Biggest Busts of 2010

[Jeremy Gilchrist]

I can't really answer in terms of one chase as I will say due to a dominant death ridge 2010 was a major bust in the Southeastern US. It has truly been frustrating overall.

 

[Laura Duchesne]

We were down for the first 3 weeks of May, and of all those days, it was the 10th event that was the most frustrating. We had Wakita as our target, and since it was still kinda early in the day, we figured we had time to go get something to eat at IHOP. Well they took longer than expected. After we finally got our food and inhaled it, we took off after a supercell that had meso striations. Well, we took this one back road, but unfortunately it was wet red clay. We started sliding sideways, but my friend who's a good driver, managed to keep us clear of the ditch. We got out of the van, and tried to push it around and back off the clay road. Good grief what a mess! I was cussing, looking up at the backside of the supercell, and could barely walk on that stuff. I thought I'd never make it! Unfortunately with the speed of the storm, we never caught up with the tornadoes. We did manage to see a funnel cloud on another storm, so the day was not a total loss! I am just glad we did not get stuck! Won't be doing that again, LOL!

 

[Jim Hunt]

Friday May 7th had what looked like a big day in Indiana. Chasers traveled up to near Ft Wayne to be ready for the show. A couple of high wind reports on the very edge of the state is all we got.

Saturday June 5th was another potentially good day for my back yard of northern Indiana. Sadly I had to go to deep southern Indiana for a wedding. I was driving back late and watched what appeared to be a line moving which was falling apart. I talked with someone when I got home near midnight and we both poured over the radar and decided to bag it.

Unfortunately the intensified and took out the NOAA weather radio for me area and then proceeded to drop nearly a half dozen tornadoes less than 25 minutes from my house. I never woke up.

 

[Wesley Luginbyhl]

June 10 (Deerfield)- I was in KS, enough said. Could have been in CO, but wasn't thinking straight.

June 16 - Got up at 4 am from Borger, TX with a target of around Faith, SD around 5 pm. Stopped in NE = FAIL.

June 17 - Didnt really plan to chase so it took too long to get to Iowa, then I failed by targeting Iowa. Left MN around 10pm that night after looking at damage and was back in TX around 1:30 pm the next day. Wish I could chase like I can drive.

To sum it up, June doesnt like me.

 

[Jonathan Behle]

June 1st in Nebraska.. Storms ended up firing too early and became a linear mess of junk.. We stayed around South Central Nebraska just waiting for a boundary to go that never would and it finally did around sunset. But even then the storms went linear in a hurry and were never anything great. The best part of the day was the structure that evening and hearing an old man at the McDonalds in Hebron Nebraska cough so loud the entire place looked at him and getting home

 

[Wes Carter]

My biggest bust of this year was April 24, the day of the Yazoo City tornado.

I was not expecting initiation so early in the day, even though it is somewhat normal for Dixie Alley to have tornadoes at any time in the day. I was expecting the event to ramp up with daytime heating. I chose NW Alabama and NE Mississippi as my initial target. As I was driving to that area I heard about the Yazoo tornado on the radio but I 'stuck to my guns' also. I ended up catching a couple of supercells but nothing to write about. I could have intercepted the Yazoo tornado but I had not idea it was going to be such a long track storm and I thought that one of the other cells was just as likely to produce. I was wrong.

 

[Maggie Kahman]

I was about ~70 S of Bowdle SD - didn't make it on time. Thought the action was going to be farther South.

Best storm of the year - and missed it . . .

My chase partner and i chased that day also, and missed it because 1) i was an hour late showing up in Sioux City (thought it was going to be a 4 hour trip and instead it was 5), 2) no data (we were chasing blind), and 3) the storm we were chasing looked too far north, so we decided to backtrack a little. I remember going into a gas station in Highmore, SD and seeing the radar on tv. Kind of a punch in the gut. Nonetheless, we made the best of it and chased another storm near Highmore that put down a nice, big wall cloud.

 

[Corey Sloan]

May 29, 2010---North Dakota...enough said! Put us in the right spot parameter wise as the SPC issued an MD for the area with us right dead in the middle of the graphic....but alas, not a storm or even a raindrop.

 

[Darrin Rasberry]

Well let's see....pretty simple for me. Early Spring my family and I had finally scheduled a date to take off for vacation down to Austin TX. That week was planned for Mid June, so on June 17th I was driving back from San Antonio Sea World to Austin fielding call after call after call about the ensuing outbreak 30 minutes from my house in the Northern IA/Southern MN area. Turns out to be the best outbreak of the year of course. Not only was I getting calls from almost every chaser I know from the Upper MS Valley Region but then I got a call from everyone I knew that wasnt a chaser in Northern IA about it the next day. So after getting to hear about 30 different stories of how simple it was to catch every type of tornado there is that day....I was very annoyed....actually still am, lol.

It was my thirty-second birthday the day before and I got dip-biscuit drunk. I remember calling you completely hung over lol. Neither Craig or I prepared one minute; we just looked at the SPC page and picked a random spot and ended up far, far away from the action. By far the worst chase in four years of the hobby and more than likely the biggest bust of my career.

 

[Chris Hayes]

Biggest bust for me of this year was by far May 19. Breaking down during a tornado outbreak just sucks!

 

[joe.miller]

6-17-10 about 30 miles southwest of the Albert Lea nado's. Kept thinking it was going to continue building south but never did, knew if we would take the small hike NE then we'd be too late and have to backtrack to where we were to catch the nado's developing there. Terrible day for us, we got nothing, rain/hail (not even that much hail). I was in the same boat as http://www.youtube.com/user/EndlessWeather#p/u/10/2cJA1WSMLzk this goes to explain my feeling too that day!