Well, this year's chase trip is in the books - or blog as it may be - and our lives will now resume their normal flow. The car has been dropped off, 8600 driven miles was the finally tally, and I am home relaxing before I sleep for the rest of the day. This trip was definitely one that stands out over the past 4 years I have been chasing. As a team, I think we have come a long way in our forecasting and planning; most every target location was correct, the storms we intercepted were consistently the best of the day, and when something did happen we were ready. The tornado we saw in southeast Colorado will be hard to top in this lifetime, and I can honestly say that it was the most awesome event I have ever watched. Coupled with a couple of the beautifully structured cells we witnessed, this year was an undeniable success.

I would like to thank Chris and Neil and Greg again for lending their meteorological knowledge and expertise, Nate for letting us crash at his place in Kansas City at the end of the trip, and to all of the people who have followed the blog and seemed truly interested in our endeavors.

Until next year...

Neil and I are on our way back to the DC area now. ETA for home is about 8:30am tomorrow. Looks like clear skies most of the way, so that's a plus.

Back in Kansas City, the trip is done for this year. Short story, we ended up not seeing any storms the past couple days except for late linear and marginal convection. We chased around a little but there wasn't much to see. Tomorrow Neil and I start the drive back to NoVA / Maryland area.

Another day, another coffee shop. Waiting in Hastings, Nebraska, for things to fire off. Our best bet is if something can develop out here near central and western Nebraska / Kansas state line and move a little east into the lower LCL's. Thea shear and CAPE are decent out here so we are definitely going to get a nice super-cell. IF something develops.

UPDATE: In Hiawatha, Kansas, now. Ended up driving almost to Kansas City, and then turned back west some. Tornado warned cells to our east on into Missouri, but horrible chase territory out there. Still a crap-shoot.

Today did not, in fact, live up to it's potential. We got a couple early discreet cells, but they never really amounted to much and even as tornado warned cells they were mostly just a disorganized line segment that looked like a gust front.

The bright note of today was supper. Went to the Blarney Stone restaurant in O'Neill, Nebraska, and it was by far the best food we have eaten on this trip. Too bad we didn't have time to sit and enjoy a couple pints of Guinness.

Headed now to Grand Island, Nebraska, for the night; chase target looks to be central and north Kansas tomorrow.

Long night and day of driving, but we are camped out now in Ainsworth, Nebraska, waiting for initiation. Looks like we will be heading north towards Winner, South Dakota, eventually but we don't want to get too far north just yet. Also, it looks like SPC is about to issue a watch for our area, so hopefully today will get exciting.

Nearly 900 miles and 34 hours later, we've returned to Kearney, NE by way of Boise City, OK...I'm getting too old for this.

Hoping for supercells near the dryline/warm front intersection in southern South Dakota tomorrow, initial target is Winner, SD.

Goodnight.

Nothing happened in the panhandle / New Mexico except some crapvection and line segments. On our way back towards South Dakota now. Sigh.

Camped out at Dairy Queen (remarkably our first of the trip) in Boise City, Oklahoma. The AC is broke, and it is hot in here. It's also hot outside, so no good options. Hopefully a storm will develop soon so we can get back in the car.

Also, looks like tomorrows target is South Dakota again, so tonight we drive back up through Kansas and Nebraska...

Sitting in Dodge City, KS. Got some of my pictures into Josh's photo gallery. In the meantime, I've heard Chris tediously hammering away at the keyboard over here in typing what I think is a blog post.. sounds like it could be several chapters long ;)

Baca County Beast Reflections...

Good evening ladies and gentlemen...

Currently sitting in our quite luxurious accommodation at the La Quinta Inn and Suites in Dodge City, Kansas where I'm composing my first ever (and hopefully long-awaited) blog entry. We're heading to NE NM/SE CO/W OK Panhandle tomorrow. Marginal setups are usually maximized in favored upslope regions (as we saw yesterday!), so we feel this corridor will have the greatest chance of supercells and perhaps a cheap tornado.

Shifting gears back to yesterday's display of atmospheric perfection, violence, and overall grandeur, I remain in absolute awe of what we witnessed. A book purchased for me by my father, Steven F. Hovanic once stated that 2% of the world's population will see a tornado in their lifetime; one has to wonder how much more the percentage would decrease if you changed the stipulations to "how many people will see a large violent tornado from close range in their lifetime?" You would have to feel the percentage would drop exponentially.

Pausing to reflect further on yesterday's events, the sheer shock and surprise of when/how the tornado developed make the results that much more incredible:

1) We had been chasing the storm for nearly 5 hours before the large/violent tornado developed. Within the first 2 hours of the storms lifecycle, it obtained significant organization and looked a threat to produce tornadoes frequently, during this period the storm produced 2 fairly brief tornadoes.

