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Sunday, May 23, 2010

Day 16: Home Now

Well, after an amazing 2 weeks, I'm home.  We drove straight through the night and made it home at around 6:00pm.  I had an incredible time and the memories I have will last forever.  I'm going to miss the friends I made and hopefully will see them in the near future (I'm talking about you Giggles and Squall-Line).  Thank you Mark for taking us out.  I can't believe we saw as many tornadoes as we did, drove into a potential tornado and witnessed amazing structure and an amazing hail storm.

I had an incredible time and hopefully I'll be doing it again next year!

Day 16: On the Way Home

Well, we're on our way home.  The storms were amazing today but unfortunately they were too far north for us to chase since we need to be home tomorrow.  A friend of ours got a beautiful shot of a wedge tornado right along the South Dakota/North Dakota border.

We're currently driving through Iowa on the way back to Toronto. 

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Day 15: Bust Day

Well, we busted!  It's inevitable with every chase season that you bust at least once.  Everyone is surprised that this is the first time we've busted this trip.  It was an incredibly hard forecast today.  Even the Storm Prediction Center had trouble nailing down the spots.  It was looking initially like north-east Colorado and then nothing happened.  So we headed to the Colorado/Nebraska border... nothing happened.  So we drove to Sidney, Nebraska for dinner and are now in Ogallala, Nebraska for the night.


Tomorrow is our very last day to chase.  Looks like the risk areas are actually on our way back to Toronto.  We'll most likely be home Sunday sometime.  Hopefully we'll see some storms tomorrow for one last hurrah.



There are some severe storm risks tomorrow so we'll see how it pans out.  Here are the states I've been to on this trip:

Friday, May 21, 2010

Day 14: Down Day - Visiting Attica and Greensburg, Kansas

I'm currently in Garden City, Kansas.  Today was a down day and we spent it getting into position for tomorrow's chase which looks like western Kansas.  We started the day off by making a quick visit to Walmart to purchase Depends, balloons, crepe paper and window-writing markers.  It's George Kourounis' birthday in a couple of days but we're worried we won't see him on his actual birthday so we decided to give him a birthday surprise today.  We pulled up into the Denny's that Cloud 9 Tours was eating at and while George was inside eating, we decorated his van with "Happy 40th George", balloons, Depends, etc.  Needless to say once Cloud 9 saw this, they preceded to cover our car with everything that was on theirs.

We then proceeded towards Kansas.  We drove through the famous town of Attica where Scott McPartland took the infamous video of the house being torn apart by the tornado (video here) on May 12, 2004 and he showed us the house that got torn apart.  It has since been rebuilt but it's an eerie thing to see.

After this, we continued on to the infamous town of Greensburg, Kansas which was completely destroyed by a 1.5 mile F5 tornado on May 4, 2007 (more info here).  The town was completely destroyed and is being rebuilt "green" (energy efficient).  You can still see a ton of evidence that the town was destroyed.  There's empty house foundations, trees still stripped of leaves.  The town was famous for a meteorite they had with a gift shop.  The gift shop and meteorite are no longer there but you can still see the ceramic floor that was left behind by the tornado.  Visit my gallery for more of these pictures.

We then had dinner and are currently in our hotel rooms.  We haven't exactly decided a precise target for tomorrow.  That will be in the morning.  Looks like tomorrow may be our last day of chasing :(

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Day 13: Tornadoes, Lightning and Close-Calls

Currently I'm in Shawnee, Oklahoma just south-east of Oklahoma City.  It was a roller coaster of a day.  Started off hot and sunny and we went and got some lunch in Weatherford, Oklahoma and waited for the storms to begin.  Sure enough, in the mid-afternoon, the first "blip" showed up on radar.  We were worried that this one was showing up a little too early for we waited to see how it developed.  Sure enough it developed into a storm so we were a little late getting on it.

We took off for the storm but the road networks were terrible so more than once we had to double-back, turn around, etc.  The storm had turned into a monster storm but again, we just could not get to it.  Eventually we found away around it but it involved us racing this storm south.  When I say racing, I mean racing ahead of the large hail.  Well, we got stuck behind an 18-wheeler going 20 below the speed limit and the hail was catching up and getting bigger so we had to bail on the storm and get out of it.

