Today couldn’t have started off better.  Our timing heading out east was absolutely perfect.  It was almost as if storms had waited on us to get there for once.  Then bad things happened.  We were initially targeting Limon, but the first of many severe thunderstorms was going to cross I-70 north of Limon, so we get off at Cedar Point and ultimately had to adjust back north to Agate where we could intercept.

HP beast just west of Agate...

This storm then split into two and we had a choice to make.  Either follow the south split back toward Limon, or the north split and head back toward Bennett.  We decided on the southern target.  Whoops.  We cruised back down I-70 and by the time we got to the Kiowa exit, the southern split had all but dissipated.  Meanwhile the northern half of the storm went nuts with ping pong ball sized hail and went severe warned all the way to Ft. Morgan.  We still had hope though as more cells were getting their acts together back west in far western Elbert county.  So we headed back to Kiowa where we ran into one storm that went up so quickly, I couldn’t believe it.  It went severe warned and that is where we saw our only hail for the day.  It was pea sized and didn’t last very long at all.  Enough to litter the side of the road but melted within minutes.

Remnants of the Kiowa Severe Warned Storm...

As our frustration peaked, we decided to call it a day and headed back through Franktown, Elizabeth, and Parker on our way home.  As a parting shot, a rainbow appeared for a few minutes.  It was almost as if mother nature was saying “Valiant effort today guys, but you should’ve gone north.  Here’s a rainbow to make you feel better.”

Might've made Jenn feel better but not me! Hahaha...

Anyway, I’ll go with the saying ‘It’s better to have tried and failed than not have tried at all.’  Pretty much sums up the day for me.  There were storms for the taking but we just never seemed to be able to be in the right place at the right time.  It was great spending time with Jenn as always.  And I know she’ll read this so let me just say; Cheetoh’s Puffs are superior to Cheetoh’s crunchy!  Come on!  Hahaha…

Wayfaring map of our chase

Scott

Wasn’t expecting too much today in terms of severe weather, but like usual, the exact opposite from what I expected happened.  In this case that’s a good thing though!  I headed out around 1:30 unsure whether or not to head north on I-25 or out east on I-76.  Storms were moving south east down from Larimer and Boulder counties, so I settled on the I-76 route.  Storms were slow moving and took awhile to get to me.  I pulled off first in Kennesburg and headed a little north and didn’t see anything too impressive.  I did see a hot girl riding a horse which is always pretty cool.  I snapped some stills (of the storm) and decided to move on.  Plus the battery on my camera died so I could only shoot video the rest of the afternoon.

Not too impressive looking, but it did have some nice lightning...

Storms today had a pulse-like pattern where they would intensify, weaken, and then re-intensify the further SE they got.  It made the day quite frustrating in that regard as I found myself leap frogging around from cell to cell all day.  Later near Wiggins on 76, I met up with Tony Laubach and guests and we teamed up again hoping for better luck than the last time we convoyed.  We all went through Prospect Valley and ended up slightly NE of Hoyt where we all witnessed an incredible dust storm.

Sure enough though, the cell weakened and started to get its act together again further south and east.  We made a plan to get in front of it by taking all kinds of dirt roads to get south of 36 and intercept again near Limon.  This is where my chase ended.  I had a gasoline emergency that required I go back to Brush to fill up.  I made it there on fumes luckily.  Tony on the other hand did make it down to Limon just as the cell went tornado warned.  Dammit!  The warning said the public reported a tornado on the ground 7 miles north west of Limon.  Not sure if Tony saw it or not but I know he did run in to some nickel sized hail at the least.  Check his blog here where I’m sure he’ll have a wrap up of todays action up soon.

Anyway, after I gassed up in Brush I decided to call it a day.  Nothing great, but not bad either.  The dust storm near Hoyt was the highlight of the day for myself.  Good to get out there as always.

Youtube Link of Todays Chase

***Video sequence is: 1. Severe Warned storm NW of Keenesburg.  2. A few shots from severe warned storm near Hoyt.  3. Dust storm near Hoyt  4. Some interesting structure near Woodrow.***

Scott

About 10:00 PM or so, I noticed a few storm cells starting to move into the north Denver Metro area.  After skipping a lucrative chase day in Nebraska and Kansas earlier, I was eager to get out and shoot some lightning at the least.  Little did I know what I was in for.  I decided to go to the DU Light Rail parking garage where I could get a good view.  After about 30 minutes of failed photography attempts (like usual), the storm really started to get its act together.  The lightning illuminated very low hanging clouds with clearly visible rotation.  Dann Cianca sent me a text saying he was down near Castle Rock where the storm had gone tornado warned.  We both had thought we had seen a wall cloud looming very low.

