A June 1st chase looking likely

The models are pointing to good chase setups for both the Hokie Storm Chasers currently in Nebraska after a successful chase yesterday and for those of us here in the Mid-Atlantic.   Storm initiation for northern Virginia appears to be mid-afternoon so I will be positioning myself a bit earlier than normal tomorrow, probably getting to a chase target by 2:00 pm.  Said target is TBD until I can get a look at the short-range local models tomorrow morning, and storm motions out of the northwest will help determine the road network needed to track the cells.  My guess is that I will default to my usual Culpeper target as that locale provides a plethora of good roads in many directions coupled with relatively open farmland vistas, but nothing is definite at this point. 

Chaser's chagrin: picking a decent storm when a really good one forms near home

I watched on radar a northwest / southeast oriented line of storms marching toward our region this afternoon and noticed that the northern cells were maintaining the best organization as they propagated toward Culpeper.  Thus I chose that end of the line to investigate and plunged into the havoc of the Friday-of-Memorial-Day-weekend traffic to head first to Bealeton and then to just west of Remington.  The northern end was impressive enough as it approached a pastoral farm setting:

No lowerings appeared under the rain free base on the southern end of the cell, but a hail shaft was evident both on radar and visually:

Hail shaft to my west appears as the lighter area of precipitation slightly to the right of center.

My position is marked with the white "x"; hail marker is the green triangle.

Before the heavy rain arrived I motored leisurely through the town of Remington and stopped on a rural road outside of town to look back at the storm.  While I was doing so I noticed a very strong cell approaching the Fredericksburg area on the southeastern end of the line.  This cell, which eventually received a tornado warning, was THE storm of the day to chase and I was woefully out of position.  I tried to get back to the area in time but was unsuccessful...thus the chaser's chagrin.  But, I did chase today!!

Few more pictures from the Hokie Storm chase

Cyclic wall cloud formation underneath 5/21 Nebraska supercell.  Wall cloud at right is dying out while the one at center is wrapping up.  (Stuff at left is just cloud fragments...i.e. scud)

Nebraska supercell structure May 21.

Hokies watching the sunset underneath a storm in Kansas 5/20

Ummm...don't go too far!  May 20 wall cloud in Kansas that blasted us with a 30+ knot RFD.

A highly doctored closeup of the 5/22 tornado in Iowa.  The naked eye could see it clearly but the gray tones played havoc with camera lenses.

I'm sure more pictures will be posted over at the Hokie Storm chase blog.

Back to Virginia chasing

It looks like there will be storm chase action today, tomorrow, and possibly Saturday that I could get to.  Today would involve a trip west toward the Blue Ridge as things here around I-95 probably won't be conducive to storm development.  I will be watching radar this afternoon and may be heading to the Route 29 corridor, or if things look good enough I may cross the Blue Ridge up to the Winchester vicinity where the lift mechanism looks better.  There's plenty of instability and moisture available, with a bit of wind shear thrown in.  We'll see!

May 22 Iowa tornado video clip

This tornado yesterday was a small one but exciting to our crew.  This is my poor attempt at capturing it on video.  The town's tornado sirens sent a chill up my spine when they sounded.

May 22: Hokie Stormchase magic!

May 22nd has been a tornado day for the Hokie Stormchase team over a number of years, and today was no exception.  We intercepted a tornado in the little town of Merango, Iowa and began filming it just as the tornado sirens began sounding.  Fortunately this tornado missed the town, but others caused lots of damage and deaths today (especially in Missouri).  We mourn the losses of those folks at the same time we exult that we witnessed an actual tornado.  This is a bit confusing emotionally for us as I'm sure it is for the reader, but that is the nature of storm chasing.

Here is a not-so-good still photo of the tornado.  I'm hoping that an edited video will look a bit better.

May 21 photos

"Doughnut hole" wall cloud and lowering over field

Wall cloud and rotating lowering (at left) over York NE

Our last view of the storm before it became rain-wrapped and we lost sight of it.  A tornado was reported shortly after this by another onlooker.

Hail!!  These stones had been sitting on the side of the road for a while, so they had melted a bit.  Three inch hail was reported on this storm.  Needless to say we were very careful to avoid the hail shaft!!

Municipal building in Wahoo NE where we ate dinner after we lost the storm due to the lack of decent roads.  Yes, we found it ironic that a bunch of Hokies ate in Wahoo territory.