We took off for another storm to our east.  All our spirits had dropped and it was looking like the day would be a bust.  Sure enough as we approached this second storm, it drops a tornado.  It was a ways off and it was very low contrast (the tornado was almost the same colour as the clouds behind it so it was hard to see).  We did film it and watch it for a bit then tried to get into better position on this storm.  We did and got really close to the meso and were able to see it produce another brief tornado.  That brings our day's count up to 2.  We got ahead of this storm in really nice position and took some great photographs and video of the structure.

So, remember the first storm we were on?  Well, it sped up and gobbled up the storm we were on.  Now we had to scramble to get back into better position.  Unfortunately, the road networks were still awful.  We turned down a road and it ended up being a dirt road.  Dirt road plus heavy rain equals really difficult mud driving.  We had to bail on that road and by this time the storm was starting to overtake us.  We could see the hail core and it was a green I'd never seen before.  We kept racing and then realized there was no outrunning it.  We needed an east road option and there were none.  Scott found what we thought was an east road and we turned down it but again, it turned to dirt.  At this point, we had to make the decision: risk getting stuck in the mud and get run over by the storm or try to race the hook of the storm (hooks on a storm is indicative of a tornado).

We raced south just to the side of the hook.  Then on the latest radar scan, it showed us directly under the hook.  The rain was torrential and Scott said over the radio: "This is precipitation wrapping around the hook."  This is dangerous because large hail can potentially wrap around the hook.  Just as he says this, George Kourounis (driving for Cloud 9 tours who were in the same area as us) comes on the radio and they are in the hook with us.  He says, "We've got to go, funnel on the ground."  Another man from Cloud 9 says, "There's a tornado wrapping around the southern edge of this hook."

Where were we?  Southern edge of the hook....  Just as this happens, we're coming up on a house to our right and it starts to come apart.  Shingles and wood start to rip off the house and Scott, ahead of us, slams on the breaks.  We can see the winds are incredibly strong in bursts and we slam on the breaks as well.  At this point, there's nothing to do but wait this out.  Right after the winds slam by, we take off again and find Cloud 9.

To sum up: We were in the hook of the storm, there was a tornado in it with us.  Cloud 9 saw the tornado pass in front of them.  Were we hit by the tornado?  It's hard to say.  Brad and I both saw circulating rain bands above us.  We could have been hit by the outer winds of the tornado or the RFD (rear flank downdraft) wrapping around it.  Either way, the winds were incredible enough to tear parts of a house off.  After that, we all decided that was it for the day.  All of our nerves were shot.  That makes 2 tornadoes, and possibly running into a third.


We ended off the night with a beautiful lightning show from the storm, had dinner, then we all crashed.  Sorry family, but look, I'm alive!  The great thing is, we got the whole encounter on video.  Tomorrow is up in the air whether it's a chase day or not.  It's not looking that promising.  Then again, last time we said this, we had an amazing hail storm.  I haven't had a chance to update my photo album, I'll try to do it tomorrow.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Day 12: Another Tornado - Panhandle Magic

Currently I'm in Shamrock, Texas and we saw another tornado today!  The day started off with a long drive from Norman, Oklahoma to Dumas, Texas.  We met up with the Cloud 9 crew at a gas station and waited for the storms to pick up.  Sure enough, just south of us, a "blip" showed up on the radar just south of us.  We watched it for a couple of more radar scans and sure enough, it started looking juicy.

We headed for the "super blip" on the radar which soon turned into a nice supercell.  We pulled over to take pictures and videos then soon realized we needed to get further south of the storm because it was producing (at least) baseball size hail.  We bolted south and found another road to pull up on the storm and set up to watch.  There was a ton of rotation in the storm and then it began: a very nice lowering come out of the supercell rotation and then tornado!  They call this "panhandle magic".  We were maybe about 8 miles from the tornado which was a nice change from when we were 1/2 a mile away from the tornado on May 10.  It was a beautiful white elephant trunk tornado and lasted for a couple of minutes then dissipated.


We continued on so that we didn't get stuck under the hail core.  The whole storm was very green and according to our radar programs and the green on the sky, there was large hail in it.  The storm quickly became rain-wrapped which means rain and hail wrapped around the storm so we couldn't see the part of the storm that would have a tornado.  There were reports of other tornadoes within the storm from storm chasers who were closer.  Also, we could see strong rotation within the rain curtains so we're sure there was at least another tornado within the rain.  We pulled over again because the whole rotating supercell took on the "mothership" look.  You'll be able to see this in my updated photo album.  The inflow into the storm was so strong it was almost blowing me over.  I fulfilled my dream of letting bubbles goes into the inflow.  I blew the bubbles and sure enough they went streaming into the thunderstorm (yeah, I'm a nerd).


