Discovery Channel: Storm Chasers

One Week To Go

It's Leora here, in Norfolk, Nebraska, beginning to grasp that the chase season is almost over. It's been intense. Most days have produced tornadoes somewhere across this vast land, and we've tried to reach them, venturing beyond "our domain." For the meteorologists on our team, missing a tornado is unbearable. And yet, of course we only catch a tiny fraction of these moody phantoms.

Earlier this week we found ourselves in Missouri. As you probably know, we usually stick to the flat plains, preferably with gridded roads. But there we were, roller-coastering over forested hills. It was the end of a boring day, spent in waiting mode at a humid, fuel-wreaking gas station. I think that explains it all. It even explains why we pursued a storm that Karen described as "cute." She said it should have its cheeks pinched. The cell had some structural characteristics of a violent storm but was way too tame to make a tornado. At least the scenery was pretty.

(Right: Gabe in red and Justin in green at yet another convenience store)

As you noticed, despite high (let me revise that, extremely high) expectations yesterday, the atmosphere did not cooperate. There was no historic outbreak. Only a day of adjusting locations, waiting, re-adjusting, and mostly answering the questions of small-town residents in Nebraska.

How could so many forecasters be so wrong? The radio chatter at the end of the day was filled with highly technical jargon particularly regarding the type of trough that had moved in. For me, when all was said and done, after all the hype about fast-moving storms and violent tornadoes, it was Mark who summed it up best: "Sometimes the atmosphere wants to show who's boss."

(Right: Mark spinning a tornado in a jar at the end of the uneventful, hyped-up day)

Yet, don't write this week off so quickly. We did intercept two tornadoes with the DOW--on radar--on Wednesday evening. The fleet was parked by a quiet roadside not far from York when Josh announced the appearance of a weak, very unusual tornado on his monitor. It was situated between the mesocyclones of two supercells. Because of rain and hail the funnel was not visible to the barely patient members of the convoy.

(Below right: Marcus, our medic, watching a storm to his west on Wednesday night in the York region. He travels with his bike on the roof.)

As so often happens, just as we began to head to our hotel in Lincoln, still keeping an eye on the storms, the elements began to gather strength. Looking towards the darkening supercell, you could almost feel the buildup of energy. That tension can't but affect you too. From Seward we drove into this gaping world. Gabe called it "the twilight zone." "Is the sun still up?" someone asked. Green light, indicative of hail, permeated the air. It was eery.

What happened in there? Josh clearly saw a tornado flare up about a mile and a half to our north--on radar. Justin and Danny and Aaron clearly saw a tornado cross the road directly in front of them. The rain was so severe, bringing visibility almost to zero, that the TIV had to stop with most of the armada behind it. The DOW plowed forward. We were in disarray. Reactions varied: excitement at seeing a tornado breaking branches and swirling them from close up; upset at missing an opportunity to deploy Pods; concern at the situation.

BELOW: TIV-2 and (!) TIV-1                                                    The DOW

 

Today is expected to be calm. Production will interview "the talent." It's time for catch-up.

Historic tornado outbreak expected today!

I have not seen a setup like today in a very long time.  Incredible wind shear (changing wind speed and direction with height) and instability will create a perfect environment for strong, long-track tornadoes from southern MN south to Northwest Texas.  This tornado setup is near perfect, rivaling May 4, 8, 2003, when significant tornado outbreaks struck the Great Plains.  I would not be surprised at all if 100+ tornadoes are reported today across the Plains.  The Storm Prediction Center has issued a high risk across the entire warm sector from MN south to KS, and will likely be extended southward from there into Oklahoma.  This is a very dangerous situation for the residents within the risk area outlined below, so if you are a resident of this area, stay tuned to local media for watches and warnings. We'll have the live streams going strong on TornadoVideos.net (all 5 TVN streaming teams), and we'll be working for a successful tornado probe deployment!  Stay tuned for updates!

Reed

Meet TIV Support, the Doghouse!

Byron here again. We are finishing the season with nonstop chases! It's already exhausting, so we'll be on autopilot for the new week or so. Just keep moving forward. Get up and chase. Day to day necessities like showers and actual meals become some of life's luxuries. I'm going to post as often as possible, and might have a real treat in store for you all coming up. As in exclamation mark worthy. But I'll save that punctuation for the appropriate time.

