Biggest Busts of 2010

[Nick Nolte]

Hmm, lets see... the May 19th high risk was fail day for me. I was in that insane convoy along OK-33 and when the storms are moving 10-15 MPH faster than a traffic jam can travel, you are going to fail. That was the most frustrating thing I had ever experienced, but at least now I know what to expect near OKC on a high risk day.

Also July 14th. I had taken two days off to head up to ND/MN for the 13th and 14th. The 13th was a good day, with no tornadoes, but I tracked that supercell that crossed southern ND into MN for about 6 hours, was a good lookin storm, but I never saw it drop anything although it presented a nice wall cloud for a while.

The real reason I made the trip, though, was for the 14th. I was setup in Owatonna, MN and man was the air horrible that day. Worst air I have ever experienced. Temp/Dew was like 92/82. Tracked the first cell that popped that day east of there. The one I was on didn't really do much and because I had to be back to work (in Michigan) the next day, I kind of followed the line east, without deviation, so I could make my way back home while quasi-chasing. If I had the 15th off, I would have been more willing to backtrack and target other cells. With 17 tor reports in MN/WI that was a bit disappointing to not see anything.

 

[Adam Lucio]

May 24 - I tried to get Adam and Danny up and motivated to go to Bison, SD, but not early enough to make it out to see the tornadoes. Oh well, wasn't so bad since Bowdle was 2 days before.

Now wait just a minute here, I was awake and we were chatting on aim from different hotel rooms. There was no sense of urgency to leave all we said was "yea, west looks good" of course the mini party we had in the hotel room with everyone the night before didn't exactly help either

 

[Willoughby Owen]

May 22 was our biggest bust. Starting the morning from Hays, KS meant we were always going to be behind the 8-ball. Blew our target area, also expected the game to be further south. Had a sneaking suspicion on Friday evening that we were too far south and should've pushed on to North Platte or at least Kearney for the night in case the synoptic situation changed. It did.

After the quickest (late) lunch ever at Valentine's Subway, you could feel initiation was very soon. Hit the I-90 east from Murdo and gigantic knuckley towers BLEW UP to the NNE in the midst of mostly clear skies in the region. Damn. We soon crossed the Missouri river SE of Pierre.

Then seeing that storm hook like anything on radar 70 miles to our north was totally gut wrenching.

Didn't make the same mistakes two days later and stayed in North Platte after the NW Kansas stuff (we were late to that as well after the drive from Aberdeen, SD).

Looks like May 10 tested a lot of chasers too, we thought it was tough after leaving from NORMAN that morning before failing to get to the Wakita storm. Ouch.

 

[Nathan Edwards]

This year was pretty kind with easyish forecasts, but I still had a few busts due to timing issues. Most annoying would be the aforementioned pilot car issues on 385 in CO on May 21st, and the May 24th chase. On that one I'd only recovered my car from the farmers field the previous night after Bowdle and wasted time in the morning cleaning the car and doing unneccesary second guessing on my target. I really should have had more 'faith' in my target Got a long range view of the Faith storm as it would have been just lifting but terrain wouldn't let me see the base. Should have been on that storm at least 45 minutes earlier though. One Blue Sky bust in 3 weeks on a chase day I expected to bust anyway and 2 tornado days I wasn't expecting.... I'll take that any year

 

[Dann Cianca]

I consider a bust a forecast of severe weather that doesn't verify, not just missing something because I was a bit out of position, on the wrong storm, or distracted by monster hail in Deer Trail (cough June 10th)

Busts:

April 5th in Kansas: Blue sky bust, baby.
May 21st in Colorado: Cap wouldn't bust, so we did instead.

 

[Jonathan Whitehead]

WOW, I have finally come to end of this thread and have tears rolling down my face from laughter. Some of these stories are just legendary and will make you just laugh until you cant laugh any more. I mean, you really cant make this stuff up. The story about the overturned cement mixer is what did it for me.

