06/07/07 REPORTS: TX / OK / KS / MO / IA / IL / WI

[Ben Engle]

Well, Let's hear them people.

My day started off at about 1300CST by heading to Williamsburg, IA to try and intercept a couple cells that were producing tornado warnings to the SW of Williamsburg. Sitting looking at radar, I realized that today wasn't going to be as fun as I thought. I headed back to the Cedar Rapids area just intime to intercept an interesting cloud formation just north of Toddville, IA. It had a pretty impressive lowering, some funky scud, and about 60 seconds of hard rain. To tell the truth, that was the most exciting thing I saw all day. For the next couple hours, I followed a few small svr and/or tornado warned cells around Linn and Jones counties to report to the EOC. Lisbon, IA Fire was reporting several rotating funnels at their location, I went to check those out and in my eyes, they seemed to be low scud lowering and raising. Also fairly un-impressive. I only got one picture and haven't downloaded it yet, but it's no Picasso for sure.

I'd hope that the sunshine that's following these previous boring storms will help keep the heating up a little but, but I think that's wishful thinking at this point.


The one interesting thing I do have to report is that I saw some wanna-be twister chaser driving this crappy white oldsmobile with a magnet mount CB antenna. I pulled behind them in Mount Vernon, IA and they were blasting through parking lots trying to beat some 'traffic'. I was following the same cell they were, but in true twister style, they attempted an amatuer gravel slide onto a gravel road to get Dorothy closer to some lame scud clouds and rain, and slid right off the road and over a stop sign right infront of me. Local Johnny Law was listening to our EOC on his radio and heard me call the vehicle in the ditch in and responded. Dumbasses. Makes me glad I can still appear professional, even without knowing 1% of what some of you guys know. And somehow, I still stay safe and on the road.

 

[Danny Murphy]

My day started off around 1pm with a chase that focused on the cells that were going severe in Northern Iowa. I figured that most of the area would be under some sort of severe weather and this place was just as good as any. I put myself around 8 miles ENE of Waverly, Iowa, watching the line that extended past Waverly to the southwest, while keeping my eye on the storms over extreme northern Iowa and extreme southern Minnesota. It seemed that the shear was just taking the tops right off of the developing towers, I think this was what it was doing, but due to my lack of experience in the physics of storms, I could not tell. Eventually this line produced 3" hail near LaCrosse, WI. I figured this line would fill in and it would give me a good vantage point of any developing severe storms or tornadoes, but nothing developed after those storms moved thru Charles City and Cresco, causing some straight line wind damage. Once again, the SPC hit it on the nose with the high risk over extreme eastern Iowa. I was going to go there, but thought that the line would fill in and I would work my way back east while the line worked its way in the same direction. I saw some very nice Cb's and the cell that eventually delivered 3" hail near LaCrosse was over shooting its anvil and seemed to be very severe.

 

[Scott Olson]

I figured this was going to be a mission impossible chase. Decided to go for the 60mph storms in the wooded hills of Wisconsin. As I got into SE MN convection started to fire. Made my way down to Rushford to intercept an embedded supercell with the line. Visibility was about what you would expect. The top of the hill was one mile away. Quick radar scan showed a rapid development of a tight-rain wrapped circulation. A tornado warning was issued. I waited until it got close than headed east to between Houston and Rushford. There I found some old road that went up a hill. Climbed up part of a tree and took some pictures of the approaching storm.

Headed to Houston as storms appeared to weaken. Followed back through La Crosse and than about 20 miles east of La Crossee. At this point I found myself in a conundry, the cells were becoming tornadic as they moved further north- but it was impossible to catch up with a cell that isn't to your back in this environment. I started considering heading south to intercept cells moving out of IA. That is until I switched the radar the KMPX and saw that huge cell right over La Crosse, this one was an easy intercept and I had a planned route that we keep me with it. A tornado warning was quickly issued and the base started to lower and go into scud mode. I vehemently tried to keep up with it, that is until I reliazed the road went into a military base. The last thing I saw was a low level curve to the updraft and a forming wall cloud.

