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!

We started in Kimball, NE, and waited a long time in Kimball and a little west of there as the cap held strongly into mid-afternoon.  A junky cell went up near Cheyenne and we watched it approach from Pine Bluffs, WY.  Finally, some storms went up where I wanted them to — in northeast Colorado near Denver.  This area had better air—there was higher CAPE and the E-W U.S. 36 route was along the theta-e axis.  I had my eye on two cells near Denver, but another cell blew up about 30 SW of Kimball.  We headed E to Kimball in I-80 and dove south towards Brush on 71.  We passed by the Weld County cell that was approaching Kimball, though it sported a nice wall cloud for quite a while.  I thought that we might miss a nice tornado with this cell, but I was intent on getting to the southern activity.

Fortunately, the Weld County cell sputtered.  We got in front of the tail-end cell near Last Chance.  The cell was moving E to ENE from I-70 near Deer Trail into an uninhabited area with few roads.  We set up about three miles west of Last Chance and watched the sculpted updraft approach.  Not more than 10 minutes after stopping, it dropped a couple of tornadoes for several minutes each—about 10 miles to our WSW.  The contrast and lighting were very nice!

The tornado phase ended for the most part, though it did wrap up strongly near Lindon and we looked up into the RFD cut as strong west winds blew—fun stuff!  We stayed with the cell towards Yuma County, where it died around 11 p.m.

On the day prior I chased with Kirstie Johnson and Dallas Raines in north-central Oklahoma.  We were tagging along with Brian Morganti and the Tempest Tours group for much of the chase, which featured a lot of lowerings and blowing dust and some storm structure, but nothing close to a tornado.  Today we awoke in Enid, and targeted extreme SE CO.  The upper winds were weak, seemingly a little too weak around the 500 mb level to expect a top-notch supercell.  The forecast flow at 700 mb was not too shabby, maybe 20-25 knots from the SSW.  If we could get some southeasterlies at the surface, I figured that low-level shear could be sufficient for an interesting show.  Moisture and instability were quite good for this High Plains area, with dews near 60F.  Forecast charts for this area showed a good slug of precip by 00Z near the CO/KS/OK triple-point.  It appeared to be the obvious target area, and SPC agreed, as they circled the area with a slight risk.  Still, they weren’t too keen on tornado prospects, with just a 2 percent outline around Baca County in CO.

This was Dallas’ final chase day of his whirlwind 4-day chase weekend.  He was eager to witness his first good tornado, and he was more optimistic about seeing a tornado than I was.  Kirstie and Dallas and I left Enid around 10 a.m. and made it to Guymon for lunch around 1:30 p.m.  We gassed up at Boise City with the Tempest group and then made a bee-line for a tornado-warned cell in western Baca County.  Someone had seen a funnel cloud with the new storm there already!  When we got into our vehicles in Boise City, I kiddingly said to Dallas, “Let’s go see the tornado!”

Our cell put down a nice tornado for a minute or so when we were east of the cell along 287.  We were several miles south of Springfield, and the cell was some 10-13 miles to our west.  We scooted west a few miles on a dirt road, and the nicely organized cell managed to put down a couple more tornadoes at the same time!  After these events, the storm was practically stationary for perhaps 60 minutes.  It sported a wall cloud, but made no serious effort to tornado.  Our group got a lot closer to the cell during this time frame, and then the cell started to spin strongly at low levels again.  We looked up into the corkscrew wall cloud area and heard a hail roar and a whooshing sound, which is sometimes heard during a tornado.  A beefy funnel extended about 2/3 of the way to the ground, but did not touch down apparently.  We were REALLY close, and the cell was moving south at 3 mph, but the storm was in major “tease” mode.  Dang.

We dropped south to Road J, I think, and headed east towards Campo.  We stopped several times with numerous other chase groups, and viewed amazingly wrapped-up wall clouds/updrafts and occasional funnel clouds.  The action area seemed to jump quickly eastward, and we trekked into Campo and south a few miles.  Again, the action area was nearly overhead, and it seemed ready to go to town…but we had seen this scenario before, over and over again.

But this time was different.  A funnel cloud quickly descended just to our northwest, and just west of U.S. 287.  The funnel touched the ground less than a mile away, and a debris whirl rose up.  The thing was moving towards us, too!  We had a minute to watch, and then moved south fast!  The tornado was strengthening quickly, and was moving towards the road.  I could not understand why some folks stood their watching as it neared them — were they in a trance?