2) The storm then proceeded to wrap its low-level mesocyclone in rain and become a 'high-precipitation' supercell. Often times, once this occurs, visibility of the "bear's cage" (the area where tornadoes form within a supercell) becomes obscured, except for those daring souls who wish to place themselves in the path of any possible tornado, or those brave souls who have no qualms battling massive hail stones which may be very close to the tornado. As a result, the best time for easily/safely observing the storm is done, and the remainder of the chase often becomes a frustrating "what can we see looking through the rain/hail?" type of event.

3) Continuing on from #2 above, the remarkable thing about yesterday's "Baca County Beast" was its ability to continually develop a new low-level mesocyclone to the south/southwest, thereby keeping the new mesocyclone precipitation free for a long duration of time. That being said, after the first two hours of the storm's lifecycle, it seemed to grow increasingly high-based, despite continuing to exhibit very rapid rotation. This will make producing tornadoes for the storm much more difficult as the cloud base physically increases in distance from the ground. Anyhow, for reasons that will be discussed in a future blog post aimed toward the technical crowd, the supercell almost instantaneously decided it would begin to lower its cloud base as it reached far SE Colorado and begin producing monstrous tornadoes.

After observing at least 50 or 60 high-precipitation supercells in my storm chase career, this was the first time I've EVER seen a storm "come out" of its extremely high precipitation phase (where it likely had a very cold Rear-Flank Downdraft) and begin producing visible/high-contrast tornadoes again. This blog post has become long-winded enough, so I'll stop here.

Regards,
Chris Hovanic

Heading into south-east Nebraska now, was not our intention to be this far east as of last night but after looking at the surface map this morning the triple point is farther east than was expected. On the up side this puts us in a better environment for super-cell development.

The Videos were done with a digital camera, came out far better than I thought it would. I don't post much on the blog, Josh does an amazing job of keeping it up and is much better with words than I am. But I did want to mention that this Tornado was one I have been waiting for my entire life. Just everything was amazing about it. We almost left it but the guys did a great job of being patient with it and staying on it. A truly remarkable tornado and scenery.

Second video from today:

Video from today coming online..

Awesome chase. The best day I've had in my five short years of chasing. On what was, at best, a marginal day like Josh said we see the best tornado any of us has ever seen. And, more importantly, the town of Campo, CO was spared and we saw no major damage as we drove back north to get to Goodland, KS for tonight.

This morning it looked possible that we might not even see a supercell as there was no real shear to be had. To make matters worse, convection was projected to fire off later in the afternoon when higher temps would be in place in combination with mid 50s dewpoints, which would yield much higher LCLs and higher based storms making it hard for anything to produce a tornado. As luck would have it though our storm fired off early enough when temps were still lower and sustained itself long enough to favorably intersect an outflow boundary and go crazy. So much for the Storm Prediction Center's 2% tornado probabilities for today ;) Going to try and put up some pics that I took in a bit.

Amazing day. For all the days where we had the perfect setup and high risk and nothing came of it, this marginal slight risk day in south-east Colorado made up for every single one. The only storm worth chasing anywhere, that we decided to eat lunch in front of because it was moving so slow, teased us all day long with funnels and ominous lowerings. At one point the cell was so unimpressive we even called it a storm and started heading back north, only to turn around when we noticed it getting its act together and producing another wall cloud. Even then we reposition a couple times as it would drop a funnel almost to the ground and then wrap itself up and reform the meso. Then suddenly, when we had pulled off just over the Oklahoma state line to watch it pass and then move on, it put down a beautiful, well-contrasted rope to the ground. The rope quickly grew three times in size and became a very violent stovepipe with intense ground-level rotation and a significant debris cloud at the base. For a good 10 minutes we were able to watch this tornado amble to the east until it was wrapped in rain, and then as it emerged a couple minutes later trying to touch down again. It was easily the best tornado I have ever seen, and from what I was hearing while I was taking pictures, the best tornado a lot of people have seen in a long time. For having no real expectations today, this was just unreal.

I'm getting my pics uploaded now, and I will do Neil's pics and the videos tonight at the hotel.

Just observed a large stovepipe tornado south of Campo, Colorado, for a good 10 minutes! We have hundreds of pics and some video to go through tonight..

Posting from the Cow Palace Inn in Lamar, Colorado. Definitely made the right decision today; no tornado reports, a couple large hail reports, and pretty much nothing that would have made the drive feel worthwhile. We did, however, get our laundry done and find a nice Thai food place in Lamar to have supper. The Cow Palace is pretty decent, kind of reminds us of the Airport Plaza Hotel (formerly the Ritz) in Amarillo, except without the leaky roof and wet spot between the beds.

