6/13/04: REPORTS

rdale

EF5
Joined
Mar 1, 2004
Messages
7,562
Location
Lansing, MI
Strongly regretting not following the supercell that trekked from Grand Rapids to Saginaw Bay dropping a few tornadoes and some large hail! Anyways I hit the squall line moving out of GRR in the late afternoon which for some reason had SVR's issued with it -- didn't expect much and didn't get much. Heavy rain, winds to 40mph and no lightning.

Wow.

- Rob
 
WOW! Now thats a surprise chase. About to go to supper at Golden Corral in Lincoln NE and look at the radar and see a classic supercell developing. We head north out of Lincoln on 77 and see a large wall cloud rotating faster than anything i've seen in real life or on video. We stop at a landfill and watch as a cone tornado touches down briefly then lifts again. We procede a little to the east and get into 60-80mph inflow winds as the hook clips us (we were safe) and watch as the storm goes to the SE producing a large and probable significant tornado. We continued to watch the storm from a distance as a hail curtain wrapped around the NW side of it
 
Supercell Tornadic in NE

I followed that same supercell storm that Chris mentioned in the previous post. I went to a local elementary school north of my residence in Lincoln NE, where I gained a good vantage point by standing on top of a playground structure. This was not an actual storm chase, but more like storm spotting. I got some good pics which I will post later.

That storm was first TORN warned in Butler County, near David City NE. It was later TORN warned in Saunders County, near Valparaiso. Golf ball sized hail was reported 4 miles SW of Weston, NE.

It got interesting when the storm clipped the NE corner of Lancaster County and the northern half of the county was TORN warned. The storm was located nine miles north of Raymond or about 20 miles north of me.

The storm was reported with a brief tornado touchdown NNE of Waverly. There was a report of a "rain-wrapped" tornado on the ground SW of Greenwood. All of this was going on within sight of I-80, between MM 403 and MM 409. The storm was later reported TORN-warned SW of Ashland and a "multiple vortex" tornado was reported near Alvo.

Here's one of the best shot of the storm. This is looking north in Lincoln NE.
http://f2.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/ljkosch55...0&.dnm=7643.jpg
You can see beyond the scud bomb on the left in the photo is the rear end of the wallcloud.
Like Chris said it had a rotational speed that was rather fast.

If you want to see other pictures of the storm, click on:
http://f2.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/ljkosch55...lbum?.dir=/6230

Thanks. Still waiting for my first tornado this season! 8) LJK.
 
The Quick Version: I saw nothing severe.

The Long Version: Which is boring.
I notice the storm in northeast Kent County, about 40 miles (driving) off to the northeast from me, storm were moving northeast at 35 mph, again moving away from me, so I decided to go after it, with the wonderful traffic of Kent County, population of about 588,000 people, and zig-zagging northeast, I never ever did catch the supercell, it kept moving away,called it off on the Montcalm-Gratiot county line, knowing I would never catch it, as it moved off to the east to northeast at 35 mph..

The supercell had tornado warnings for Montcalm, Gratiot, Midland, and Bay counties. Only report I saw of a tornado, was in Bay County. Lesson learned, a storm that is 40 miles away, moving NE at 35 mph, is almost impossible to catch.

Decided to stay in eastern Montcalm County, new storms fired in Montcalm County, chase those and chased the storms in Ionia and Clinton County that had Severe Thunderstorm Warnings on them, peak wind gust 38 mph, lightning was not that good and your usual heavy rains.

Since I am forced to chase West Michigan all the time, due to my father's health and stuff, 24 West Michigan Chases this year, Zero Tornadoes.

Mike
 
Originally posted by rdale
Strongly regretting not following the supercell that trekked from Grand Rapids to Saginaw Bay dropping a few tornadoes and some large hail! Anyways I hit the squall line moving out of GRR in the late afternoon which for some reason had SVR's issued with it -- didn't expect much and didn't get much. Heavy rain, winds to 40mph and no lightning.

Wow.

- Rob

I am regretting it also. Chased a cell in Lapeer county, and seen a large, unorganized, non-rotating wall cloud. There were several scuds hanging down from this feature, and then it happened...A spotter reported a funnel cloud, prompting a tornado warning. There was NO rotation, and obviosuly the NWS staff recognized the weak looking storm on radar, with a weak meso at that, and cancelled the warning 20-30 minutes later.

