5/27-28/2007 Trip to Milwaukee

Since the weather pattern wasn't cooperating with my chase vacation, Sharon and I decided to make the short trip up I-94 to visit Milwaukee. We were able to Priceline the Hilton Milwaukee City Center for $45/nt. The weather was perfect for site seeing. Below are just a few captures from the area.

Kite Festival at Veteran's Park on the lake front.

Milwaukee Art Museum

A view from our hotel room toward downtown Milwaukee and Lake Michigan.

Park just south of Milwaukee on rt. 32.

5/23/2007 Frustrating Panhandle Day (aka "Damn that Canadian River")!

Despite the potential for strong tornadoes, Wednesday turned into an extremely frustrating day. The road network ... or lack thereof ... and seeding storms made it very difficult to see anything worthwhile. This reaffirms why I dislike chasing in Texas ... in particular, the Canadian River area in the Panhandle. It is truly amazing how this stupid river, which rarely has running water, has caused me so many headaches in the past 10 years. Anyway, lots of HP'ish storms with cool outflow (at least when we were on them). The best looking mesos tended to be in the middle of nowhere between Borger and Canadian, TX ... pull out an atlas and you will see the obvious problem. We traveled the road from northwest of Borger, to Pampa, to south of Perryton some three times!!! Back and forth ... and back! We eventually peeled ourselves away from the ugly situation and made the long drive to OKC. We drove back to DeKalb on Thursday.

Update
I've decided to blow off the minimal chase opportunities with the next trough moving across the northern tier. Instead, Sharon and I plan to head to Milwaukee to check out the town. Overall the medium and long-range pattern does not appear overly favorable for significant tornado opportunities ... but, as always, that can change. I'll update if/when the pattern changes.

5/22/2007 Tornado!

Wow, the long drive the other day paid off!!!

After a very long night in the Shamrock Country Inn (truck drivers next door decided to get drunk as hell and keep us up all night), we decided to target the area northeast of the surface low in west-central Kansas. We grabbed breakfast at the Best Western (after all, the Shamrock Country Inn didn’t have a continental bfast) and headed north toward Dodge City. After a Sonic burger and some Internet at Burger King in DDC, we migrated north and west toward developing cumulus north of Dighton, KS. After quite a bit of maneuvering, we finally got ahead of the rotating wall cloud near Quinter on I-70 [thanks to Alan Black for the nowcasting … we had to call Alan for radar updates b/c we blew a fuse and had no radar data on the Threatnet … ugh! Lesson learned!]. Anyway, we followed the intense meso north – wow, what an intense midlevel meso it was! The vault and mid-level rotation was … how can I describe this … delicious!

We dove east toward WaKeeney, and then headed north up US 283. Wow, what a storm! The supercell seemed to quickly go “high-precipitation,” then ... all of a sudden ... the rain quickly dissipated around the meso, revealing a rapidly rotating wall cloud and funnel. The funnel briefly touched down a couple times – once with condensation and then with a dirt swirl with no condensation to the ground. What a treat!

As the tornado dissipated, the precip filled in behind us. Uh oh! We had to travel down 283 … into the core of a new meso churning out ice to the south. Boy, I thought for sure we would “spider web” the windshield on the Camry. We eventually broke free of the ice machine just north of WaKeeney and then followed new mesos that continued to redevelop east along I-70.

We capped the night with a lightning show west of Hays. Tornado warning was issued for the town and everybody went crazy … literally!

Fantastic day!

5/21/2007 Wildflowers and a Whale’s Mouth

We began the day by heading over to the Holiday Inn Express for a cinnamon roll or two (after all, the Ranch Motel had no breakfast … lol). We eventually got on the road and headed southwest toward Dumas, TX (or is it “Dumbass, TX”?), where we were able to snap some pictures of a field full of wildflowers north of town.