Today, we learn about the vehicle known as Doghouse. The TIV support vehicle. Doghouse follows closely shooting TIV for the show, and thus travels much MUCH closer to the danger areas than the rest of the caravan. It's OK though, they only SOMETIMES get caught in the tornado with TIV. And only SOMETIMES a crew member or three may be outside shooting and holding on for dear life (BTW Keith nailed that sweet shot from last season in the final episode of the tornado coming at us).

Driving is Brian Gany, the show's AD. He is in charge of controlling the chaos of the TV show while negotiating the chaos of chasing. Not much is known about the man known as Gany, except that he loves his mother and used to have a full head of hair before he was introduced to this band of misfits.

Navigating is Gabe Garfield. Tall, handsome, and possesses a keen sense for storms. He provides Sean with additional information about wall clouds and locations of interests while Josh is busy directing Probes and Scout and scanning with his radar dish. We still rely on Josh, but Gabe's focus solely on us and our mission to intercept is invaluable.

Shooting out of Doghouse is the famed Jade Sandberg. He's shot the Iditarod and some other stuff that I cannot remember at this time. His main goal is to get the shot of TIV getting “the shot”. He'll often jump out and shoot TIV during rain and hail and lightning, and really, it's not a smart thing to do. But he does it, and he does it well. I saw some of his footage of TIV and was amazed. Don't tell him, though, we don't want to inflate his ego too much. He also keeps Kyle and I stocked with batteries and tapes and for that I am eternally thankful to this kind soul.

After studying the damage survey of the Kearney tornado, which was a weak EF0-EF1 from what I was last told, Doghouse was determined to have actually been IN the main circulation. You could look at data to figure this out, or you could notice the WINDOW that was SHATTERED by debris. Pretty cool. Our medic, Marcus, patched it up thankfully.

These guys are probably the second coolest group of people on our crew, next to the TIV folks, of course.

Got something BIG coming up. Need to double check clearance first...

Stay safe!
B

PS It was awesome to meet Erik out of Lincoln the other day. Very cool rail truck!

Wind sensor installed on TVN tornado probe!

Just as we were walking out the door for our last chase in Kansas, the wind sensor we ordered for our tornado probe finally arrived.  Unfortunately, we didn't have time to install the sensor on our probe before leaving since we had to drive all night to get to our target area before the storms fired.  In hindsight, this was very disappointing because we ended up have our first successful probe deployment of the season, and it would have been great to have wind speed and direction data from inside the tornado!  Speaking of the probe deployment, we watched the HD version of the tornado impact after returning home and noticed that the power line was ripped off right in front of the probe about 3 seconds before our vehicle reversed to safety!  From the video, I'd estimate that the winds over the probe were gusting well over 100 mph, with pieces of debris making near 90 degree turns above the camera.  The video is out of control, so be sure to tune in to Storm Chasers this fall to check it out in High Definition...

Here are some pictures of the wind sensor installation on the TVN tornado probe:
    

The bullet-proof Lexan bubble on the probe houses our HD camcorder, data logger (which saves the wind data recorded at 1 second intervals), and power supply.  All we have to do before we deploy the probe in the path of a tornado is turn on the data logger and camcorder...  When we deployed last week my OCD took over and I checked to make sure the record light was on 5 times in the 80 mph wind as the tornado was bearing down on us!

Here are some pictures from the field, including our fearless crew who continue to capture the shot even when a strong tornado is only a few hundred yards away:

  The far left is Danny next to TVN Stream 1, shooting a developing tornado just east of Osborne, KS, and right of that picture is the dominating B-roll team..

Joel and I watching a rapidly rotating wall cloud in Southwest Nebraska, and to the right, our audio specialist Ryan trying to execute in extreme conditions.

Chris filming us film the storm..  Chris went from surviving 50 foot waves in Deadliest Catch to extreme storm chasing..  I've never seen anyone maintain such a steady shot in a 100 mph wind while being pelted by sand..

It looks like we'll be storm chasing non-stop beginning tomorrow (Tuesday), with a series of historic tornado outbreaks possible Wednesday into the weekend.  I'm thinking we'll have several more opportunities to deploy our probe, so hopefully we'll have some insane wind measurements to report for my next post..

Reed

Tornadoes and Wienermobile Intercept!!!

Alright,  here we are again. You all are being really patient with our updates as these chases keep us on the road more and more, but I figure I'll take some time out to tend to your blog comments. First off, however, I need to share some excitement from that big tornado day. Wow. Tornadoes all around us! We started the day off driving through Kearney, NE while a tornado was traveling through the town. There might have been two of them, actually. We didn't see any funnels, but Sean rolled IMAX footage as we barreled through heavy wind and debris. Sorry I am unable to share samples of my footage, but let me reassure you that it is awesome. Debris flowing through the streets, power flashes, driving through trees down in the street. It was intense.

