Best Chase of Your Career

[Michael O'Keeffe]

I have decided to start a thread to cure everyone's SDS. On this thread post your best chase of your entire carreer include pics and video. I know this is a hard thing to do for a lot of us to find just one chase.

Sept 16 2006 E South Dakota Tornadoes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEMiZ_ChK4s

 

[Skip Talbot]

March 28, 2007 without a doubt. I just hope it isn't the best chase of my entire career... but its going to be tough to beat.

Goodland Tornado (5MB WMV)
http://www.skip.cc/chase/070328

 

[Chris Hayes]

June 12, 2004 is by far my best chase. I saw 3 of the tornados that day. The first brief skinny one which I only got video of, the Mulvane Tornado, and the Rock Tornado.

 

[Brian Stertz]

I've had some real memorable ones for sure, but the May 3rd chase still sticks in my mind as being my best chase of my career. I am going to try to get some screen captures of my video that day. Although there were several things I could have done better, it was one of those nearly perfectly timed scenarios. I have to give special thanks to Jeff Piotrowski on that day. Even though we chased separately that day, he and I stayed in contact throughout the day and this helped me time things out on when to head out from work in Tulsa. The end result was our documentary Terror in the Heartland. It's just hard to believe that was over 8 yrs. ago.

My top 10 list...have some chase story updates to do...but it is accurate to date.

http://vortex-times.com/Top10list.htm

 

[Joey Ketcham]

May 29th, 2004 was my best chase ever when myself along with Ken Johnson saw numerous tornadoes around Harper County, KS.

 

[Bill Tabor]

No way I could answer this. There have just been too many good ones, and it seems they are always different. Each one is it's own adventure with it's own flavor. Sure some stand out as the most tornadoes, most precarious, strongest tornadoes, but to characterize those above others would be wrong. Sometimes it's also not just about the storm, but about those you were chasing with, or weird / funny things that happen to you.

That's what I love about chasing...each chase is it's own adventure. Each storm has it's own environment. It's always a bit different, and you never know what to expect.

 

[Dustin Wilcox]

I have to side with Skip and also say March 28th, for a variety of reasons. It was a day I started out with pretty low expectations, which always makes a successful chase sweeter. It was a multiple Tornado day for me (5) total. I was chasing with a Friend on his first chase, I was without data for the majority of the chase as once I got just North of Goodland cell data disapeared (though Jeff and Kathryn Piotrowski along with Sean McMullen provided me with some information until I lost all Cell phone capabilities). Three of the tornadoes came at night, including two on the ground for a long duration (may have actually have been serperate times making the tornado count higher but I cant verify). The majority of my night chasing was spent on pure mud roads, and due to storm motion the roads had been completely saturated. Throw in the fact that there was 4in + diameter stones lying around with convection now filling in all around me with storm motions upwards of 50mph, it was pretty intense; I just had an absolute blast, and thankfully the tornado missed Bird City just to the East before it treked back the to the NW before weakening. This day was also the final push for me to go get a new HD camcorder, I only wish now I had it that day, here is the best my old camcorder could come up with.

 

[Craig Maire II]

I would consider the MONSTER May 4th Greensburg EF5 tornado to be my "best" chase ever with the August 24th 2006 Nicollet MN tornado coming in at 2nd place!

 

[Tarmo Tanilsoo]

My best observation so far is 18 July 2007 - http://www.zone.ee/lagujailm/index.php/page,18jul07eng/

P.S. I do not have SDS right now. I have EHDS(Ex-Hurricane Deprivation Syndrome)

 

[Ray Walker]

My best chase so far has to be the protection KS day. 4/23/07 when me and my chase partner saw many tornadoes from far NW Oklahoma all the way to the north of protection.

 

[Adam Lucio]

Well my chase "career" has only been two years. Of those I would say that June 6th in South Dakota was my best.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pimvCBa83o Tornado near Kyle, SD

Altho I saw more tornadoes in Kansas during the May 5th outbreak. The storm from June 6th morphed into the most beautiful, scenic one Ive witnessed to date.

 

[Sam Sagnella]

Similarly to Adam, 2007 is our third season, but (on behalf of Tommy Winning and myself) May 23 of this year was probably our best chase, even without the major tornado event that we were anticipating. We witnessed three separate tornado-warned storms that day, were able to stop and shoot for >15-20 uninterrupted minutes more than once, and only were rained on for a grand total of ~10 minutes all day. Hooray for 'this-is-too-easy' days like that one!

Explosive supercell development north of Shattuck. One of my all-time fave storm photos of ours.
This storm went from significant weather advisory to tornado warning in 30 min!

Second storm of the day; most textbook wall cloud I've ever witnessed. (10mm)

Just the wall cloud & rain foot.

And ~90 min later, the Lipscomb Co., TX HP Supercell. Amazing.

Closer shot; note the windmill facing right at us...inflow winds were >30kt IIRC.
The tornadic lowering was located just to the left of the fencepost to the left of the windmill. (10mm)

The Cactus, TX tornado day (4.21.07) was also way up there on the 'most memorable chases' list.
That was the largest tornado I've EVER witnessed; also the most destruction...
Contrast-enhanced vidcaps of the at times ~3/4mi (~1300yd) wide E-F2 wedge, which was rain-wrapped for a time prior to hitting town.

 

[Joe Nield]

May 24, 2004, is a day that I dare say I'm not sure I'll ever top. So many tornadoes we lost count, and the single greatest photo I've ever taken.Unfortunately, I don't have any of my photos online (I know, I'm entirely behind the technological times).

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

It is getting hard to pick, but I'd say Hill City, June 9, 2005 was my favorite storm. It was just a freaky beast at one point, with the fast motion aligator head inflow cloud right next to the big tornado. I only wish I took more stills of the thing.

http://www.extremeinstability.com/05-6-9.htm

 

[Shane Adams]

There are multiple factors that decide what makes a chase one of the best. Number of tornadoes, quality of video, photogenic nature of the tornadoes/storm, sentimental value, historic/newsworthy value, and pure adrenaline/craziness of experience. I've got a different favorite for each of those categories. And it's impossible to pick from those one "best".