Midwestchasers.com/Kurt Hulst » Kurt

May 3, 2012: West MI

Kurt — Fri, 04 May 2012 16:50:11 +0000

Got off work at 10pm and shot some lightning east of Ionia, MI. I then headed back west to Kentwood and caught several rounds of thunderstorms. Some degradation occurred when saving files. For purchase of a full quality frame please contact me.

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April 14, 2012: Kansas High Risk

Kurt — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 01:25:36 +0000

David Diehl, Paul Weaver, and I started our venture Friday afternoon (April 13) from the Michigan and Indiana border spending the night in Kearny, Missouri, north of Kansas City. For several days I had been targeting south central Kansas from Dodge City on east. We took I-70 all the way to Russel, Kansas and by then a PDS tornado watch had been issued. We met up with Tony Laubach, and Chris Calloura briefly. We dropped south out of town on 281 to view an on coming HP supercell, which we then decided to let it go as we noticed on Satellite some new towers developing near Dodge City with good heating behind it. We made it to Rush Center on K4 where we witnessed straight line wind damage to a grain bin and a home. Dropping further south on 183 we observed a track sprinkler system over turned. We continued to drop south stopping in Sanford, KS and watched two supercells one further south and one coming out of Dodge City heade straight for us. We then headed further west for the intercept near Burdett, Kansas. The view was hazy but we could make out a wedge tornado still south of Burdett turning into a multiple vortex. It appeared to have lifted as we continued to close in on the area of circulation. As it neared the south west end of Burdett, we observed another elephant trunk tornado through its life cycle.

Burdett Tornado

After it roped out we moved east back to 183 to head north. On 183 we observed a brief tornado that was now just north of Rozel. Continuing north we stopped and watched it produce a satellite tornado that danced 180 degrees around the main meso circulation and roped out. Then a cone tornado protruded and took its place.

Tornadoes north of Rozel: Mostly time lapsed video here.

We then repositioned back to 183 and watched the meso become RFD wrapped and occlude. We watched this cycle for a good duration and followed it north as it crossed 183 south of Rush Center. As it produced once more we were directly under the circulation and observed vorticies less than 100 yards to our east right off the highway. We felt safe the entire time.

Rush Center tornado crossing 183: Some time lapse transitions to normal speed.

We then rushed through Rush Center and emerged from the core, circulation was just to our south. This would eventually be the last tornado from this supercell near Timken, Kansas. The funnel was headed right for us and we reposition just south of Timken and watched the funnel touch down once more south west of Timken picking up debris.

Timken, Kansas, Tornado

We let this storm go as it appeared to be weakening and headed east on K4 for the next supercell which was now to our south. We headed toward Geneseo, Kansas, and dropped south to Lyons, Kansas on K14. When the base came into view it looked lined out and cold. The radar showed a new area of precipitation hooking into the cell and we headed east toward Mitchell. At Mitchell we headed north were we saw the first touch down with a strong wet RFD kick in. We repositioned again on paved roads and caught back up to it and saw a large violent wedge tornado already in progress.

Start of the Lyons/ Geneseo EF4 Tornado: Part 1

Part 2: Near Langley, Kansas.

Part 3: Rope out near Smolan, Kansas.

After this supercell that produced a massive EF4 wedge lifted, the supercell continued to track over the south side of Salina, Kansas. As it tracked north east of Salina it produced a short track tornado that crossed over I-70 and lifted shortly after. With strong rotation still evident, we continued to follow the storm and got off the highway after crossing the I-70 tornado damage path. Near Solomon, it was in process of producing a bowl shape cone, and with time produced another moderate track tornado that elegantly roped out near Manchester, KS. This is where we ended our chase and called it very successful.

Solomon Tornado:

With a complete total of 10 tornadoes for the day, with the first sighting being 130 miles to the south west in Burdett, Kansas, north of Dodge City.

This EF4 was the first tornado I have witnessed in person to have vorticity fingers. It was a sight to see. Glad to hear there were no deaths associated with this particular tornado.

These pictures follow the sequence of events from start of the day to the end of the Solomon/Manchester rope out.

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August 23, 2011: Grand Rapids MI Lightning

Kurt — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 13:49:31 +0000

After waiting all afternoon for the storms to develop this evening I was treated to some nice lightning off my porch here in Grand Rapids. I also went a little west toward 131 by the metro hospital missing several good shots but coming away with one really good one. I was blessed to capture the following sequence of images. I feel that these are some of the best lightning shots I have taken from this spot (the porch). Hope there will be more chances before win$%#@ gets here. I best not swear.

All images were shot in RAW format and edited to JPEG for internet viewing. If you would like to purchase a high quality image contact me via khulst at midwestchasers dot com

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August 2, 2011: Lightning at the South Haven Pier!

