I was on the Great Plains for 61 days in 2010, from April 29 to July 4.  For most of that period I was directing the Tempest Tours chase group.  From June 2 to June 6 I enjoyed a break back home in California.  I counted 27 chase days with good supercells and/or significant convection.  I observed at least one tornado on 11 of these 27 chase days.  There were 17 days in which we were in chase mode, for the most part, and the end result was a bust, or generally a junky, unfulfilling convective experience.  On 17 days we were not in chase mode.  Most of these were “in-between” tour days:  days on which we had to be driving back to the base city, greeting new guests and/or repositioning at the beginning of a tour.  A handful of days were non-chase days or reposition days during a tour, when storms were not expected.

Here are the stats by state or province (on a handful of chases I was in more than one state and I had to choose the state with the more significant activity):

TX—I had 8 chase days in TX, but these were primarily junky chases in the Panhandle and way down towards Big Bend around Marathon.  Best were May 14th near Penwell, Iraan and Ozona; and May 18th near Dumas and Stinnett.  Bob and Marcia had a couple of good tornado days in the Panhandle during Tempest’s Tour One in April.   Chalk up just one brief TX tornado for me in 2010, near Dumas.

OK—5 chases, with several good supercell days in May (10th, 11th, 12th, 19th).  I was unlucky with OK tornadoes, though (except for the final stages of the Campo event, which spilled into the OK Panhandle).  I managed to see one tornado near Dover on the 19th, which quickly wrapped in rain.

KS—6 chases—three junky, and three with decent supercells and tornadoes, though these KS tornadoes were either weak, brief, distant and/or relatively ho-hum.  KS was not a good tornado state in 2010, though one of the better events of the year was in northwest KS (near Jennings, on June 11).  Few if any chasers were on that storm.

NE—3 chases, all fairly junky!  Nebraska was really dead in 2010.  So, I fared rather poorly in 2010 in terms of decent tornado intercepts in the heart of Tornado Alley, from TX to NE.

Dakotas—amazingly, just one chase in SD and one chase in ND for me.  Both were excellent days, though, with a big tornado day in northwest SD on May 24.

NM—2 chases, both with decent supercells but no tornados.

CO—7 chases, including big tornado days near Campo and Last Chance, and the HP beast in Yuma County on June 21.

WY—3 chases:  a bust, a junky chase, and a tornado and big BIG hail event near Chugwater on June 20!

MT—no chases, but we did pass through on our way to…

SK—4 chase days, and two fun supercell days and a distant tornado!

Jungles—one chase in AR, with supercells in the northeast part where the chase terrain is decent.  Luckily, no chases in LA or MO, and no chases in the trees of TX and OK (except late in the day May 10 east of OKC).

Corn Belt—two big busts in IA (where else?!), a bust in southern IL, and one big HP supercell in southern MN.

My best chases in 2010 were definitely those on the higher terrain:  in CO, WY,  western SD, and even SK.  The region south of I-40 was slow, and so was the region east of I-35.  Nebraska was amazingly slow in terms of decent and chase-worthy storms.  South Dakota had three huge days while I was on the Plains, but I could only get to one of those events.  Minnesota had a tornado outbreak on June 17th that I could not chase.

This long post is kind of a “best of 2010″ image gallery. Scroll down to see the best images from each chase, and click on the dates to go to the chase account page to read about the event and to see more pictures.

April 29/Washington County, KS/tornado It’s nice to get a tornado at close range on the first full chase day, no matter how small and brief!

April 30/western IL/junky storms The less you know about this chase, the better.

May 1/northeastern AR/supercells This high risk day was characterized by a high infrequency of tornadoes, but we saw what may have been a weak tornado.

May 2/southeastern KS/weak storms If you like a long drive topped off by weak, low-topped convection, then you should have been with me this day.

May 3/Picher and Neutral/killing time The atmosphere was taking a break, so we went into explore and photo-shoot mode.

May 3 to 8/summary of chases A lot of driving during the last half of this tour resulted in a couple of ho-hum chases.

May 10/Red Rock, OK/supercell We were on a very strong tornadic supercell…just prior to its tornadic phase.  Nice mammatus at sunset!

May 11/Woodward County, OK/supercell We placed ourselves just east of a pretty LP-ish supercell in northwest OK right after sunset.

May 12/Carter, OK/supercell One of the vans blew an alternator, and we found a rental minivan in time to get the group on a decent supercell in western OK.