I must have dropped south a mile or so and then stopped and looked back north.  The tornado was magnificent!  See the photos!  I shot a bunch of stills with the 16-35mm wide-angle, and Kirstie helped me to shoot video, too.  The RFD was wicked and scared Dallas off farther to the south another mile.  Kirstie and I stooped low to the ground on the road, on the east side of my SUV, to stay out of the wind and rain and hail.  We could look almost straight up and see the rapidly rotating funnel at cloud base — what a sight!  Since I usually chase with the tour group, I tend to stay back a mile or more from tornadoes, but this was my chance to get some closer shots, and I took full advantage!  I had no data or GPS onboard, and elected to jump onto an unpaved road eastbound that the tornado was near.  We were getting slammed by one-to-two-inch hail and strong winds, and I managed several more minutes of stills and pretty close video, with fast suction-spot vortices whirling around at the surface.  Finally, a rainbow appeared and framed the tornado a little.  I had to get out and get some stills of that — and paid for it with a big hail stone to the back of the neck.

That was definitely the main show.  We continued south into the OK Panhandle and east again before getting into Boise City.  We saw another tornado for several minutes to our north, and later, just before sunset, saw another brief one well east of Keyes to our immediate east.  When the storm decided to start making tornadoes again, it didn’t waste any time!  I got lots of stills and video of all of the tornadoes, but the stills provided below are all of the Campo tornado.  Thanks to everyone in our group today and other chasers on the storm for a great, safe chase.

This was also the arrival day in OKC for our group, Tempest Tours/Tour 4.  We had the orientation around 1 p.m., as usual, and quickly hit the road north and west towards western Kansas.  By 5 or 6 p.m. we were near the KS/OK border, somewhere north of Woodward, under bright blue skies.  On the laptop computer, the radar display showed the Bowdle storm as a perfectly shaped supercell, and the shear values increased with every update it seemed!  Tornado warnings and confirmed tornadoes and large and violent wording and so on and on and on and on and on and on and on and it was such a hoot!  Chasers surrounded the storm according to the spotter network —- we were so happy for all of them.

As the first of many tornadoes initiated near Bowdle, SD, we stopped around Sitka, KS, to poke around some old structures. In the image below, you can sense the satisfaction in Brian Morganti’s mood, having moments prior photographed an abandoned house, one of his favorite pastimes, during a very strong phase of the South Dakota storm.

In Sitka, I revisited the famous (in-my-own-mind) dilapidated home which may have belonged to a Kansas family way back in the Dust Bowl Days! As I reminisced and took some stills, I stopped to think about the concurrent massive tornadic supercell in South Dakota that was probably kicking up dust.  Beneath a bowl-shaped lowering.

During the massive wedge stage of the SD tornado, I positioned myself above this hole in the ground next to the fallen house.  I shot two stills and made sure to steady myself against the nearly calm winds. There is a toilet in the hole, which might be used as a metaphor for our chase situation.  I used a wide angle lens in order to afford a full structure view.  One can get a good sense for the circular look to the bricks around the hole. There was no obvious rotation, but then again I only watched for a minute or two.

Our fun group posed for photographs at Sitka. There may have been more than one tornado on the ground with the South Dakota storm at this moment.  I am not certain.  Who cares?!  We were on a storm chase tour and we were in Kansas!

The group photos were taken in front of the Sitka grain elevator, with the tornadic supercell in northeastern South Dakota well behind the structure. The curvature of the earth prevented a view of the storm.

On our way to Dodge City for the night, we stopped at the hand-dug well in Greensburg. This provided an opportunity to bury ourselves, but we didn’t think of it at the time.  The South Dakota storm had been in progress for hours and hours, and was bearing down on a bunch of chasers who wound up on a road that ended. The chasers had to drive through a farmer’s field in order to avoid extremely unpleasant conditions. Meanwhile, in this photo, I am looking mostly to the south-southeast. Visibility is excellent and you can see that the fake tornado is not impacting the building. It remained stationary during our stay at the hand-dug well, perhaps because the mother cyclone had become unattached.  I bet that no one in South Dakota observed a fake tornado and a hand-dug well on the same day.  Our group remained on reliable roads to Dodge.

Summary:  I am fairly pleased with the images that I took during the life-cycle of the Bowdle, SD, tornadic supercell.  I got in good position to shoot the old house in Kansas and the well with the toilet and stayed safe.  In the group shot, everyone smiled.  Chasers often look back after an event to see where they messed up or should have done something differently, but on this day it should be fairly obvious that I nailed it and made no mistakes whatsoever.  If only all chase days were like today.