5/19 Chaser Convergence

[Brandon Headley]

My example of bad driving from yesterday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdO22yTM5PY

This was the only idiot that passed me like this on highway 33. I was on it from West of Watonga until a mile west of Kingfisher. I don't know who this is and I couldn't make out the tag. I hit the brakes because I thought the vehicles were going to crash.

 

[Joe Nield]

I'll just leave this here...

May 19, 2010 - Highway 33 East of Kingfisher

I've seen plenty of chaser convergence, but as I prepare to leave for the annual sojourn...

THIS SCARES THE HELL OUT OF ME.

 

[Matt Hunt]

You know what is ironic, is that with Vortex 2's mission of giving more advanced warning times, the convergence is going to be even worse because any average Joe will know when and where the tornado is going to happen well ahead of time.

Perhaps we're actually better off NOT having more advanced warning?

 

[Doug Ott]

I'll just leave this here...

May 19, 2010 - Highway 33 East of Kingfisher

My oh my. How will LEO ever be able to pull over vehicles in convoys like this?

 

[Joey Ketcham]

Did anyone see the segment TWC on storm chasers this evening? I guess there was one on at 7PM ET. Saw a comment on facebook where TWC cut away a lot of the video of Steve Miller's and put the full blame on storm chasers.

 

[S Kalka]

I'll have to admit that I am the lead car in this photo (Highway 33 east of Kingfisher). I had been chasing this storm since Oakford, and there were few chasers in the beginning, but then it became the circus shown. We're just looking for a way south at this point to get away. I've only been chasing for 3 years and have heard about this stuff, but this is the first time I had seen it.

 

[J Allen]

PART 1 Storm Chasers: Too Close to the Storm?

PART 2 Editorials from Chasers
Close Enough to the Storm
Getting Close, but Staying Safe

PART 3 Storm Chasers: What's Next


Josh Wurman, Ph. D, CtrSevere Weather Research

There were huge crowds of storm chasers yesterday (Wednesday, May 19) and thosechasers did direct harm to Vortex 2 science. There were hundreds of them andthey were traveling at the same speed as the storm and they were preventing myability to get ahead of the storm to outflank it and to get ahead of it and V2 has an important mission. We’re trying tostudy tornado genesis so that the warnings are made better. I think that’s more important than gettingclose up video of a tornado but apparently these hundreds of chasers didn’tthink that and they wouldn’t let us by. It’s always easy to say it’s a few bad eggs but no body let us by we hada hundred cars right in front of us there were chase tour companies armaturesout there trying to stay as close as they can to the mess cyclone and notletting the scientists by. I think it’sreally disgraceful they’re not letting us do our important mission

Oklahoma has the most. It has big universities and there are lots ofstudents graduating from those universities who are graduating from theirclasses now and they’re out there. But there are also chase tour companies who arevery interested in the weather. I thinkit’s great people appreciate the weather, I support storm chasing. It’s likehiking or rafting. People are out appreciating nature but please let the sciencevehicles by. We have an importantmission. We’re trying to make the towns you live in safer by learning how tomake better warnings

I’m hoping by saying this I will help these chasers understand andthese tour companies understand that we have an important mission. We’re notjust another chaser behind you. When aDOW (Doppler on Wheels) is behind you with big flashing amber lights and wants to get by. We’re notout there trying to get video. We’re not out there giving a chase tour to get abetter view of the storm. Pull over 30 seconds. It doesn’t take long for a bunchof our vehicles to get by and you can get back on the storm and see it and getvideo to your heart’s content. But we are out there trying to make tornadowarnings better. Let us do our job.

What Vortex2 has to do is get radars out and other assets outahead of the storm. We were ducking under the storm the other day trying to go60 on a 60 mile an hour road to get ahead of the storm. The chasers going 30 mph just wanted toparallel the storm so there was a rolling road block that consisted of maybea hundred vehicles which we couldn’t pass it was very frustrating.

For my operations and for Vortex2 it meant we did not get duelDoppler storm for nearly the periods we needed to do to do our science and myarray of 16 tornado pods did not get deployed. We did not get low leveltornado data of those tornadoes so science really took a hit yesterday (Wednesday, May 19) becausechasers did not let us get past.