May 13/Garden City, TX/haunted house This was a reposition day to southwest Texas.

May 14/Penrose to Ozona, TX/supercells and lightning Storms started going up at lunchtime, and the long chase day culminated with a great lightning show near Iraan and Ozona.

May 15 and 16/Marathon, TX/almost strong storms The scenery was better than normal, but the storms were less than thrilling.

May 17/Artesia, NM/severe storms A couple of supercells looked good briefly, but then sputtered.

May 18/Moore County, TX/tornadic supercell We witnessed a brief tornado near Dumas, and somehow missed the one near Stinnett.

May 19/Dover, OK/tornadic supercell This high risk day was swarming with chasers northwest of Oklahoma City. We saw a tornado near Dover.

May 20/south of DFW/marginal severe Linear convection failed to please, but a pretty storm at sunset saved the day.

May 22/South Dakota dreaming Our group could do nothing but wish that we were chasing the Bowdle, SD supercell

May 23/Goodland/tornadoes A supercell moved north through the Goodland, KS, area after sunset, and a couple of tornadoes materialized.

May 24/Howes to Faith, SD/tornadic supercell A strong, long-lived, very photogenic tornado rambled through the empty vastness of western South Dakota…YES!

May 25/western KS/tornadic supercells A tornado near Tribune made an appearance to our distant west, and a bigger and better cell got away to our east.

May 26/DIA to Prospect Valley/slow-moving supercell A rotating updraft slowly drifted from the Denver area towards Fort Morgan.

May 30/northern OK/messy storms A storm or two looked good briefly, but convection was everywhere.

May 31/Campo, CO/tornado An amazing tornado was observed at close range just north of the CO/OK border (two parts—see Part Two for the Campo tornado).

June 1/Palo Duro/lightning On the final chase day prior to my break, a pretty high-based cell or two provided some lightning photography opportunities.

June 7/eastern CO/junky storm A long drive at the start of the new tour resulted in a pretty sunset scene.

June 8/Wet Valley/scenics We found ourselves between some strong, but distant, storms, and resorted to local photography ops.

June 9/western Nebraska Panhandle/mediocre storms Storms struggled north and south of I-80

June 10/Last Chance, CO/tornado A beautiful supercell spawned a tornado or two west of Last Chance.

June 11/Limon, CO/supercell A cold and nasty HP supercell kept our attention for several hours, and we were bummed to learn of the nice tornadoes late in the day in NW KS.

June 13/NE TX PH/outflow junk We were unable to get to the goods near Slapout in time, and wound up with a line and a pretty tail-end Charlie at sunset.

June 14/Tahoka, TX/messy convection The southern Texas Panhandle lit up, but the end result was plenty of mediocrity.

June 15/Tatum, NM/LP supercell In what will come to be known as “the day our tour group chased a storm in New Mexico”, we chased a storm in New Mexico.

June 16/Amistad and Dalhart/rainy mess I thought we might have a shot at a nice supercell today, but it was not to be. Shoulda woulda coulda been in DuPree.

June 17/western KS/supercell A pretty and isolated storm near Pen Dennis was small consolation, given the outbreak in MN.

June 19/Brush, CO/severe A drive-by chase in eastern CO, on our way to Denver.

June 20/Chugwater/tornado The atmosphere giveth, and the atmosphere taketh away.

June 21/Yuma County/HP supercell A large and nasty beast of a storm marched through Yuma County and into Kansas.

June 22/western Iowa/bust The troposphere and the lenses remained strongly capped, to our dismay

June 24/Bismarck/supercell A very pretty supercell teased us, weakened, and got serious again late.

June 25/Sleepy Eye/supercell We nearly had a tornado near Sleepy Eye.  The storm went HP and subsequent tornadoes went unobserved.

June 26/Wheeler, NE/marginal severe Isolated activity south of O’Neill struggled.

June 29 and 30/Saskatchewan/Canada real estate A couple of chase days in southern SK were marginal in terms of storm quality.

July 1/Pambrun/supercell Saskatchewan magic fell a little short, but Canada Day was not entirely uninteresting in the least.

July 2/Raymore SK/tornado We were a tad late getting to the significant tornado near Raymore, and were later treated to additional supercells near severe-storm hotspot Foam Lake.

July 4/Nebraska Panhandle/marginal severe My last chase day for 2010 was more of a yawner than a thriller.

As far as video highlights — My 2009 video is about 2/3 done, and I have yet to start on 2010.  I hope to have these ready before the 2011 chase season.

