Yesterday's outbreak yielded 175 severe reports which included 35 tornado reports and over 100 wind reports. Several chasers posted reports into Stormtrack with only one seeing a tornado before he fell victim to flooded roads and stalled out his vehicle (I'm not going to come down on him for making the move as I have done it myself with more luck, but I will remind anyone who reads this to NOT drive into flood waters as only stalling his car made him lucky). I think
Dan Robinson probably had the best plan of attack for such a barnburner system. He picked a major north/south interstate and basically let the storms come to him, get what he could then reposition along the interstate and await the next round to come through. He intercepted a total of six different storms using this technique. Other chasers who tried to keep up with the storms fell victim to their speed very quickly as storm speeds ranged from 40mph to 70mph before becoming a solid line as it raced east. For a setup such as this, you're literally picking an 'X' spot and sitting with hope that your tornado happens within a few miles of that spot because unless you get lucky to follow a storm along a major highway, you're going to lose it quickly. My kudos to chasers who ventured out to play with this system as it was hyped to be a biggie. While I wouldn't have made the trip from Denver (at least via car) to chase, had I been closer to the area, I probably would've ventured out for this. I do believe this will be the last horrah for 2005 as this front has cooled temps down all over; winter is around the corner.
