Meanwhile, here are a few photos from today’s chase… below those is an edited clip of the hailstorm I got caught under near Last Chance.

]]> http://www.tornadoeskick.com/2011/08/5026/feed 0 http://www.tornadoeskick.com/2011/08/5023 http://www.tornadoeskick.com/2011/08/5023#comments Thu, 25 Aug 2011 19:58:33 +0000 laubacht http://www.tornadoeskick.com/?p=5023

Video Information (Catalog #20110825a) Date Filmed: 08/25/2011 Location: Lakewood, CO Format: 16x9 High Definition Footage: HD General Shot On: Sony XR500v AVCHD

Description: 08/25/2011 Grass Fire (Lakewood, CO) shot in 16x9 High Definition A small grass fire broke out near Red Rocks Community College in Lakewood shortly before noon on Thursday, August 25, 2011. Witnesses say they heard popping from a electrical line about the time the fire started. The fire didn’t threaten any structures, but did briefly threaten a few vehicles parked in the Red Rocks Apartment Complex parking lot across from Building D. West Metro Fire Fighters were on the scene within 5 minutes of the phoned in reports and quickly put out the fire. While not confirmed, it is believed the fire did start from the electrical lines. However several residents living in the Red Rocks Apartments claim that the area is frequently used by smokers. No serious damage was reported, however plastic covers over some of the lines at the ground were melted from the flames. Arbutus Drive from West 2nd Place to the Red Rocks Campus Loop was closed for about 25 minutes while crews put out the fire.

The footage on this website is copyrighted © and protected under United States and International copyright laws by Tony Laubach. The footage, video, video stills and photographs on this website are provided as an online stock video demonstration or “Virtual Demo Tape” for our clients and or future clients and may not be reposted, reproduced, broadcasted, downloaded, edited, or manipulated in any way, shape or form, without written permission from Tony Laubach.

I picked up Ed Grubb at his place and we ventured out toward Brighton where we gassed up and grabbed a quick Wendy’s lunch.  We were initially thinking a target up along I-76 from Brush to Akron to Sterling, but the boundary sitting across eastern Adams/Arapahoe County along with the towering CU going up lead us to take CO-52 east to split the difference in case that area were to go.

As we ventured east, towers continued to grow with cells showing up on radar along the boundary along CO-71 near Last Chance.  That became our target, and thus we ventured across a few county roads to CO-71 and eventually southbound toward Last Chance.

The storms as they developed along the boundary.

As we arrived to CO-71, we were observing numerous spin-ups along the boundary.  Initially, none of them were forming under updrafts, but it was a good sign of the surface vorticity in the area.  We were basically awaiting a storm to form over one of these areas and pull that vorticity up to give us the landspout show we all thought was imminent.  These features continued to develop as the boundary slowly pushed south thanks to outflow from the north.  One of these spin-ups formed to our south along CO-71 on the southern edge of a developing updraft base.

A spin-up on the southern edge of a developing cell to our immediate south.

The dust whirl crosses CO-71 less than 1/2 mile to our south.

With most of the updraft base above and behind us, we were unable to determine whether or not this feature was associated with any cloud-base funnel or rotation, but it did give the best show of the day for the Colorado storms.

About this time, we met with Verne Carlson, Kendall LaRouche, and Scott Hammel who were also out chasing these dust devils. While Verne missed the bigger of the whirls, Scott and Kendall saw it from a distance and could not confirm a funnel from their view several miles to the southwest.

We continued to watch storms pulse up and die as the main area of convergence continued to slowly push south. Once a storm moved off the boundary, it would fizzle quickly. As this boundary pushed along the US-36 corridor, the ground circulations stopped and several funnels did manage to form.

A larger funnel on the backside of a cell to our immediate northeast.

A very skinny funnel at the same time from a different cell to our immediate north.

About this time, our patience was running thin and a developing capping inversion over the area was really spelling out doom for this setup. More cells continued to fire, but quickly die struggling against the cap. We pushed east to Anton and were about to throw in the towel on this area as nothing was surviving.

Meanwhile up north, a nearly stationary group of storms were ongoing along I-80 from Sidney to Big Springs in Nebraska. While nearly 2 hours away, they had managed to hold themselves together long enough to warrant the trip up. Given it only being 4pm, we decided to give them a look. We abandoned the struggling storms and raced north through Akron and eventually up toward Julesburg. Of course, one of the cells we left went severe-warned after we passed through Akron, giving us concern we left too early, but a Facebook post from Scott indicated this storm didn’t earn the warning it received, so we continued on feeling like our decision wasn’t a bad one. As we approached Julesburg along I-76, we watched a vivid rainbow on the backside of the storms.