We grabbed some data and a BBQ sandwich in Dumas and decided to head eastward toward Borger. At Borger, we sat on the Internet in the McDonalds for at least a couple hours. We finally decided to head eastward toward Pampa, and then Canadian so as to intercept the apex of a developing bow echo racing east. North of Canadian we got into the outflow and enjoyed a picturesque view of the “whale’s mouth” … or the “bubbly” area that typically appears behind a shelf cloud. Yep, it is like you are looking out of Moby Dick's mouth after being swallowed.

After a number of pics, we decided to head south out of Canadian so as to stay ahead of the surging outflow. Unfortunately, we had no luck as we were overtaken by very heavy rain and pea- to marble-sized hail. We eventually got ahead of the convection only to reenter the picturesque “whale’s mouth” again.

As you can see, we lost a hubcap yesterday during the long drive.

After viewing the amazing cloud structure for a bit, we decided to break southward to find a motel room in Shamrock, TX. Tomorrow we head north toward KS … hopefully the moisture and shear will be sufficient for a tornado or two.

05/20/2007 Travel Day

Today was a helluva travel day ... 910 miles to Liberal, KS! For those interested, I saw roughly 50 deer carcasses, 10 or so raccoons, a few pheasants, a snake, and a couple mystery items on the roads during my travels today.

Currently in the Ranch Motel in this "lovely," foul smelling town. As for tomorrow, I'm hoping for a bit of "Panhandle Magic." Tuesday looks like an excellent setup north and/or west of Pratt, KS (if a bit more moisture can make it up to KS) ... we'll see. Keep you fingers crossed.

Abandoned Kansas farm (rt. 83 near Scott City, KS)

05/15-16/2007 End of Trip 1

After a night in Des Moines, the group decided to drive me home to DeKalb on Tuesday (I was originally scheduled for a Sunday flight out of Dallas-Fort Worth). After we got settled in at my house, we decided to go to Wisconsin – for a few in the group, this was their first excursion to the Badger State. The (removed b/c of crybaby culture) group, Sharon, and I first stopped in at Beloit, WI and then drove south to Rockford to enjoy some Chicago-style deep dish pizza at Giordano’s. After way too much deep dish, we all got some sleep back at my house in DeKalb.

The next day appeared a bit interesting as a strong vort max was rotating toward northern IL. Despite the cold surface temperatures, this type of environment often produces cold air type funnels, severe straight-line winds, and lots of small hail. So, after showing the group Northern Illinois University campus, we decided to head over to Chicago to take in some sites and chow down on a couple Chicago-style hot dogs before the storms fired in the later afternoon. After several “beefs” and hot dogs, we visited the top of the Hancock and “Cloud Gate” at Millennium Park. We left Chicago by 2 pm in order to intercept the developing convection out in northwest IL. Unfortunately, we hit a bit of traffic on the Eisenhower Expressway. We finally arrived back in DeKalb and, after a quick glance at the radar, it was clear that the storms were having a tough time “going severe” due to the lack of instability. The rest of the clan decided at that point to start the long trip toward Mississippi. This was the end of a very enjoyable trip … despite the lack of good storms during the nine days.

View from the Hancock Tower looking north along Lake Shore Drive.

A view of ourselves at Cloud Gate (aka "The Bean") in Millennium Park.

At this point, I’m planning to drive out to the High Plains on Sunday (Rapid City, again?) in order to follow the trough (and severe weather?) back toward Illinois. I could chase SD or NE on Sunday (if I can make it that far west in time), KS or thereabouts on Monday, and the KS/OK/TX region on Tuesday. I’ll update the blog if and when I decide to make the trip. Until then, I have some work to do …

05/14/2007 A Wild Jackalope and Crappy Storms

We began the drive east out of Rapid City early in the morning. We headed all the way across South Dakota on I-90, then I-29 south toward Omaha. The most exciting part of this trip was a stop at Pizza Ranch in Mitchell, SD, where we gorged on bad pizza, fried chicken, potato “wedges,” and soft serve ice cream. The best olfactory part of the lunch was sitting next to a group of old men who, according to Kelsey, smelled like hippos. Kelsey, who has a pet rabbit back in Mississippi, mounted a wild jackalope near the Pizza Ranch.

Two of the wild animals found at the Pizza Ranch in Mitchell, SD.