May 21: Nebraska chase...after abandoning our original target

Yet another late night which will be followed by an early morning tomorrow as we overnight here in Walnut Iowa.  Our original target for today was to be southeastern Kansas and we actually motored south from Salina this morning until a new Storm Prediction Center forecast was issued at 11 a.m. CDT.  That, and a bright blue sky with no clouds caused us to swap ends and caravanned northward to southern Nebraska.  We found an outflow boundary from earlier storms and parked underneath it in along a quiet country lane with no other chasers anywhere in sight to wait.
As things percolated a storm finally went up just to our north and we gave chase to what eventually became a tornado warned cell.  We saw mean looking rotating wall clouds, a funnel or two (one could have been a tornado but we didn't confirm debris under it), and some very large hail.  I'll post photos as soon as Blogger decides to behave. Meanwhile check out the photos that I'm sure will be on the Hokie Stormchase  FB page.
 Tomorrow's target:  north-central Illinois.

May 20: Family of Kansas supercells

I can't begin to describe in any details what we saw today, but awesome doesn't even come close.  Here are a few of the pertinent events:
(1) For the third day in a row the student forecasters put us in a severe watch area several hours BEFORE the SPC issued the watch.
(2) We stayed on the tail-end of a line of supercells developing along a very thin corridor in south-central Kansas.
(3) I got almost knocked off my feet by my first true Rear Flank Downdraft.
(4) We saw more rotating wall clouds than I can remember.
(5) We drove through - and had to stop several times for - a hail shaft in which we witnessed dime-sized hail...and that was the small stuff.
(6) We wove our way through a chaser convergence of interesting proportions.
(7) We witnessed an astoundingly beautiful sunset.

Here are a few of the many pictures I took today:

 The second (or third or fourth) wall cloud of the day.

 The original wall cloud from the storm that generated the RFD; it was too close (1/2 mile away) to fit into the frame.

The sunset, of which photographs do not do justice.

Quick update from Salina KS

Yes, we HAD to visit Wakita...which chasing aficionados recognize as the town that was destroyed in the movie "Twister".  The museum commemorating the movie wasn't even open, but we took lots of pictures.  This one shows the anemometer on top of the mesonet probe pointing at the iconic water tower in the town.

After that was done we headed for south central Kansas to position ourselves between the dry line and a warm front.  To make a long story short things didn't work out as we planned even given a tornado watch. The storms that did survive congealed into a low ceilinged mess, but we did salvage a very late evening chase that produced a wall cloud while we watched and a tornado report after dark (that we didn't see).  Here's a couple of the Hokie chasers watching the action north of I-70:

That's about all my muddled brain can think to write tonight...maybe more tomorrow after a night's sleep.

Great targeting...but no storms

We were at the right place...but no cigar.  Now for a few details:

During our morning meeting yesterday we decided our target was somewhere near El Reno OK, and we wound up at a truck stop a couple of exits west of there on I-40 watching a bulge in the dry line as storms tried to form.  We could literally see the dry line visually as it was evidenced by a line of cumulus clouds followed by bright blue sky to the west. 
When the line came too close we moved a bit north and west and settled at a sports complex in Calumet OK, where I snapped the photo above.  We sat here for about 3 hours, watching convective towers build and die in a panorama to our south and west.  While we were there the Storm Prediction Center issued first a Mesoscale Discussion and then a tornado watch box.  Our location was smack dab in the middle of this box so our forecasting was right on target and a few hours ahead of the SPC!!  Unfortunately no storms whatsoever fired in the box and the SPC took down the tornado watch as we were on the road to our destination for the night in Enid OK.
Today we're heading to central Kansas where the conditions look much better for supercells and tornadoes.  Track us on the Hokie Stormchase page.  We're in hopes of some good results today, but we hope all the severe weather happens in rural areas without impacting folks out here. 

Timing is everything

This Storm Prediction Center graphic shows the storm reports from yesterday.   The cluster of reports - and yes, tornadoes - in northeastern Colorado was somewhat further north than our target yesterday, but all these reports were early evening.  Since we needed to cut off the chase before that time and head south for Wednesday's events, we bailed from our southwestern Kansas location about an hour before these storms fired.  We knew the potential wasn't really good for these type storms so we didn't wait around, but this setup reinforced a lesson storm chasers know all too well:  chasing is a 4 dimensional activity.  You not only need to to know where to go but also when to be there.

Today's target:  Oklahoma.  Exactly where is subject to the discussion in our morning meeting that will happen in an hour.