We continued on the storm until it took on a more linear shape and developed a beautiful shelf cloud.  We then had some dinner and after were treated to a wonderful lightning show.  That same storm is still trucking along (further north of us) but we've called it a night.  Got some great pictures and video today.  I'll update the photo album and in the next day or so, get some of my fellow chasers' pictures and put those up too.  Our target seems to be roughly around the same area as today, maybe further east.  Tomorrow looks good again for tornadoes.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Day 11: Down Day

Felt good to sleep in.  Still in Norman, Oklahoma.  I'm in the process of uploading my photos to Facebook as well so if that album looks less complete that my "My Photo Album" page... well it is.  Beautiful 25 degree weather today.  We went and watched Iron Man 2 then had dinner and now we're back at the hotel goofing around and doing nothing in particular.  Tomorrow we're headed for Amarillo, Texas for some storms.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Day 10: The Supposed Down Day That Turned into a "Coring"

Currently I'm in Norman, Oklahoma.  We came here this morning from Lawton expecting this to be a down day.  The plan was we were going to drive to the damage path of the EF-4 (American F scale for tornadoes) and do some filming there.  Well, once we got to the damage path, we noticed a cell north-west of Oklahoma City that was tornado warned... so naturally... we decided to chase it.  The storm tried to hook over and over (hook on the radar is indicative of a tornado) but it just wasn't happening.  However, the hail core on this thing was looking nasty.

We drove around looking for two things:
1) a good spot to watch/video tape/photograph the storm
2) shelter in case we got cored (hit with the largest hail in the storm)

We successfully found both things.  The shelter we found was a chapel which had an over-hang that cars can park under.  We drove to our lookout spot and were just about to get out to film when we realized the core was coming in faster than we thought.  We raced back to our shelter just as the hail started.  It started off as pea-size hail then progressed to golf ball size hail.  We were perfectly safe and had a great view of the hail storm both forward, back and to the one side.  The hail storm lasted almost 10 minutes so we were able to get incredible video.  Meghan and Heather had both brought hard hats as a joke... well Mark put one on and ran out into the hail.  Needless to say he has a few bruises.  After the hail storm was done it looked like it snowed.  If you check out my photo gallery, there's a lot of pictures comparing the size of the hail stones to a quarter.

Unfortunately, we noticed after that while the trees were getting shredded by hail, there were birds in the trees.  There was nothing we could do to help and unfortunately most of them died.  That was hard to see but shows you how helpless we are against nature.

After the hail storm, that looked like a snow storm, we traveled to just south of Moore, Oklahoma to see the damage caused by the EF-4 tornado that touched down on Monday, May 10 this week.  This isn't the tornado we saw, ours has not yet been rated (probably because it happened in a field which makes it hard to rate and it was multi-vortexed).  Here is a link to information about the outbreak:


Here are the track maps of the various tornadoes that day (the purple dashed line "not yet surveyed" was the tornado we saw):


Check out my photo gallery for images of the hail as well as the tornado damage.  Tomorrow looks like another down day so we'll be sleeping in.  Up until this point, the models were not looking good storm-wise for the next week.  Looked like there wouldn't be too many storms.  Well... that's changed.  Tuesday and Wednesday look good for storms in the Texas panhandle and then Friday, Saturday and Sunday look really good for storms.  That's still a little far out but it looks good.  I miss home but I'm having a great time and learning so much.

Today is Meghan's birthday (happy birthday!) so she got an amazing hail storm on her birthday.  We then went out for dinner with Jim Leonard and Jack Beven. Jim Leonard has been storm chasing since 1969 and pretty much any hurricane documentary you watch has his footage in it. Jack Beven is one of the top hurricane forecasters in the world. He directly briefs all the high-ups in the U.S. government. We had the privilege of having dinner with these two men and it was amazing to hear what they had to say.

Now we're in the hotel, goofing around, watching some of our video, doing laundry and relaxing. We'll see what tomorrow has in store and if will actually be a "down day".

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Day 9: Down Day in Texas

Well... nothing happened today. The only storms that kicked up were waaaay too far south (near Mexican border) and way too far north. The only tornado reports were from Colorado, Wyoming, Mississippi and Louisiana. The air is still just too cold. We're looking at the prospects for the rest of the week and Wednesday seems to be showing some promise.