You can see a low cloud base in the background that was definitely rotating...

My night time photography skills are utter shit, but in a few of my shots you can really see the lowering on the storm that probably spawned 2 small tornadoes in Englewood and Castle Rock.

Looking south east from DU...again, very low cloud base with rotation...

After a few ‘bro’s’ from DU who told me they “totally bailed on their hookah party to see a tornado” crashed my photog session on the roof of the Light Rail station, I decided to relocate before I killed myself.  That’s when I received a phone call from Dann saying Tony Laubach was up in Wheat Ridge where there was significant damage, probably from a tornado.  So the both of us decided to head up there to have a look.  I took 6th avenue to Kipling and then went north.  I got only 7 blocks before the road was completely cut off.  I was able to cut through a neighborhood and got back further north to Colfax and the evidence of damage was almost immediate.  I pulled into the First Bank parking lot and the first thing I saw was this:

This tree wasn't snapped, it was completely pulled out of the ground!

It was a very weird and bizarre situation.  All of the roads were low visibility because of all the hail fog.  Hail fog will form when there is a significant accumulation of hail and a decrease in temperature mixes with all the moisture of the hail starting to melt.  It was really cool to see but made driving in some areas extremely dangerous.  The accumulation of hail was insane.  And as you can see from the picture below, it wasn’t really that the hail was large in size, it’s that there was so much of it.

Lots of hail on the ground. They even brought out the snow plows to clear some of Kipling!

Right near the intersection of Colfax and Kipling, the fire department had the road blocked off due to a gas leak.  Dann shot some more video and I took a few shots of a tree that had been snapped in half.

Snapped trees like this were a common sight all along Kipling...

Later, I ventured off a bit further north to see if the damage was heavier and it seemed pretty consistent with the damage we saw near Colfax and Kipling.  I pulled into a neighborhood that was obviously without power and took one last shot of a mailbox that had been hit with wind.  It made it very apparent which way this storm had gone through.

Strong winds stuck leaves and branches to this mailbox...

Finally around 1 AM I decided to head back home.  What started out as a quick lightning shoot, turned into a 3+ hour trip to Wheat Ridge to do a damage survey.  I’ll have to leave it up to the NWS to determine if the damage we saw was from an actual tornado.  It wouldn’t surprise me if it was, but it also wouldn’t surprise me if this was all caused from straight line winds instead.  Either way, I was shocked at the damage that was there.  Definitely didn’t foresee all of this madness when I left my house earlier tonight!  Great stuff and I hope everyone in Wheat Ridge gets their power back soon.

Scott

***7/22 Update*** “The National Weather Service said the damage was caused by straight-line winds from a microburst.”  So there you go, probably not a tornado, however due to the darkness we’ll probably never know for sure…

Today hardly even merits a write up, but here it goes anyway.  We originally thought we could make it up to the Nebraska Panhandle and possibly into South Dakota but that plan fell apart.  We got a late start to begin with and then just outside of Ft. Morgan had to make a tough decision.  Storms started going up in Denver that looked half way decent.  So we decided to abandon the Nebraska play, and made our way back to I-70 to try to get some storms that were severe warned at one point.  By the time we got back there, they were done.  Only highlight of the day was on 36 west of Last Chance where we ran in to some pretty strong winds that was blowing dust everywhere.  All the brown dust juxtaposed against the blue of a nearby storm actually made for a few decent shots.  So here they are…

A nice storm we were way too late to get to...

Awesome dust storm on highway 36

So anyway, that was about it.  Very frustrating but it happens.  We might have another chase next weekend so I’ll start keeping my eye on the models.  

Scott

After looking at the models again this morning, I decided to head south toward Colorado Springs early, and then play the I-70 corridor later in the afternoon, and that strategy couldn’t have worked better.  Had to go it solo today when I had 3 people flake out on me.  Oh well, they missed a great day!  I headed out around 12:30 south down I-25 and first pulled off at the Palmer Lake exit.  After venturing back a bit west, I could see storms starting to initiate but nothing very impressive. 

First stop at Palmer Lake didn't show anything too impressive...

I then got back on I-25 and headed a little bit further south and eventually wound up in Peyton via Black Forest, where in the not too far distance I saw some nice structure of a cell starting to organize.

