Biggest fear in 2004 chases....

[Amos Magliocco]

Other than May 12, which I've told to death, one other moment stands out for pucker factor: May 24th near TOP, trying to manage something out of a chase where I'd missed every tornado from three different supercells. I was racing south on 75, corepunching a storm I'd tried to flank on S. Wanamaker Road until I discovered a closure (of course). Tornadoes had been reported on the storm and a warning was active when I heard snippets of my friends on 144.550 talking about the "big wedge" in excited voices. I assumed this must be something coming straight for me and waited in the wind and rain for some sign of doom.

As I emerged from the precip, a large dark column to my east was suspiciously close to the path of the reported circulation, but I never confirmed anything--the day was such a disaster personally that I haven't even done my report yet.

 

[Shane Adams]

[Agree, and I'm agreeing that we made two mistakes (my navigation mistake and his driving mistake). Anyway, the rationale at that point was that we wanted to get out of our situation before getting pounded by potentially large hail. The driver didn't want to dent up his nice car, so he was driving faster than he would have typically driven on a gravel road (not rediculously fast, but too fast for hills that we soon encountered. Yes, you are right, it was a bad mistake. But I definitely forgive him and still trust his general driving ability. (For what it is worth, he managed to save us from harm with his good instinct in tough situations.)

Chris (aka the ocassional dumb-ass)

Chris, I wasn't trying to insult you or your partner - we did the same thing during our May 9, 2003 chase. I was just curious as to wy you didn't seem happy getting the tornado despite the previous problems. I just figured getting the tornado after the difficulties would've "made it better." But I understand where you're coming from now.

 

[Dan Christianson]

:shock: Well if you all remember the Fremont County NE Supercell-04, it was very awsome, i never got this close to a SP esp rotatating like no other... well after letting the sp passing a few min like 1-2 i got ahead of it again and sat on a gravel road facing south looking at fremont as its about to get hammered the rain/hail/wind band was jsut speeding east and watchign ti pass premont i was like theres gonna be some damage,,, well i wanted to get into town i though i had avoided the hail.... but as i started driving south on this gravel road into fremont hail was falling small at first but my jaw jsut dropped when it began to get to the baseball/softball sized range.... and when your driving your buddys for escort OLD... your a lil hesitant and after speeding up a bit a softball size of hail smacked the windshield breaking it i was like GET THE **** out of dodge and me an my buddy grant hit an overpass suprisingly and while being stopped there were plenty of other people parked there too... scary in my words.... but the good moment was when i was recording this newer black lexus prb 2003-3004 get its back side get hammered and dented to hell .. his back of the car wasnt all the way covered by the overpass ... glad it wasnt me but it easily could of ....


dan... one word of advice (DONT SPEED) as NE speeding limits are stupid... esp when cops liek to pull ya over for goign over 3-6mph over the limit... yeah even if theres cars doign 70mph passing you on the road they seem to go after you instead?....

 

[carey libby]

for me,the thing that get me started in severe wx.
back in 94'sitting in a deer stand while a severe storm came charging through.hail bigger than golf balls,but smaller than baseball size started falling,then the wind came.it was 330 pm and it was pitch black.
during the lightning flashes,you could actually see the pine trees start to rotate.after what seemed like FOREVER,it all died down with fourty minutes.
found out that day that the storm had dropped an F2 four miles from our camp house.
Got my certificate in SkyWarn in 95'and still present with them.

 

[Mike Peregrine]

3 scary moments here:

May 22nd - After Hallam, we headed south to Beatrice to hang out and wait for Kiesling, when all of the sudden the sirens started blaring and the wx-radio referenced another tornadic storm heading for Beatrice ... it was pitch black by then, but through the lightning it looked like a pretty good mothership just to the west of town. We booked south out of town since we had nowhere to wait it out ... turned out to be no problem, but had my blood pumping for a bit. After Doug and Weathervine and the Twister Sisters all finally headed back to Beatrice, yet another warning was called in town and we just decided to give up and book east toward home, going through some torrential rain and half flooded roadways for an hour. Miserable.

The second experience was in Marysville, Kansas on May 29th. Good grief this still freaks me OUT. We had just finished seeing just about every one of the tornadoes produced near Jamestown/Belleville and so my bro and I were half nuts as it was ... when a storm near Marysville suddenly began rotating as we got close to town. There was this field to the west of town where they've been doing work all summer - but when the wind from this storm hit it, stuff was flying through the air and it got seriously crazy. Our car got hit by a pounding gust of wind and I thought sure it was tornadic ... we were so freaked we tore through Marysville like I was doing a time trial at Indy or something ... people must have thought we had lost our minds.

The last was on May 24th ... we got caught in the RFD of a large tornado near Skidmore, Missouri ... debris was flying around us ... the car was rocking ... and my brother was yelling at me to back the car up ... I knew it had to be RFD because the tornado was smack in front of our car, but it still wigged us out pretty good.