On I-29 north of Omaha, we intercepted severe warned storms that fired along the cold front, which was slowly sinking southward into a moderately unstable atmosphere. Despite warnings for large hail, these were questionable “storms” due to their lack of lightning and thunder. We met up with the group from (removed b/c of crybaby culture) at a gas station in Modale, IA. We eventually followed the convection eastward toward Harlan, IA, where we broke off the chase and headed toward the West Des Moines Sheraton.

"Storm" near Kimballton, IA.

5/13/2007 Storms in Montana

We began the day in Sheridan, WY with an initial target somewhere in the vicinity of Billings, MT. The day appeared marginal, yet had some of the best ingredients we had seen so far this trip. We headed north on I-90 toward Billings, stopping in Hardin, MT to grab some data, lunch, and a game of homerun derby. Sometime in the early afternoon, we noted an outflow boundary on the satellite imagery advancing southward towards Billings. We made the decision to head up to that area. Convection began to fire off the higher terrain southwest of Billings and appeared as though it was going to interact with the boundary. After analyzing some data in Billings, we decided to head west to intercept a storm near Big Timber, MT that was beginning to turn right along the outflow boundary. We made it to Columbus, MT and had a difficult time finding an elevated spot to see the base of the storm. Nevertheless, the storm looked fairly good at this point. However, it quickly became outflow dominant as convection to the north surged ahead of the southern storm. This presented a huge problem as the northern convection intersected our exit route to the east on I-90. East of Billings we got into quite a bit of hail (a ton of marble to penny-sized hail) and some of the most amazing lightning I’ve ever witnessed. The lighting was so vivid that we made the decision to pull the antenna from the top of the car. It was very difficult to get ahead of the core and, in fact, we were in or trailed the hail core for over an hour, finally breaking free near Crow Agency, MT. Based on a quick analysis of our road options (which sucked!) and a conversation with our nowcaster, we decided to continue down I-90 in order to intercept a cell moving eastward across the Crow Indian Reservation. We took some pictures of this high based, but picturesque storm before starting the long drive to Rapid City, SD. Overall, not a bad day considering the big, fat ridge in place across the Plains.

Initial storm near Columbus, MT

Ice maker as it crosses I-90 near Crow Agency.

Ice maker 2.0

pic removed b/c of crybaby culture

Steak and onions ... good! Potato chips ... good! Steak and onion potato chips ... not good!

05/12/2007 Dead Presidents and Soccer Moms

Since it was clearly a “down” day, we decided to visit several southwest South Dakota and northeast Wyoming attractions, including Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Deadwood, and Devils Tower. We ended the day in Sheridan, WY. Unfortunately for us, the town was hosting a giant soccer tournament (apparently the heir to the M&M/Mars Candy Bar fortune has built an extremely large soccer facility south of Sheridan). This tournament, and the hundreds of kids and soccer moms, led to a difficult motel situation. [Name removed b/c of crybaby culture that permeates our society] eventually landed us an overpriced room at a Best Western. The room had no working A/C; however, after a bit of complaining, we were able to secure a box fan and keep the door open all night to ventilate (and hear, with resounding racket, the trains at 3:30 AM and every 30 minutes thereafter). We ended up drinking beers and cooking burgers on the 2^nd floor ledge, which overlooked the Dairy Queen drive thru. Apparently soccer moms and their children love Dairy Queen because there were never less than 12 cars in line for Blizzards all night long. We eventually retired with dreams of Montana wedges for Sunday … yeah right.

pic removed b/c of crybaby culture that permeates our society

05/11/2007 Plain Day on the Plains

Today consisted of a good bit of driving across the heart of the Great Plains. We left Branched Oak sometime around 9:30 AM and headed off north and west across the Sandhills of Nebraska. Our target was southwest South Dakota. We were hoping that the Black Hills would induce enough orographic lift for some convection. A bit of high-based convection did develop near Pine Ridge, but even composite reflectivity data had a hard time resolving this “shower.” Despite a bit of moisture pooling between Rapid City and Pierre (Tds near 60), the cap proved to be too much to overcome.

