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

Pretty wild day down in eastern and south eastern Colorado this afternoon with 12 reports of tornadoes largely concentrated around the Hugo area.  Also a massive hail storm dropped baseball’s right in downtown Pueblo which has caused a ton of damage.  I wasn’t chasing this event as I worked from 3-11pm.  Unfortunately it doesn’t look like any of the usual CO Chaser gang was on it either.  Sometimes I hate being employed!  Hahaha, all kidding aside, I will look forward to the damage surveys to see what the scope and magnitude on some of these were.  In my head I’m just imagining they were all completely rain wrapped so had I been there anyway, I wouldn’t have seen them.  Yes, that will do…

Scott

***UPDATE***

Courtesy Laura Ming/NOAA

So much for the rain wrapped theory.  Man!

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…

Headed out today around 1:30 after sorting out an electrical issue at my house and made it to Bennett and sat for awhile praying for the cap to break.  That didn’t happen.  Tony Laubach and Dann Cianca were out chasing together today and met me in Bennett and we all decided to team up and head back north where one cell had moved down from Nebraska.  The further south and closer it got to us, the more it fell apart.  A quick glimpse at the parameters didn’t give us all much hope.  Thus ended the chase with nothing but blue skies.  The humanity.  Not all a loss though, I finally got to meet in person Tony and Dann both of whom have blogs I follow along pretty regularly.  Plus I got to use my ham radio to finally talk to someone, not just scan the NOAA channels.  Funny how being threatened to be beaten with a tripod will get you in gear.  Bring it on son!  Hahaha…

Anyway, I think tomorrow will be a lazy chase type of day where I might just kick around the house and keep an eye on radar and if something looks interesting, I’ll head out.  Monday is gradually starting to peak my interest more and more though, so we’ll see.

Scott

This is nothing weather related by any means, but thought it would be funny to post a quick write up of my very first indoor skydiving adventure.  My dad generously bought my brother, mom, and myself a few “jumps” at the indoor skydiving place over by Park Meadows for Christmas last year.  Well, last Sunday we finally got around to it.

The experience wasn’t quite what I expected it to be.  I was nervous before I got to the place, but after I walked in, the nerves were gone.  For those thinking that indoor skydiving could be a ‘thrill ride’ type of outing, don’t bother.  I’ll put it this way; there’s nothing extreme or on the edge about floating in a wind tunnel with your aunt two feet away from you asking you to smile more for the camera.  Hahaha…

Anyway, an instructor is in the chamber with you the entire time and trust me, you need them.  I was pretty bad at it and had terrible form.  Either my legs were too bent, or my arms weren’t high enough, etc.  You need all of these things to get a decent flight.  I spent most of my time floating near the bottom or hitting my face on the glass.  The instructor was giving me hand signals as to what I needed to fix but I couldn’t get it.  It was very hard to focus with 100+mph wind in your face (this coming from a storm chaser?!).  My mom kicked the shit out of all of us which was pretty amazing!

This outing didn’t cost me a penny, so I shouldn’t complain.  I got to do something I’ve never done before and got to spend time with the family and that’s the bottom line.  However, my advice to anyone thinking of doing this is, don’t.  It’s way too expensive for what little you get.  Thrill seekers should probably go real skydiving.

Youtube Link of Scott’s Failed Skydive

The youtube video features a little pre-game,  both of my failure jumps and a quick edit of how well my mom did.  Big thanks to my aunt Susan for filming!

Scott

(not coordinated in any way)

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!

It’s not the ideal setup, but I have the day off, I haven’t been out in almost two weeks, and I think there’s a good chance at some severe storms.  First, the good news; diurnal heating throughout the day should give us around 1000-1500 J/kg of CAPE, so the atmosphere should destabilize in the early afternoon.  Second, the mid-level shear should be decent at around 25 kts and even more in the upper levels.  Lastly, surface dew’s should be in the 50’s.  Now the bad part.  Storm initiation in the afternoon will be quick so being in the right spot at the right time will be critical.  As storms move south and east they will become less intense, again reiterating the point that we need to get on them quickly and be there for initiation or shortly thereafter.

So, that’s what we should be up against.  Target-wise, I think setting up somewhere along I-70 near Byers or Bennett will give us good options to either play storms that fire on the Palmer, or storms that go up in the north along I-76.  Hopefully storms will fire around 4pm and we can get to them quickly.  Fingers crossed…

Scott

2009 has come to an end folks, and what a strange year it has been.  The action was good early, and late but the middle really was awful.  The first week of vacation I had in May, I didn’t go chase one single day.  I admit I started to lose the faith in the season and was pretty disgusted that I wasted a week of vacation.  However, things changed pretty quickly and in late May, we got a few local chases in which got the blood going again.  Then my second week of vacation which was the first week of June, we chased almost every single day.  So it looked bleak for a minute, but had a good ending.  