Unfortunately I dont have as colorful of stories as those that have been said, mostly due to lack of money to dedicate to storm chasing, but I will say that April 5th in South-central KS was the big bust of the year for me, classic blue sky bust. I left the day before to chase with Chris Sanner out of Norman. Basically it was one of those classic days where you had ALL the ingrediants for a massive wedge just the cap refused to cooperate. I was convinced that if the cap had gone, a massive wedge would have resulted with everything that was in place.

 

[Shane Adams]

I consider a bust a forecast of severe weather that doesn't verify, not just missing something because I was a bit out of position, on the wrong storm, or distracted by monster hail in Deer Trail (cough June 10th)

Busts:

April 5th in Kansas: Blue sky bust, baby.
May 21st in Colorado: Cap wouldn't bust, so we did instead.

That's actually a great point. Again, reflecting the current "the chaser is everything and if no pix it didn't happen" mentality, the definition of "bust" has become distorted. But this is another thread for another time.

Using Dann's bust criteria, I'll have to think about it. We nailed almost everything we chased (that we could get to in time), and most of the stuff we missed was because we either couldn't chase or chose not to. Even the few bluesky busts we did have were because I stubbornly stuck to my target while storms formed in other areas further away.

With today's chasing, I think it's harder to bust than to see a tornado. Everyone follows the fish-finder gadgetry (yeah, you do), and even when we miss out on an event, it's 99% of the time because we couldn't get there in time, not because we are in a completely different area, believing in and committed to that target spot. Missing out on something you're aware of but not in position for because you mistimed your distance, isn't really busting. It's simply missing out.

Few chasers pick targets before leaving and stick to them through the day without constant tweaks and changes to the plan due to mobile data updates. Therefore, it's rare that a chaser busts because he/she stuck to a target and missed an event well away.

 

[Danny Neal]

Few chasers pick targets before leaving and stick to them through the day without constant tweaks and changes to the plan due to mobile data updates. Therefore, it's rare that a chaser busts because he/she stuck to a target and missed an event well away.

The worst bust this year was May 19th. I chose Anadarko for a target and stuck to that area all day. I knew there were 2 tornadic supercells going on 50 miles to the north but I made the forecast, wanted to stick with it and was actually treated to a pretty decent storm as it moved into Chickasha, Norman, Purcell area. Unfortunately it was the only non tornadic storm of the bunch (I guess a blessing in disguise; Norman didn't need another tornado this year). At first I blamed my ego for sticking with that target and not going after the clearly tornadic sups to the north; but now I see it as a success for sticking to my guns and actually nailing initiation in my target area. Forecasting wise it wasn't a bust, but it wasn't what I was expecting.

 

[Adam Lucio]

The worst bust this year was May 19th. I chose Anadarko for a target and stuck to that area all day. I knew there were 2 tornadic supercells going on 50 miles to the north but I made the forecast, wanted to stick with it and was actually treated to a pretty decent storm as it moved into Chickasha, Norman, Purcell area. Unfortunately it was the only non tornadic storm of the bunch (I guess a blessing in disguise; Norman didn't need another tornado this year). At first I blamed my ego for sticking with that target and not going after the clearly tornadic sups to the north; but now I see it as a success for sticking to my guns and actually nailing initiation in my target area. Forecasting wise it wasn't a bust, but it wasn't what I was expecting.

Does this mean I am off the hook for choosing not to go after those northern storms because "they look fuzzy" lol

 

[Danny Neal]

Does this mean I am off the hook for choosing not to go after those northern storms because "they look fuzzy" lol

Lol funny story.

Me: Man there are TCu all over the place, best looking one is due north of here by about 25 miles by I-40, maybe we should nudge north a tad.