Kurt — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 14:48:13 +0000

PHOTOG update: Great time at the beach in South Haven MI. Bob Hartig has a great write up of the evenings events.

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July 18-19 Severe Storm and Lightning: Kalamazoo MI

Kurt — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 14:59:38 +0000

Spur of the moment trip to Kalamazoo at midnight. Storms developed just to the south of Grand Rapids, and were moving SSE away from me. I thought I should stay home but seeing some good bolts come out of the top of the storms hooked me and I went south. As I drove, low level clouds obscured my view of any bolts. I wound up having to drive all the way to Schoolcraft, MI just to finally get a good view. These images are my image account of this night. The flashes were continuous but the bolts that were far and few between from the back side of the storm. I was not sure if it was worth getting home at 2am. But after reviewing my images I would say it was semi-worth it.

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July 11, 2011: West Michigan Severe Weather

Kurt — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 15:25:54 +0000

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Caught a severe squall line North of Caledonia, MI. Was able to provide on air coverage for WoodTV 8 here in Grand Rapids. Below is a time lapse of the shelf cloud as it approaches. I then show some stills of the shelf cloud and then a stitched panorama shot. Pretty nice color. Sadly a man was killed by a fallen tree in Cutlerville this day. Thoughts and prays to the family, he is survived by his wife and six children.

The day ended with a spectacular sunset.

June 21, 2011. Western Michigan Severe Weather

Kurt — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 15:24:16 +0000

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June 21, 2011, brought severe storms to Michigan that developed right along the lake shore with an initial supercell. I had to use some archived video from my chasertv stream as I was not recording to tape. So the small frame is of the FLV archive. This video starts with a time lapse of the initial supercell. Before I reposition, it produces 2 mid level funnels near the vault region of the cell. I zoom in briefly but had to move due to oncoming traffic. Second scene is of the cell organizing with some classic/HP supercell structure fairly descent for MI which is time lapsed near Hudsonville. I later enter the north side of Hudsonville and encounter some outflow inflow wind interactions. I observed a semi-vertical white funnel that lasted for a brief time (time lapsed). There was rotation evident as scud clouds merry-go-round in a centralized area as a tail cloud formed to the North East. Shortly after a brief small funnel protrudes (in real time). The final scene is a mile or two SE and I watch a semi rotating wall cloud continue to develop and even produce a 20-30 second cone funnel. I zoomed in on this area and played it in time-lapse mode half time and then restrung the clip in full 10x time-lapse. After this, the storm goes completely outflow dominate.

May-June Photo Update

Kurt — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 19:44:15 +0000

have not had much time to write forecast information and detailed write ups with my chases this year. Life gets busy being a dad.

Here are the latest pics from the latest chases from May-June 5th.

May 28, 2011: Litchfield IL. Elevated supercell and hail fog.

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May 29, 2011: Olivet MI, Storm aftermath damage.

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June 4, 2011: IL and IN storm chase lots of lightning

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June 5, 2011: Choudrant/Ruston LA

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June 7, 2011: Chased a marginally severe cluster of storms East of Monroe, LA. Caught some cool downbursts and deadly lightning in Rayville, LA.

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April 26, 2011: Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo Michigan Supercells

Kurt — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 18:35:38 +0000

Caught the funnel that produced the Burnips, MI, tornado rated an EF0. Was unable to capture video because I was to busy making a report to the NWS and WOODTV8. After that storm passed over me i dropped south without any internet and caught the storm coming through Kalamazoo. It had some nice structure and rotation. As I drove through Richland, MI, I encountered a hail core of quarters to ping pong size hail, covering the ground. I caught some video of this but it was way to shaky to even bother putting in this report. The storm then became tornado warned and my GPS went on the fritz. I could not restart my computer and had to stop and regroup. By the time I was able to get things back online the rotation had passed just over head and I followed the cell until it was evident it was in its dying phase near Woodbury on M-66 and M-50.

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March 20, 2011

Kurt — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 12:49:15 +0000

The first day of spring in 2011 and we officially had our first thunder storms here in Michigan. I was not expecting much but I was happy to capture at least one shot of lightning.

Anticipating the 2011 Season

Kurt — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 04:33:03 +0000

A few updates for this years season (2011).

1).When I am chasing this year I will be using ChasetTV to stream live weather video. You can view my live chase stream on my Live Stream link

2). I hope to be airing live video on Wood TV 8 here in Grand Rapids covering all of SW MI.

3).I added a Verizon USB760 broadband aircard to my arsenal of tech that I will be using this year to help get a good stream online.

4). I added a few lightning images to my banner logo and re-sized my whole site, both blog and main site, to 1000px wide to keep up with today’s higher resolutions. You may have to use the scroll bar for lower resolutions but this should fit most screens.