This eventually got pulled into the 'muck' just outside CO Springs...

There was one dominant cell that crossed I-25 just north of Colorado Springs that kept absorbing these smaller cells that tried to go up, so I hung around to see if that dominant cell was going to do anything but it didn’t.  So, with no new cells being able to remain discreet and the dominant cell not looking too impressive, I decided to hit highway 24 and make my way back east toward Limon.  I did catch a nice little cell just outside Calhan that showed some potential for about 45 seconds.

Nothing too impressive but it did give me a nice shower on the way to Limon...

 I got back in to Limon and decided to head back toward Denver on I-70 to intercept a cell that had already went severe warned.  The structure in front of me as I got closer to it was amazing.  I finally decided to get off 70 in Strasburg and wait for it to come to me.  I didn’t have to wait long.  The base of the storm was very, very low and rotating like crazy.  I was actually surprised there was no tornado warning issued.  Anyway, lightning was striking very close to me on all sides.  I sat on the side of the road and shot some video and also shot some stills.

Lowering on the storm was rotating indeed!

I was excited and nervous as I shot this knowing the punch it was going to pack...

I raced back east on a side road and had this thing right on my tail.  I remember looking through the rear view mirror to see if the rotation was still there and all I saw was a flash of purple as a lightning strike hit very close.  I got back to I-70 and didn’t get too far since visibility was completely gone.  I sat on the side of the highway with about 20 other cars until it let up a bit.  After the rain lightened up for a minute or so, it re-intensified for round 2.  I trailed just behind it, now going back E on I-70 and got off at Byers and shot some lightning for about 10 minutes.  After that I made my way home.  Whew…

Anyway, the first half of the day down south was pretty lackluster but did yield some decent photography opportunities but the main event of the day was for sure in Strasburg.  Felt good to get out for a nice summer chase!  Youtube link of the chase below.

Youtube Link For Today’s Chase

Wayfaring Map of my route today 

Scott

PS - Sorry for no streaming today.  I realized near CO Springs that I forgot my firewire cable.  Doh!

Started the day mowing my lawn.  Yes that’s right, yard work and laundry was on the agenda today, not chasing.  Fortunately I got up earlier than I normally do and got the yard done quickly.  I thought “just for the hell of it, why don’t I take a look at some forecast models for today?” and that’s when I decided to make a desperate run to KS for the moderate risk.  I basically felt like this might be one of the few decent setups left in the season that I could actually make, so I decided to go for it.  I flew out the door setting stuff up as I was driving.  I got east on I-70 and at Byers started to notice the cell in Elbert county gaining some steam.  I still had Kansas on my mind though.  I was already heading out highway 36 when the cell went severe warned and the speed the cell was intensifying at quite literally stopped me in my tracks.  I u-turned on the highway and got back to Deer Trail as the first tornado warning was issued.  I plowed east on 70 some more as my ham radio kept saying there was a tornado on the ground already.  The scans on GR3 were incredible!  I made a decision to get off at the Cedar Point exit trying to get back west but ran into the same lousy dirt road network that killed us yesterday.  I drove along finally getting to the top of a hill where I could see for miles.  That’s when in the very far distance I could see a cone tornado on the ground.

Tornado #1 way, way, way in the distance...

I knew getting back west on those roads was impossible.  Only thing to do was sit and enjoy.

Cone turned into a rope before dissipating...

 The down time in the action was short lived.  I navigated through the dirt finding a better hill to sit on top of where I could at least see the tornadoes happening, granted it was from a further distance than I’d have liked.  But that’s when I saw something I’ve never seen before and even at the distance I was at, sent chills through my body.  Another cone emerged from the precip and a satellite rope tornado formed right next to it.  Incredible.  Two on the ground at the same time.  I fumbled for my video camera and got the tail end of it (see youtube link at the end of this post).  

Just as main cone tornado lifted, the satellite was still on the ground

As that dissipated, I got a call from the National Weather Service saying they were watching my stream on Severe Studios and basically asked me if I could corroborate what they were seeing on radar with what was actually happening on the ground.   Dude must’ve thought I was nuts because all I could say was “I just saw a satellite!  I just saw a satellite!”

I then got off the dirt and went further east on I-70 getting off at the Kiowa exit and found another nice vantage point as the cell had moved closer to my location.  I grabbed a few shots of the meso rotating and kicking up some dust on the ground below it.  No tornado at that point but definitely some good updraft.

