Chase Log: 2008: Week 1

5/05/08, Chaves County, NM (1 Funnel)
5/06/08, Gaines County, TX (1 Funnel)
5/07/08, Leon County, TX (1 Funnel)
5/08/08, Scott County, KS (1 Tornado, 1 Funnel)
5/08/08, Finney County, KS (2 Tornadoes )
5/08/08, Gray County, KS (1 Funnel)
5/10/08, Chautauqua County, KS (1 Tornado, 1 Funnel)
5/10/08, Labette County, KS (1 Funnel)
5/10/08, Cherokee County, KS (2 Funnels)
5/10/08, Craig County/Ottawa County, OK (1 Tornado)

Details:

5/2/08

Friday - Everyone that signs up for chasing on the first tour is from the Chicago area.   We meet Friday and do some local chasing in Illinois.   We head out to Dekalb, IL and get on 88 west.   Then we head south on 39.   At 80 and 39, storms started to fire and we waited to see which ones would turn the strongest.   One storm that developed near Peoria was heading NNE and would be close to us.   So we get on to 80 west and look at the storm, It looks ok and has potential, so we decide to follow it.   We head back to 39 and head north.   We get off at route 30 and head west, the storm has a well developed wall cloud and is a good starter storm for the chase group to see.   The wall cloud has some good motion at the base but gusts out within 10 minutes.   We head for a hotel in Elgin for the night.

5/3/08

Saturday - My forecast is for the next storms that we can chase to be on Monday in the Texas panhandle.   We leave Elgin and go to Newton, IA.

5/4/08

Sunday - We are heading to get in place for Monday, we leave IA and go through Kansas City, MO.   We pass through Wichita, KS and head west on 54/400.   We end up seeing the presidential motorcade that was leaving Greensburg.   President Bush went to Greensburg to pass out diplomas to the graduating high school students.   We stay in Pratt this night.

5/5/08

Monday - We get up, do a tour of the big well, Greensburg and show the tour group some of where we were chasing the storm the year before.   This was in the morning and then we head to Amarillo in the Texas panhandle.   From here we head to Clovis, NM.   Out of Clovis we head south on 70.   Storms are firing and we get south of them.   We are heading to an even better storm that is near Roswell, NM.   The storms to the north keep looking better and have a nice wall cloud, but the storm to the south is tornado warned.   We pull over to take a few quick pictures of the storms to the north which are now severe.   I decide to keep moving south.   As we are getting close to the tornado-warned storm we see a wall cloud and then a weak funnel comes out of it.   Then the storm gusts itself out.   Due to lack of roads where the storm is heading, I decide to head back to Portales for the night.

5/6/08

Tuesday - Today we head to Lubbock, TX.   We wait there for storms to fire.   Storms are starting up in extreme SE New Mexico and quickly move into Texas panhandle.   We immediately head for them on 62/385.   We worked our way around to the south side of the storms.   We were between Lamesa and Seminole and then started chasing the storms NE back towards Lubbock.   This is when we see another brief funnel from a good distance.   As we chase the storms it becomes quite obvious that we will not be seeing a tornado today.   The chase day ends in Lubbock.

5/7/08

Wednesday - Our target area is south of Dallas today, so we get an early start and head SE on 84.   Then we get on 20 east.   Storms again are forecast to be moving quickly NE.   I try to position us further NE of where I think the storms will form.   There is a line of storms that are moving east and finally some storms fire behind that line near Waco.   We are near Tyler and head south to Tyler, then down 155 to Palestine.   The storms are moving almost due east, so we keep heading south to Crockett and then head back west to the storms on Route 7.   We end up on some storms that have some nice structure, but just produce wall clouds.   The storms were training, one cell after another.   We decide that we will have a better chance on storms tomorrow in Kansas.   So we decide to cut between cells and then start heading north.   While we are passing under a wall cloud a weak funnel briefly appears over us.   We keep going and get to Centerville.   We are hungry and stop for food.   After we eat we eat we find out that there is another tornado warning on a cell just west of us.   It is too dark to chase so we start to position for the next day.   The chase day ends in El Reno, OK.   Close again but no cigar.

5/8/08

Thursday - We leave El Reno and head west on I40.   Then we get on 270 NW toward west Kansas.   We head on a few different roads through Dodge City then on to Garden City.   As we are doing this an isolated cell blows up and starts producing tornadoes.   We get around Garden City and head north on 83.   Near the town of Friend we intercept the storm.   It is a nice slow moving storm that is still being tornado warned.   We get up close and see a very active wall cloud that is scud sucking and rotating.   We follow this to the east on a dirt road and over the next 45 minutes it produces a funnel and a land spout tornado with a needle funnel directly over it.   Right after the tornado is over we get into our van to keep heading east and stay ahead of the storm when another chaser in a 4 wheel drive vehicle pulls up next to us and asks if we saw the tornado also.   We tell him that we did, and then start to reposition.   At this time I start to notice the storm is accelerating and turning more southeast.   So at the next main road we turn south.   As we are heading south on 23 another land spout tornado appears below the rotating wall cloud.