I presented a slew of my best chase photography and video from the past two seasons to the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Meteorology Society last night at Channel 7/KABC-TV with Dallas Raines.  It was well received!  Thank you to Dallas, our officers Jeffrey and Chuck and Steve, and all who attended.

Some of my storm photography will be featured at a photo gallery in New York City in December.  More details later when I know more!  I’m new to this gallery stuff.

Bill

e-mail:  bill@stormbruiser.com

So, the screaming message today is that Stormbruiser isn’t stuck on June 10th any longer.  You can look forward to seeing how my chase season fared in the coming weeks (if not months).  It was very active overall and the Tempest guests seemed to be quite pleased for the most part.  We wound up in Saskatchewan for four days on the final tour — that was quite an experience!  If you are wondering, I observed approximately 20 tornadoes on about 7 chase days.  And now — back to image processing and web site updating, and check back every week or so for (hopefully) some new material!

The last chase day for me is today, and it will be in the good ol’ USA!

The potential for a supercell and maybe a tornado looks pretty darn good in the vicinity of Weld County, CO, late this afternoon. Dews along I-80 from CYS to SNY are 55 – 60F, and the RUC shows nicely backed flow of 15-25 knots through Weld County by 00Z. This area will be beneath WSW flow at 30 knots at 500 and southerly flow at 15-20 knots at 700. CAPE is forecast to be above 1500 from Fort Collins to Chugwater.

Another area to watch today will be the Palmer Divide sw of LIC and perhaps the Raron Mesa area to Baca County, with really juicy air lurking nearby (65F dew at DHT and 67F at EHA).

The big player today will be Mr. Sun —- it is imperative that the high terrain along and just east of I-25 receives several hours of mid-afternoon high-grade insolation. Currently much of E WY and E CO is overcast, but there is a decent swath of clear skies around Weld County. We are diving south from Chadron, and I’m looking for storms to move into the Kimball/Fort Collins/Chugwater area off of the higher terrain by 22Z-00Z.

A strong storm started to rotate and move east towards I-25 between Cheyenne and Chugwater, and I wrote at 2045Z:

2045Z—-we got right in front of the trailing t-warned cell S of Chugwater and viewed—–not much. There is a lot of low stratus around, the storm base was low and murky, and there wasn’t much cloud motion to get excited about, despite the good-looking velocity couplet. Conditions were quite cool with near 100 percent RH. The RFD came overhead and we had 3/4-inch size hail.

We are heading back south to catch something moving into warmer air.

We dropped back south to Cheyenne and east on I-80.  There were reports of tornadoes with the storm that went over us near Chugwater, and with another storm over Cheyenne when we were nearby.  We saw no tornadoes.  We played with other marginally-interesting convection along I-80, but they tended to be outflowish or just plain duds.   A discrete cell north of the interstate decided to bolt into Nebraska, and we caught up in time to watch it elongate and weaken.  The chase was over, we headed to Denver to drop the guests off at the motel, and I was a free man until CHASE 2011!

The previous day had been a long one, and we ended the day in Gravelbourg.  Heck, it doesn’t get dark up here in Saskatchewan until after 0330Z, or 10:30 p.m. MDT/11:30 p.m. CDT!  (Saskatchewan observes CST during the summer, which is the same as MDT.)  The chase day just keeps on going and going in early July.  The good news for our group was that the target area was not very far away again.  We were able to sleep in to about 9 a.m. CST, and had plenty of time to enjoy a nice brunch in town.  I made a quick forecast post around noon:

I agree with Pat that the upper winds and dynamics appear to favor Canada over the U.S. today. We are in Gravelbourg, and currently there seems to be little reason to rush off to anywhere else. 15Z RUC doesn’t exactly have a “go here” arrow, but I think we might want to be near or a little north of Moose Jaw by 22Z. CAPE and shear look excellent for a supercell again today.

“Pat” is Patrick McCarthey, a severe weather meteorologist with Environment Canada.  Pat thought that the best chase prospects were north of the international border in southern SK, with the best shear/CAPE combo near a surface trough from Saskatoon to Regina to Estevan.  The best plan would be to be patient and to wait around Moose Jaw or Regina.  I should have written my little forecast blurb on a piece of paper and taped it to the dashboard.