I did see very very heavy rains and lots of lightning...Very close lightning, couldn't event open your mouth to count the seconds before hearing the thunder. Highest wind gust I beleive I witnessed is around 25-35mph, near the wall cloud. This chase day was pathetic for a day that had some decent potential, at least in MI...

I seem to have better luck on days with extreme instability and very weak shear...

Robert
 
CONGRATS NAT!!! Welcome to Club-T! :D Actually.. there really isn't such a thing (not that I know of), but hey, we can pretend can't we! My first tornado will always be one of my faves.. don'tt ever forget that feeling! Again, congrats!!!!
 
OMG. Worked till around 4pm.....Randy Chamberlain calls and tells me about a tor warning the second I got back home.....I flew south. The rest is history. Huge thanks to Randy for letting me know I had better look at the weather on this "down day". This was near the town of Alvo NE, northeast of Lincoln. It about muched me as I got gas at the Greenwood exit. I am half sure I got the tor near Waverly as I left getting gas at 5:11 and stopped to get gas at 5:08. While pumping my view was blocked below the wall cloud...which was getting way too damn close. As you can tell in 3 minutes I did not get much gas....lol. If someone can verify the time of that tor I'd be greatful. I thought I saw it while going south but ain't sure and have not looked at vid yet. Big congrats to Nat. NICE work! Welcome to the 'club'. Congrats to Randy too who's been getting the tornado shaft as of late.

[Broken External Image]:http://www.extremeinstability.com/stormpics/04-6-13-5.jpg


[Broken External Image]:http://www.extremeinstability.com/stormpics/04-6-13-8.jpg

More pics....
http://www.extremeinstability.com/04-6-13.htm

Also added a time lapse video in windows media format.
 
Congrats back to you, Mike. Steve and I thought you wouldn't make it out. I can't believe how long this storm lasted. Your video on channel 6 was just awesome! I had wound up heading up I-80 and missed my exit, by that time the storms were gone, so I'd given up and arrived home around 7:45 pm. My photo was taken at 5:06 pm yesterday. I was actually pulled over on the side of the interstate just north/east of the Waverly exit. Later on I pulled off at the weigh station N of Lincoln to get more shots. I'll have some video up of it sometime soon.
 
I start around 5p.m with a tornadic thunderstorm moving through Hillborough Cty. I got a couple of pretty decent shots overlooking the bay towards Tampa. They show what you shouldn't be doing during a thunderstorm that produced over 2400 lightning strikes in 1 hour.

[Broken External Image]:http://us.f1.yahoofs.com/users/7766983/bc/d021/__sr_/a624.jpg?phI.azABbDFS31DE
[Broken External Image]:http://us.f1.yahoofs.com/users/7766983/bc/d021/__sr_/ba63.jpg?phI.azABqTMwiSbG
[Broken External Image]:http://us.f1.yahoofs.com/users/7766983/bc/d021/__sr_/f986.jpg?phgHbzAB2yqi2lBc
 
Originally posted by AlDanks
Check out the video of a \"microburst\" from the storm that ran N of GRR. The video was from Montcalm county while the storm was tornado warned. Looks much more like a tornado to me - pretty strong rotation with upward motion.

http://www.wzzm13.com/clix/videoclixdefaul...&articleid=1648

Al

I would be willing to bet that was a tornado... As you said, way too much upward motion and strong rotation to be a microburst.

Robert
 
Congrats Natalie!! Beautiful pic as well for your first!

I didn't make it out today. Sups that went north of GRR were already firing by the time I woke up and realized what was happening weather-wise.

Didn't bother heading out for the "line" that formed. It looked like garbage when it developed, and I wasn't holding out too much hope that it would intensify much more. Sure enough, it didn't.

The TOR that went out for Lapeer County caught me by surprise. Info that I have stated that a Fire Department official reported a funnel or tornado. Looked at radar and saw NO rotation at all! Everything looked like, well, garbage! I could see getting a little wind or lightning out of it, but nothing else.

I'm starting to like the Slight Risk days more and more :cry:
 
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