Storms of 2005

September 22, 2005. There were continues thunderstorms training along I-96 this day so I got a full day of storms. I waited until I saw the trough come closer in the water vapor and around 3-4 PM I saw a storm develop near Kenosha Wisconsin and it was headed to MI. So I saw that there was more instability south of me with supercell composites upward to 18. and tornado parameters up to 3-5. With CAPE around 2500 J/kg, southerly surface flow. So I headed down 131 to Kalamazoo. This storm that came from Kenosha, WI had exhibited rotation over lake MI. I felt that I still needed to stay closer inland than go straight to Lake MI on I-96. As I reached Kalamazoo the storm that was over the lake had weakened greatly. I had originally targeted The IN, MI, OH border region so I felt I should either move due south or SE. I stopped at a hotel in Plainfield, MI. I was able to collect data and latest satellite. I then noticed weak convection just starting to my south it was a weak DBZ of around 10 but I knew that would turn into something and with in 5minutes I had my first fairly strong reflectivity scan on the radar. I talked to Bob Hartig as we both agreed that I need to get out a head of it and head to I-69 and head south to Cold water. As was about 3 miles north of the IN, MI border I got off at the Kinderhook exit and headed east as I thought I saw a nice wall cloud. This had consistent 80-92 MPH shear markers on the XM threatnet. When I finally came to a vast open field I was astonished to see the most structural storms I had ever seen in MI. The pictures below do not even give it justice but they give you a glimpse of it. The rest of the report goes with the pictures below. Over all this was one of my most favorite chases in September. What a classic storm. Nick I wish you had been able to get out there sooner. We see here below the supercell becoming outflow with anti cyclonic rotation. The above image and the image below have been stitched together by Andrew Khan

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This was a span of three days in Minnesota and North Dakota. I left my home on the 3rd and intercepted a few nocturnal storms just across the Wisconsin, Minnesota border east of La Cross, WI. The first set of lightning pictures are from that night. I later slept at a rest stop off of I-90 just east of Rochester, MN. I woke up just before dawn washed my face in the sink and took off west of Rochester to catch a few daylight Lightning shots. Which the two I posted are awesome with great color, both were pretty close as well. I had storms all the way up to Minneapolis. I then looked at data and found that my main target for Fargo, ND was still valid for the day after. I went to Fargo and got a Super 8. Relaxed all the rest of the day until about 4 am and took a few lightning shots out in the parking lot. Nice anvil crawlers. Then the big day was here and I felt I needed to adjust WNW. So I took 94 west to buffalo. A lot of the convection was very cluttered as it first initiated. But there was a nice cell down near Aberdeen, SD. So as I watched the SAT loops I noticed another descent CU field develop b/w me and Aberdeen so I headed SW. I caught a good lowering with some awesome war zone type thunder and lightning. I saw but did not have a chance to tape a cone funnel half way to the ground, could not tell if it was down to many corn stalks and no place to park off to the side of the road with out falling in the ditch.. The XM was showing a 92 Gate to Gate shear marker at the time in that same location Then the Outflow boundary from the Aberdeen storm came and undercut my storm and killed it. Maybe I should of stayed up in Fargo as it got tornado warned. Hey at least my target panned out. I then headed home and caught some descent lightning NW or Minneapolis.

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I had to really crank on the contrast to get this rope funnel to be visible as you still have to look hard. but it was much more visible with my eyes. This isn't the best looking tornado as its not fully condensed. after the funnel was gone you could still see strong low level rotation but it could not muster another funnel to tornado. I was surprised to even see what I saw.

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WOW! Close tornadoes this day. Started the Day with Eric N. Scott Blair and Scott Currens. Met Doug M. along the way and i also Talked to Reed Timmer for a few minutes. He can tell you his story of the year. All in all I witnessed 4 tornadoes.
Tornado 2 was the most beautiful tornado I have been able to witness up close and personal. This had dropped to my west by about 200 yards. I decided to move forward. When I got out to look for the debris cloud on the ground the trees were in the way. From Reed Timmers video this tornado did hit a house just to my NW which was behind the trees for me. It did not damage it as it was very week. This funnel is right over my head

