Chasing Thoughts & Recent Severe Weather
// May 23rd, 2010 // No Comments » // General Information, Severe Weather, Storm Chasing, TWISTEX Update, Weather Recap
The current pattern in the upper levels and with such amazing return of heat/humidity across the Plains states has led to one of the better patterns that chasers can hope for when they want multiple days of severe/tornadic weather. This has held true with the past two days of isolated supercell(s) that have produced tornadoes. On Saturday a lonely supercell came off of the mountainous region of southeast Wyoming and produced a couple of brief and small tornadoes. While none of the tornadoes were amazing, the storm appeared fairly impressive structure-wise and being the only storm in the area I’m sure it was a nice view for all of those in its’ presence. Yesterday, May 22, led to one of the better tornado-producing storms that has been on the Northern Plains in a while! A lone supercell for quite some time roamed eastward just south of the ND/SD border, producing multiple tornadoes and what sounds to be multiple tornadoes at the same time. Images from multiple chasers have shown a dramatic large wedge tornado that past just north of the town of Bowdle, SD. The wedge was on the ground for ~20 minutes according to some reports, which was long enough for the TWISTEX group to get some great in-situ data from various instruments and to flank the storm with mesonets to observe the environment that this tornado occurred in. I’m sure there will be some great data by the group with this storm, and from what I’m hearing is that they may have been the only research group in the area to have in-situ data. The only other ‘research’ vehicle their was Reed Timmer, however the only thing I have heard from them is that they did have their vehicle stuck on a rural road. For some reason that is unknown to me thus far, the Vortex2 crew did not chase yesterday in South Dakota despite the threat being within their predetermined domain! This I’m sure has a lo of the crew for them shaking/pounding their heads after seeing what they missed out on. There was plenty of great pictures and video from chasers in the area, several of which were of close range of the wedge tornado. Luckily there were no injuries or deaths reported thus far from the tornadoes in South Dakota…
The pattern of severe weather should continue for the next few days as well. Today’s threat over parts of western Nebraska and Kansas looks like it should produce a few supercells capable of some very large hail and perhaps a couple of tornadoes as well. Monday’s severe weather threat over the Dakotas and Nebraska once again looks to be capable of producing tornadoes, perhaps significant ones, along with extremely large hail. While the severe weather threat looks to decrease some through the remainder of the week, there will nonetheless be the threat for a few isolated supercells capable of some very large hail and tornadoes. Later updates may detail whether the threat ever approaches eastern Kansas or western Missouri, but our first good chance of evening thunderstorms looks to come in on Tuesday.
The bigger story that has continue throughout the past few days in the storm chasing community is the lack of respect for safety and the rights of others while out on the road. Due to work and lack of funds I haven’t been out on the road during any of these latest large outbreaks, but they have been very well documented by those that have. Video surfaced from multiple sources of vehicles, some of which are known chasers, others which may be public, appearing to carelessly pass other vehicles at high rates of speed. Other undocumented cases of research vehicles failing to yield, people stopping dramatically and not pulling off of the roadway, etc… This made a few local news stations with the video, and prompted some stories from The Weather Channel on how ‘chasers’ are making it dangerous out there. It’s hard to say how many of those that were out on May 19 (when these incidents occurred) were chasers and how many were public weather-enthusiasts trying to catch their glimpse of mother nature at her finest. There is one thing that is clear, if you are going to pull some sort of stunt to get closer or get their faster the chances are it is going to be captured on video and you will be called out on it. The ramifications of all of the incidents on May 19 are yet to be known, but it undoubtedly left a bad taste in the views of many people. Once again yesterday led to the reports of a few more incidents, one of which being someone passing a state patrol vehicle in South Dakota at a high rate of speed. Now this was reported to be a chaser, but it could have easily been another member of the public trying to get the view of the reported large tornado. One thing that can’t be disputed is the report of multiple vehicles getting stuck in a wheat field after they fled a dead-end road while the tornadic storm was bearing down on them. The road was shown to be a through road, however a dramatic dead-end left many chasers, including a few veteran chasers, in a place where they definitely did not want to be. All were safe, but the story is still coming out on what the ramifications from the local farmers field that they did damage too will be. This to me goes to show how much technology can be wrong and how you have to be giving yourself more time and road options when chasing, especially when it comes to such a dangerous storm.
I’m not going to rehash a lot of the information that was already said by multiple other chasers regarding what can be done to help relieve the convergences of vehicles on the storms. Obviously a big threat seems to be the public, those of which with no experience and very little knowledge of storms and chasing, which with current technology can seemingly ‘chase’ without a problem. They have been prompted with all of the latest television series and specials regarding storm chasing, and the large Vortex2 project with has been well-broadcast by The Weather Channel. I do think that the ending of the Vortex2 project will help in regards to relieving some of the public, given there will be no Weather Channel following and reporting live with their location. However, the public will always be there and with the large number of new chasers going out on their own we will continue to see this increase in congestion on the highways. In reality, the only way I see anything decreasing the number of people on the road is going to be some sort of accident. I truly hope that this doesn’t happen, but as many others have said it seems to be inevitable at this point.
I suppose that will conclude my random thoughts on the subject… I’ll leave it with the disclaimer and plea to those with little/no experience and the public in that if you want to chase storms then please go to the training courses by the NWS and then seek out a local chaser to ride along with or pay your way onto a tour group that will help you get your feet wet.