After brunch we drifted east from Gravelbourg to Mossbank.  It was sunny and warm and humid, and we stopped in town.  I was generally thinking about heading to Moose Jaw, but I didn’t have a really good reason to go anywhere.  I don’t like to be driving somewhere without a good reason!  While the guests were poking around a museum, I was in the van checking the data.  A strong storm was already in progress, well to our west-southwest.  It was coming out of extreme southeastern Alberta and moving towards — you guessed it — Gravelbourg!  I was not particularly pleased with this, as convection this early in the day (it was barely past noon!) usually means a junky chase day.  Should we head back west to intercept the cell?  I had to.  If it started to produce tornadoes while I was twiddling my thumbs in Moose Jaw or Mossbank, then I would be miffed.  We began our way back west, and I posted the following to CFDG:

Strong convection has commenced along the cold front in sw SK and is moving ENE. A tail-end cell is approaching the area where we chased a supercell yesterday, near Cadillac. I see no reason NOT to blast towards this cell now. We left Gravelbourg earlier and went 20 miles east to Mossbank. Now we are going back west on 43 thru Gravelbourg to intercept the tail-end Charlie cell. Hopefully it won’t be undercut by the cold front—-I suspect that it will be.

We stopped just short of Highway 19, next to a yellow canola field.  The cell was already in view to the west!  It was moving rapidly to the ENE — about 40 mph.  This is not what I wanted.

There was some interesting mid-level banding, but the cell did not (yet) look like a well-organized supercell and a tornado-making candidate. It was heading more to the northeast, towards Hodgeville, so we went north on 19 to get a closer look.

These images are looking west to WNW, across Hodgeville, on road 363 about a mile east of Hodgeville. The cell had decent organization at low levels and was definitely a supercell. It appeared to be a little on the HP side and might have been undercut a little by rain-cooled outflow. I posted the following at 2 p.m. CST:

The supercell se of Swift Current appears (visually) to be east of the cold front and is ingesting good surface-based air. We stopped for a few minutes near Hodgeville and viewed good structure — cell is HP and has a front-end meso and occasional beefy lowerings It is booking it to the ENE so we need to blast east.

We stayed with the storm for a little bit along 363, which jogs a little north, east of Hodgeville.  These images were shot near Kelstern and Shamrock:

There is a bug splat on the windshield right where a tornado would be in that first image — DO NOT BE FOOLED! As the supercell marched northeastward at 40 mph or so, we continued east on 363 to Courval. I was thinking that it would be next to impossible to get back in position on the supercell again, given the e-w/n-s road network. New storm towers were going up in our vicinity, anyway. This was good! We could kiss off the long-track, undercut, fast-moving supercell, and attach ourselves to a new one which hopefully would be easier to chase. This developing storm was strengthening just southwest of Courval:

This new cell looked quite healthy for a little while. We continued on 363 into Moose Jaw, and were greeted by some thunder and rain. But, our little cell was no more — the updraft had dissipated and only an anvil remained! Unbelievable! We made our way through Moose Jaw and jumped onto Hwy 1 eastbound to Regina. The only game in town (or in province) now was the original big supercell, well to our north. Tornado watches and/or warnings were associated with the storm. We had to try to get back on the storm again. We had spent about 15 to 20 minutes stopped along 363, and that time lost would be crucial.