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Scott Blair, Scott Currens, Eric Nyguen, and myself began the day in Baker, Montana. That was where we believed the action should of occurred this day. Though we were wrong and wound up heading South East to south of Faith, South Dakota. After traveling all day the day before to Bowman, North Dakota and playing bouncy balls on the SD, ND border. We missed our opportunity of witnessing tornadoes in Western NE. We still had fun floating balloons over cows and making them herd away. But this day West of Faith South Dakota we witnessed a very beautiful LP supercell. It had a nice Bowl shape bottom to it. I hadn’t seen such a well defined LP in all my experiences till this day. I Personally thought about staying with that storm but i also combated wanting to be able to stay with Scott, Scott, and Eric to learn some more Meteorology stuff. Some Fun funky guys to hang out with. As we drove the speed of light to our primary supercell we entered Faith and headed south to intercept. This Cell had the most beautiful Vault region. two pictures of which I was able to take. We got so close to this storm we were directly under the storm and I could not fit it in my viewfinder to take any pictures. I did get the last few spurts of hail that came out of it. The hail was floating down to the ground like frisbees, spinning like flying saucers.. The white stones falling down with fields full of golden rod and the sun behind it all to make it glow with such vibrance is that only way I can help you visualize this. Just some spectacular time lapse opportunities, with a fading LP and Rainbow. Very awe inspiring.

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It was frustrating beginning to the day. This day as I was watching all the light convection along the warm front and the boundary that was stalled over ABR. Finally we got initiation and it was explosive as well. The storm developed south west of Ipswitch, South Dakota. This was a beautiful beast, lots of rotation. The cycles of this storm were very defiant at times were it would breath and then inhale again. Outflow and then gain strength inflow. This day I was on my own but wound up running into Scott Olson for a few minutes as we observed my first tornado. I think i made a chaser mad as I accidentally cut him off but I kept driving by him later in the day. I was talking to various people whom I can't remember whose names they were on the HAM. I kept running into Mike Hollingshead as well this day. Mosquitoes were eating chasers alive. The thunder of this storm was magnificent. I like to call it cannon thunder, they are just so powerfully and so blunt, no crackle but all boom. I witnessed a large RFD dust plumb or dry micro burst. On the north side of this RFD plum was a brief tornado. After this the storm went out flow and was almost at times anti cyclonic. Later Mike H and I witnessed a weak funnel that we could not tell if it had reached the ground. There were a few satellite funnels along side it at times as well. Then Mike and I split and found my self on a dirt road all by my self it was great. I witnessed tornado 3 SE of Ludden, ND. And after that i again ran into Mike H. This Tornado was confirmed by Scott Blair, Scott Currens, and Eric Nyugen of whom I later hooked up with in Watertown, SD at the Super 8. Over all a great day.

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Woke up on Shane Adams floor to see that there was a moderate risk. I said to Nick are you coming. What else was he going to do of course he went. We met up with JR, Hernley, and Chad Lawson. We all decided to head to Woodward, OK. When we got there we started to see a Towering CU field develop. Supercells quickly developed soon after. We headed near Rosston and took some bobs roads from there. We watched for about 30 minutes a persistent block wall cloud. Which near the end looked to tighten up and produce a funnel but could not tell if it touched down. We headed farther west to catch a very very weak brief tornado. after that tornado we witnessed an anti-cyclonic wall cloud. Then we headed SW and witnessed lots of Striations in this storm that was becoming very outflow dominate. We might have seen another tornado on the ground to our north west but we could not confirm that. So we did witness one small weak tornado near Rosston, OK. As we headed home we heard the reports of possible 100 MPH winds headed to OKC. We found many areas on our way home with minor street flooding.

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Dan Robinson, Nick Grillo, and I started the day in Woodward, Oklahoma. After Dan had gotten his tire fixed from being flat the night before we were in route to Childress, Texas. There were good outflow boundaries floating around down there as well as a moderate risk with a potential dry line punch. We met up with JR and Kathy Hernley, whom I had never chased with before but have met a few times before this day. James Clark decided to follow us as well. We all decided to reposition to Paducah south of Childress. We later met up with Amos, Eric, and Scott for a few minutes then headed our separate ways. As we entered town the storm that developed to our west had begun to line out. Nick was not feeling good about the day and thought it was going to be a bust. But I decided to keep going after the southern most cell in the line. This was North West of Jayton. When we got to Dickson, it was a hard call to keep heading south or to go around. I felt we had time to get through the edge of the precipitation with out getting hit with hail. So we all agreed to go for it. As we cleared most of the precipitation, we saw our first tornado. Shortly after that we saw out second but larger tornado. Then another short lived needle tornado was on the ground for a few seconds. Then we headed south and then found a farm road and headed West about 4 miles and got about 2 miles east of the base of the meso cyclone. It was amazing. A large tornado formed right in front of us. It’s hard to say but it looked to be no more than ½ mile to our west and took a drastic turn to the north. This large tornado then turned into a wedge. What many people would consider 2 tornadoes was only one. We drifted north to view this large wedge and that became rain wrapped were we no longer could view the tornado. We then moved farther east and viewed a multiple vortex tornado with a few isolated tornadoes with it. And then one final tornado near the end. We missed what people call a stove pipe after we had decided to go after the southern most cell that was now merging with out tornado producer. We headed to Ratin, then meandered on toward Hamlin. And that is were we called the rest of the chase. The storm had gone outflow dominate.