We finally get ahead of the storm enough to stop and watch the storm for a while.   At this point we move south and east again, and the storm produces another tornado with a condensation funnel 3/4 of the way down to the ground.   At this point, though, the storm seems to become more linear and outflow based so we start to head for Dodge City for the night.   Well another storm with a rotating updraft pops and we just watch it again for a while.   While watching the storm, it produces a funnel that lasts a few minutes.   We finally make it to Dodge City and crash for the night.

5/9/08

Friday - This is going to be a position day and we head back to El Reno, OK.

5/10/08

Saturday - The SPC has a bulls eye over AR.   My thoughts are further North.   So we head for Tulsa, OK.   The only thing concerning me is the clouds, we need them to burn off.   Well into the afternoon, skies start to clear and moisture streams north across OK.   So we start to head north to southern Kansas on 75.   When we get into Kansas a storm starts to fire just south of Wichita and is heading almost due east.   So we go to Sedan, KS and fill up and take bathroom breaks.   We then head back to 166 and start chasing.   There are now 2 cells, one north of us and one southwest of us.   The one to the north has an active wall cloud and produces several funnels and a tornado.   WG starts to head back east and stay out in front of the storms.   When we get back to 75 the north storm weakens and the south storm’s wall cloud gets much better organized.   Then it gusts itself out.   While the two storms are trying to reorganize a large Cu starts to go up east of us.   We start to head east to try to get around and east of the new tower.   As we are moving east the other two cells start to get stronger again and we see that we are right in the middle of it.   Tornado warnings are out and as we pull into Chetopa, the cells are all merging and the one to the north keeps producing weak funnels.   Sirens are going off in Chetopa as we go through the town.   Chetopa police cars also are driving through town with lights and sirens blaring.   As we leave Chetopa a tornado is visible to the SE.   This is not the ideal spot for a chase because of trees keep obscuring our view.   As we head east on 166 I’m a little nervous, because we are sandwiched between storms and both sides of the road look like lakes due to the extreme amount of rain the storms are producing.   Route 166 almost looks like we are on a causeway.   We would have occasional glimpses at the tornado, and other funnels.   Then there were hail stones on the road, anywhere from golf ball size to baseball.   When we get to route 69, I decide to go south to try getting around the storm and get a better view of the tornado.   We went by an ambulance that was spotting and the windshield was shattered by hail stones.   When we entered Picher, OK the north half of the town was fine, but you could see some debris in the road ahead.   Inside the van started to get very quiet, with several "Oh no´s" and "Oh my gods."   69 has power poles laying across the road so we turn left and try to make our way through the subdivision. People are just coming out of their houses and they all look like they are in shock. We make our way through the debris.   Block by block it gets worse.   First EF0 damage, then EF1, EF2 and some places looked like EF4 damage.   Some houses were completely gone, just a foundation left.   Other houses look like they were picked up, put into a blender, and dropped back down.   I didn’t say it at the time, but I knew that this was going to be a killer tornado.   As we are trying to get through the debris, the smell of natural gas starts to permeate the van.   I finally find a way through the debris and back to 69 then turn south.   Emergency personnel and first responders have the south road blocked because a car was hit by the tornado and they have a man on a stretcher on the west side of the road.   Some of the cars that are blocking the way move and that lets police cars, fire trucks and ambulances through.   We wait until the road is cleared before we proceed.   We didn’t want to hinder any of the rescue efforts.   We start to head east and we keep running into the damage path all the way into MO.   We go through Racine, and keep trying to find an end to the damage path.   We got to 71 and headed north.   They had the road cleared so we could get through but the damage was devastating that we viewed from Route 71.   We started for Springfield, MO and the whole way there were Red Cross vehicles, ambulances, police cars, heading to the devastation.   I put WG tourists up in a hotel and then went to KSPR, the ABC affiliate in Springfield.   They said that they would use my video on their 10 o´clock news show.   Then they asked me if I would like to go on live.   I said sure.   I ended up being on the news show talking about what Weather Gods had seen.   It was an exciting and sad day.   I love seeing tornadoes, but not when they go through populated areas.

5/11/08

Sunday - We drive back home. Say our good byes.