Biggest dissapointment in 2004?

[Mike Hollingshead]

The tornado got strong very quickly and I watched through my camera as it moved across the highway and hit a house. This went on for several minutes before I realized I had forgotten to hit the record button. On the video that was on CNN that showed the house getting lifted off the foundation you could see me parked right in front of the guy before he zooms in. I still get upset when I think about it.

DAMN!!! Man. I'd have to be admitted to a mental hospital as I'd NEVER let it go. I'd be grocery shopping and remember it and just take out whole isles for no "apparent" reason. Sitting at a stop light next to a cop and have it cross my mind again and have to tear off at 100mph in utter frustration...even years later. My best video is probably Hannibal MO last year and I pulled over for like 10 seconds before thinking to drive and get up closer. I could of been amazingly close as it crosses the highway and done so rather safely, but I stopped for that short amount of time. I still get close but I can't even enjoy it as I just kick myself every single time I watch it. Yeah, it's safe to say I'd rather die then have that happen. I am sorry for you. I know my comments aren't helping.

 

[Shane Adams]

May 24 - Vowed not to repeat my screw-up from May 22 and miss TWO major outbreaks in three days. Took a chance on the WF and played well east of the dryline. First storm of the day went up just south of us, and we were all over it in no time. Problem was, it didn't really get its act together west of the Mississippi, and our roads weren't letting us get across the river to follow it. By the time we decided to abandon it and head west to play the dryline, the big tornadofest in southern Nebraska was already underway. We missed everything except one last tornado in northern Kansas just after we got on the storm. I missed my second outbreak in three days, but both days we at least came home with a tornado.

 

[Charles Allison]

This went on for several minutes before I realized I had forgotten to hit the record button.

I had this happen to me in Harper Co. on May 29th. I did get the still photo's below. At one point I was with a few 100 yards. That really sucked at the point I saw my camera on stand by. I had been trying to save some tape because I had not brought enough and was not expecting to tape that much. I went out a bought a case of tapes and vowed never to stop recording during and event after that.
[Broken External Image]:http://www.oklahomalightning.com/Pics/harpera.jpg
[Broken External Image]:http://www.oklahomalightning.com/Pics/harperb.jpg

 

[Mikey Gribble]

Thanks for the condolence. It was a truly awful experience that I wouldn't wish on anybody. I at least have a tape of the CNN footage so I can show my friends what I saw. I just still can't believe the time that I forget to hit the damn record button is when a house lifts up off the foundation right in front of me. I always look at the screen on the camera now to make sure I am recording and I will never make that mistake again.

 

[Carla Bisby]

June 12 definitely. As I neared Wichita I went after a cell to the north instead of continuing south. I didn't feel terribly bad about it until I saw Eric Nguyen's pics of the south storm. :cry: I had to learn the hard way -"unless there's overwhelming evidence do not leave your original target". At least I wasn't the only chaser who made that mistake as I ran into a few other chasers on the north storm also.

 

[Laura Duchesne]

My biggest disapointment for 2004 probably would be just the lack of chases I have been on this year. Sure I've seen a nice funnel, but didn't get the chance to get it on film because SOMEONE forgot to bring the camcorder LOL. Sure I've seen a rare classic Ontario supercell and rotating wall cloud. But that isn't enough! Yes, we must be getting greedy :lol: . Well, I do wish I had more chase opportunities this year... only been out 3 times in total this season... normally I get about 5 in. Keep in mind, this is Ontario I am talking about :banghead: The season did show a promising start in May, with several tornado warnings for my area. But it just grew quiet after that. Ah well, like I always say "There's always next year!".

 

[Gabe Garfield]

I chased with Jeff Snyder for most of this year, so like him, my biggest disappointment was not chasing my original target area of SC KS on May 29th. The only reason I did this was because I thought that large/violent tornadoes were possible (if not likely) across the entire dryline (similar to 5/4/03, which ended up being a fantastic chase day for me).

Lesson learned: Make a specific chase target, even on super hype high risk days. Don't get lazy in forecasting...stick to your guns. The payoff on days like May 29th are huge, so you want to make sure you are on the best tornadoes of the day.

Gabe

 

[Jeremy Lemanski]

not following the june 13th supercell, which moved across michigan. 4 miles farther. If i would have, i would have seen a 200 yard wide F-1 tornado in a open area, those things are pretty rare to see in michigan.