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Started the day in Ogallala, NE. Everything shifted to KS in the outlooks. So we targeted Oberlin, KS based on outflow boundaries and surface obs and some of the RUC (Weather Model) guidance’s. Dan, Nick, and I went to Pizza Hut just before storms started to initiate. We then got a quick data update and headed a few miles west out of Oberlin to observe a developing Supercell. We then saw a very dominate Supercell develop near Oakley, KS. We then decided that this was going to be the player of the day. We headed south on 83 to 23 that led to Hoxie and east on 24. We saw a wall cloud develop and a few nice funnels try to reach the ground, as we were looking SE. Dan decided to try and take a dirt road. Never ever do that after it had just rained there. We went two miles and we drove on what seemed to be a topsoil based road sprinkled with sand. There was a car ahead of us that fish tailed and stopped moving. We passed them and we asked if they were stuck. If we stopped we would of gotten stuck to. We almost did so we turned around and passed them again. We tried to tell them we would call some one for them. I don’t know if they heard us or if they even got out. So I called 911 and gave them there location, 2 miles SW of Tasco. We then began our route east again. Dan didn’t want to punch the core, that is the reason we headed down the dirt road. But just before we punched we saw a tornado form SE of us, and lost sight of it. I was watching radar as we dodged 1-3 inch hail stones and drove 9 more miles to Hill City. As we entered Hill City we saw a large mass to our south. I heard Scott Blair on the radio and asked him what was south of us. Then the power went out, and i heard him say a large wedge tornado was headed our way. So needless to say we drove fast. I could just make out the edges of the monster and didn't really show up on video. So after that we got held up on the way to Stockton for 15 minutes by construction. We urged them to let all of us through and told them to take shelter as a large tornado and very dangerous storm was coming our way. Just then a new Meso/ Wall Cloud formed to our south west and gained a funnel. Finally they let us through. As we got a few miles down the road I call out tornado on the ground though my camera was not on. It was fully condensed thin tornado on the ground for a brief moment. We then head to Stockton and Head south on 183. We get about 5 miles south and we stop and observe one tornado occlude as another one formed to the right of it and moved north. There was 2 tornadoes on the ground at the same time. After the elephant trunk tornado dissipated we turned north to watch a truncated cone turn into a stove pipe tornado, to a large cone tornado. The contrast was poor on this one but very excellent to witness. No damage to my knowledge was done by this. We then head to a storm south of ours and witness two more Tornadoes. We ended the day at Hay KS, with Amos Magliocco, Scott Blair, Eric Nyguen, Steve Miller, Dan Robinson, and Nick Grillo. A day that will never forget.

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June 7 Began at Scott Olson's as he let us stay the night at his place. Thanks Scott. We Then headed to Pierre SD. We then got data there and saw we needed to head SW. As we approached Kadoka we say a nice looking Low Precipitation (LP) Supercell. We observed this storm rapidly rotate. Since it had not done much for a while we decided to get closer for better viewing. As we repositioned the tornado Dropped there are a few video grabs below. Very thin looking rope funnel that a fellow chaser Scott Blair was right under as it occurred. He also grabbed a few 5" hail Stones. We then sat and watched the storm in another position as close CG's (lightning bolts) rained down out of the anvil I have one video grab of that. Lots of funnels and great structure. It was amazing to be able to drive through the bad lands and see the storm with the amazing rock formations in the foreground. We ended the day in a gas station as we took cover and the we ate supper. I was with Dan Robinson, Nick Grillo, Scott Blair, Eric Nyguen (wynn), and Amos Magliocco. I was able to look at the hail that Scott had and Eric put one in his coke and drank it. Hail is really interesting inside. I love talking with these guys. It makes the end of the day much more enjoyable to share stories and different angles of the storm. More still will becoming after I develop some film. (Well I don't know were those pictures are its been about 3 years since i made this page the first time.)