Later in the day, we found a plethora of tornadoes north of Tipton, KS. We nearly intercepted on our first run at a wall cloud, but the funnel dodged us. They are tricky. We turned around and set out sights at making another run and satellite tornadoes were popping up right and left. There were a couple of sisters that danced RIGHT IN FRONT OF US! If you are asking if I got a shot of that the answer is YES. Seriously one of the best pieces of footage I have ever shot. There was another sweet funnel on our north side and sat just perfectly in view (TIV1 has a lot of small windows). If I had to guess, I'd say I probably filmed 1000 funnels that day. But between you and me, a more realistic number would be between 5-10. There are times after a chase when I can barely remember any of the details because I get so “in the moment”.  Obviously, I did not mind watching my footage and taking notes for the show (watch it!) this time. BUT-back to the chase. We were making a run for the intercept. Going north to Glen Elder, KS, we were getting close right about the bridge on the east side of Waconda Lake. Sean had the funnel in his IMAX sights, Ronan was flooring it, and I was shooting and we were all yelling and it was awesome. Those moments are why we ride in a horribly uncomfortable tin can and eat crappy granola bars and pee in water bottles for two months. Did we make it? Sorry. You have to watch the show to find out. Or maybe if you see us in person you can try to get the answer out of us. I will let you in that at one point I seriously thought we had a chance to intercept on a bridge. THAT would be something, wouldn't it?

Feedback...

Rich and Matt, you are right about being like a band on the road. But instead of doing shows every night, we look for good storms. Some "shows" are better than others, of course.

Andrew, double coating is a must! It makes all the difference when you are trying to shoot video through a window or just trying to see while driving in the rain. TIV could probably use another coat, now that I think about it...

Kristi, Ash, and Greg, great to meet you all. Glad your chase went well, Greg.

Dale, everytime we see a tank on the road we start getting ideas for the next TIV. Conversely, everytime the scientists see a large ugly vehicle they talk about the next TIV as well.

OK, so we drive around like a freakshow, I know this. We all know this. Look at the weird tank and the weird blue truck with a radar dish! Well the tables were turned the other day when we met the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile! JOSH and Sean got to see another member of the weird truck club.

BTW Josh was bugging me about not writing about him. So I am now writing about him. Oh look a picture of Josh too! I predict 20+ comments on this post regarding how handsome he is. Russel Crowe?

Back to the Weinermobile in Great Bend. It was a treat to see someone else who travels the roads in a very non conventional set of wheels.

Let's begin the tour! Come on in!

Here is an empty shot of the cabin. It can comfortably fit maybe a crew of 8? Plus driver and navigator. This is a subtle difference from the inside of TIV1. Just a subtle difference. It's mostly a cosmetic/style clash that seperates the Wienermobile and the TIV. That, and the TIV intercepts tornadoes. What would a Wienermobile intercept? Chili? Plus the buns are unnecessary carbs. Get some claws, Oscar Meyer.

Let's not forget some handsome members of our crew (since everyone seems to like them more than the actual chasers!). We got Kyle on the left and Keith and Bradley on the right.

Ronan with the Wienermobile crew!

Yesterday, when I started writing this blog, we did our customary parking lot party while waiting for weather to cook up.

Jade playin some ball. With Mark and Paul.

Paul going for a kick. Matt in Scout talking to Aaron.

Danny playing catch with Mike.

Sorry, my camera battery died before I could get a picture of Mike.

 

And to close, here's a crew photo!

I'll be back in a few days with more stories and pictures!

Byron

Racing to Overtake a Destroyer

It's Leora again, reporting from Ogallala, Nebraska (what a lilting name for a town), after a day that started in Kansas, rolled through Colorado and ended in this northern state. The celestial cap is gaining strength, bringing out sharply outlined storms against blue skies--large towering edifices--that struggle to break through the barrier and become supercellular. This makes for spectacular views and weak or no tornadoes.  Yet, after spending all of Friday visiting damaged towns and farmsteads in Kansas, I write this without an attendant note of complaint.