Our first (and only...hopefully) B-U-S-T

Today was a marginal setup at best, and this morning we completely shifted our target from Childress TX up to eastern Colorado based on some new model data plus the Storm Prediction Center putting up a small tornado probability for that area.  The dynamics involved a low pressure system in Colorado, a dryline, and an advancing upper level disturbance.  Unfortunately what was missing was (a) moisture and (b) timing, so we wound up watching a bright blue sky in southwestern Kansas.  Oh well...
Tomorrow's target is south central Oklahoma where the setup looks a lot better than today's.  We'll see some storms tomorrow; of that I am convinced!!

Tuesday's target: Childress TX

We pushed hard today and wound up in Shamrock Texas, roughly 90 miles east of Amarillo in the Panhandle.  The conditions for storms aren't great tomorrow since a big area of high pressure - following the low that is plaguing the East Coast with dreariness this week - has shut off moisture flow from the Gulf of Mexico.  Without that moisture storm formation is next to impossible, so we're keeping our fingers crossed that enough wetness will climb northward from the Gulf to provide some storms tomorrow.  We're banking on that with our Childress target tomorrow.  The models indicate that we may see something tomorrow, but Wed. thru Fri. looks even better. 
The good news is that Childress isn't very far south of where we are now, so we can all catch up on some sleep tomorrow morning!

Article on VT storm chaser plus heading to the Texas panhandle today

Kathryn Prociv has just graduated from Virginia Tech and is riding in my van as a returning VT storm chaser and assistant field instructor.  This article is a nice explanation of what she does and what her plans are.
Today's road trip involves a straight shot west on I-40 to somewhere in the TX panhandle.  We're just about to begin our morning meeting to discuss the overall forecast for tomorrow so our final target is still TBD, but the panhandle is a good junction point for us.

Day 1 of the 2011 Hokie Storm Chase

Not a lot to report other than nearly 700 miles driven and spending the night in Forrest, Arkansas.  We're heading toward an initial target Tuesday afternoon which may be in the Texas Panhandle, and it appears that Wednesday thru Friday may be very fruitful chase days here in the Plains.  You can follow our physical progress on the Hokie Stormchase blog.  Oh, and I am getting a few funny looks by having the mesonet probe on top of my van!!

Virginia Tech Mesonet probe installation

Spent yesterday helping Dave Carroll (VT instructor and storm chase leader) "trick out" the chase vans with radio gear and this mesonet probe prototype:

We will be testing this rig out during this year's storm chase to help finalize the design for future VT meteorology research.  Guess who gets to drive the van with the probe?

We leave Blacksburg Sunday morning and will head westward to either the Texas panhandle or northeastern Colorado for a Tuesday afternoon chase, with the final destination to be chosen later. 

2011 Hokie Storm chase to commence this weekend!!

I will be heading westward this weekend as one of the van drivers for the May 2011 Virginia Tech Hokie storm chase team.  I'll post thoughts, photos, and maybe a video or two here as time permits during the chase.  Meanwhile, here's a photo of the May 11th 2006 tornado I witnessed from a distance of 150 yards at Todds Tavern in Spotsylvania county.  Five years ago!!

(Apologies for the poor picture quality...it was snapped as I was sprinting back to the car to get the heck out of there!)

Storm Ready status needed!!

I posted this article over at the Fredericksburg Weather blog in hopes of stirring up some community interest in better severe weather coordination in the greater F'burg area.  Perhaps a mention of it in this blog will help rally the cause as well. 
Certainly last week's record tornado outbreak should help focus our attention on the need for better severe weather warnings in our area.  Given the forecast "hole" in which Fredericksburg resides - receiving insufficient focus from both DC and Richmond area media - and given the general lack of attention that folks around here assign to the potential for severe weather effects on our community, we need better planning, education, and communication regarding such things.  A "Storm Ready" qualification would go far in providing better response and warning coordination for our area rather than relying on our typical ad hoc response to the effects of a severe storm plowing through a crowded public venue or neighborhood.  We may not have tornado sirens like communities out in Tornado Alley but we do have available technologies that could get the word out quickly.  Let's use them!

Another missed potential chase

This is the Storm Prediction Center's convective forecast graphic for Tuesday, May 3rd.  After a quick glance at a model (the NAM) there appears to be plenty of instability and wind shear available for some chaseable storms.  Unfortunately I won't be available to chase tomorrow, but I'll be keeping an eye on radar!