Today we sat in a parking lot and watched movies in our van and hung around doing nothing. Finally we got our act together and decided to head back to Oklahoma. I'm currently in Lawton, Oklahoma. Tomorrow we intend on finishing our drive to Oklahoma City where we are going to look at the damage caused by the tornado outbreak from Monday. One of the tornadoes has recently been upgraded to an F4 tornado. We're going to go do some footage of the damage since it's going to most likely be a down day.

For those of you who are thinking "Geez, is every day a down day?" According to the veteran chasers around here, the fact that we actually saw a tornado in the first week of our first storm chase ever is unheard of. They're one of the most rare occurrences in nature and the fact that we saw a multi-vortex tornado that chased us down the road... that was lucky (or unlucky depending on how you look at it). It's very common to have down days. It can't storm every day. If it did, I'm sure the population of the Plains would be next to none. Fingers crossed we'll get some more storms this week. We did see some very nice structure yesterday. Today was more of an overcast, cool day. I was cold today, in Texas... that doesn't make sense.

New photos added to the photo album. There's also some tagged photos of me on Facebook put up by the people I'm chasing with.

Friday, May 14, 2010

Day 8: The Day That Tried So Hard

Well, today was a frustrating chase day. We traveled all the way down to Amarillo, Texas and it looked like the storms were popping up around Odessa, Texas so we drove all the way there (4.5 hrs from Amarillo). The storms started firing off early (around 1:00pm) which wasn't expected. We got on a few storms that looked promising but unfortunately there was a lot of cold air being fed into the storms so they ended up dying.

We did witness one storm was was wrapping up really good and was so close to dropping a tornado but again, the cold air got into it and it died. We did see a lot of incredible lightning and beautiful mammatus clouds. We also got a good look around Texas and just how frustrating and lack-luster the road networks are.

I did get to hear my very first "hail roar". For those of you who don't know, hail roar is the sound you hear coming from large storms that are full of large hail. You're hearing the roar of the large hail stones moving around and hitting each other up in the cloud. It's an eerie sound to hear and I didn't realize that's what it was until an experienced chaser pointed it out... I thought it was a truck or something. It's a scary and humbling sound.

The only reported tornado today was in New Mexico. We did meet up with Brad's boss, Dave Sills who is also working on the government funded (Canadian and American) tornado research called "Vortex II". He said they did witness a brief tornado early in the morning but that was it.

Cloud 9 Tours (a tornado chase tour company, Mark is good friends with the people that run it) are large pranksters, especially George Kourounis. Meghan found our van in the parking lot with all the videos, antennas and windshield wipers taped up so she took all the tape off. Then, going from past experience, Mark said we needed to check under the van. Sure enough, they had taped an alarm under the car to go off at around 3:30pm. Needless to say, we took the alarm off and put it in the van but forgot to shut it off. It went off at 3:30pm and scared the crap out of us. Here's a picture of Charles Edwards, one of the Cloud 9 master minds.
 


Tomorrow is looking slim for a chase day but we're going to stay in Odessa (because we're tired) for the night then probably make our way back to Oklahoma tomorrow.

New pictures added to the photo album.

Day 7: Off Day and Tourist Day

Currently I am at the Days Inn in Amarillo, Texas and it's definitely true what they say: everything IS bigger in Texas. We left Elk City, Oklahoma just after lunch and got into Texas. We stopped at the giant cross (no other way to explain it). I can't even begin to explain how large this cross was. Around it was statues of the stations of the cross. We just had to stop to see this; check out my photo album (link above as usual) to see the pictures.

After that we continued onto Amarillo, Texas then when to visit the Palo Duro Canyon. It was a beautiful blue sky day and the canyon was gorgeous. The ironic part was we could see so far in the distance we could see thunderstorms (which made us cringe at the fact that we weren't chasing those ones). We drove down into the canyon and looked around and on Dave's persistence, visited a cave that resembled... well... female genitalia (look at my photo albums for pictures and you'll understand). After that we headed to the famous Big Texan for dinner. Brad was going to attempt to eat the 72 oz steak but once he saw how big it was, and all the other food he would have to eat to, he decided not too (thank goodness!). If you eat the steak and all the fixings in an hour or less, you get for free. And let me say, everything is huge in Texas. The weirdest and most disturbing thing was seeing people walking around with loaded guns on their belts.