On the morning of May 29th, Danny greeted me in the parking lot with "It's a good day. SPC (Storm Prediction Center) issued a high probability of tornadoes through parts of Nebraska and Kansas." All the conditions were there: strong wind shear, moisture, and an incoming warm front. Rachel, a visiting meteorologist: "We have three of three." Our team was in North Platte, Nebraska. The sky was a faded blue with some wispy, non-committal clouds. Our destination was east. How far east? We didn't know. Townsfolk kept asking us and we uncomfortably answered just that, "east of here," knowing tornadoes could hit quite close to their homes.

East ended up being Kearney. The armada, including two (!) Tornado Intercept Vehicles, sped into town just as a supercell was about to engulf it. From an overpass, the DOW scanned a tornado that lowered onto busy streets filled with traffic, cars moving helter-skelter, trying to dodge the wind. The TIVs raced towards the funnel. Did they succeed? That's not information I can divulge, so yes, tune in this fall... I will tell you that the TIV support vehicle got so close to the tornado that it lost a window to debris. Gabe was none too happy about his choice of location. Later we heard that the tornado had overturned 40 railroad cars and hit student housing. Yet this was not the event of the day. Soon we were to cross paths with a far more threatening entity.

(On the left, clockwise: Bradley, Danny, Aaron and Josh after a damage survey in Jewell.)

The team's immediate response to the Kearney storm was, of course, to put up a good chase, with the intent of passing it and making a second attempt, preferably with some dropped Pods. But rain, always referred to as "precip," resulted in a messy storm, no signs of a tornado and greatly dampened enthusiasm among us. Curtis, our nowcaster in Boulder kept urging us south into Kansas. This was a fabulous judgment call! Driving fast (I won't publish our speed, but when I write fast I mean it), we rumbled into Glen Elder towards a country road just as a very powerful supercell was
mustering its forces to produce a tornado. We were there for the moment of genesis. And for many more moments of tornado watching. Probe 1, Probe 2 and Scout deployed a pod each in the intensifying rotating winds.

This is the same tornado Reed caught on camera. It assumed many forms, constantly changing. As a multiple-vortex circulation it continually bred smaller funnels beneath the large rotating cloud mass. It was stunning and ominous. Paul saw it grind a grove of trees, uprooting one and lifting it high, high up before dumping it. This storm would go on to produce at least one more tornado that lasted at least 40 minutes. For hours it rode through the night visiting town after town, farm after farm, wreaking terrible damage to those homes that happened to stand in its way. The damage was later assessed at EF-3. For your average house, this means that nothing remains, just a pile of splinters.

Realizing the strength of this storm, Josh was determined to stay on it. The road network did not favor us. While we zigzagged the supercell took the shortcut-diagonal. Our odyssey took us down a dirt road with painfully bright flashes of lightning to show the way. For a few long seconds, my truck slithered precariously. It felt like a bucking bronco. A tornado was to our northwest. Then Josh announced another rotation on radar just to our southwest. This was not where you'd want to find yourself in a ditch.

From Glen Elder the tornado catapulted up to Jewell, then to the area of Courtland and Scandia and Belleville. Along the way, a new, young and energetic tornado replaced the aging one. Though we were relying on the radar to keep us safe, extraordinary flashes of back lightning showed us an outline of a rare and "perfect" storm, with the funnel hanging from the left side of the wall cloud. Few of our chasers had ever seen such a sight at night.

(The picture to the left shows the still intact contents of a refrigerator the morning after the tornado completely removed and splintered a farmhouse southwest of Jewell. The couple is, thankfully, uninjured.)

To drive you need fuel. To get fuel you need a gas station. To pump gas you need electricity (at least nowadays). When we were at an eighth of a tank, the two Probes and Scout drove from station to station. They were dark and uninviting for lack of power--and completely useless. Just as we were about to give up in Belleville, we found a gas station with electricity. But then the DOW ran into downed power lines, further up the road, and we gave up. The storm had bested us.                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

(The picture to the right shows two tipped railroad cars by Glen Elder. On the left: a destroyed home in Jewell.)

Yet by tailing the storm we'd been able to provide real-time data to the National Weather Service about the tornadoes it was unleashing. The DOW placed five calls that night. Being so close, our information was far more accurate than that arriving from the NEXRAD radar.  We later heard that we'd saved at least one life and probably more.

To all of you whom we visited on Friday, I hope the outpouring of help from your family and friends sustains you through these very hard days.

We're leaving in 30 minutes or so for a chase in Kansas, and I haven't yet re-packed my duffel bag or eaten breakfast. So this is all for now.
(By the way, if you're wondering why I haven't included tornado pictures, it's because I was driving the whole time...)