The target location for tomorrow looks to be between here and Springfield, CO, just to our south. Hopefully something can fire off and sustain itself, been long enough without a storm now.

Still in Ogallala. We decided last night that making the trip all the way down to New Mexico to chase marginal storms was not worth the effort. We're gonna do our laundry here and then head down towards Burlington, Colorado to prep for Monday. Things are still looking good for the next couple days.

Also, the front of the car is becoming bug death again...

Checked in to the Super 8 here in Ogallala. Some nasty linear storms off to our north, but nothing worth driving out for. Looks like we might be making dinner plans in the not too distant future...

We had to bypass Lewellen since the Most Unlikely Place coffee shop was closed, much to Chris' dismay, and we are now camped out in a Taco John's in Ogallala, Nebraska. Hoping to get an isolated storm off the tail end of the line that forms today. Either that or some up-slope convection coming off eastern Colorado. Either one would produce a nice structured storm, although the tornado potential is fairly low.

At this point the best chase days left look to be Monday through Wednesday of this coming week. Tomorrow we might actually just take the day off and do some laundry / other housekeeping things and not drive 5 hours into south-east New Mexico for marginal convective possibilities.

Either way, we're almost half way through the chase trip.

Rested up at the Super 8 in Hot Springs (where coincidentally you can find the Woolly Mammoth site, Crazy Horse, and some waterfall that I forget the name of) and heading out towards somewhere in west-central Nebraska. Things might line out pretty quick there in which case we will just continue to drop south towards north-eastern Colorado, although the tornado potential drops somewhat as we head south. Here's hoping something produces today..

About an hour away from Hot Springs. Nothing ever got going up near Dickinson so we grabbed some supper and headed out. Looks like tomorrow's target area is around Julesburg, Colorado, so still 4 more hours of driving when we get up. It's the weekend though..

Still in Dickinson, waiting for something to happen. In a couple hours we will start making our way south towards Hot Springs, South Dakota, for the night.

Bored stiff here in Dickinson, ND. I'm sure residents of this surprisingly not-so-tiny city know that feeling all too well.. especially during their bitter winters. Anyway, figured I'd add some of the photos I've taken over the last few days to the great pictures Josh has.

We're on the road to Dickinson, North Dakota. Strong capping today means that if something develops it will be late in the day or possibly after dark. Not exciting news as far as chasing goes, but it was great for catching up on sleep. Already put 4000 miles on the car.

Last post before I crash out for tonight. After sitting in Glendive for most of the day, we decided to call it and get a hotel room here for the night. It looked like the cap was just too strong and nothing was going to develop at all; lots of towers were going up but they were all getting choked off and dying. After we checked in, though, we pulled up the radar and noticed there was one cell trying to survive to our northwest near Circle, Montana. We drove out and ended up seeing what we could easily describe as one of the best structured storms we have ever seen. It was an amazing LP super-cell with an updraft base nearly dragging the ground, and we were able to find a nice perch on top of a bluff that gave us a perfect view of the storm. We sat there and watched it for almost an hour as it turned from an LP to a classic super-cell and almost produced a tornado right in front of us. It did not, however, and eventually we decided to call it a night for good this time and headed back into Glendive for some much needed R&R time.

Tomorrow it looks like we will be headed into north-central North Dakota where we will once again be battling a strong cap that may prevent storms from being able to sustain themselves.

Finally got a day where we can get to our target location and wait for something to develop. So far there's been little to no cap and everything was initiating shortly after noon. The cap today is much more substantial, which might cause nothing to develop, but at least it let us get set up somewhere instead of chasing right out of the hotel and trying to catch up to everything.

So right now we are sitting in a coffee shop in Glendive, Montana, waiting for storms to develop. Great instability and decent shear, but weak forcing is making this an unsure event.

In the meantime I've been putting together some animated GIFs of the funnels we saw yesterday. If you click on the link for the chase gallery you will see some of the thumbnails with dark borders around them; those are the animations.

Another successful chase day in the books. We targeted and intercepted pretty much the only super-cell with a confirmed tornado, although a very brief one, in the country. We also got to see some very nice storm structure, both classic and LP super-cells.

I am placing all the images in a gallery here: Chase 2010 Gallery







Headed north now through Wyoming, hotel is in Gillette, ETA 3:00 AM MT.

Another road update; we ended up staying with our original cell and it produced several funnel clouds and a possible tornado. Still positioning to watch this cell and see if it can produce something definite. Then on to Wyoming..

Quick update from the road; just spent about 30 minutes sitting on a farm road 30 miles west of Denver, CO, waiting for a cell to get its act together. No dice, so we are headed north to a more promising environment.