Tomorrow is going to be an early day. We have about a 4 hour drive to our target location tomorrow so we have to get up early. I still haven't had a chance to cut and put up videos nor swap videos with the people I'm chasing with. To be honest, I probably won't get a chance until the trip is over. There's hardly any down time. If we're not chasing, we're driving. Continue to tune into The Weather Network. If storms prove to be worth it tomorrow, we'll be live streaming.

I've added new pictures from today and added to the May 11 and May 12 photo albums.

PS - Brad just said, "I just realized how far away from home we are."

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Day 6: Picturesque and Lightning

I'm currently in the Super 8 in Elk City, Oklahoma.  We started the morning off in Enid, Oklahoma.  Today was a very difficult chase day.  It was hard to decide exactly where to go.  We decided to head to Alva, Oklahoma as a target but not before stopping in Wakita, Oklahoma.  Now for those of you who don't understand the reason why we stopped in Wakita, go rent "Twister".  They have a Twister museum there (more like a hollowed out auto-parts store with posters and some debris from the movie).  Check out the pictures in my gallery.  We headed to Alva and the storms  were popping up but began to become almost like a squall line.  We did see some shear funnels (funnel clouds not associated with tornadoes) and beautiful cloud structure and turbulence. 

We chased these storms up into Kansas but not without ending up on a dirt road that blew one of Scott's tires.  After that was fixed we continued on then decided to head back to Oklahoma for the night.  On our way to Elk City, we noticed a few cells we may intercept.  So we strategically took a different path to intercept these cells.  The lightning on them was incredible.  Just as night fell, we picked a spot to pull over and take pictures/videos of the lightning.  I've never seen a more beautiful lightning show.  We then decided to get "cored".  This means you let the core of the storm hit you (normally you try to avoid this).  However, the hail in the core of the storm wasn't large enough to damage the vehicle.  Unfortunately by the time the core got to us, there was a little pea size hail, a lot of rain and strong winds.  We then continued onto Elk City for the night.

Tomorrow doesn't look like much of a chase day.  We're going to start the day off slow, drive to Amarillo, Texas to get into position for potential storms on Friday.  We're also going to maybe hit up The Big Texan and try to get Brad to try their contest: eat a 72 oz steak plus all the fixings (sides, etc) in an hour and he gets it for free.  Maybe do a little bit of sight seeing.

We're chasing with two other people both from New York: Scott McPartland and Dave Lewison.  Here are links to their personal websites:
Scott McPartland - PSPhoto Severe Weather Photography
Dave Lewison - Face the Wind

I got some incredible video today but haven't figured out a means of getting it online while avoiding Youtube. I'll figure something out. We also passed by the exact spot we saw/fled from the tornado on Monday. We saw the damage path and it went directly over our initial position. This is why you chase with experienced storm chasers. A lot of people got too close. After being out here I realize there are a lot of chasers who don't have respect for these storms, they just want to get as close as possible.

Also, starting today, The Weather Network is running the "Storm Hunter with Chris St.Clair" promos. Watch The Weather Network for live streams, etc.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Day 5: The Lonely Oklahoma Supercell

Today was a very hot and humid day and had the potential to be great but in a very localized area. There was a small window of opportunity for these storms to get going but if one did trigger in this area, it was going up. We left Norman, Oklahoma and headed to Clinton, Oklahoma not before stopping in Cherokee at a gas station where we met up with Cloud 9 Tours (storm chase tour company, George Kourounis is one of the drivers) and a lot of other chasers. Today was a "hurry-up-and-wait" day. Basically we got into position and had to wait for the storms to fire up. Eventually some started to pop up on radar and where visible in the sky. They bubbled up quickly then faded out fast. We were almost giving up hope on the day when 2 cells popped up on radar which looked promising. We followed the cells and eventually one became tornado-warned. About 90% of the chasers in Oklahoma were on this storm. It was getting near sundown but we managed to see a beautiful rotating updraft as the storm was low precipitation. After that the storms fizzled out for the night and are firing off in Kansas. Looks like just north east of Dodge City, Kansas is getting hammered with a storm that is hooking like crazy (for you non-weather nerds, a hook on the radar is indicative of a tornado).