I was so close and yet so far away. Never again will i break off a chase because of the lakeshore factor, which is if the storms in within 5 miles of lake huron to either give up on it or sit and watch, since getting any closer to the shoreline will start getting you into trouble with more trees/buildings and less roads.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

 

[Joe Nield]

Well, disappointments just kept getting trumped in the first year I actually had the time and resources to chase the plains.

May 19th was our first day out and was an awful stratus/cap bust in what was forecast to be an unbelievable setup in E Nebraska, W Iowa. We even ended up at the same Comfort Inn in Des Moines that night. At least that place was true to its name (comfortable).

May 21st, we bit on the northern of two cells near Norfolk, NE and missed the Hadar tornado. The most amazing lightning show of my life ensued and that storm still produced a beautiful rotating wall, but to sit in Norfolk for 8 hours and then miss the tornado 6 miles away was annoying. Having chased Indiana/Illinois for 4 years, I was still in my urgent mode of feeling like I had to satisfy this lifelong dream on this trip or I might never get the chance again (some of you know what I'm talking about, I'm sure).

May 22nd, we jumped the gun and headed up towards the Platte River before hearing of the new development that eventually produced the Hallam wedge. We did get video of the Hallam wedge, even though we didn't know it until later that evening, and experienced some of the most amazing inflow ever, but I just kept thinking, "if only we had waited another half hour in Lincoln."

May 24th, however, was the greatest day of my entire life and made up for every chase disappointment I've ever had. 'nuff said.

 

[Steve Peterson]

Missing all three big days in sc KS. Sigh.

 

[Dave Kaplow]

Best Chase (since I didn't post in the best chase thread): May 29th
The Jamestown/Belleville cell, definitely. Saw a little bit of everything that day, including the backlit multiple-vortex tornado I’d always longed to see... Which later became a wedge... Closely followed by a gorgeous white anticyclonic tornado, that we managed to get within 100 yards of, maybe closer... Several more tubes after that... Then awesome storm structure near dark – what a striated HP monster that cell became! Ended the day with a mammatus display that caught the last of the setting sun. Easily one of my best days ever as a chaser.

Second Best Chase, but also one of the more frustrating: May 12th
Some of the best storm structure I’ve ever seen, rotation everywhere you looked... But we stayed with the northern storm too long, and got caught on the wrong side of the roadblock at Attica, thus missing the best tornados of the day. We did get a nice photogenic cone early on, though... And later a white stovepipe, as the light began to fade... And of course the storm structure was simply amazing all day long. At one point there were no less than four separate rotating wall clouds in view! Interesting stuff was happening everywhere, all around us... How I wish I could have somehow captured and preserved this storm, to be examined and explored later in detail, at my leisure. If only!! Ah, well. Wonders definitely abounded this day, and the truth is that I’m happy enough to have seen as much of it as I did. The frustration factor was definitely there (that damn roadblock!) but what we did see was so good it cancelled out a lot of the annoyance over the even better stuff that we missed.

Most Frustrating Chase: a tie between May 21th and May 22st.
On the 21st we were on the storm that eventually produced the damaging Bradgate, Iowa tornado. We were on this cell right from initiation, and the young storm seemed to show great promise, indeed it did. But after a long chase across northwest Iowa, the cell appeared to weaken considerably, eventually becoming so obviously outflowish that we decided to blow it off completely and blast west instead. Big mistake! Twenty minutes later, we heard that the cell was once again T-warned. And almost immediately after that, the tornado reports began to come in... In excruciating detail. To add insult to injury, a cell produces a tornado right at our original target of Norfolk, Nebraska – quite out of our reach after the Iowa chase. We did, just barely, manage to catch the madly rotating Sioux City cell as it crossed the river near dark, but saw nothing interesting... And then on the drive south, we had some very intense moments playing cat and mouse with a whole line of nighttime tornadic storms. Darkness in a small NE town, the sirens blaring, nowhere to run... Half hoping for a tornado, half praying there won’t be one... Ominous lowering passing right in front of us, close enough to be illuminated by our headlights... An unforgettable experience, to be sure. A fun day, actually, when all was said and done – but frustrating in the extreme!

