Storm Chasing 101

As we go along I’ll attempt to highlight our route on maps on this blog to show where we end up on chase (or bust) days. But first of all, it may help those who were dozing at the back of the class during O level Geography to take a look at the states of the USA, and where “Tornado Alley” actually is:

The area highlighted in yellow is (roughly) the area where severe storms and tornadoes can occur at this time of year in the USA. The “Chase Season” (i.e. when storm chasers think its worth their while heading out and trying to track down severe storms) usually starts in April and lasts through to mid/late June. As a rule of thumb, the later in this period you chase, the further north the storms are likely to be. That is not to say that storms and tornadoes don’t occur outside this period – they can occur virtually at any time of year – for example, there was a big outbreak back in February this year. In early to mid May, the favoured states tend to be Texas, Okalahoma, and up into Kansas.

How will we know where to go to chase the storms? The $1m question! I think this side of chase planning falls into pre-chase day and on the day itself. Looking at computer forecast models and the SPC’s advanced warnings will give a good indication of the general area you will want to be in a couple of days beforehand. The night before you’ll pick a hotel to stay in that’s pretty much at the “bullseye” of your chosen area. On the day itself, you’ll study the latest real-time data (soundings, satellite, radar etc) and model predictions and see what adjustments to your position you want to make – unfortunately these can be long distances if your pre-chase-day analysis hasn’t quite come off! When you’re on the road on chase day you will constantly re-analyse this data and make use of Doppler radar, but also I think simply looking out of the window at what the sky is actually doing is also a very valuable tool!

You can’t be everywhere at the same time, so you’ll miss out on some storms simply because its just too far to relocate for the next day’s chasing. Some days the prognosis will just be too poor to warrant an 8 hour drive to chase congestus that’s capped to the hilt – but that’s what hotel pools and State Parks were invented for. Sometimes the prognosis looks good, and you make the 8 hour drive only to find diddly-squat. That’s what’s known as a Bust Day. Let’s hope we don’t get too many of those…

Final Countdown...

Sam and Neil had a productive pre-chase meet-up by all accounts on Saturday 26th, and we all got together via MSN on the Sunday night to go through some of the issues discussed.

At the moment the main “unknown” that still exists is where we’re headed once we’re off the plane on Saturday. The GFS is currently pointing toward most favourable conditions in the South of the plains, so we may well stay in TX rather than heading north into OK, as was the original idea. We’ll take another good look on Thursday night/Friday morning before the final decision is made and a hotel is selected. At least it looks like we won’t be embarking on a mammoth 12 hour drive up to the Dakotas to catch some action on Sunday!

A bit of Bio

I suppose I should put something in here about myself, although many reading this probably know me already, but for those that don't:

I'm Ben Howard, soon to be 40, I'm married with a 7 year-old daughter, and live in York. I work as an IT Consultant, and I hate scrambled eggs.

My interest in the weather was borne out of childhood experiences of snow, heatwaves and storms. As I grew older I became more interested in how and why these events occurred, and tried hard to bore others around me with incessant predictions on what the weather would be like next week.

This inevitably lead to the world's first ever weather blog - TSO Weather - which was published on an almost daily basis on the mainframe systems of the then General Accident Life Assurance Corporation in 1992, with an estimated readership of over 12.

My reasons for Storm Chasing USA? A once-in-a-lifetime chance to see the kinds of storms that I can only dream of in the UK, even if we strike out on the tornado front. Get my excuses in early - I prefer lightning anyway...

Test of Image and Video

A post for purely technical reasons, to test the upload of image and video from the laptop. I was never in the Scouts, but I like to think I am prepared...

This picture, incidentally, was of a threatening looking sky in summer 2006. Hopefully we'll get something a bit more photogenic on the Southern Plains.

And for the video:

No, that's not my bear frolicking in the lake in our back garden. Its the Windows Vista Bear, and the only small bit of video I could lay my hands on.

Note to self: 100mb max size on vids. May use photobucket as well.

Meet The Team

Its about time I introduced you to the other members of the TWO Chase Team:

Neil Robinson, from South Hampshire - catch up with Neil's blog here

Sam Adams, from Cirencester - catch up with Sam's blog here

The SUV, from Dallas - doesn't have a blog, but may end up with many a tale to tell.

