5/29/2009 - COD Trip 3, Day 1

For the next 10 days, I'll be leading a trip of 14 students across the Plains in search of storms. We left College of DuPage (Glen Ellyn, IL) at about 9:30 am, blasting west for 600+ miles on I-80 to central Nebraska where we intercepted some high-based, but picturesque convection. These marginally severe storms were a bit moisture starved and lacked good shear, but given this year's history of rather marginal storm ingredients, we took what we were given with a smile on our face. Anyway, we spent about an hour or so in the Litchfield-Hazard, NE region enjoying the lightning and bubbling bases. Below are a few pics and a video, which features a time-lapse of some of the scenery. Included in the video are some interesting swirls in high bases, as well as a smoke plume from a nearby fire. We are ferrying to Sioux Falls, SD on Saturday and plan to take in a baseball game between the Sioux Falls Canaries and Lincoln Saltdogs. Sunday holds some hope for severe storms in the Siouxland vicinity -- cross your fingers.

High-based storm with a center-pivot and Nebraska Sandhills corn field foreground.

The group enjoying the view as a smoke plume flows below the high-based convection.

Storm became electrical close to sunset -- uniquely it appeared to ramp up with CG lightning activity as the storm began to collapse.

Movie of time-lapse highlights from our first set of storms on Trip 3, Day 1. A higher resoultion movie is available here.

5/26/2009 - Northern Illinois T-storms

Today featured a short “gentleman’s chase” to intercept some mushy convection associated with a warm-core system rotating across the Midwest. I traversed parts of Lee, La Salle, and DeKalb Counties for a few hours, popping in and out of t-storms. The bases associated with these t-storms were very transient, but did feature some slight rotation that would come and go – nothing to get excited about. Anyway, here is a “highlight” video of the day’s action. A higher res video is available for download here.

5/18/2009 - End of Trip 1

Sunday and Monday were "down" days (again) for chasing -- we spent time touring areas of Wisconsin, including the University of Wisconsin and the cities of Madison and Milwaukee. We sampled many, many small-batch craft beers at the Great Dane Brewing Co. in Madison, as well as beers from one of the largest brewers in the world -- Miller in Milwaukee.

Animation of our tour of the Miller brewing facility in Milwaukee.

The sun sets over the Wisconsin State Capitol -- view from our hotel in Madison.

My first trip into the Plains for 2009 has come to a close and although Ma' Nature failed to produce the ingredients necessary for widespread tornado activity during the trip, it was a still a lot of fun and featured sharing some very picturesque storms with great friends.

A geographic summary of Trip 1. Numbers indicate overnight stops, in sequential order.

If the models are correct, this will be the SPC forecast for the upcoming week or two or ... three?

I was planning to chase this upcoming week or so, but the pattern is simply abysmal and will feature little if any widespread severe storm opportunities anywhere in chaseable terrain. I will for sure be back in the Plains beginning May 29th, when I will lead a College of DuPage 10-day storm chase tour. Here's to hoping the weather pattern will shift back into a May-June mode rather than this March-kinda-wanna-be-August mode it is in currently.

5/16/2009 - Beer, Baseball, and BBQ

Down day summary: Beer>Baltimore Orioles vs. Kansas City Royals>Beer>Gates BBQ

5/15/2009 - South Kansas Storms

Friday was yet another day featuring less than optimal conditions for tornado-producing storms. Nevertheless, with the Plains chase season shutting down for an extended period beginning Saturday; we took advantage of the marginal severe storm ingredients in the south-central Kansas region. We targeted the area near Medicine Lodge, spending most of the mid afternoon at a town park in Attica. After milkshakes at the "Dary" Cone, we took off after convection that was initiating along the cold front in the Pratt area. We intercepted the first storm near Kingman. Typical of this high CAPE-marginal shear cold front environment, the storm would show brief signs of rotation in the low levels before being undercut by chilly outflow. After a brief severe pulse on this storm, it tended to wane and we set our sights on a storm south of Hutchinson that was appearing to wrap up a little better on radar. We intercepted this tornado-warned storm between Murdock and Goddard – it featured a wall cloud, but again, was quickly undercut. We then dove south toward Wellington, KS, where we intercepted another tornado-warned storm that was clearly outflow dominant. This storm did produce some rather picturesque cloud settings, including the telltale sign of outflow – a whale’s mouth. We stayed ahead of the storm as we progressed eastward to Winfield, where we called off the chase and punched through the convection on our way up to Wichita for the night

Initial storm near Kingman as it wrapped up quickly before being undercut.

Storm shows signs of becoming outflow dominant.

Shot looking straight-up at the mammatus and new convective torrents.

Shelf cloud featuring a kink and inflow notch on its poleward end.

Whale's mouth over the extremely rural Slate Valley Baptist Church.

Another shot of the bubbling clouds atop the church.

South-facing view out the whale's mouth near Geuda Springs, KS.

North-facing view out the whale's mouth near Geuda Springs, KS.

A few time-lapse clips from the day. We didn't stay in any one place long, so I didn't get a chance to shoot much video. A higher res video is available here.

5/14/2009 - Shockers and Hooters

Thursday was a "down" day. Before we left Oklahoma City, the group took in an early afternoon full of activities at Celebration Station. This included all you can handle go-carts for $6/person, ski-ball, batting cages, and a variety of video games. We then headed up to Wichita for the evening, where we grabbed tix to a baseball game featuring the Wichita State Shockers vs. Creighton Bluejays. A Shockers baseball game -- and our sidetrip to Hooters -- is becoming a tradition on down days in Wichita. I believe the photographic evidence below sums up the day's activities well. Thank you to the Rings in Wichita -- who let us crash at their pad for two days.