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WOW! What in the! Where did it go? This day began in Liberal, KS and ended in Liberal, KS. June 2nd was a beautiful day of waiting out the CAP. The dynamics were there for a possible tornado outbreak. There were two areas of probable tornadic storms one was Colorado and the other was SW Kansas. I was with Dan Robinson, Bill Coyle, Mark Sefried, Steve Miller, Dave Crowley, and Justin Teague. Steve, Mark, and I decided to go get a bit to eat at Mc'D. And as we sat outside and ate we saw a good CU field develop and one area of convergence became dominate. It must of found a hole in the CAP because it exploded. We then headed west out of town to intercept this storm. It was a LP Supercell. The anvil spread was so thick and healthy we never thought it would of done what it did. It was tornado warned 20 minutes after its birth. We spotted some mid level funnels and one base funnel. Then the storm lost all bearings and died after about an hour of life. We later stopped to see the base cut off from the inflow and drift away with nothing to it. I met Warren Faidly for my second time in two years. Steve said heck hes not so bad in person. Needless to say there’s very few pictures. Steve, Mark, and I ended the day with a good meal at a great restaurant. And all three of us headed to Texas only to bust again until Mark and I headed to Wichita, Kansas and caught a tornadic supercell at night. No tornadoes.

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I Began the day in Dalhart TX, With Amos M.(KC5VPD), Dan Robinson, Bill Coyle, Mark Sefried (KC9VDD?), and Scott Blair(KD5POW), Jeff Gammons and his lady,and Chris C.(weathervine crew). Steve Miller joined us later on the way to Lubbock. I ran into Chad Lawson and Shane Adams later in the day and chased with them for a while. Everybody was every where this day. I saw two brief spin ups, and one true tornado. Which I was repositioning at the time, so I was not able to video tape it. We ran across a large amount of water across a road, which Chad, Shane and I didn’t feel comfortable crossing. It was either stall in a lake crossing the road and get hailed on or face the hail and pray for a place to take cover in no mans land on the way back north to find our SE option again. Thank God a farm house was up the road as the golf balls (2"hail) began to fall. I found shelter under an awning and Chad and Shane found a farm tractor elevated enough to find protection as well. We then headed north to 84 to go back through to Lubbock to get on the south side of the storm again. Well on the way I had lost Chad and Shane. They must of dropped back to avoid what looked like an ominous hail shaft but I had my radar up and running and got a few spurts of golf balls and a few isolated baseballs. Later I got into Lubbock and Scott Blair popped out in front of me so I followed him for a few miles. Later I find out he's in search for hail so I broke off and headed south. I saw the most breath taking explosive convective updrafts rise right above me. All the pictures I have right now are below. I need to get a few more video grabs in the near future. All images will be added by the end of the summer for sure. Page Completed August 21, 2005 Congrats to Mark as he witnessed a few tornadoes on the 18th in WI. My thoughts and prayers are with those who lost homes that day.

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Began the day in Clayton, New Mexico, to Raton, New Mexico. From Raton we headed over a narrow mountain pass that lead us close to 8,000 feet in altitude. We were able to see the Rockies from our location. The trip to our target was awe inspiring. Storms started to fire around noon MDT. Dan Robinson, Bill Coyle, and I Met up with Mark Sefried, Amos Magliocco, Tony Labuach, Dave, The Weathervine Crew, Jason Persoffe,and many others. We watched a storm start rotating above our heads and decided to get out in front of it. The storms kept building over the front range mountains and as they came off the mountains they started to spin. Lots of very cool lightning which ill try to grab off of my video. There was a persistent funnel that last close to 7 minutes but never touched down. Amos hit a deer along the way and many chasers in our convoy were there to help him out and get his vehicle drivable. At the end of the day we got paid with the elusive but brief tornado. Jason Persoffe got stuck in a ditch and again the convoy helped pull him out. I was the lead vehicle when that happened so didn't notice every one had stopped till about 3 miles down the road. But I’m glad they could get him unstuck. We then stayed the night in Dalhart, TX