We did end up visiting Badlands National Park during the late afternoon while we kept an eye on the towering cu to the south. As always, the Park did not disappoint. After harassing a few prairie dogs, we visited Wall, SD; a collection of horrible souvenir shops, cheap motels, and a few meth heads. As an example for my Southern brethren, think in terms of a smaller, Great Plains version of Gatlinburg, TN.

We ended the night in Rapid City, SD, where we met up with a (removed b/c of crybaby culture that permeates our society) alumnus (removed) who works for one of the local TV stations. We had buffalo burgers and beers at the local brew house and eventually retired to the Days Inn.

Saturday looks like a “tourist activity” day … maybe we can get a bit of evening lightning as t-storms come off of the Big Horns. We hold out hope that Sunday in Montana will “save” this “storm chase” trip.

05/10/2007 Drinkin' in Lincoln

On Thursday, we continued our trip to the north in preparation for the outside chance of a strong storm in central South Dakota today. As stated previously, we began the day in Wichita. We eventually ended up at Branched Oak State Recreation Area, which is just outside of Lincoln, NE. We setup camp and then headed into Lincoln to pick up homemade runzas at a rundown grocery store that I used to frequent when I was a Masters student at the University of Nebraska. For those not in the know, a runza is basically dough stuffed with low-quality beef and cabbage. We were able to enjoy our runzas in UNL’s Memorial Stadium after (name removed b/c of crybaby culture that permeates our society) found a way to the field through the labyrinth of concrete corridors under the stands.

Upon our return to the campground in the evening, we took up a game of baseball. (Name and pic removed) split his shorts due to an ungraceful stretch trying to catch a poorly thrown ball from Kelsey – see evidence below. On a side note, this was Chelly’s first camping experience …ever! I’m happy to report that Chelly and Kelsey thoroughly enjoyed the numerous spiders in the campground’s shower facilities.

Enjoying the evening.

Overall, the weather was perfect for camping on the lake and we enjoyed a number of Old Styles and Coors Lights (perhaps too many?), in addition to some brats. Four of those brats went down Jimmy Legs’ throat, which is pretty remarkable considering how skinny the fella is!

We hold out hope that we will get lucky today; however, with meager low-level moisture and a pretty stout cap, the luck may be waning.

BTW, if you lost your horse in Malcolm, Nebraska, please call the above number. How does one lose a horse?

05/09/2007 No Storms ... How "Shocking"

Wednesday was largely a travel day. Despite a slight risk for severe t-storms in central and southern TX, we decided to begin the long trip poleward toward the north-central Plains. Shear was simply not adequate for supercells. The decision was quite easy to make … anything to get out of the god-awful state of Texas. I’ve never liked chasing Texas; I’m not sure if it is for the fact they can’t design interstate entrance ramps correctly or for the fact that every Texas person seems overly proud of their crappy state.

We left the Abilene La Quinta (BTW, they did have “normal-shaped” waffles) to find a much sought after Chick-fil-a for lunch. We eventually found one on Abilene Christian University campus. Chelly and Kelsey, for some crazy reason, decided to purchase (and proudly wear for the remainder of the day) Abilene Christian T-shirts (see picture evidence below). After the visit to campus, we began the “scenic” drive through Throckmorton, Wichita Falls, Lawton, OKC, and Wichita.

We “Pricelined” the 3* Broadview Hotel in downtown Wichita. The historical hotel was more than adequate despite its antique interior. After checking in, the group wanted to eat at Hooters. So, after only a few days into the trip, the Mexican restaurant “challenge” has ended -- thankfully. After a couple pitchers and wings at Hooters, we decided to catch the tail end of the Wichita State University baseball game. The “Shockers” beat South Alabama 15-5. The stadium was actually quite nice and, most importantly, allowed alcohol in the outfield stands. [Name removed] met a crazy old man – Captain Morgan Marauders – while we were trolling the outfield stands. I’m still not sure what happened during the conversation, but we all ended up with free beers and a picture of the Chelly and Kelsey enjoying the “Caps” company. After the game, we returned to the hotel and got some sleep.