We hear for the night and tomorrow looks like storms will be in this general area. Not exactly sure where we'll be chasing but that will be decided in the morning. The big news here is still the tornado outbreak on Monday. We're hearing a lot of stories from locals about damage. We actually met a storm chaser who just moved here from the UK and while he was out chasing, his house near Oklahoma City was destroyed by a tornado. Later in the week if there are some fair-weather days we'll be going out to look at the damage. Keep checking out The Weather Network for videos and live feeds from us. We were live-streaming the rotating updraft, not sure if they broadcast it but it was beautiful.

Sorry for the lack of video and lack-luster pictures.  The first real storm day I was in the front manning the camera for The Weather Network then couldn't get out because of the tornado.  Today I was in the back of the van manning the live stream.  Hopefully in the next couple of days I'll get some good footage or get some from the others I'm with.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Day 5: The Day After and the Day Before "The Day"

Title is apparently what some chasers are calling today because yesterday (Monday) was a severe outbreak and tomorrow (Wednesday) looks to be equally as juicy.  As for today, there still is the slight risk of severe storms popping up, however, it is not the outbreak scenario we saw yesterday.  There are really only one or two spots in and around our area where storms can initiate today basically around the Wichita Falls area.  So today won't be nearly as insane as yesterday.

I forgot to mention in my post yesterday that while we were chasing, we were headed for Wakita, Oklahoma and for those of you who don't know, this is the famous town from the movie Twister.  The storm, however, didn't track the way we thought it was going to so we actually didn't end up heading for Wakita (I was hoping we would because that would be a story-and-a-half!). 

For those of you who don't know, we're streaming live video back to The Weather Network.  Unfortunately there really isn't a set time for when we're doing it.  It's basically whenever the weather takes a turn for the worst and we film it.  Yesterday it was around 4:00pm - 5:30pm, however, today, tomorrow and all the other days could be different.  For those of you who missed it, here are the links to the live streams we did.  Allow me to set up the clips before I post the link:

Basically this is the point where we're racing down the road as it looked as though the tornado was headed our way (which is was) but then it turned off the road and away almost parallel to the road so we were safe.  This is shot leaning out the car window looking back at the tornado.  At this point, Mark was on his bluetooth talking to The Weather Network as we filmed.  The tornado didn't look as menacing at this point but it was definitely a hairy situation.  Here are the links:

The Weather Network Clip 1
The Weather Network Clip 2

That's all for now.  Hopefully I'll be able to get some more video to show you guys but it looks like the film formats are weird and conversions are needed.

Day 4: First Chase Day, Lots of Tornadoes

Wow... that sums up the day.  This was our first official chase day of the trip and needless to say we saw tornadoes!  We got going from Blackwell, OK at around 2:00pm and headed towards Medford, OK.  We saw the lowering develop on the storm and sure enough, it dropped a tornado.  We were a little close and out of position so we repositioned further up the road.  The only way I can explain the spinning motion was like a merry-go-round.  There was the main tornado and the suction vorticies around it.  Our greatest video was taken by Meghan and we drove away from the tornado as it came down the road then crossed about a 1/2 mile behind us.  The great thing about the video is it's a beautiful shot of it and then you see a satellite tornado wrap around it.  At one point, the tornado was a wedge.  Unfortunately I was manning Mark's cameras (for him and The Weather Network) so I wasn't able to get my own footage.  I'll be getting some from Meghan and Heather in the next couple of days.  It was wild and probably the largest adrenaline rush I've ever experienced.  On a scale of 1 to 10 compared to the Woodbridge tornado I saw, this was 25.  It didn't even come close to this.  Here's a rough map of where we traveled today.  We went from Blackwell to Medford then to Bartlesville.  After Bartlesville we decided to call it a day, get some food then head to Norman, OK to get into good position for tomorrow.


We continued on trying to catch these storms but the problem was the storms were moving so fast that once you got into position, it practically blew by you.  We did continue on but came up behind a storm and were about to punch the core (where the biggest hail is) so we backed off because we didn't want to smash out any windows or the windshield.  We did get some golfball size hail which was exciting.

The Storm Prediction Center has 37 tornado reports.  Unfortunately a tornado did pass through Norman, OK earlier this evening (this is where we're staying tonight, don't worry mom no danger of storms tonight).  There were at least 5 fatalities today(in Oklahoma County and Cleveland County).  The tornado that passed through Norman was rated a possible EF3.  This is the map of the tornado reports today (in red):


Tomorrow is not looking as severe as today but there is still a slight risk of severe weather.  According to Mark, tomorrow looks like the kind of day with a less chance of tornadoes but a better chance of seeing some really good storm structure.  Hopefully tomorrow we can get some really good shots.  In the meantime, I added some pictures to my photo gallery (link at top of the page).