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Lots of radical close lightning in New Mexico this day, and a great rainbow. I targeted Boise City Oklahoma this day. I was one of the first to arrive out fo the group I had the pleasure to chase with later in the day. Chasers this day were Amos M, Tony L, Mark Sefried, Dan Robinson, Bill Coyle and bunch of others that I can't remember right now for some odd reason. We drove to clayton New Mexico and had a nice caravan west of there and south twoards Roy. As we got near roy we were bombarded with Very Close CG's (clud to ground lightning bolts) It was some of the best lightning I saw this year. Dan Robinson, bill coyle and I broke off fromthe main bunch to go try and take lightning shots. We drove south to logan where we again met up with Mark Sefried. We ran into a small hail core with inch hail. That was fun. we later wound up a few miles just inside Texas and caught a very vibrant rainbow. That was pretty much the end of the chase there. Here's a few video grabs I got off this day

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We started where we ended the day before. Childress TX. Storms finally initiated and there was a cell south of us that we finally got out a head of North of Crowell TX off HWY 6. The Wall cloud was just scrapping the ground. There was a tornado reported with this that a few people saw. Nick and I were with Scott Eubanks, Tony L, Jason Montano, Jeff Gammons and Chris C. and Amos M. We saw a brief Spin up that I considered a gustnado but there was rotation above it and there was a Cylinder of Dust that went half way up to the cloud base, though I was driving as that occurred I did how ever catch that last few moments of this Creature. Jeff Gammon's and Chris were very near to this circulation as it occurred. This storm has some beautiful structure as well. Like many storms this year. I need to get a few more video grabs to add to this page so it will be updated shortly. Im just glad I got day time lightning shots to turn out, right under the Vault region of the storm. Tony, Scott, Jason, Nick and I Called the chase off near Haskell. Tony headed home to Colorado. Scott Eubanks headed to Throckmorton. Jason, Nick and I hesitated as to where to go and how to get there and finally decided to out run the leading edge of the monster to Throckmorton. That is where we heard Amos, Scott E, Scott Currens and Eric Nyegun on the Radio and wound up eating dinner at IHOP in Wichita Falls TX. Scott E had departed us before IHOP.

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Tornado 1 was very brief. Then tornado 2 shown below was on the ground for around 12 minutes. We probably could of stayed in the same spot the whole time but I didn't want get hammered by RFD. Nick has the whole thing since I was driving. Very large tornado. Tornado 2 occluded and tornado 3 started up shortly after. It was reported as a multi-vortex but I believe I turned into a large dusty wedge that was on the ground according to the tornado survey for 16 minutes. Nick has tornado 4 on his video very brief satellite tornado.

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This day speaks for itself. Nick Pete McConnel and Stacey, Caught a beautifully striated supercell near Grand Island, NE. Later we believe a brief tornado on the ground as you can see a good dust swirl on the ground on a right angle to the funnel, back lit by lightning. As the tornado was on the ground there were multiple CG's coming through the tornado.

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Nick Grillo and I intercepted some severe storms in Arkansas and Mississippi. There were tornadoes reported from the storm that we were shooting lighting of but we did not see anything like that.

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Nick and I Just got to our destination for the night when thunderstorms developed near Blytheville, AR. So we shot some lightning.

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I wound up leaving at 600 CST your time to head to my target area of Peoria, IL. Did Amos M and I ever nail that one. We had to core punch the PIA cell as it went through PIA. biggest hail I saw was possibly 1.5 but mainly everything was below an inch. Pea size hail covered the road with a thin blanket at times. that was cool. But the reason we punched was because our east road option for going over the river was blocked off. The road just ended because they buried the tunnel with a mound of dirt and we had to turn around and drop back south to I74. We saw at least five elevated funnel clouds we actual drove by the parsons plant. And the tornado reported near Montma I think that’s what it was called. We were two miles from that rotation and we saw a funnel but no touch down so we don’t think it actually happened. Then we watched this cell cycle through push out cold RFD and then warm the COLD again it was weird but it went all the way up to Chicago. We just stopped and watch the cell for about 20 minutes about 20 miles north of 24 b/w highways 39 and 55. can’t remember what the town was called but I’ll look later. so we dropped south for the Bloomington cell. then another cell then another so we wound up NW of Champaign in the end, observed 5 SUPS yesterday you could see some nice collars in the mid levels. the LCLS were just to high for the most part everything was very elevated. Dew point depressions were spaced out. but what a day.

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