I was in a situation where we let a DOW pull out in front of us, and made every attempt to let them through..no matter the effect on the chase. I wonder if Dr Wurman has gone a little too far here, effectively blaming chasers for V2s lack of data from yesterday...and in general. This is ridiculous...the storm was HP...which was the reason blamed for not getting the best data from the previous day, the chase country was more difficult, the storm motion was faster...now if all those factors weren present I would totally agree, but this seems to be bashing for the sake of a petty agenda. I have alot of respect for the aims of V2, but Dr Wurmans blaming of solely chasers for problems and the difficulty of deploying V2 (a huge operation) is a fallacy. Its part of the problem...not the only problem. It seems to me that Dr Wurman perhaps is being a bit precious.

 

[Mike Moore]

Wow... that's a keeper shot for sure.

Super Storm Troopers eh?

Hmmmm.

Captain O'Hagan: I swear to God I'm going to pistol whip the next guy who says, " Vortex 2."
Mac: Hey Farva what's the name of that group on TV you like with all the goofy stuff on the trucks and the flashing lights?
Farva: You mean Vortex 2?
Mac: OOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
Thorny: OOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

 

[Tim Vasquez]

If anyone saw dangerous behavior from unknown chasers, and has license plate information to pass along, please PM me. I am not going to use the findings to contact anyone and will treat the results as private unless it was something unusually serious (esp. since these searches only indicate the owner, not the driver). The purpose for this info is to develop some profiles on the yahoo chasers we're dealing with this spring and try to figure out how far they're driving to the target areas and from where, and if they might have had an account on Stormtrack or are getting forecasts from here. These general findings will be shared if I get far enough in this effort (a lot of other things going on).

I decided to just post in this thread instead of start a new one so as not to cause this one to split with more 5/19 stories.

Tim

 

[Terry Kern]

I'll just leave this here...

May 19, 2010 - Highway 33 East of Kingfisher

Hey you in the red SUV, pull over and let everybody get through.

 

[Mike Peregrine]

That photo is the most unbelievable thing I've ever seen ...

 

[Joe Nield]

I was in a situation where we let a DOW pull out in front of us, and made every attempt to let them through..no matter the effect on the chase. I wonder if Dr Wurman has gone a little too far here, effectively blaming chasers for V2s lack of data from yesterday...and in general. This is ridiculous...the storm was HP...which was the reason blamed for not getting the best data from the previous day, the chase country was more difficult, the storm motion was faster...now if all those factors weren present I would totally agree, but this seems to be bashing for the sake of a petty agenda. I have alot of respect for the aims of V2, but Dr Wurmans blaming of solely chasers for problems and the difficulty of deploying V2 (a huge operation) is a fallacy. Its part of the problem...not the only problem. It seems to me that Dr Wurman perhaps is being a bit precious.

Surely a scientist of Dr. Wurman's magnitude could do a little editing. Any correspondence, even a blog post, so full of grammatical errors comes off as very unprofessional, much less one with such an air of superiority attached to it.

I support V2 wholeheartedly - their work will eventually make my job easier - but the toothpaste is out of the tube, and Dr. Wurman shares in that blame as much as any one of us, through publicity efforts via the Discovery Channel and the Weather Channel.

 

[Joey Ketcham]

An interesting read from Chuck Doswell, he even takes a dig at Josh Wurman for his comments he made:

http://www.flame.org/~cdoswell/chaser_convergence.html

 

[sdienst]

Like many have said, worst I've ever seen. I'm wondering why so many people stayed on that storm. It was a piece of crap once it got east of Hwy 81. I'm glad I bailed off and made it to the Wynnewood supercell and tornado. I think I'm gonna become an exclusive tail-end charlie chaser.

 

[Scott Bennett]

Did anyone see the segment TWC on storm chasers this evening? I guess there was one on at 7PM ET. Saw a comment on facebook where TWC cut away a lot of the video of Steve Miller's and put the full blame on storm chasers.

They are showing it about every 30min or so.

Although the edited the video to make it look like chasers interestingly they used the part where it's a CSWR support vehicle illegally passing.