Rotation in the meso kicking up a little dust...

Back to I-70 I went and headed to Limon.  I went just west of town and captured this nice wall cloud which possibly had a funnel.  I saw some good rotation in it, but it never got very organized or tight.

Wall cloud dropped down but never tightened. Had good rotation in it though.

As the wall/funnel cloud dissipated west of Limon, the meso moved right over the top of me where I got a great shot of the hail shaft.

Nice shot of the hail shaft. This whole thing was rotating like mad...

I got back into the town of Limon and got one last shot of two needle funnels sticking down but they dissipated almost as quickly as they formed. 

Two needles sticking down just outside Limon...

About 45 seconds after I captured this shot, the hail came and gave me a good ass whooping.  Hail was marble sized and lasted about 10 minutes.  After that, I called it a day and headed back home.

Obviously I wish I could’ve gotten closer to the tornadoes today, but you will not hear a single complaint out of me on this one.  The road networks in central Elbert County are all dirt and really have no rhyme or reason to them.  You never know where you’ll end up and Delorme was having a hard time with them as well.  I had a great day and did it all solo.  This was the most incredible supercell I’ve ever seen in my few years of chasing.  And to think I was just going to do laundry today!

Video of Today’s Chase - Youtube Link

The video starts with the main cone already lifted and satellite tornado still on the ground.  After both dissipated, the cone tried to come back down again but couldn’t quite get it done.   Then the next clip was looking west out of Limon where a wall/funnel cloud didn’t produce.  Lastly was the hail I got in Limon before calling it a day and what a day it was…

Scott

It was a a pretty strange chase day for us (as they usually are).  John, myself, and special guest Carl Wells initially planned on heading down south towards Lamar or Kit Carson, but when we reached Limon, radar was showing us that any storms to the south were going to be WAY south out of our range.  So we decided to sit in Limon for a while and watch for storms back closer to Denver and along the Palmer Divide.  We saw a few starting to go up and decided to head back towards Deer Trail along I-70.  We then made a quick decision to take highway 86 back W towards Kiowa where we intercepted our first cell.  We pulled into Kiowa and within minutes, we had a great vantage point of the storm where a nice wall cloud developed and possibly a funnel although I didn’t see too much rotation.

Possible wall cloud starting to lower from the base

Possible funnel cloud? Hard to tell. Didn't see much rotation...

Shortly after, the cell went tornado warned as it moved into Arapahoe County and we struggled to keep up as we hit the mud big time.  Today was a day I’m definitely glad I invested in a 4wd vehicle!  As a tribute I’m listening to Nirvana’s ‘From the Muddy Banks of Wishkah’ as I type this.  Uggh…Limited road options and an ability to go about 20mph at the max pretty much took us out of play for the rest of time the cell was tornado warned.  We also noticed in Kiowa that the inflow of the storm was all cold air and wasn’t surprised when it became a very HP, outflow monster.

Tornado warned cell quickly became outflow dominant spitting out rain and not much else...

We finally emerged from the mud in Agate and decided to head back east on I-70 making our second stop of the day in Limon where a few other cells were starting to initiate.  One scan on GR3 actually showed a TVS marker basically in Limon where we were getting gas which was weird.  Anyway, we headed a little west of town where we got some nice structure shots of the last few cells before they joined the HP line from hell that was drenching NE Colorado.

Beautiful structure just west of Limon that eventually became severe thunderstorm warned...

After this, our hunger took over and we decided to call it a day.  It was frustrating getting stuck on the muddy roads for so long, but that was really the only way we got our good action of the day.  Texted back and forth with Dann Cianca and Michael Carlson today which was very cool.  Thanks guys!  We enjoyed a nice dinner at the Blue Bonnet which is always good, listened to Daniel Tosh’s standup, watched a good portion of Arrested Development season 3, and saw some decent storms so I consider today an overall good, entertaining type of day.  Also, looks like there were a few tornadoes down in SW Kansas near Liberal and another up in Goshen County WY.  Who knew the tornado hot bed was Wyoming?  Hahaha…

Our route today - Wayfaring Map

Scott

Very interesting day here in Denver as we had 5, possibly 6 different tornadoes reported across the front range.  I didn’t see a single one of them.  This was due mostly to the fact that I don’t live in Boulder, Lafayette, Westminster, or Aurora.  I wasn’t planning on chasing at all today but as the tornado sirens went off here in Englewood, I grabbed my camera’s and went out the door.  My chase lasted about 15 minutes.  City chasing is impossible.  Too many buildings and stop lights doesn’t allow you to see anything or get anywhere in a timely fashion.  So I decided to spare myself the frustration and went home.  I thought about heading E out I-70 but had some family obligations later and didn’t really feel like doing it to be honest.  When I head out chasing, I like to get in a certain mindset and that was completely absent from me today.  I know weather is happening locally when I start getting phone calls from people I haven’t heard from in months!  