A split second before a wreck -- Adam gunning for the Professor.

Ski-ball!

The group in the outfield at Shocker Stadium.

View after the Shocker win.

Benton and Kelsey having a serious discussion about a Hooters chicken wing.

Benton in heaven.

No caption needed.

5/13/2009 - Oklahoma Supercell

Once again, Wednesday featured pitiful shear juxtaposed with pretty good instability. I do wonder if we will ever see a day in the Plains this chase season with greater than 40 kts of 0-6 km shear. Oh well -- at least this week has featured some storms; next week will probably provide little or no storm opportunities in the Plains. We targeted the western end of the cold front as it slowly drifted southward across northwestern Oklahoma.

Before storms fired in the late afternoon, we ate BBQ at Jigg's, played another round of "football horse" at a Clinton, OK town park, and took in a refreshing cerveza at a local watering hole.

I'm certain this is what "W' had in mind with the "War on Terror". Yep, you guessed it: this was found in a Wal-mart parking lot.

Benton getting an eyeful of the Pig Sickle at Jigg's.

Adam's nearly fatal attempt at eating the BBQ beef sandwich at Jigg's. He had just finished a "Big Bang" (aka Grand Slam) at Denny's an hour before this BBQ stop. Poor fella.

Who knew that Indians were Nazis?

Benton investigating yet another "suggestive" mural.

We left Clinton after boredom set in and headed northward to the small town of Custer City, where we briefly enjoyed the town park. At about 5 pm, towering cumulus began to form along the cold front just to our north. We targeted a tower near Fairview, trucking to Watonga, Hitchcock, and Loyal before allowing the storm to chase us back south to I-40. The severe storm wrapped up and produced a wall cloud near the town of Bridgeport. Unfortunately, the storm's inflow was rather insignificant and low-level shear was just not where it needed to be for tornadogenesis. We followed the storm to Cogar, where we broke off the chase and headed to Oklahoma City for the night.

The storm as it appeared in Blaine County, OK.

Late evening mammatus shot.

The storm was very electrical, featuring a good amount of C-G, anvil crawler, and anvil zit action.

The storm at maturity near Hinton, OK -- featuring a rotating wall cloud and wet RFD.

Anvil crawler poking through mammatus.

A movie that includes a number of time-lapse video clips taken during the day. The second clip features a rather unique, and rare, "horseshoe" vortex moving upward along the flank of the updraft.

5/12/2009 - Texas Panhandle Storms

Tuesday featured a rather diffuse High Plains dryline, moderate instability, lackluster shear, and a tiny shortwave trough moving across the Texas Caprock and Panhandle regions. We targeted the area from Lubbock to Floydada, and northward. We spent a short time at the Wind Museum in Lubbock before moving north on I-27 to intercept some high-based convection moving across the far western Texas Caprock region. These storms struggled against the fairly stout cap and featured extremely high bases in the well-mixed airmass. Eventually we tracked east toward Floydada where we intercepted some northeast-bound convection that had initiated just east of Lubbock. We stayed ahead of these storms as the bases slowly lowered in the more moist atmosphere east of the Caprock. The storms were multicellular, but featured unique transitory shelf clouds, interesting shelf cloud kinks, and magnificent belches of mammatus under the anvil. These severe-warned storms dropped some large hail, which we didn’t sample, and produced damaging winds along their path from Turkey, TX to Erick, OK. We photographed the storm all along this track and were treated to a spectacular sunset under the shelf near Wellington, TX. After sunset, we tried to find a hotel room in Erick, OK – instead we found the storm had cut power to the town and had even flipped an 18-wheeler on I-40. We then skedaddled over to Elk City, where we found ourselves in a raunchy Days Inn motel that will never be featured in their commercials due to its nastiness.

Iridescent clouds over Lubbock's Wind Museum.

Large turbine, and iridescent clouds, at the Wind Museum.

Typical Texas Caprock situation -- a train, distant storms, and flat, flat, flat.

Mammatus under the mid-afternoon, high-based convection.

Multicells take on a shelf appearance across the far eastern Texas panhandle.

Evening mammatus.

Another view of the spectacular mammatus.

Storm basking in the late evening sun.

One more shot of the mammatus.

A mix of hues in the east Texas panhandle.

The setting sun bathing the severe storm in fire.

Almost feels like an Icy Hot patch commercial -- hot and cold at the same time.

The setting sun provided a complex array of oranges and blues.

One last shot before dark.

5/11/2009 - Big Bend National Park

Monday featured a similar atmospheric setup as Sunday – this included a stout cap, moderate instability, and weak shear. We expected convection to fire off the Davis Mountains again, which we planed to intercept after a trip down to Big Bend National Park. While convection did fire, it formed over the Cuesta del Burro and Chinati Mountains in central Presidio County, TX, instead. These storms were in a very remote area, with little road access. Therefore, we just spent the afternoon making the scenic circle from Alpine, to Lajitas, to Big Bend National Park, and back up to Marathon. In the small (and very hot) town of Lajitas, the group waded across the Rio Grande and entered Mexico as illegal aliens. We eventually ended the night at the Comfort Inn in Midland.

The entrance to Big Bend.

The group crossing the U.S/Mexico border at the Rio Grande.

Illegal immigration into Mexico.

Suddenly, the group comes down with flu-like symptoms.

View from Solol Vista overlook in Big Bend National Park ... looking west, southwest towards the Rio Grande.

Examining convection over Mexico from Big Bend National Park.

Chihuahuan desert, mountains, and Mexican convection.

Video of t-storm across the Mexican border. You can download a higher resolution video here.

Adam enjoying a gourmet meal from Chef Kelsey. Note the Chex Mix and M&Ms in the sandwich.