The supercell would soon be trekking over Last Mountain Lake, also known as “Long” Lake. It is a very long lake, with no east-west road crossings for about 60 miles! The only way we were going to get close to this big southern Saskatchewan supercell would be to blast east to Regina and then north on Hwy 6, east of the lake. This was a long way to go, but as we persevered, the supercell remained strong and the tornado warnings with it continued. There appeared to be a decent chance that we could get back on the storm. I think it had slowed down a little, so maybe it was rotating more strongly and maybe it was indeed in a better environment for producing tornadoes. It was, after all, now in my forecast target area! We made pretty good time, but had to go around the east side of Regina and then back west a little before jumping on Hwy 6 north. On our way north from Regina, the cell was to our north-northwest, and we could see the storm tower. I didn’t have a good radar image of the storm, though, and I was unable to get decent reports as to whether there was a tornado with the storm or not. As far as I knew, the storm was still HP with outflow issues and non-tornadic, as it had been three hours earlier near Hodgeville! We had to make a pit stop some 30 miles north of Regina, and spent close to ten minutes there. Unfortunately, I did not have the group in “urgent” mode, and we dilly-dallied a little. We got back on 6 and headed north. It looked like we would still be able to get close to the storm near Raymore. Near the small town of Serath, highway 6 jogs to the west a couple of miles before continuing north.  (I wish it had jogged east!)  Shortly after completing this jog, perhaps 8 miles or so south of Raymore, a tornado came into view to our north-northeast! I got some so-so zoomed-in video of it through the breaks in the trees —- what are trees doing way up north here on the plains of Saskatchewan, anyway?! Didn’t the glaciers scour away the soil and the trees and everything? Well, I had mixed emotions. It was great seeing a full-fledged tornado with the supercell that we had been on four hours ago, but I was kicking myself for the time we had lost in the interim. Still, it was quite an accomplishment to have even seen the tornado, given the parent storm’s fast motion, diagonal to the road network. The tornado seemed to disappear or dissipate in some precip, and the number of trees seemed to increase, making it difficult to observe the action area. We turned east on 15, just south of Raymore, and were unable to confirm whether the storm (to our northeast) still carried a tornado or not. Highway 15 did not cooperate, as it jogged decidedly to the ESE while the supercell continued to the NE or ENE. I wasn’t about to try out an unpaved road to catch an HP cell, so we had to go 30 miles ESE to Laross before another paved north option was available. By the time we were close to the cell again, near Bankend, the storm had weakened and was not tornadic.  That was a LOT of hard driving (by Chad!) for just a lousy one-minute glimpse of a distant tornado.  And, of course, if-only this and if-only that and on and on—-if we had only been at Raymore ten minutes prior.  Here are some images from video of the Raymnore, SK, tornado as we are driving north:

The structure shots are looking due north down the road, so this is right about the time that the tornado was near Raymore.  I think that this was just prior to the west “jog”.  After the jog, we are headed north again, just a few minutes later.  The skinny tornado is to our NNE, and appears to be in a dissipating stage.

We went north a bit more to Hwy 16 at Elfros.  This is a major “Trans-Canada” Highway which connects Saskatoon and Yorkton.  And, this was as far north as I had ever been in my life:  the latitude of Elfros is 51 degrees 44.5 minutes N.  (The previous record for me had been set on June 30, when I was in nearby Willowbrook, latitude 51 deg 13 minutes N.)  It was a little surreal for me up in this area.  The vegetation was strange and nothing was familiar.  Several beefy towers were in the vicinity and were moving northeast.  Naturally, the road we were on went east-southeast.  There was still plenty of daylight remaining, but chasing a storm in this region today was essentially futile.  Fortunately, additional storms were forming to our southwest and moving in our direction.  We could stop, relax, set up the tripods and cameras and enjoy the surroundings!

A goofy town by the name of Foam Lake came into view, and we drifted south several miles on 310.  At last we had a chance to get out and walk around.  And, we enjoyed nearly a full second of  the great outdoors before we were enveloped by trillions of blood-sucking flying insects.  Well, I suppose it wasn’t as bad as I make it sound, but the mosquitoes situation was horrid.  A smallish but very pretty supercell approached from the southwest.  There appeared to be no serious tornado threat, but there was a wall cloud and a prominent RFD cut.  The storm structure was excellent, and I tried to take some images in between my frantic hand-waving to ward off the bugs.  I had repellent on, a wind breaker and long pants.  If the mosquitoes were going for my hemoglobin, they would have to get it off my face or through the clothes.

The bulk of the images above feature the nicely structured and small supercell south of Foam Lake. The base of the cell passed overhead (at 7:40 p.m. CST), as did the clear slot and a shallow lowering or wall cloud.  Image 0850 is looking south as the base crossed the road, and the following five images are of the same cell on our east side.  I don’t think that any hail fell where we were, but we could hear a “hail roar” just to our north as the cell passed.  We went north a couple of miles and found some one-inch hailstones.  A second cell followed on the heels of the lead cell, south of Foam Lake, but it was weaker and less organized (final two images above).  It was close to 8:40 p.m. CST, and even more storms were going up to our south and southwest.  Good—it was time to head south, terminate the chase and to find food and lodging.

Prior to sunset, around 9:10 p.m. CST, we sat down for a meal in Ituna.  I don’t think that tuna was on the menu, but I ordered something and went back outside to shoot the sky.  The mammatus over the town at sunset was fabulous, and I caught a few CGs looking east-southeast which were not entirely uninteresting.

Our weary group checked into the hotel in Regina around 1 a.m.

In summary, this was quite the severe weather day for Saskatchewan. F3 tornadoes are definitely on the rare side here, and it is a shame that we were just a little late to get into position on the supercell near Raymore. This long-track storm lasted for at least six or seven hours and went nearly border-to-border across the province.