A double-rainbow along I-76 looking northeast.

The vivid rainbow looking northeast from the Shell gas station at the Julesburg exit.

However, as we entered Julesburg with intention to quickly fill up on gas, the storms took a massive dump in front of us.  At this point, we stopped and chatted for a few minutes as to our next course of action.  To this point, both our targets failed to verify.  The first along the boundary failed to produce and our second (and initial target) across northeast Colorado also fizzled.  Meanwhile, two storms were ongoing; a severe-warned beast down near Pueblo, likely out of reach by sundown.  And another tornado-warned super beast coming down out of Cherry County.  I did some line drawing on a map and determined that we could intercept this storm with about 30 minutes of useful light north of North Platte if we hurried up after it.

With neither of us having to be up for anything in the morning, we decided to try for it.  To this point, the storm maintained a beautiful signature on radar with a consistent 3-inch plus hail core and a beautiful flying eagle look.  However, no tornadoes were confirmed or reported by spotters, so even with our late departure after it, we hadn’t missed a tornado yet.

The trip was quick after we got to I-80.  We flew east on I-80 toward US-83 with a target intercept in Tryon, Nebraska, about 30 miles north of North Platte.  When we hit the junction, we quickly navigated through town and eventually up to NE-97 where we hauled up toward Tryon.  We could get more detail out of this storm as we moved north and could tell the structure would be gorgeous.  Of course in true Laubach/Grubb fashion, the long-lasting tornado warning was replaced for a severe thunderstorm warning.

We arrived in Tryon to watch the hail marker also dip below 2.50″ for the first time since we took notice of it nearly two-hours earlier.  This was an indication that the storm was on its way down and that the ongoing theory of certain chasers (i.e. me) getting within range of a storm can indeed kill off tornado potential.

Fortunately, the cell didn’t learn of our arrival quickly enough for it to completely die off before we arrived.  The setting sun illuminated the structure like nothing I had seen before with the brilliant colors showing through the storm’s striations.  Of course, this was likely due to the detachment process the storm was undergoing as the main updraft separated from the main core within 15 minutes of our arrival.  Still, it made for some amazing photos..

During our gawking session, Dustin and Kelly Price along with Scott Bennett rolled up with us and we enjoyed the demise of the storm.  While I don’t think they’re going to admit it to my face, they should safely assume that our arrival to the storm was likely the cause of its 30-minute demise.  I’m just kidding of course, but you can’t help but wonder.

With the storm expected to be nothing but a piece of cirrus before hitting North Platte, we called it a chase and met with Scott at the North Platte Applebee’s where we got to enjoy the company of our favorite Waitress Jay Jay whom we had the pleasure of meeting earlier in the season during one of our TWISTEX stops there.  After dinner, Ed and I parted ways with Scott and made the nearly 4-hour trip home to Denver, me arriving home after dropping off Ed shortly after 2am.

While the amazing sunset-lit supercell saved the chase from being a complete loss, I’m not sure I would’ve gone through the extra effort, gas, and additional 200 miles round trip if I had known the storm was going to be a 20-minute structure show at sunset.  While I greatly appreciate beautiful structure, it’s not something I normally go out of my way for.  I’m thrilled as hell to have gotten it since I was there, but I would not have been terribly upset to see these pictures from other chasers had we decided to tun and go home.  Still, the beautiful photos we grabbed definitely made the trip and were certainly worth while on a day that absolutely aimed well below expectations.  Colorado again depresses with another poor showing in a season full of duds for my resident state.  Had to again go to Nebraska for something good.

I will likely have pre-order information posted within the week once I build a page for it.  My current plan is to take pre-orders and knock off $5 from the regular price which is going to be $30 for bluray and $20 for DVD (so preorder special is $25 and $15 respectively).  I’ll also do bundle deals with the other two projects to which I’ll probably try and knock out previews for this week and post by week’s end along with pre-order information.  My target release date is end of October, but will depend on the conclusion of the “Storm Chasers” series.  My 2010 highlights will be immediately available upon its completion.

I am burning the very first final-draft version of Lubacca 2011-Boombust as I write this and will give it a sitting tomorrow to determine if any last minute changes need to be made.  Upon a final review, I will move on to the compilation project which is already well underway.  After finalizing that project, I will knock out the 2010 highlight project!  Lots still to do, but finishing the first of these three projects feels like a HUGE accomplishment for me!

THE GOOD: A great chase on Tuesday resulting in a landspout, some terrific hail, and beautiful structure.

THE BAD: Missing out on Wednesday’s storm in Sterling due to tire replacement.

