that time period.  Some of those funnels may have been tornadoes for which I couldn't confirm a touchdown (thanks to good ol' limited fields of view here in the East), so the tornado:funnel ratio may be a little better than it seems. 

During that same time period I personally experienced hail 11 times, several events of which were classified as severe hail when that criterion was 3/4" diameter or larger.  I did recognize a few hail shafts from afar, but those aren't included in the above number.

I also totaled up 64 wall clouds witnessed during those 9 seasons, some of which were associated with the funnels and tornadoes mentioned above.  And out of the 203 total chases recorded 135 of them occurred during the months of May, June, and July. 

Now, that actually makes me feel better during this cold snowy weather!!

2010 Virginia chase summary

I don't think I'll publish this season's results in book form as I have previous years.  There simply wasn't enough action to put into manuscript form.  I summarized the season in a spreadsheet and discovered that I actually did spy five definite wall clouds and two funnels this year in Virginia.  (That's not an abundance of results even for Virginia, and chasers in other more fruitful areas probably saw as much in 2 weeks worth of activity.)  The first chase was on March 22nd, and the last "real" chase was October 27th.  The monthly summary is as follows:

March:  1 chase
April:    3 chases
May:    3 chases
June:    9 chases
July:     5 chases
Aug:    2.5 chases (the half chase was walking out my front door to observe an approaching cell.)
Sep:     None
Oct:      1 chase 

The extreme heat and drought this year contributed mightily to these sparse results, plus the fact that I didn't make it out to Tornado Alley.  That, at least, will change next year!!

A chase? An intercept? A hopeless dream?

With this morning's setup all three questions might apply.  I got up earlier than normal to check radar and found that by 5:30 a.m. a nice line of storms had already formed ahead of the cold front and was progressing northeastward at a leisurely clip of 50+ mph.  There were two problems with that line:  (a) it was pitch dark with no lightning and (b) it was already tracking well east of me toward Virginia's Northern Neck.  So I got ready for work and sat back down in front of the computer to monitor the situation. 
The next potential chase target was the cold front itself which by now was east of the Blue Ridge.  Unfortunately the cells along the front were zoom-climbing pretty much due north at speeds even greater than 50 mph.  The cell shown at lower left center below was one that caught my eye due to its hook-like appearance on radar:

Sure enough it eventually wound up with a rotational couplet, but it also was unreachable given the trajectory and speed.  I finally gave up around 7:00 a.m. and headed to work the long way, keeping one eye on the sky to identify anything interesting in the gloomy early morning overcast.  I observed what I think was the back edge of one cell but was unable to keep up with it as it accelerated northward.  Thus, the label for this post was apropos.