Monday, May 10, 2010

Day 4: High Risk Chase Day

According to the newest Storm Prediction Center convective outlook, there is a high risk of severe weather today and a 30% chance of significant tornadoes.  Here are the maps:

Risk of severe weather:


Risk of tornadoes:


It should be a very interesting day.  Right now it's cloudy and rainy.  For severe storms to fire up, we need the rain to stop and the clouds to clear up so we get some day time heating.  This will help the development of the severe weather.  Going to eat and do a briefing this morning on the day's plans such as target areas.  We also need to hook up all the equipment in the van.  I apologize for the fact that we won't have a direct online internet live feed... However, since today is going to be so active, tune into The Weather Network in the afternoon/evening hours as they will be streaming live video from our chase (if all goes well!).  And yes, family, we will be as safe as possible.  The people we're chasing with have been doing this for many years and are more than experienced in this area.  Needless to say, this is not the first high risk day they've seen.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Day 3: Chase Tomorrow

Tomorrow looks great for storms! We're just hanging out in the hotel. Nothing much to do until the new models come out tomorrow morning then we'll refine our target position. All the dynamics/thermodynamics seem to lining up very well conducive to strong supercells and strong tornadoes. The Storm Prediction Center is saying:


...THERE IS A MDT RISK OF SVR TSTMS ACROSS PORTIONS OF KS/OK TO
SOUTHWEST MO...

...THERE IS A SLGT RISK OF SVR TSTMS ACROSS THE CENTRAL/SOUTHERN
PLAINS TO MIDDLE MS RIVER VALLEY...

...SUPERCELLS WITH STRONG TORNADOES AND VERY LARGE HAIL ARE EXPECTED
MONDAY LATE AFTERNOON AND EVENING ACROSS PARTS OF OK/KS INTO
SOUTHWEST MO...

Here is a map that the SPC puts out. I put on there our position so you can see where we are relative to where the storms should be tomorrow:


The "MDT" means a moderate (which is good for chasers) risk of severe storms in the red area. The hatched in pink portions means there's a 45% chance of severe weather 25 miles from any point in the area.

Day 3: Getting Into Position

I'm sitting in a Super 8 motel in Blackwell, Oklahoma with my fellow chasers. We're about to go out and grab some dinner. Meanwhile, there's a nice little thunderstorm firing off just south of us. Nothing crazy but nice to watch. Nothing like what tomorrow will be... But more on that later. We're in perfect position for tomorrow. Right smack dab in the middle of the risk area for tomorrow. I'll update tonight once we talk over the plans for tomorrow. We were going to visit the Twister museum today but unfortunately it was closed today :( Hopefully we can go later this week.

Day 3: Finishing Up the Drive

It's 8:00am in Springfield, Missouri (we're now in the central time zone, an hour behind Toronto).  Just got up and going to get ready for the day.  We're all meeting downstairs to discuss the plan for the day in about an hour then hit the road again.  I'll update later tonight with the day's adventures.  As of last night, our target for today was Oklahoma City, maybe meet up with Cloud 9 tours and George Kourounis.  However, we'll have to look at the new model runs later this morning to make a better decision.  I must say, these beds were amazing and I never wanted to get up!  Good morning!

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Day 2: The Long Drive Down

Well, currently I'm sitting in a Days Inn in Springfield, Missouri. Unfortunately we didn't have internet until now so this is my first real post about the trip.

Friday: We arrived at Mark's house and go the "chase vehicle". It's a brand spankin' new Chrysler. It's luxury I must tell you. It has Sirius satellite radio, built in DVD player with 2 screens to watch movies, touch screen audio system with mp3 upload capability, stow-n-go seating and a reversing camera. When we picked it up, it only had 87 km on it. The once concern: it has a sunroof. Normally this is not of concern to people... However when there is a possibility for large hail, this is definitely a worry. We've come up with a few plans on building something to put over the sunroof and tie down on the roof racks (possibly a combination of Styrofoam and plywood). After packing in all our gear and setting up the radio antennas, we left Mark's house at around 8:00pm in heavy rain and incredible lightning. The whole drive along the lake shore gave us a spectacular view of the lightning. We took this as a good omen :). The plan was to drive as far as we possibly could that night and definitely make it into the USA. We drove from Toronto to "not-a-clue-where-we-were", Ohio. We drove until we found a random motel on the side of the highway (reminiscent of the movie Joy Ride) at around 3:00am. All we knew was that we were somewhere about 2 hours north of Dayton, Ohio. The motel was sketchy and smelled funky but it did for the night.