On The Move

9 Days To Go

The blog's been moved from Windows Live Spaces over to Blog Spot, as this seems to offer much better image and layout capabilities. It does however mean that the date stamps against entries prior to this are somewhat inaccurate. Ho Hum...

What I hope to be doing on this blog when we're actually out in the States is to publish daily accounts of chases and (hopefully!) storm interceptions, along with images and video.

Preparation continues at pace, alongside trying to clear down all work commitments before next Friday, when we're doing on-line check-in and selecting the hotel for our first night. That will all depend on what the synoptics throw up nearer the time.

On the weather front there's been some decent activity in TX and OK yesterday which looks like continuing into today, but further north into KS. Things then look like they'll go a bit quiet in the 3 to 7 day period, but GFS runs seem to be pointing to renewed activity after that. At this range that should be taken with a Siberian-sized pinch of salt, however.

More Trip Preparation!

12 Days To Go

Now the flights have been re-routed (pronounced: "rowted", must get into the lingua franca) via Heathrow Terminal 4 instead of the luggage black hole of Terminal 5, many of our outbound concerns have been somewhat eased. The departure time remains the same, so the dash down on the 6am Kings Cross train from York is still on. Any bringing forward of the departure time would cause some mild panic on my part...

Got some dollars last week at 1.94, which is not too bad, but Sod's Law came into effect, and stirling continues to rise this week.

On the meteorogical front, after a calm few days it looks like there's some chasable weather this week in the Plains. The longer term outlook is too variable to trust, as although the longer range model runs (GFS) are starting to cover the period when we go, its still deep in the realms on Fantasy Island.

Trip Preparation

31/03/2008- 33 Days to Go

Some very intense looking storms going on overnight in OK and SE KS, tornado watches are out and the radars look amazing. Later tonight looks interesting too, as there are plenty of warnings out for supercell storms and possible tornadoes. Looking at the data, I’m going for a chase base of Hugo in Choctaw county, OK. We shall see if my crash course in the atmospheric physics has sunk in…

BTW, anyone looking for some good background on storm chasing can find it here:
http://www.extremeinstability.com/topics.htm

30/03/2008 – 34 Days To Go

Just watched the channel 5 “Storm Chasers” programme. Its not at all bad, it depicts the often frustrating and mundane side of chasing more than some of the Nat Geo type programmes, where it seems all you have to do is drive your car around the block in any Kansas town and you’ll chance upon an F3. The reality is lots of long days on the road, often for very little result. A split second decision on which cell to chase after 6 hours on the road can be the difference between success and failure. Mind you, “failure” to many storm chasers means seeing a non-tornadic storm with a good lightning show – that would be a very good second best in my book.

Also had the “pleasure” of watching the film “Twister” again over the weekend, this time with my 7 year old daughter. “Will you see flying cows and barns when you go, Daddy?” I’ll be lucky to see an F1 from 2 miles away…

28/03/2008 - 36 Days To Go

We’re due to fly BA out of T5 on 03/05/2008, and its not been the most auspicious of openings for the new Terminal at Heathrow. Tales of mass cancellations, luggage piled up having not been put on people’s flights, and the “fast” bag drop being anything but.

It does beggar belief that after such a long run-in period with supposed stress-testing of the facility by “pretend” passengers that it could go so catastrophically wrong from day 1. Not enough parking spaces for staff and insufficient training for staff on the new systems? Doesn’t sound like much testing has gone on there at all…

They expect things to calm down during April, but then they move long-haul flights from T4 over to T5 at the end of the month, 3 days before we go. Another potential for gridlock there, methinks. Trouble is, if our luggage gets left behind, its not as if we can have it delivered on to a hotel a few days later – we don’t know where we’re going to be!

My timetable for travelling down to T5 on the Saturday is somewhat tight – 6am train from York, hoping to be at T5 for 9.30am, flight is 11.40am. Can’t afford too many delays dropping the bags off! Luckily all the check-in should be done on-line by then, its just ditching a bag and clearing security