Skip Talbot
EF5
I really learn a lot going back and comparing the radar against my GPS track after a chase. I thought other people might find it helpful as well. The following are animations created from some custom software I'm developing that shows level 2 reflectivity and my logged GPS position at the time. I've got Adam Lucio's log in on some of the animations as well for comparison. I've got all my tornado days of the year here, as well as some of my more interesting busts. I probably learn just as much if not more from the bust animations than the intercept ones. Its great seeing where you went wrong and how you could have done the chase better.
Tornado Intercepts:
April 22, 2010
Tornadoes we're between 5:15 - 5:25, a few random ones between 6:30 and 6:45, passing pretty close to a multivortex at 6:44.
The first video is a broad view and the second a zoomed in one with Adam's track as well. The ideal play would have been the southern storm to catch the Goodnight, TX tornado. I'm not sure what would have lead me to choose that storm over the northern other than maybe interference issues, but the northern one did produce twice and looked quite a bit beefier on the radar. A better play for the northern cell would have been to stay where I was originally instead of getting impatient driving back down to Clarendon, up to the storm, only to have to turn and come back the same way. I didn't miss the tornadoes, although i would have been closer had I stayed put.
May 22, 2010
Tornadoes between 6:15 and 7:05 with the picture in my avatar at about 6:35. Adam, Danny, and Ben got several more between 7:40 and 7:55.
This is about as close as I've come to the perfect intercept. We're on the storm at initiation, and stick pretty close until it goes permanently HP. I had great data thanks to Brandon, but wound up not using it at all. I don't think I looked at the radar once until we bailed on the storm. It was a great storm for visual chasing. Couple of improvements would have been not racing the hook north to US 12 and then east Bowdle. We crossed paths with the tornado a couple times there and it got a little hairy. Our road preferred road options weren't navigable and we decided to race the storm instead of falling back. The other improvement would have been hanging around for the wedge longer. Kevin's car started smoking and we were about to get cored by the RFD so we dropped south midway through the show.
The second animation shows the infamous field incident the best starting at about 7:40. You can see how the map depicts the road going through, when in reality it didn't, and then the turn south into the field as the hook passes overhead.
June 13, 2010
Tornado at approximately at 4:20
I didn't have data when I went into the OK panhandle so I assumed the storms were still orientated in a fairly linear fashion. I could tell there was at least a kink in the line to my south though where the Slapout, OK tornado developed, but I didn't know until afterwards that the storm was discrete and had a classic hook echo. The HP mode and being north of the hook made it look like a solid line. An improvement would have been to stay on the gravel roads I was on just prior to the tornado. These roads were in good condition, and I hit a huge convergence once I got on the highway that prevented me from stopping and getting decent video of the tornado.
June 17, 2010
Almost continuous tubage from 6:04 to 7:06 and then 7:45 to 8:02
We had no data on this chase (or very little). The radar isn't as good in this animation as Minneapolis is quite far from the storms and the radar had to look through quite a bit of precip. You can still get the general idea of what's going on, but the radar makes the storms look much sloppier and and HP than they actually were. Many times when it shows us under 50 dbz it was just lightly raining or not at all. Adam and I were caravanning on this chase and we got split up right at the first tornado, so its interesting to compare how the rest of the chase went as we split up.
July 14, 2010
Tornadoes between 2:30 and 2:40
I was fairly lucky in my initial placement on this day as I got the needle in the haystack tornado. I came in from the north during the intercept, however, so there is a lot of rain in my video and stills.
And now for some busts...
May 10, 2010
Busted due to a combination of being out of position and storm speeds.
With little capping in place, the upper level energy already well established, we should have been just downstream of the triple point (closer to Adam) at the start of this animation instead of in Tulsa. The storm we did wind up intercepting gave us a couple minutes worth of hazy rain free base before waving goodbye to us at warp speed. It apparently produced soon afterwards, but with the storm speeds, keeping up was not an option. We have caught the Wakita beast as it crossed 35 had we gone north on 35, not sure how much construction would have hampered us though, but it sounds like Twistex did the same thing until they lost their mesonet.
June 1, 2010
Classic screwed by Iowa chase.
Having storms go up well to your east is never good, but the Iowa drivers and slow highways sealed our fate on this chase. Adam and I could do nothing but watch as the supercell kept just ahead of us, hooked, produced, and then died right as we finally caught up to it. We expected initiation further west in southeast NE or along the dryline in central NE, but instead it went up well to our east. The same thing happened to us on June 17, but luckily we were actually able to catch the storms that time. Monitoring the vis sat might have helped a little more on this chase.
June 10, 2010
Picked the wrong storm.
I don't really consider this chase a bust as I saw a couple of gorgeous supercells. It would have been nice catching the Last Chance tornadoes though. I committed to my target of southwest NE/southeast WY and when a storm fired just south of there in northern CO I was sold and stuck with the storm as it put down a nice wall cloud. Probably due to anvil blow off from the storms 100 miles to the south, it looked like it lost its low level instability and turned into an elevated, cold, outflow dominant storm. I raced down south, core punching the Last Chase storm, but missed the tornadoes by about a half hour. Adam did catch the tornadoes and you can see how his chase went in the second animation.