In the "lap" of the "Cap"

This morning we headed back to the Wichita State University campus to, once again, find some Chick-fil-a (we gave this Chick-fil-a experience 2.75 cows out of 5). We also picked up some WSU “Shocker” T-shirts.

Currently, we are heading toward Nebraska. It looks like tomorrow holds a tiny chance of a photogenic supercell in South Dakota. Keep your fingers crossed.

Update: As I was finishing the blog for yesterday, we “stumbled” across a small storm near McPherson, KS that produced 3-4 needle funnels. Go figure …

Needle Funnel near McPherson, KS

05/08/2007 Outflow, Mud, and more Mexican

Largely an uneventful day. After our Sleep Inn “Texas Waffles,” we headed off northwest of Midland to intercept linear convection coming off the New Mexican highlands. We ended up following this convection for nearly 200 miles until we finally called it a night in Abilene, TX. We did see lots of roll and shelf clouds as everything was outflow dominant. We were in a multitude of t-storm warnings, yet we never heard any storm reports indicating any of this linear convection as “severe.” But, anything is better than last year, so I shouldn’t complain. The chase included large amounts of mud down a lonely Texas dirt road and the search for a Glasscock County, Texas T-shirt – to no avail.

Shelf cloud southwest of Abilene.

Apparently the group has created a challenge … without my input. The challenge is to eat Mexican for every dinner this trip. This has already taken its toll on “Jimmy Legs” – the nickname I’ve provided to one [removed b/c of crybaby culture that permeates our society]. So … we hit up a taqueria in Abilene tonight; it was actually quite good. As a group, we gave it a rating of 3.25 sombreros out of 5.

funny pic removed b/c of crybaby culture that permeates our society
[name removed]: 3.25 sombreros; 0.0 tornadoes.

Currently, we are at a La Quinta in Abilene. Looks like more of the same … slightly organized convective clusters … until we head up to the northern High Plains for this weekend. We can only hope that a bit of moisture can make it poleward

I do wonder if La Quinta will offer waffles in the AM…

05/07/2007 Texas Waffles, Cat Piss, and a Pigeon

[Name removed] and group picked me up at DFW around 11:15 am. We then drove out to the San Angelo-Big Lake area hoping for some severe multicells or perhaps a supercell. However, early morning convection killed any chance of strong moisture return and cloud cover kept instability to a minimum. We eventually migrated to Midland to grab some dinner, a motel, and await the possibility of some evening thunderstorms and nighttime lightning photo opportunities.

I’ve driven through Midland via I-20 in the past but had no comprehension of how truly awful this town is. Despite having high rise towers full of banks, the town was vacant and every restaurant was empty at 6:30 pm. We ended up crashing in a Sleep Inn that was complete with a concave bed, a hallway that smelled of cat piss, and morning waffles in the shape of Texas.

For dinner, we hit up Taco Villa after the first Mexican restaurant we visited turned out to be downright scary (i.e., a buffet-style restaurant with nobody present). Personally, I thought Taco Villa was horrible, but the rest of the clan “enjoyed” it. While eating our dinner outside, a severe, yet elevated, cell moved across the Midland area – prompting a t-storm warning. Vivid lightning and some minor street flooding made for a bit of fun at the end of the day. However, this killed any chance of a nighttime lightning photo opportunity. We eventually retired to the “cat-piss” motel and got some much needed sleep.

Oh yeah, we also witnessed three Hispanics catch a pigeon. We have no clue what came of the bird. Perhaps it was the “meat” for our Taco Villa combination burrito plate.

We will play the west Texas area again today despite a relatively minor threat for anything worthwhile. We’ll see …

The "weird place."


1.5 sombreros out of 5, IMO.

4/29/2007 DeKalb Lightning

t about 9-9:30 pm, I was able to head south out of DeKalb to grab a couple lightning shots. I forgot an important piece of equipment for my tripod, so I had to "hand-hold" the camera to get the pics. Thus, they could be better.