Tour 7 Stormchase

Hello! Sorry for the delay in posting this. We are just back from Tour 7 with Roger Hill and Silver Lining Tours. What a week! Lots of great storms, huge hail and close lightning! Our tour covered five States and about 3,200 miles in six days. I was in charge of Van 2. We had guests from the UK, Canada, California, Arizona and Washington. We only had two bust-days out of six, which is typical for a six-day tour.

Day one we blasted north from Denver to South Dakota to catch some expected supercell activity. Unfortunately the "cap" was +16 C which is virtually unbreakable. We spent the day milling around the Murdo, SD area and staying out of the 95-degree heat as much as possible. Some electrical problems plagued the lead chase van, so the down time allowed us to make repairs on the road.

Day two found us in Kansas, chasing puffy cumulus clouds. Another bust day due to the intense capping inversion. However, we took advantage of the situation to explore the destruction of Greensburg, KS which was hit by an EF-5 tornado on May 4 of this year. I'd seen pictures of the damage, but the photos do not compare to actually being there. Two photos are included here.

Day three was spent in Nebraska with some wonderful supercells. (Details and photos coming soon.)

We visited western Nebraska on day five where we located several supercells coming out of Wyoming. (Details and photos coming soon.)

Day five was perhaps the most exciting of the entire tour. We awoke in Chamberlain, SD to overcast skies and two tornadic supercells bearing down on the town early in the morning! Our group was set to depart at 9:30 a.m., however we ended up rushing through breakfast to head out and catch the storms. We holed up in the barn of a local farmer to escape the giant hail being dumped by one supercell that passed just off to our north. Chase tactics for storms with large hail are different. We usually let the hail core pass us by, then venture in behind it to collect the hailstones. We tramped through a field and collected 3.5 inch stones...bigger than baseballs! Windows and windshields were broken in the town. Had we driven through the storm, all of our windows in the vans would have been shattered. The storms disrupted the atmosphere for awhile, so the early afternoon was quiet. Then, around 6 p.m. a giant supercell blew the cap and exploded up to 60,000 feet! We chased it south into northern Nebraska. Our road network was poor, but we were able to get right under the mesocyclone! It did not produce a tornado, but it came very close. We took shelter next to an old schoolhouse but the vans took several dings from 3-inch hail.

Day six found us headed home to Colorado. On the way, we intercepted a line of intense thunderstorms moving off the Front Range. We arrived back in Denver in the early afternoon. It was a very successful chase! I will be chasing the Colorado plains for the rest of the summer, so keep checking back for updates! - Steve.

Douglas/Elbert County Washout!

What a big rainstorm south of the Metro Area on Tuesday afternoon! I was working the afternoon shift on KOSI 101 and doing a "virtual chase" looking at the NEXRAD on my laptop in the studio. I watched two huge areas of rain move over the Front Range. One went to the north and soaked Boulder and Golden. The other moved out of the foothills of western Douglas County and dumped copius amounts of rain on Douglas and Elbert Counties between 3 and 5 p.m. The storm then moved into northeast Elbert County and the NWS issued a Severe Thunderstorm Warning on it due to penny-sized hail. Penny-sized is 3/4 inch, which is the minimum required for a warning. My radar screen was lit-up all afternoon with this baby! When I got home to Elizabeth around 7:30, I checked my official National Weather Service rain gauge and logged 1.82 inches of rain! I guess I won't have to worry about watering the lawn for a few days!

Silver Lining Tour 7

Hello Weather Enthusiasts!

Tour 7 with Silver Lining Tours starts this weekend and I'll be driving again! We'll be leaving on Sunday morning for whereabouts unknown! I've been keeping up with the GFS model and things look interesting with a couple of troughs progged to move through. Troughs are a good thing ;-) Hopefully the timing will work out, but hey, it's June in the Great Plains...anything can happen! I will be blogging-in as much as possible from the road with pictures and stories for you. Tour 7 goes from Sunday June 17 through Friday June 22. Here are a couple of great images from Tour 4:

(Left: Monster storm going HP near Guymon, OK on May 31)
(Right: Beautiful rainbow near Portales, NM on June 1 after a hailstorm)

We will have six full chase days! After that, Roger and I will be teaming up as much as possible for day-chases all summer long. The miles can add up quickly on these expeditions, but it's always a lot of fun. You can always check in with me via e-mail at weatherbuff@gmail.com if you'd like to chat or learn more about stormchasing!

Cheers,

Steve

Storm Chaser Slang

I've been chasing storms for nearly 10 years now, and I've picked up on some interesting slang words used by chasers to describe certain situations. Many of these have been developed by my friend Roger Hill. They're pretty amusing!

"Beast" - Used to describe a particularly large and dangerous thunderstorm.

"Whatabeast" - Coined by Mr. Roger Hill to describe a large storm. (Similar to a "Beast").

"Monster" - (See above)

"Meatball" - A storm that exhibits a round, compact and strong radar signature.

"Bush Ball" - Another Roger Hill term for a small thunderstorm cell with a fuzzy top.

"Ice Blender" - Mainly used in Colorado to denote a storm generating large hail.

"Outflow-Dominant" - Used when a storm reaches a phase where more air is flowing out of it than into it, usually in the decay phase.

"Gusting-Out" - Similar to outflow-dominant. Used when a storm's outflow boundary has reached outward about 10 miles and is particularly strong.

"Barber Pole" - This describes a low-precipitation supercell which usually has a cork-screw shaped updraft. These have particularly beautiful structure.

"Mother Ship" - Usually refers to a large rotating supercell which has a rounded structure that resembles a space ship.

"Stack Of Plates" - Similar to above with a striated structure that looks like plates stacked upon one another. These are wonderful to photograph!

"V-Notch" - A radar signature in the shape of a "V" which denotes a strong inflow of wind into a thunderstorm. Depending on the position of the notch, this could indicate a strengthening storm.

"Flying Eagle" - Another radar signature indicating a strong thunderstorm.

"High-Based" - When a thunderstorm's base is elevated, usually above 5 or 6 thousand feet. These storms rarely produce tornadoes, but can drop large hail.

"Ice Bomb" - Used to describe hail bigger than four-inches in diameter.

"Acus" - Altocumulus Castellanus. A cloud type that indicates mid-level moisture.

"Yokel" - Refers to local amateur storm chasers, some of whom do not know what they are doing and usually blocking traffic.

"Parasite" - Thrill-seekers who follow professional storm chasers around.

"Gust-Nado" - A 'spin-up' in the front edge of a thunderstorm's gust front that can resemble a tornado. However, a gust-nado is not attached to the cloud base.

"Doppler-Nado" - Strong rotation in a thunderstorm, indicated by doppler radar. Usually the NWS will issue a tornado warning if the rotation is strong enough, even though an actual tornado may not have been sighted.

"Sheriff-Nado" - A 'tornado' reported by law enforcement officials. Sometimes these reports are false ;-)

"Tractor-Nado" - Dust or weeds kicked up by a tractor in a field. Sometimes looks like a debris cloud from a distance.

Real Tornado Descriptions: Tube, Rope, Elephant Trunk, Cigar, Wedge, funnel, stove-pipe.

...More to come!