It actually turned out a bit better than I was expecting but I still didn't see that much. I ended the day wandering into the amusement town of Dells, as a large low level cloud scrapped the ground from a low-end severe cell.

 

[Dan Melby]

I got on to the same tornado warned cell by Mt. Vernon. Followed it as long as I could. At one point saw some lowering with a small funnel. Nothing very impressive. Few pics of the funnel but nothing worth posting. I also witnessed the White Olds that did a nose dive in the ditch when I saw them one was pushing on the front end. Didnt look like either was hurt.

 

[Bill Schintler]

June 07 Eastern IA chase

We had a great little backyard chase in Eastern IA this afternoon. We
left Iowa City and drove west on I-80 to catch a developing cell near
Williamsburg which produced a persistent, non-rotating wall cloud.
This first cell became outflow-dominant while a new tornado-warned cell
approached from the SW, complete with an impressive mid-level inflow
band. Sirens were sounding as we drove through Williamsburg, and it
was necessary to blast eastward as the storm quickly cut off southward
travel options. Once back out of the rain, the storm initially didn't yet offer
much in terms of structure although it was showing decent mid-level
rotation on radar. We followed it back towards northern Johnson county
and it produced a persistent, rotating wall cloud which was partially
rain-wrapped at times. Several brief funnels were observed, and the
chase was given up in Jones County, north of Mount Vernon, as it was simply not possible to keep up with storms moving 60 mph while traveling on two-lane roads and following folks driving 10 miles under the speed limit with miles of no-passing zones.

- bill

 

[Rich Dorfman]

Thanks for this consoling report, was kicking myself for not recognizing northern track while waiting for things to break in southern Wisconsin. Cold pool to the north touched off the action up there while the cold air to the west stalled and never made it to touch things off in the south. Except maybe later tonight.

I figured this was going to be a mission impossible chase. Decided to go for the 60mph storms in the wooded hills of Wisconsin. As I got into SE MN convection started to fire. Made my way down to Rushford to intercept an embedded supercell with the line. Visibility was about what you would expect. The top of the hill was one mile away. Quick radar scan showed a rapid development of a tight-rain wrapped circulation. A tornado warning was issued. I waited until it got close than headed east to between Houston and Rushford. There I found some old road that went up a hill. Climbed up part of a tree and took some pictures of the approaching storm.

Headed to Houston as storms appeared to weaken. Followed back through La Crosse and than about 20 miles east of La Crossee. At this point I found myself in a conundry, the cells were becoming tornadic as they moved further north- but it was impossible to catch up with a cell that isn't to your back in this environment. I started considering heading south to intercept cells moving out of IA. That is until I switched the radar the KMPX and saw that huge cell right over La Crosse, this one was an easy intercept and I had a planned route that we keep me with it. A tornado warning was quickly issued and the base started to lower and go into scud mode. I vehemently tried to keep up with it, that is until I reliazed the road went into a military base. The last thing I saw was a low level curve to the updraft and a forming wall cloud.

It actually turned out a bit better than I was expecting but I still didn't see that much. I ended the day wandering into the amusement town of Dells, as a large low level cloud scrapped the ground from a low-end severe cell.

 

[Brandon Goforth]

Well, I rolled over to the Duncan/Comanche OK area to see a pathetic looking Cu field trying to get going, but not even coming close before diminishing altogether. Things started looking rather poor in this area as daylight ticked away, then the first cell finally went up late near Wichita Falls and I drove down to check it out. It looked decent for a short time, but it didn't take long to realize it wasn't going to do anything. Small cell with a terribly weak looking updraft and finally just fell apart. Other cells began developing back into the Wichita Falls area, but by this time it was already getting dark and from what I could see, it wasn't looking too good back in that direction either so I called it quits as the sun went down. Overall a disappointing day down here, luckily I didn't go too far.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Another not so thrilling chase today. Had problems with the cell phone connection from the second I woke up(password not valid on this server crap.....where I know it works here in town). This would happen several times during the day. Anyway, the first data I saw was a satellite image and quickly followed by seeing the MD for IA. I didn't put much more thought into things and flew east, as I was behind already(early!).