This year I saw 4 tornadoes and countless funnels, wall clouds, severe thunderstorms, large hail, and just about anything else one could consider extreme weather.  The tornadoes weren’t glorious or huge by any means but still a thrill for us nonetheless.  Also this was the first year where John and I really dedicated ourselves to chasing.  In the past, we had just gone out not too far from home if there was something possible and it happened to fall on one of our days off from work.  

Tornadoes:

- First was in Kimball, Nebraska which spawned from the same monster cell that produced the infamous Vortex 2 tornado in La Grange Wyoming.

- Numbers 2, 3, & 4 were in Elbert County Colorado on that fateful Monday when, had I left a few hours earlier for Kansas, would’ve completely missed them.  What a day that was!  Other than Verne Carlson, I saw no other chasers on that cell at all.

Close Calls:

- I know John will completely agree with me when I say that it was the insane bow in Colby Kansas on the drive home on June 1st.  I’m still not sure John realizes how much trouble we could’ve been in that night.  When we were sitting on the side of the road in the core of the storm laughing, filming lightning and having a grand ol’ time, I had no idea that a few minutes later the laughter would turn into, “Dude, I know you can’t see the road but get us the hell out of here right now!”  After I got done filming the lightning and insane winds in that storm, I decided to do a quick radar scan which put us in the dead center of a tornado warned area with 3 TVS markers right around us and a few reports of funnels from spotters on that exact highway.  Not good!  Obviously we made it to Colby and I have never been so happy to see a dive bar in the middle of nowhere that served Corona’s in my life.  That could’ve been really bad and I definitely learned a valuable lesson that night.

Disappointments:

- My first chase out in late April wasn’t a stellar effort to say the least.  I headed out early targeting south central Kansas, particularly Ulysses.  I made it there just fine but all the action was way down south where the Roll, Oklahoma and Texas Panhandle tornadoes happened.  Terrible forecast on my part.  There was no chance in hell I was ever going to make it there in time.  So I sat on the side of the highway as the sun was setting somewhere near Guymon watching everyone else’s streams of the tornadoes on-line.  It was absolute torture.

-  Missing the La Grange tornado hurt quite a bit even though we did collect the consolation prize with the Kimball Nebraska rope.  What particularly hurt was the fact that we were thinking about the Wyoming target that day and opted for the NE Colorado target instead.  That was painful to watch on GR3.  But again, we did still get a tornado that day so it wasn’t a complete wash.

Other Stuff:

- Huge, huge, huge thanks to John Winters for being my chase partner most of the year.  I know you’re still mad about the Elbert County thing!  John was a fucking rock star this year driving wherever I told him to go and was such a big part of us getting to the good storms.  Thanks again guy (in my best South Park style Canadian accent)!

- Also a super huge thanks to Kory Hartman and all the guys at SevereStudios.com who helped me out with my streaming this year.  Those guys are total pro’s always helping me out when I had a problem.  I doubt any of them will ever read this but they are certainly the way to go when it comes to streaming.  Such a great site and service.  Thank you again!

- Also a big thanks to my parents who thought I was out of my mind a few years ago when I started getting into this.  Now my dad watches my stream and tracks along with Spotter Network whenever I am out.  They also helped me out with getting my new chase vehicle that got us out of a lot of jams this year.  Love you guys!  

- Lastly, thanks to all the fellow Colorado chasers who’ve given us very kind words of encouragement this year.  I know John and I are still kind of the new guys, but we’ve certainly appreciated all the advice and nice things people have said to us.  We aren’t meteorology experts by any means as I’m sure you’ve ascertained, but we are out there learning new things every day.  We really hope to meet some of the people we’ve always talked to either online or through texting while out on the chase like the Carlson’s, Dann Cianca, etc.  We’ll make the next chaser convergence at Old C’s for sure or you guys should come to my BBQ on the 27th!

What’s Next:

- We will obviously continue to chase any decent setups that happen this summer of course and put up all the half way decent pictures and terrible video on this site when we get home.

- Already starting to think about some upgrades for next year.  We’ve got to go HD!  And next year I promise I will shoot that HD from a tripod because my filming sucks, I know!  Also, I really need to invest in a decent wide angle lens for my Canon.  Shooting weather with a wide angle is the way to go.  I also need to learn how to shoot lightning.  I went out last night and had a great vantage point but couldn’t get shit!  So frustrating.

- Various upgrades to the Pathfinder will include better headlights, and some better tires to get us through the mud.  John’s gotta like that…Maybe a brush guard to make us look a little meaner.  Hahaha…

Anyway, that was our season.  Nothing spectacular compared to some others, but we had an insane amount of fun.  I was explaining to a co-worker a few weeks ago that I was taking vacation time to go storm chasing and what he said really sums it up.  He said, “Some people go to Hawaii for vacation, you go to Topeka.”  Damn right!

Until next April,

Scott