Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Storm Chasing this past weekend
This is my first entry on the blog so I guess I should first explain a little bit about me and what I do. My name is Brian Emfinger and I have been storm chasing since I was in high school (Waldron, AR - graduation 99'), well middle school if you count when I drove my bicycle into afternoon thunderstorms when I was around 10 years old.
Once we got back in close to the storm we were able to observe a classic rain free base/updraft portion of the storm.
The storm then began putting on a real show. Below the updraft base seen above low scud clouds began forming. The clouds slowly were sucked in towards the center of the above picture and began rising. Within 12 minutes a impressive wall cloud was made.
About 30 minutes later the wall cloud became a violently rotating chaotic mass. The wall cloud had some of most unbelievable motion I had ever seen.
At two times the rotation reached the surface and a tornado was born. Both touchdowns only last a few seconds each.
I followed in north for a little while and observed a large wall cloud to my east but soon the storm began to weaken rapidly and so I headed home.
The first thing a lot of people ask me when they find out what I do is "Are You Crazy or Stupid or Both? Well, I am not stupid but I guess you do have to be a little crazy to drive 1000 miles in a day to see what might be nothing or only a few seconds of severe weather and to be completely happy either way. It is definately fair to say I am obcessed with storms and storm chasing and I know my wife would agree. A lot of people think storm chasing is dangerous and there is no doubt it is. However, I am more worried about wet roads and oncoming drivers than tornadoes and lightning.
This past weekend I chased with my chase partner Scott Bell (a professor from UA-Fort Smith) and Matt Crowther (a senior meteorologist/forecaster from the weather channel) whom we picked up at the Wichita, Kansas airport. Scott and I left Fort Smith at 6am and we arrived in Wichita, KS around 11am. Storms were already developing near Dodge City, Kansas when we left Wichita around noon. We traveled west from Wichita and after an hour we had our first of many issues of the day regarding the previous nights destructive tornadoes. The storms that were developing on Saturday were following similar paths to the storms and tornadoes that leveled the town of Greensburg, Kansas only about 12 hours earlier. All day long we had to keep in mind that there was no getting through Greensburg. Several times during the day we would cross damage paths.
The first storm we targeted was at the end of the line of storms that was forming down from the Dodge City area. It was about 2pm when the storm started coming into view. The picture below is looking west southwest towards the updraft portion of the storm from probably 15-20 miles away. The updraft of the storm is the part of a storm that is the most important for gaging storm strength and the area from which wall clouds, tornadoes, large hail, dangerous lightning, and strong winds all develop from.
For the next hour the storm struggled but around 320pm the storm started to get better organized. The picture below is looking west again. We are now within 5 miles of the storm and looking directly into the updraft portion of the storm. The low hanging cloud in the middle of the picture is actually a developing wall cloud.
The wall cloud above fell apart within a few minutes as the storm began a bit of a reorganization. The storm started to show the classic supercell look. Below is a picture of the updraft portion of the storm this time showing some classic supercellular structure. The line of clouds that is feeding into the storm is called a flanking line and is a good sign the storm is strengthening.
Once we got back in close to the storm we were able to observe a classic rain free base/updraft portion of the storm.
The storm then began putting on a real show. Below the updraft base seen above low scud clouds began forming. The clouds slowly were sucked in towards the center of the above picture and began rising. Within 12 minutes a impressive wall cloud was made.
Within a few more minutes the circulation had really increased and we all believed that a tornado was possibly going to drop any moment. A tornado didn't drop out at this point but the storm continued to remain well developed.
About 30 minutes later the wall cloud became a violently rotating chaotic mass. The wall cloud had some of most unbelievable motion I had ever seen.
At two times the rotation reached the surface and a tornado was born. Both touchdowns only last a few seconds each.
For the next few hours we continued the chase. We saw a well defined funnel cloud (seen here), and one more tornado (seen here - low quality was from not being able to stop). We just missed out on a couple of large wedge tornadoes at dark.
We stayed the night in Alva, Ok after trying Medicine Lodge, KS. We couldn't find a room in Medicine Lodge because of all the residents displaced from Greensburg.
The next morning we woke up at 8am to find tornado warnings already issued for just to our south! We didnt intercept this storm but decided to head towards our target of El Reno, Oklahoma. On the way down we stopped and I managed to get some nice daytime lightning in front of a shelf cloud.
The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. We saw several weak wall clouds from several different storms. The storms were having a lot of difficulty staying isolated and anytime a storm did start to become better organized it would be interupted by other storms and lose organization. I did get another nice lightning shot.
I started heading home about 6pm after it started becoming obvious that the storms just werent going to develop into more organized cells. That wasnt the end of the chase though. Near Oklahoma City I started seeing lightning and so I checked radar. There was actually already a tornado warning for a storm to my southeast. I got right to the storm when it crossed the road. The tornado (that had done damage to the south) had already lifted but I did see a nice lowering from the wall cloud and for a few moments there appeared to be a needle funnel.
I followed in north for a little while and observed a large wall cloud to my east but soon the storm began to weaken rapidly and so I headed home.
Posted by Brian Emfinger at 4:49 PM
1 Comments:
What an exciting read!
"...to drive 1000 miles in a day to see what might be nothing or only a few seconds of severe weather and to be completely happy either way"
~that is the definition of passion.
Great Post. Maybe I can kick in on some gas sometime... :p)
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