Long story short, intercepted several cells along I-80 as they crossed from the south....probably every "serious" one. The image above here is the last one, taken looking sw from the east side of Iowa City. Most of the early afternoon I was fighting myself as I was constantly wanting to let this stupid day go. Several times I pulled the plug on heading home very early, seeing the same garbage each time. Well I was headed back west on this one. At this point you could hardly tell what would be worth a darn on radar, they were so small with low dbz values. I kept watching this one and figured it was probably one of the "real" storms since it was moving a smidge more right than the others. It was complete garbage on radar.

I was entering Iowa City and finally said, fine, I'll stop and see what it looks like. Well that required turning around at an exit on the far east side of the city. You'd think you could get off I80 and head back east on it pretty quickly. Wrong. Not this exit. It had to take 10-15 minutes for me to make this stupid switch. Got on the offramp and stopped and had to wait for traffic to get across and turn left/south. I finally get headed that way, and there's construction and a long light. But, I can't turn left to get back on eastbound I80! The construction crap prevented this. So that light changes and I have to go through and go south into more traffic. My little return got a smidge better as I did this, and was not far away to begin with. So I'm going south away from my onramp back onto I80. I get to another light so I can turn left...another red one. I then turn left, and turn left again flipping back around to go back north to that onramp in the construction area. Hit the light again, then could get back on I80. That was just highly annoying. I drive the couple miles back east and stop to watch the storm approach and it looked fairly good. It wasn't even severe warned during the image above, but was very soon after, then just as fast it was tornado warned. It had a lovely cg barage as I shot stills there. They were coming out of the tilted over updraft and anvil and were pretty close. Anyway, like everything else crossing I80 today, as soon as it would look good, it'd be on the way back down. This thing did get a very hard rfd cut which sliced eastward. This soon relaxed and became your typical long, cold rfd.

I am needing to figure our how to get 3 programs to work with the gps. The last two days I'd sign off of the spotter network deal so that I could use the gps with the street mapping software along with GR3. I swore I had all three working together when I first tried it, but now it just won't connect to spotter network if I have the other 2 in use. Must have to adjust some setting on the emulator thing. The last two days are the first times I've used GR as well as the spotternetwork thing. They are both pretty fun.

More later, not that there's much more to show for the day.

Oh yeah and what's with Alltel's data map for IA? Is Iowa a big secret or something. As soon as I got east of Des Moines I lost my data. As soon as I got it again I pulled up alltel to look at their coverage. Well, too bad when you click on Iowa you really don't get much of Iowa. I clicked on IL, WI, MN, NE, KS, and MO........no real view of se IA! This kept me on I80 for most of the day. I did drop south early but by 10 miles south I lost data. Said screw that with these storm speeds and clustered nature to things. Once back on I80 net via Alltel was not that great. I suspect some of it was related to whatever they had going on this morning when I woke up, preventing me from using it at home where I use it all the time.

 

[Ben Engle]

I got on to the same tornado warned cell by Mt. Vernon. Followed it as long as I could. At one point saw some lowering with a small funnel. Nothing very impressive. Few pics of the funnel but nothing worth posting. I also witnessed the White Olds that did a nose dive in the ditch when I saw them one was pushing on the front end. Didnt look like either was hurt.

Must have been right behind me as I turned around to see if they were ok, then headed off and reported their accident through EOC. I was in a black explorer with an antenna farm.

Another interesting note from today, as I was sitting in my truck at work here about 10 minutes ago, WX1NWS checked into our local repeater from the Quad Cities to tell us about a pretty nasty, several-county-wide cell just north of Cedar Rapids with some nasty helicity in it. 5 minutes later, they checked into to let us know that the cell didn't even exist at all, and it was just a radar abnormality due to ducting. Checked the radar and saw this very impressive looking cell with all sorts of extreme energy in it, then the last 2 frames, they just erased it off the loop and there was a blank spot on the radar. Kinda funky!