Hope some people find these animations helpful/interesting. Post your own radar/gps animation if you have them.
Tornado Intercepts:
April 22, 2010
Tornadoes we're between 5:15 - 5:25, a few random ones between 6:30 and 6:45, passing pretty close to a multivortex at 6:44.
The first video is a broad view and the second a zoomed in one with Adam's track as well. The ideal play would have been the southern storm to catch the Goodnight, TX tornado. I'm not sure what would have lead me to choose that storm over the northern other than maybe interference issues, but the northern one did produce twice and looked quite a bit beefier on the radar. A better play for the northern cell would have been to stay where I was originally instead of getting impatient driving back down to Clarendon, up to the storm, only to have to turn and come back the same way. I didn't miss the tornadoes, although i would have been closer had I stayed put.
May 22, 2010
Tornadoes between 6:15 and 7:05 with the picture in my avatar at about 6:35. Adam, Danny, and Ben got several more between 7:40 and 7:55.
This is about as close as I've come to the perfect intercept. We're on the storm at initiation, and stick pretty close until it goes permanently HP. I had great data thanks to Brandon, but wound up not using it at all. I don't think I looked at the radar once until we bailed on the storm. It was a great storm for visual chasing. Couple of improvements would have been not racing the hook north to US 12 and then east Bowdle. We crossed paths with the tornado a couple times there and it got a little hairy. Our road preferred road options weren't navigable and we decided to race the storm instead of falling back. The other improvement would have been hanging around for the wedge longer. Kevin's car started smoking and we were about to get cored by the RFD so we dropped south midway through the show.
The second animation shows the infamous field incident the best starting at about 7:40. You can see how the map depicts the road going through, when in reality it didn't, and then the turn south into the field as the hook passes overhead.
June 13, 2010
Tornado at approximately at 4:20
I didn't have data when I went into the OK panhandle so I assumed the storms were still orientated in a fairly linear fashion. I could tell there was at least a kink in the line to my south though where the Slapout, OK tornado developed, but I didn't know until afterwards that the storm was discrete and had a classic hook echo. The HP mode and being north of the hook made it look like a solid line. An improvement would have been to stay on the gravel roads I was on just prior to the tornado. These roads were in good condition, and I hit a huge convergence once I got on the highway that prevented me from stopping and getting decent video of the tornado.
June 17, 2010
Almost continuous tubage from 6:04 to 7:06 and then 7:45 to 8:02
We had no data on this chase (or very little). The radar isn't as good in this animation as Minneapolis is quite far from the storms and the radar had to look through quite a bit of precip. You can still get the general idea of what's going on, but the radar makes the storms look much sloppier and and HP than they actually were. Many times when it shows us under 50 dbz it was just lightly raining or not at all. Adam and I were caravanning on this chase and we got split up right at the first tornado, so its interesting to compare how the rest of the chase went as we split up.
July 14, 2010
Tornadoes between 2:30 and 2:40
I was fairly lucky in my initial placement on this day as I got the needle in the haystack tornado. I came in from the north during the intercept, however, so there is a lot of rain in my video and stills.
And now for some busts...
May 10, 2010
Busted due to a combination of being out of position and storm speeds.
With little capping in place, the upper level energy already well established, we should have been just downstream of the triple point (closer to Adam) at the start of this animation instead of in Tulsa. The storm we did wind up intercepting gave us a couple minutes worth of hazy rain free base before waving goodbye to us at warp speed. It apparently produced soon afterwards, but with the storm speeds, keeping up was not an option. We have caught the Wakita beast as it crossed 35 had we gone north on 35, not sure how much construction would have hampered us though, but it sounds like Twistex did the same thing until they lost their mesonet.
June 1, 2010
Classic screwed by Iowa chase.
Having storms go up well to your east is never good, but the Iowa drivers and slow highways sealed our fate on this chase. Adam and I could do nothing but watch as the supercell kept just ahead of us, hooked, produced, and then died right as we finally caught up to it. We expected initiation further west in southeast NE or along the dryline in central NE, but instead it went up well to our east. The same thing happened to us on June 17, but luckily we were actually able to catch the storms that time. Monitoring the vis sat might have helped a little more on this chase.
June 10, 2010
Picked the wrong storm.
I don't really consider this chase a bust as I saw a couple of gorgeous supercells. It would have been nice catching the Last Chance tornadoes though. I committed to my target of southwest NE/southeast WY and when a storm fired just south of there in northern CO I was sold and stuck with the storm as it put down a nice wall cloud. Probably due to anvil blow off from the storms 100 miles to the south, it looked like it lost its low level instability and turned into an elevated, cold, outflow dominant storm. I raced down south, core punching the Last Chase storm, but missed the tornadoes by about a half hour. Adam did catch the tornadoes and you can see how his chase went in the second animation.
Hope some people find these animations helpful/interesting. Post your own radar/gps animation if you have them.