THE UGLY: Thursday’s chase… almost threw in the towel several times, exchanged the hail from the severe warned storm for some amazing lightning, but missing the day’s big tornado in Cherry County.  Add to that the terribly unusual amount of suicidal animals REALLY made for an ugly chase.

I had intended to chase tomorrow, but the setup doesn’t look anywhere as good as it did a few days ago.  Thus I returned home as opposed to staying out like I had initially planned.  Overall, should be a fairly quiet weekend to recover from the nearly 1,500 miles driven over the last two chases.  Worth mentioning is the just over 1,600 miles remaining til I hit a new single season mileage record.  The year I am chasing for had the aid of several Arizona lightning chase trips, so I’ve already destroyed my usual chase mileage.

So with that, no chasing tomorrow and likely the same through the weekend.  I’ll post the log from this chase tomorrow as I did get some good photos as well as the lightning video.  With that said, I am off to bed!

Goodnight from Denver!

I grabbed some lunch in Kimball and hung out until dewpoints started to crash in Kimball.  I adjusted east toward Sidney and sat around waiting for some of the weaker blips to try and get their act together.  A couple cells north of the border tried in vein before fizzling out in the dissipating moisture profile.

A weak cell tries to develop over I-80 at Sidney, but fails.

Another storm further south into Colorado almost due south of Kimball started to really get its act together.  I flew south toward Peetz and back to the west on a series of country roads.  The cell visually was starting to lose some of its luster, but lack of any data prevented me from getting radar updates.  I drove west about 10 miles through the Peetz windfarm before turning around to return to CO-113.  When I arrived back to the highway, my Verizon signal returned to show the radar confirming what I was seeing visually.

I headed south into Sterling to get a glimpse of another cell that had gone up east of the city between I-76 and US-6.  I stopped south of Proctor to view the updraft which was struggling to get going.

The Cell South of Proctor Struggles; Looking East From County Road 67.

The storm slides east from me.

I followed the storm as it moves along US-6 toward Holyoke, but it was clear this storm was having a very hard time.  I headed north out of Holyoke to catch a “better” looking storm north of me and south of Julesburg, but it too struggled.  I landed in Julesburg with the intention to throw in the towel.

As I left Julesburg, the cell to my south exploded both visually and on radar and immediately went severe-warned.  I took the next exit south and backed west toward Venango, Nebraska and eventually south, crossing the hail swath enroute.

The exploding storm to my southeast looking from a county road south of Ovid.

As I headed south, another cell was forming and got severe-warned back to my west near Haxtun.  Given my currently target storm was losing some of its punch and the cell back to the west intensifying, I decided to poke back across to the Colorado side of the line once I hit US-6.

My westward jog was very short lived.  About this time, the tornado reports were streaming in from up near Valentine and the storm that had just crossed into Nebraska that I left moments ago had slowed down dramatically and began to procure several meso/TVS indicators.  Even as the storm was far away from any radar site, it visually looked stronger again and the radar signature did show a hook-like feature on the backside, so I flipped back around and crossed into Nebraska again.

I ran along the storm on US-6 as the thick of the core remained about 3-5 miles north of the highway.  I stopped for some cloud shots and may have even witnessed a brief funnel, but there was no imminent tornado threat that I could see.

Storm clouds west of Imperial looking north from US-6.

Storm clouds west of Imperial looking north from US-6.

With the tornado threat pretty nill, I refocused my attention how to get into the 2.50″ marked hail core.  I attempted a variety of roads northwest of Imperial, but all were too treacherous to get on.  Meanwhile, the lightning from this storm was really getting intense with vivid CG strikes all around me.  Once I safely returned to US-6, I set up shop to capture some of these strikes.

A vivid lightning strike northwest of Imperial and within a couple miles of me (video grab).

My dash cam captures another close, vivid strike (video grab).

As the lightning started to get blocked by the rain, I moved into town and hoped this monster hail core would survive as it made its way southeast.  It didn’t… just continued with the lightning.  Once it became apparent I wasn’t going to see the core of this cell, I headed to the northeast part of town and setup to shoot some more video and stills of the intense lightning.

As I was shooting photos on the tripod, I was handholding the video camera hoping to capture some of these strikes on video as well.  Amazingly enough, even with the rolling shutter, I was able to get some very crisp shots of the lightning on video, which is rare.  Those strikes after dark along with the sunset shots, are in the video clip below.