So anyway, hope everyone enjoyed their day.  For myself, I just wasn’t in that ‘mode’ today.  Glad to hear injuries weren’t too significant out at the Southlands mall.  Also sorry to all the guys that were out in KS/NE/MO/IA that busted all weekend.  2009 has been good to us at times but pretty mean most of the time.  It’s back to work for me starting on Tuesday so hopefully we can get a few more chase days in on Sunday/Monday for the next couple of weeks.  

Scott

What a day!  Finally after two years of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, we have gotten on the board.  It’s nice to get that monkey off my back that’s for sure.  Okay, down to business… We started the day targeting the NE Colorado corner, particularly Julesburg.  We got up there around 3pm and all was quiet at the Flying J where we and about 3 other cars of chasers sat and waited painfully looking at all the action happening in Wyoming.  At that point I still had confidence that things were going to happen in that area.  Radar kept showing nothing though.  After about a half an hour we grew impatient and started heading back west on I-80 towards Sidney in the NE Panhandle.  We got to Sidney and at this point everyone in America had either been at the LaGrange, WY tornado or seen it live on the freaking Weather Channel so we were feeling pretty down in the dumps.  I noticed that the cell was moving E slowly and was eventually going to make it back into a more unstable environment.  So we headed a bit north and then spent the next 45 minutes on gravel roads trying to get back west to where we could intercept.  Finally we saw a very pronounced lowering and a funnel start to drop down.  Initially it dissipated but quickly tightened back up and dropped a nice rope tornado just NW of Kimball.  I was having a hard time switching back and forth between my Canon taking stills and shooting video on my Panasonic but below are a few pictures I got.  After everything had dissipated, we hung around for a little bit and the cell started to lose steam so we called it a day.  We took I-80 back to Cheyenne and had a nice celebration dinner.  We then caught a nice lightning show just E of Ft. Collins on the way back which was the icing on the cake of a great day.  

Funnel starting to come down...

Funnel starting to dissipate...

First funnel gone but still good rotation...

Funnel starting to reorganize and tighten back up. This is when I switched back to shooting video..

Right after it touched down and started to dissipate. Excellent!

I’ve gotten to reviewing the video and it’s a shame but it sucks.  Who needs to invest in a tripod?  I do!  Not much else to say except that I have posted what I think is decent.  Sorry it’s not the best but it was still a great and special day for me.  Youtube link below…

June 5, 2009 Kimball, NE Tornado - Youtube Link

Map of our route today - Wayfaring map

Scott

It was a very weird, at some times frustrating, but overall decent day for us.  We did a lot of work for no reason; but isn’t that storm chasing?  We got out pretty early today which might have been our undoing.  We headed out I-70 initially targeting Last Chance on highway 36 and when we got there it was only sunny skies.  We noticed some decent cells moving SE down from Wyoming and decided to head towards Ft. Morgan to see what they looked like.  They were not severe in any way and kept dissipating the further east they got.  After a gas up in Brush, we headed back the way we came trying to get back to I-70 as storms were firing all along 70 from Deer Trail to Limon.  We headed east on I-70 right as the last cell was building strength and luckily caught the amazing wall cloud that looked promising for a few minutes in between Deer Trail and Agate.  After the wall cloud broke down the cell became pretty outflow dominant but did yield a nice rainbow at the end.  After that we called it a day so we can save up our energy for tomorrow and potentially Saturday.  So basically we lucked out at the end and isn’t that storm chasing?

Deer Trail Supercell we raced to catch up to

Finally caught it on a side road between Deer Trail and Agate

Right after the wall cloud dissipated

A nice rainbow to end the day...aww shucks

 So that was our day.  A lot of unnecessary driving but we still got some decent action at the end of the day.  Saw Tony Laubach and the Discovery team out today and a lot of other chasers on that side road between Deer Trail and Agate.  Heading out tomorrow probably targeting the CO/NE/KS intersection.  Stay tuned!

Scott

June 4, 2009 Deer Trail Wall Cloud - Youtube link