Adam: :glances: Bah, it looks fuzzy. :ignore:

30 minutes later it is TOR warned and dropping tornadoes lol

 

[Shane Adams]

The worst bust this year was May 19th. I chose Anadarko for a target and stuck to that area all day. I knew there were 2 tornadic supercells going on 50 miles to the north but I made the forecast, wanted to stick with it and was actually treated to a pretty decent storm as it moved into Chickasha, Norman, Purcell area. Unfortunately it was the only non tornadic storm of the bunch (I guess a blessing in disguise; Norman didn't need another tornado this year). At first I blamed my ego for sticking with that target and not going after the clearly tornadic sups to the north; but now I see it as a success for sticking to my guns and actually nailing initiation in my target area. Forecasting wise it wasn't a bust, but it wasn't what I was expecting.

There's no shame in sticking to your guns. I love it.

 

[Rob H]

Lots of learning from this year:

Minor bust 5/22 - lazily sat at a gas station while the storm was going up. Saw some of the small tornadoes from a few miles out, and the amazing shelf, but missed the big show.

Major bust 6/17 - I wanted to go North of Alexandria, and my partner wanted to go to the MN/IA border. We got a late start, and we let technology problems slow us down. GPS breaks? Don't sit at a Best Buy setting up a new one on the phone with software vendors, just keep chasing! We realized we couldn't catch up to the cell forming by Wadena, and headed for the convection down in IA. Argued about which way to take through the Twin Cities metro. Show up in Blooming Prairie to catch the last two tornadoes as daylight disappeared.

They weren't exactly busts since we still saw tornadoes, but missing the big tornadoes on these days hurt real bad especially when there's an EF4 an hour south of your home town.

edit: In fairness to the more accurate definition of 'bust' as Shane pointed out, my only real bust was 5/24. We had no idea what the weather was doing that day and saw a few crappy storms try to go up around Murdo, but nothing interesting.

 

[Ben Holcomb]

Now wait just a minute here, I was awake and we were chatting on aim from different hotel rooms. There was no sense of urgency to leave all we said was "yea, west looks good" of course the mini party we had in the hotel room with everyone the night before didn't exactly help either

LOL Sense of urgency doesn't come across IM very well. In hindsight I would have gone and beaten your door open and said lets GTFO!

I think the whole day got beaten home as we were sitting at Hardees in Mitchell watching Andy's video on TWC. Ugh.

 

[Kevin Crawmer]

June 5th, Lieowa. Easily. I can't remember my exact reasoning, but I did NOT want to go very far from home that day. I think I just felt bad not being home since I had been gone a decent amount already this spring. I remember thinking that I wanted to be in Iowa on the MS River with a good crossing point into IL, but knew that then I would just be further away from home. Sooo, I drove west to see if anything would fire off a line of poo in Iowa and missed the good stuff over in IL.

Huge lesson learned---Don't chase if your heart isn't in it that day to do whatever it takes. If you can't follow your gut you need to be ready for some major disappointment.

**I did get to spend an hour or so with some fellow chasers so it wasn't all a waste.

 

[Michael Towers]

I define a bust as a chase that didn’t get me on a supercell. Based on that definition this was a year with only a single bust but I sure did miss a lot of opportunities:

April 22: Witnessed 3 tornadoes but missed many more earlier as I sat on my ass while the sups initially went tornadic.

May 10: Definitely the most frustrating chase of the year as I waited too long near Alva for a tornado that never happened and the storm just blasted away from me at incredible speed. I fell behind the hook and was never able to catch up to the multi-vortex mayhem occurring just ahead of me on Hwy. 11.

May 22: I thought I’d be over it by now but it still kills me. Marathon drive from home and almost 800 miles later I’m in the best position I could have attained. Subsequent bonehead navigation error results in me missing perhaps the show of my life. Consolation tornadoes made me happy at the time but do little to console me months later.

June 5: Blew off chasing less than 200 miles from home because I thought the setup was favoring linear stuff. Worst forecast bust of the year.

August 1: Bust near Ortonville, Minnesota. As it happened some old wise guy (80+ yrs.) actually stopped his car and asked “Did you come all this way to see that?” referring to the pathetic grunge I was watching. All in good nature of course and he got a big laugh out of the old ladies he had in tow. Got a chuckle or three out of me too and at least salvaged something nice out of a busted day.