 

[Derrick Herndon]

Targeted the area around LaCrosse today. I am actually in WI on travel. The irony is that I live in NE and considered driving back to NE for yesterday's event. I bagged that idea thankfully. Another decision I made correct was to not spend too much time dinking around on the MN side of the river. I attempted to get on the torn warned storm there but decided to cross back into WI and setup just east of LaCrosse and let storms pass to my NW. Caught the tornado just east of LaCrosse near Sparta with sirens blaring. The tornado did not appear to be strong and lifted after a few minutes. Had the appearance of a narrow wedge but rotation was weak.

I followed that cell which continued to exhibit rotation and an occasional wall cloud. As I approached Wisconsin Rapids I could see hail fog ahead and pulled over briefly to chat with a couple of chasers in a mini van and take some pics of the hail that was nearly baseball sized and covered much of the ground. Near Wisconsin Rapids the cell dropped another tornado that I could only briefly see thru the trees. In town big hail was everywhere. The largest stone I saw and took a pic of was nearly as long as my outstretched hand, larger than softballs (make note to bring tape measure). Slow speed limits and traffic caused me to lose the cell so I gave up and headed back south. I can not post pics as my transfer cable is at home

Here is a radar pic of the tornado-producing cell in Sparta just east of LaCrosse

http://www.directwx.com/files/active/1/402_large.png

 

[Joey Ketcham]

Tyler Costantini and I headed south of Pittsburg tonight to watch the storm that came out of Labette county. We observed a wall cloud southwest of Pittsburg, KS and watched it as it passed over. Here is a screen capture off the video..

 

[Terrence Cook]

IA chase

Initial target was Waterloo, IA and gave up on that and dropped south after looking over uni-directional shear across much of the area (except WAY North of course).

Highlight was a lovely wall cloud just South of Cedar Rapids which quickly disappeared as traffic was not going to allow a catch-up attempt.

I was in Iowa City when the CG barrage went off (what Mike H spoke of) that storm had a very solid wall cloud when viewed over the river but we got stuck in flooding streets and didn't see the storm again until it was 10 mi. NorthEast.

All in all, the linear storms in Northern NE Wednesday were better, atleast for photography. Will post pics soon, for now... sleep.

 

[Bill Doms]

The pic is the meso of the cell which tornadoed in Wisconsin Rapids as it passed over Stevens Point at about 7 billion mph.

VERY FRUSTRATING day. Insane storm speeds, hills, trees. The usual Wisconsin insanity plea. I missed the Thorp *unconfirmed torn* (I will bet a Happy Meal this one never happened as there was NOTHING left of the storm by the time it got to Thorp), the Hatley initial touchdown, and the end of the Wisconsin Rapids torn all by 3 minutes or 3 miles. How in the he** do spotters in WI report a torn? Is it the last thing they do before they die? It must be as I am sure they are VERY close to confirm it is actually on the ground. Anyhow, took the side trip through Wisconsin Rapids on the way back and saw MANY cars just totally trashed. The touchdown area was obviously blocked off by the time I got there.

Enough rambling...here are some pics and more ranting:
www.mnwxchaser.com/07june07.html

Anyone from MPX working today will be interested as there are a few of the Dunn county torn warned cell when it was first warned...before it went into the f****** trees.

Someone be a true friend and whack me in the head with a hammer next year when I get the idea I will actually get a torn in the trees in WI. Mike, can I get the name of the therapist you are seeing?

 

[Jeremy Ludin]

Hmmm....

Didn't really have time to chase today's setup, but I'm glad I didn't. Things just didn't go down through the QC. We are baffled as to what was holding things up. Finally saw a cell pop around 9 and got a few lightning shots. Around 10:30 it appeared as if storms finally wanted to form a line. We got hit by at least 50mph winds and blinding rain. That was it. Pretty disappointing day to say the least.

 

[Jesse Risley]

Our group spent the day hovering around Iowa City-Tipton-Mt. Vernon areas. We intercepted several storms, including two TOR warned storms near Williamsburg and Tipton, which each produced nice wall clouds and some rotation near Williamsburg. It looks like there were several problems with the setup in this area: 1. adequate shear but lack of abundant CAPE (cloud cover most of the day) and 2. the cap stayed in place for some time and low level jet didn't kick in until later.

Rant - I think the use of turn signals by folks in that part of the country is optional or for extra credit only.