Saturday: We were up, packed and ready to get on the road by 9am (little sleep... not fun). We found a Tim Horton's!!!!! Needless to say we had breakfast there. The goal was to get as far south as possible and meet up with Mark's chase buddies Scott McPartland and Dave Lewison. So we drove, drove and drove some more. We met up with Scott and Dave at around 6:00pm and decided that we would head for Springfield, Missouri for the night and make our way towards Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on Sunday. Now the van has roughly 1600 km on it.  Here is a map of where we've traveled so far.  The red line is our track, start point Toronto, Ontario; end point Springfield, Missouri.



So here I am sitting in the Days Inn. It's luxury compared to the previous night. Right now, models are showing that Monday and Tuesday (possibly Wednesday) are going to be very very good chase days. After talking with Mark, Dave and Scott, they're all very excited about Monday and Tuesday. Right now, according to latest models, it looks like we're headed for south east Kansas or north east Oklahoma. Of course as we get closer to Monday, we'll refine our target area. Tomorrow we have the rest of the drive to do (roughly 6 hours) and then we need to set up the van with our equipment. In the mean time, here's the latest map for Monday:


We're headed for the "MDT" area (moderate chase of severe storms) and "45%" area which means there is a 45% chance of severe whether within 25 miles of any point in the pink blob. In the discussion, the Storm Prediction Center mentions:


...THERE IS A MDT RISK OF SVR TSTMS ACROSS NCNTRL/NE OK...SCNTRL/SE
KS AND EXTREME SW MO...


...THERE IS A SLGT RISK OF SVR TSTMS FROM THE CNTRL/SRN PLAINS TO
THE MID-MS VLY...


***SUPERCELLS WITH LONG-TRACK STRONG TORNADOES AND VERY LARGE HAIL
EXPECTED MONDAY LATE AFTN/EVENING ACROSS PARTS OF CNTRL/N OK...SE KS
AND SW MO***

Looks like it'll be interesting! If we do get the streaming up and running, you can visit Spotter Network and click on "Current Activity" and this will take you to a map of the USA with GPS locations of different chasers. On the right hand side you'll see the names of the chasers streaming videos. Look for Mark Robinson as one of the streamers. It may or may not be live.

New photos are currently being added to my photo album. Look under the heading of this blog for a link to my photo site.

**Note: streaming video is not yet available. We'll be attempting to set it up tomorrow. However, I've been informed by Mark that The Weather Network will be running promos for this chase event and episodes we're doing starting Monday. I'm not sure of times they'll be airing. As soon as streaming video is available I'll update this.

PS - HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY MOM! I LOVE YOU AND MISS YOU!

Friday, May 7, 2010

Day 1: Leaving Day Post 2: We're On Our Way!

We've officially left. Right now we're driving through a thunderstorm with great lightning in Toronto. Hopefully this is a good omen :) The plan was to drive until we got to Dayton, Ohio but we left a little later than planned. So now we're going to drive to Toledo, Ohio, sleep, then head for Kansas on Saturday. Right now Monday looks like a great day for storms. Won't be able to update til tomorrow once we set up internet in the U.S.

Day 1: Leaving Day Post 1: Today's the Day!

Hello everyone!

Today we leave for our storm chase adventure.  Just packing some last minute things then heading over to Mark's place to start getting the gear ready to go in the van.  We're leaving by approximately 6 pm tonight.  As of yesterday it looked like we were headed for Kansas.  Today we'll go over the new model runs and refine our destination a bit more.  I'll update once I know where we're headed.  We have a long day and long drive ahead of us!

For your reference, here's a rough outline of where Tornado Alley is.  Of course there is the possibility of supercells and tornadic activity outside of the traditional Tornado Alley borders but this gives you an idea of where we'll be chasing.



Brad also did an interview with the Welland Tribune (his hometown newspaper) about this trip.  To read his interview and article go here: Swept up in Tornado Alley

Cheers!