With the cells dying out, I pointed myself back west for the 200-plus mile trip back home to Denver.  I enjoyed the drive with the windows down and the 80s hair bands blasting.  It was an ugly chase, nearly throwing in the towel on a couple occasions and not being able to really get under that storm at its peak.  I also had several nasty run-ins with suicidal animals which didn’t help things.  Of course, missing out on a beautiful August tornado several hours to my north was also a bit discouraging (although to my defense, I wasn’t planning to target that area even with the conditions up there).  But my persistence and overall patience paid off to an extent as I was able to enjoy quite the light show.  I could’ve easily scooted home from Julesburg and missed all that entirely.

So the lightning saved a bust and gave me some consolation prize for my efforts.  It was a lot of time in the car, though, but went home happy.  In the end, that’s all that matters!

We awakened at 9am, gathered our things, and made a pit stop over at the tire place to get my tires rotated and balanced.  They promised us a quick 15 minutes, so we ran over to a nearby bagel place for breakfast, then strolled over literally as they were pulling the car out of the shop.  We fueled up the tank and were northbound.

The trip out was quick, and as we neared Cheyenne and eventually turned east on I-80, we observed a cu-field to our west over the mountains and a developing cu-field with some agitation to our east/northeast.  We pressed on, initially stopping in Kimball, but continued to our target of Sidney.  We arrived in town as some cells were trying to form, but nothing imminent.  Meanwhile, a massive storm was ongoing near Ogallala which had our attention, but we resisted the urge to fire off after it.

We grabbed lunch at McDonalds and attempted to fill up in town.  Pumps were extremely slow, so we grabbed our 2 gallons and made our way north a few miles to check out the first developing cell along the boundary.  It looked decent for a while, but got fuzzy and weakened.  Meanwhile, a stronger storm was developing immediately south almost right over town.  We turned around and made our way for it.

About this time, we observed some dust on the ground which tightened up and made its way toward the cloud base.  We assumed it to be a landspout as it was way more defined than a gustnado.  Radar indicated a strong couplet and with the storm over the boundary, it seemed like a pretty textbook landspout producing scenario.  Definitely not a dust devil!

Landspout looking west from the east side of Sidney, Nebraska.

Landspout looking west from the east side of Sidney, Nebraska.

Landspout looking west from the east side of Sidney, Nebraska.

We estimate the spout to be on the ground for roughly 6-minutes from 2:14-2:20pm and it likely dissipating south of I-80 toward the west side of Sidney.  We were unable to confirm any cloudbase rotation or funnels from our angle and distance, but the laminar look to the dust column and the radar signature and presence of a well-defined boundary lead us to believe it was indeed a landspout.

As we neared I-80, the spout had dissipated and gave way to the storm’s core.  Large hail up to 2.25″ in diameter began to fall along the interstate.  We measured the hail to 2.25″ near mile marker 58 south of Sidney.

Hailstones along I-80 south of Sidney near MM58.

One of the bigger stones measured to 2.25" in diameter.

With the storm sliding southeast, we needed to get back in front of it.  We blasted east on I-80 in hopes to take a southbound option to get us around the storm and back in front of it.  One exit we tried, the road immediately proved to be too much, so we raced over to Chappell and dropped down through Julesburg on US-385.  The storm crossed the highway before we did and we were left to observe the hail that had piled up on the highway to the northwest of Venango.

We jumped east on County Road 4 into Venango where we hit the backside of the hail core right on the border.  We briefly stopped in town for a few shots before heading south on a series of county roads that eventually lead us back to pavement on US-6 west of Imperial.  We tried to beat the storm into Imperial, but still were battling to get back in front of the cell.  We raced east on US-6 which fortunately runs southeast out of the city and eventually got ahead of the storm and were able to drop south on NE-25 through Trenton where we got in front of the storm along the KS/NE border.  Hail again began to fall, most of it 2-inches and smaller, but it had a more spikey appearance.

Hail up to about golfballs falling at the NE/KS state line along State Highway 25.

Some of the spikey stones we recovered along NE-25 north of the state line.

With us finally ahead of the storm, we coasted south into Atwood and then east toward Oberlin where we again were side-swiped by the core with some very large stones coming down.  We estimated most approaching baseball size, and when we finally found a place to get out and look, the core had passed and we were only able to recover stones up to 2.25″.

We continued east to Oberlin, then south to Leoville where we stopped at the junction of KS-23 and KS-123 to admire the beautiful storm structure.  A few occasional stones up to 1.50″ fell as we stopped to shoot, but most of the core was to our north and moving southeast.

We gave the core one more shot as we ventured where KS-23 intersected KS-9, but the hail had diminished to sub-severe criteria, so we called it a chase and headed west on KS-23 to US-83 and eventually into Colby for a victory dinner at Montana Mike’s before returning back to Denver. Along the way, we stopped to shoot some of the towers being lit up by the setting sun.

