Tornado Logs

What started as a ferry day turned into the biggest surprise of the season to date. An isolated supercell developed southwest of Topeka and TWISTEX followed it toward Leavenworth. This storm dropped tennis-ball and better hail, had some pretty wild wall clouds and funnels, amazing structure, and was topped off with brief looks at two tornadoes; an EF-0 over southwest Topeka and an EF-0 near Lake Perry.

For TWISTEX, it was the second day in a row of a tornado intercept in Texas as we nabbed a needle-nado near Itasca, Texas. Later in the evening, a beautifully structured storm popped a few golfballs before rolling us over in wind and rain.

All forecasts indicated a near slam-dunk chase scenario near Abilene, Texas and TWISTEX setup just west of there and intercepted several storms and three tornadoes near Baird, Texas.

It was eight years in the making, but I finally destroyed the Colorado curse that has plagued me for years! After many Colorado misses, I finally nabbed some beautiful Colorado tornadoes and the footage of my career to top it all off! It was a perfect Colorado day shared by many Colorado chasers and one that’ll top off a very busy 2010 season!

Day 2 of a frustration double-header thanks to a flat tire leaving us 20 minutes late in leaving and us missing the show by even less than that. We caught one tornado on our way into Wadena where we stopped to assist after a very large tornado tore the town apart.

Chased what started as some POS storms that eventually pulled in some help from a nearby outflow boundary and gave birth to quite the tornado near Elmwood, Oklahoma and a second quickie near Slapout.

While not complete redemption, Colorado offered us some birdfart tornadoes northeast of Limon. In total, we bagged three along and just north of I-70. The storm was picturesque through most of its lifecycle and probably did more for us than the brief tornadoes.

Nabbed a large number of tornadoes today, including my very first North Dakota tornadoes! Split today’s count between the Dakotas as we documented a variety of tornadoes from just southeast of Bison, South Dakota into Adams County, North Dakota. Few pics and a vid up now, much more to come later!

At least a half a dozen tornadoes were documented today in northern South Dakota including a monster violent EF-4 wedge tornado near the town of Bowdle. This amazing chase is the most epic of my career to date, hands down!

Another fast-paced, intense high risk in Oklahoma where chaser convergence reached its peak and was the most insane I had ever seen. Our efforts rewarded us with a embedded HP supercellular multi-vortex tornado, but hardly anything else in terms of imagery.

Hoping to break my Colorado curse today, but didn’t as we gave up on southeast Colorado and got on the DUmas storm that produced several tornadoes and very large hail in and just east of town. Bunked down overnight in Dumas where an overnight hailstorm dumped golfball sized hail.

13 years ago to the day, I bagged my first tornado! And I was finally able to celebrate that anniversary in style as myself and TWISTEX bagged a trio of tornadoes near the Notrees, Texas area on Friday afternoon. Full report coming, but few pics and videos online now!

My second high risk of the season proves much more eventful than the earlier Arkansas bust. Unfortunately this turned into a deadly outbreak across Oklahoma and Kansas where several people were killed and many of the reported tornadoes were damaging. I documented 4 of the day’s twisters.

The biggest tornado day of the season rolled out a grip load of tornadoes on a single supercell along I-80 in south-central Nebraska. Prior to the big show, a couple beautifully structured storms were intercepted in southeast Nebraska.

A photographer’s dream chase set in the gorgeous high plains of eastern Wyoming as a long-lived supercell dropped a tornado that lasted 30 minutes across the lush green landscape. With Vortex2 along with TWISTEX on this storm, it became the most studied single tornado in history.

This chase started within minutes of me walking out of my very last undergraduate final and thus was my first chase as a Meteorologist! This chase would be one of the featured chases in “Storm Chasers” on the Discovery Channel!

This chase was a success due to a persistant outflow boundary near Plainview which gave way to a cyclic tornado-producing supercell! The muddy adventures, blown transmission, and a very sick partner made this a very storied chase.

The first tornadoes of the year came on this high-risk day in western Oklahoma. There is some debate whether this day deserved a high risk outlook, but regardless, it paid off as we bagged a pair of tornadoes near Roll.

Four years previous to this exact date, I had my first record-setting 10+ tornado day. When we pulled into Salina at the end of this long chase, I had my second. In total, over a dozen tornadoes documented across Kansas and Nebraska.

For the second day in a row, tornadoes exploded across northwest Kansas in just about the same areas as the previous day. I again documented a handful of tornadoes, including the massive wedge tornado that formed just north of Quinter, Kansas on I-70.

This day was a roller coaster of emotions that started out with excitement, turned to disbelief and disappointment, and ended up celebratory. After leaving Denver and missing the Windsor tornado by 90 minutes, a brief depression gave way to celebration when I documented a handful of tornadoes in Kansas.

The storm of the day was a sucker storm as dubbed by many chasers in north Texas, but it would be them who were sucking after Amos Magliocco, Eric Nguyen, Jenn Brindley, Tom Dulong, and myself witnessed a wedge south of Seymour! After the tornado moved out of view, we had numerous hail encouters enroute [...]

Nearly 30 chase vehicles converged on southeast Colorado and patiently awaited a supercell to finally put out a tornado! After dark fell, I intercepted several hailstorms on the way back to Denver.

Cold-core was introduced with a vengeance on this day as I documented a total of five tornadoes across northwestern Kansas. This day made Trego County a home away from home to the Colorado chasers.

Today was a career day that nearly doubled the tornadoes I saw back on May 12. An unbelievable day which kicked off from Denver at 5:30am. I drove into Salina and conversed with fellow chasers including Roger Hill about the day’s prospects. After a Wendy’s lunch, I elected to head south and meet my chasing [...]

Omigod! I can’t even begin to describe which will likely become a historical storm. Starting shortly after 7 and going well passed dark, I ended up wrapping up the day with at least seven different tornadoes. The South-End Charlie served us well as it developed meso after meso, cycling through about every 15 minutes and [...]

What a day! And in March none-the-less! Early morning checks of data weren’t looking too promising, and although hopes were high to see something, this was about the furthest thing to expect. What started out as a high end SLIGHT RISK was later upgraded to a MODERATE RISK when storms began to fire and go [...]

Chased my very first high risk in the Texas Panhandle and was rewarded with a pair of tornadoes, one being the satellite to the Stratford wedge and a second after dark near Guymon, Oklahoma. Did all of this between a closing shift the night before and an opening shift the morning after.