As for the 22nd, that was no fun at all. We were on the right cell, but we got to it maybe 10 minutes too late to see the beautiful stovepipe. This despite a mad core punch that cost us a huge hail crater in the driver’s side of the windshield. And things went downhill from there. Congrats to all who actually saw the Wilber and Hallam tornados. A major outbreak, we're right there in the thick of it, and we saw all of one semi-substantial white funnel, and a brief one at that. Feh! Yeah, I'd say the 22nd was definitely the most disappointing chase of the year.

 

[Joel Wright]

My biggest disappointment I guess was sitting here on my ass watching a huge supercell 70 miles to my east in 80 degree dewpoint air not thinking it would amount to much. Well it did, it was the Roanoke IL tornadic storm. At least I got a nice view of the back of the storm, and it's overshooting top lol..

 

[Ben Prusia]

Biggest Disappointment: May 29, 2004

I was 2 miles from the 2 tornadoes on the ground at one time at Oketo, Kansas, and I wasn't able to see it. Oh well, July 7th made up for it!

 

[Andrew Pritchard]

My biggest let down...stupid move...June 23rd this year. I was in south central Wisconsin at our lake cabin. Didnt have a lot of weather info up there, aside from the weather channel. I had recieved some info that there might be supercells in the Illinois and Wisconsin area this day...so, once the 23rd rolled around...I woke up earlier and drove back to central Illinois to get ready for a chase. First thing I do is look at radar, and see a cluster of well devloped supercells marching across Wisconsin...then see tornado warnings go up for the county I was just staying in. Later I found out that a large tornado, near a mile wide at time passed 2 miles to the north of the cabin I was staying in...*sigh* Was on the ground for about 20 miles, and I believe was F2.
I did go back up a week later and take some photos of the damage, before getting yelled at by some EMA dude for "trespassing on private property" Anyway...Im getting off topic now, in short, biggest screw up...leaving town in a hurry, to have a large tornado pass right where I was, 5 hours after I left.

EDIT: Just remembered July 13th....Had two supercells to choose from...I chose the closer of the two and got off of the interstate in persuit of it. Got a phone call two or three minutes later informing me of the Roanoke F4 in progress...but had already gotten too out of position on that storm to get back in time to catch it. But had I gone for supercell #2, and remained on the Interstate another 20 miles, I would have made it in time to see the entire life cycle of the violent tornado.

 

[Skip Talbot]

To comfort you pros who posted about chases having only caught three tornadoes, I thought the tale of a newbie's worst chase might cheer you up. It occured only three weeks. Remember that heavily anticpated October 22 severe weather outbreak?

Like many of you I was watching this system on the GFS and ETA, wishcasting the whole way. Probably because it was October, I was going to chase this one even if the forecast looked bleak.

Friday morning it was looking bleak. The target area had slid to the northwest, making for a long drive. The moderate risk had never verified and Iowa was socked in with clouds. Topping it off, I discovered that my camera was broken. The motor that opens the lens was jammed. Now I had no camera (turned out I wouldn't need it), but I decided to go anyway.

I left Bolingbrook, IL at about 7:30 with cold, foggy, overcast skies. The misting stratus continued long into Iowa. I made a few data stops along the way and no one was calling it a bust yet so I pressed on.

At Des Moines it looked like I was going to have to go to Sioux City if I wanted to see anything. I hadn't driven all this way for nothing (or had I?) so I continued on. I was booking it now because I still had a long way to drive and I wanted to be in position for initiation. That's when the unmarked near Storm Lake clocked me at 75 mph. He was NOT impressed that I was going after severe weather. "What's there to spot up by Storm Lake?" he said. "Well, SPC thinks there is a tornado risk today," I replied. "...Here is your ticket."

I made it to Sioux City by about 5 pm and broke into sunny blue skies. Woohoo I thought! Surely this was a good sign and I was going to see something soon. I waited. Checked data and drove a little north Le Mars where the CAPE bullseye and better wind sheer was. I waited. Absolutely nothing. Not even even puffy cumulus. That cap held tight. The sun went down and at 7:30 I called it a bust and turned around. It was a loooong drive home. I probably should have pulled over to rest my eyes but somehow I made it, arriving in Bolingbrook at 3 am.

1100 Miles, 0 storms, 1 speeding ticket, 1 broken camera.