Set down for the night at the Comfort Inn in Limon, Colorado. Today was fairly exciting, starting with a drive down to Johnson City in far southwest Kansas where we watched a developing cell produce a nice funnel but nothing more. Then we headed back north to Tribune and caught a cell that was producing a land-spout as well as a super-cell tornado. As that weakened, we shot west and moved into Colorado to intercept a cell near Sheridan Lake. Unfortunately, that cell weakened and we decided to move on, only to watch it split and start producing tornadoes right behind us. We quickly ran back south and east to catch up, and were able to see a nice stove-pipe looking tornado on the ground for a few seconds and then a well-contrasted rope trying hard to get all the way to the ground.

From that point on the storm morphed into a high-precipitation mess that obscured pretty much all view of any tornadoes it was producing. We made a few attempts to get out in front of it and get a better view, but soon decided it was best to start making our way back into Colorado. Tomorrow looks decent enough, probably spend the day in northeastern Colorado and southeastern Wyoming.

I will add pics as I sort through them.

Done with chasing for today, I'll make a post later when we get to the hotel or something, but we saw a couple tornadoes despite constant back-tracking. Overall successful day, and we are now headed towards Limon, Colorado.

Teaser photo..

Well today was interesting to say the least. Our forecast was spot on for today, and there was a nice large tornado near Faith, SD. Unfortunately, we were about an hour away when it happened. By the time we got into position, the tornado-producing cell had turned into a cluster of cells that made it not worth even trying to intercept. We continued on north towards the North Dakota border to intercept a new cell that was looking very promising, but had to turn back when we ran into quarter-mile visibility heavy ground fog that was a result of the warm front crossing the boundry and the temperature dropped to match the dew points in the area. Giving up, we turned south to try and intercept some other cells that were moving north through South Dakota and then saw reports of a tornado report from the fog-shrouded cell we had just left.

At this point we decided to just continue south as far as possible and get in position for tomorrow's storms in Colorado and Wyoming. To add insult to injury, we got stuck on the only southbound road when we came across a construction site where they had dug up the entire road and we had to wait for a pilot truck to lead us through an off-road path south. Once we were clear of that, we ran into a one lane bridge that again required us to wait for a while before we could pass over it. By this time, the line of cells had come up to meet us and we had to pull off to wait while the gust front went past because it was pushing us off the road as we tried to make our way south. Once that ordeal was over, we were able to proceed fairly steadily down to North Platte, Nebraska, where we sit now in a Howard Johnson.

Kind of annoying to miss the best tornado of the day because we timed it wrong, but luckily the rest of the week is looking fairly good for storm development across Colorado and up toward Montana later on. Still no pictures though; we never had time to even get out of the car today...

Also, I was able to add the rest of the guys as authors to the blog, so look forward to updates from Neil, Chris, and Greg as well as myself.

Crossing into the southwest edge of North Dakota; hard to believe this time yesterday Greg wasn't even in the country and this time Saturday Neil and I were still in eastern Maryland. Taking a chance on some storms that were kinda iffy but have picked up in the last few minutes. Hopefully something worth taking pictures of soon.

Getting ready to leave out of the Econolodge in Mitchell, SD. Today is not looking as promising as it was a few days ago, little to no capping and a strong forcing will mean that most of the storms that do initiate will line out really quickly. Combined with the 40-50 mph or more storm motion, our best bet is going to be trying to set up ahead of the warm front and wait for things to fire off and head towards us. Luckily for Chris, this means heading west to Wall Drug and then north to the North Dakota / South Dakota line.

It'll be a good day to make sure all the wireless cards and camera gear is working.

Almost to Mitchell; bed will feel nice..

So we are finally on the road to South Dakota, almost had a nightmare moment trying to add Chris to the rental car, but everything is groovy now. We're about 6 hours from our hotel room in Micthell, SD, so chances are we won't get much sleep tonight if any. Tomorrow's plan is to head up towards the southern part of North Dakota where the air mass has good instability and the storm motion is not quite as intense as it is along the front and dry line. It's likely the triple point could produce some short-lived tornadoes, but with 55 mph storms they will be almost impossible to chase or get away from. Going to revisit the forecast models in a few hours and see if our plan changes any.

62 miles from Kansas City; Neil drove until midnight then I drove for about 7 hours. Looks like we are gonna get some sleep in Kansas City and then head out towards South Dakota tonight...

Neil and I are in the car headed to Kansas City, and watching the South Dakota "large wedge tornado" on radar..

Go figure.

Blog updates for the 2010 chase trip..

Hello kids. The feedback I have received year over year is that people wish they could leave comments on the blog entries during the trip. I decided to switch over to blogspot for hosting the Chase Log because its fairly light and now people can interact with us.

All of the old blogs are archived over at the old site, and the links are up in the banner at the top of the page, so you can still see how things went the past 3 years.