All-in-all, a pretty terrific chase!  With the northwest flow, we figured hail was going to be the big intercept and it surely did not disappoint.  The boundary that was originally draped across the southern panhandle was going to offer the best chance for tornadoes, and while it was a landspout and fairly weak, we were able to get one produced beneath the rapidly building updraft which brought my 2011 tornado count to an even 30 and added another tornado to an elusive August list.

With a lull in the weather, I have had time to begin work on the several DVD projects I have slated for the coming fall.  One of which, Lubacca 2010, should be released by August 30 assuming I manage a string of days like I’ve had where I can knock these things out.  The tornado compilation and Lubacca 2011 will be released later in the fall as I have to wait for the finale of “Storm Chasers” before I make the official release.  I will take pre-orders and will probably offer some special to be determined as my release gets closer.

First to be finished oddly enough will be the last to be released.  Lubacca 2011, name still undecided, is rendering the last of the 14 current chapters I am including on this production.  The main feature will of course be the Canton/Fairview, Oklahoma tornadoes from May 24.  That 17-minute chapter takes the crown.  The remaining 13 chapters cover various chases throughout the year, including April 8, April 24, April 26, April 27, May 11, May 17, May 21, May 22, May 23, June 13, June 17, June 20, and June 24.

As it stands right now, the full feature with all chapters lined up runs just about 85 minutes.  With extras I am adding/planning to add, it’ll be right around two hours.  I am undecided if the blu-ray will host any additional features, but think the main difference will be more interactivity on the blu-ray verses the DVD.  I haven’t authored a blu-ray before, so I really don’t know off-hand how that will differ from a standard DVD.

The other two productions that are being worked on include the 2010 highlight DVD as well as a blu-ray only compilation of tornadoes from 2008 through 2011.  I do not plan to release that one on DVD at this point, but if the downgrade is easy, I may opt for it.  Lubacca 2010 will be released on both formats as well and be released along with the tornado compilation.

I figure to have Lubacca 2011 wrapped up by week’s end and will burn test copies on both formats to ensure its authored correctly and everything looks smooth and nice.  I just found out today that some of my lower thirds were on different heights on the screen and had to go in and change the wonky ones.  Those things, along with some small audio clean-ups, are the main issues I am seeing so far.  But overall, I am liking how things are turning out.  I can promise you, these will be some of the most well produced DVDs/blu-rays that are available from chasers.  I spent a lot of money and time getting some high-quality graphics and music for these and they will not disappoint.  Oh yeah, the weather footage is pretty good, too!

I’m still unsure on price for the blu-rays.  The DVDs will remain at $20, no need to change those I don’t think.  The blu-rays are obviously more costly to produce, so they will be $5-$10 more than the DVDs.  I’ve seen other chasers as high as $30, so I’ll see where it all shakes out.  I’ll offer bundle prices and discounts, so I’ll figure all that out as we get closer.

So stay tuned for more information.  I am very excited to have these complete, even if it’s just so I can sit down and watch them as a viewer and not as the producer!

I’ll keep tabs on things as the afternoon wears on and if the high-rez models start breaking out precip or current trends indicate storm initiation is likely to occur, I’ll head on out and test the DCVZ waters.  We’ll see!

I hadn’t planned on chasing today, but a storm moving to the southwest along I-25 with a 3-plus inch hail marker couldn’t be ignored.  I took off for it only to kill it off like Charlie Brown with a Christmas tree.  Great structure enroute, but only rain when I got under it.

Supercell 40 miles north of Westminster from I-25.

So I’m back home and don’t figure to be up much longer, but wanted to touch base here mainly to mention the upcoming week’s chase potential.  While not nearly as busy as it was prior to my departure, there are some opportunities for Colorado-based chasing Tuesday and Wednesday before the ridge slides the monsoon moisture out.  I gave some consideration to northern plains potential, but think I’ll pass on that this week as I am having some vehicle work done and want to stay close and not blow a ton of late season funds for marginal setups in the northern plains.

Tomorrow looks quiet and I am hopeful to take the opportunity to get some of last week’s chase logs up.  There isn’t a ton on the logs, so it shouldn’t be a lengthy deal.  Just tedious given the half a dozen or so I have to put up.  It’s also worth a mention that I am flirting with some ideas on better combining my website with my social media outlets.  This may also result in yet another new page design, but that’s not for certain.  We’ll see how my time shapes up over the coming weeks.

Lastly, I return to work on September 5 to allow for August to concentrate on the mini-Colorado season and the lightning opportunities that often present themselves during this late mini-peak of a severe weather season.  Which means, I have about 5 weeks left before I return to a normal schedule for the first time since late March.

Ciao for now!