I secretly love these little moments ... it gets me all revved up just thinking about it again ...

 

[Graham Butler]

As Shane said the lightning on June 12th in Mulvane was just plain scary. I don't blame the guy one bit for staying in the vehicle, actually, I think he was the smartest in the group that day. When you watch my video of that day you see the fash/bolt and split second later you hear the crack followed by multiple people wispering $%&@. A few times you even see the video camera jolt from me jumping out of my skin while holding the tripod. Although it was stupid of me standing (well crouching) out there beside my truck I would do it again in a hearbeat to get the photos.

Finially got the thumbnails up (still not happy with some of the colour adjustments but here they are):
http://www.darkskyproductions.com/2004/june12/

Graham Butler

 

[Matthew Havin]

Scariest moment had to be accidentally driving over downed power lines following the beast somewhere around Beloit, KS on May 29th. My heart skipped a beat on that one. It was funny watching others do the same thing and freaking out.

 

[Tony Laubach]

Scariest moment in 2004... a few moments had my rather spooked.. the May 12 outrunning of an F-2 tornado was pretty freaky, but at the time, I was more consumed with excitment and never had a chance to get really scared. I was also pretty terrified of the hail stones coming from the Attica storm; they sounded like meteors hitting the ground in areas not more than a few feet from me. I cowered in my car for the remainder of the Attica tornado. May 24 behind Amos near Topeka was pretty intense for the same reasons. Hard to nail down the most terrifying moment, so I'll go with those as my top 3 for the year.

 

[Andrea Griffa]

Scariest moment in 2004... a few moments had my rather spooked.. the May 12 outrunning of an F-2 tornado was pretty freaky, but at the time, I was more consumed with excitment and never had a chance to get really scared. I was also pretty terrified of the hail stones coming from the Attica storm; they sounded like meteors hitting the ground in areas not more than a few feet from me. I cowered in my car for the remainder of the Attica tornado. May 24 behind Amos near Topeka was pretty intense for the same reasons. Hard to nail down the most terrifying moment, so I'll go with those as my top 3 for the year.

I remember that hail a lot :lol:
But I remember also the hail of Dallas County HP supercell (Iowa) on 8th may, that signed the car and didn't leave me drive :shock:

 

[tom hanlon]

My scariest moment occured on my first "across the mississippi" chase from Ohio.

I drove all night to chase Nebraska and Iowa on June 10, 11.

Missed Big Springs tor and chased a few cells around N Platte.

Drove to Iowa for day two and stopped to watch the Ft Dodge cell build before heading N. Was about to give up on the inflow when a little "carrot" funnel formed. The funnel amazed us at it managed to rope out and touch down. Caught the second tornado as it developed about an hour later.

The scary part was looking at the odometer reading of 2,500 miles when I got home and realizing that I would do it all again, and would continue to do it all again for as long as I could manage. I found myself wishing that I had gone to Kansas for day 3 and another 500 miles and a night on the road.

The fear was that I had a new and extemely addictive hobby that would would do F4 damage to any thought of being otherwise productive from April till June of this year, and the next year, and the next, and the next. If we hadn't got lucky on our first chase perhaps I could become a "casual chaser" if there is such a thing as a casual storm chaser.

The fear is that I am hooked. Is there a StormChasers Anonymous ?

 

[Chris Gullikson]

Originally posted by Andrea Griffa
And your biggest fear of 2004 chases?

Personally my biggest fear of 2004 was near Danville on 12th may( Kansas-Harper County) in a confusion moment under the supercell: internet connection with the laptop didn't work, and since I and my chase partner were in late, decided to drove into the core of the supercell to arrive before under the meso ( we were north of the supercell). After hail with softball size we arrived not far from the enormous rotating wall cloud and the night was very dark: at that moment, after the hail, we were so confused and we couldn't understand where the tornado was! Radio said that there was a large tornado on the ground near Danville ( and we were in Danville!) and the tornado was very dangerous because it was night and it was wrapped around by rain...We didn't see it because it was night and we were too near at the precipitation core in front of the tornado and hardly in front of the massive meso ( big mistake!!!!!!) but we felt it very near.

Well, this is what it looked like on the west side of the meso looking towards Danville...
http://www.f5hunter.com/5-12-04/slides/IMG_2947.html
Your fears were well justified.


My biggest fear this year would have been on June 10th, a good hour before the night time Red Cloud tornado.
We had finally given up on our target area of McCook NE and decided to check out the unorganized covection occuring to our south. I couldn't tell you where we exactly were, but we decided to take a short cut to get to the storm that would eventually produce near Red Cloud. Navigating with the Delorme software and GPS, we were driving east on gravel roads that would lead us to a highway with a nice intercept to the storm. I was getting anxious about driving on these poor roads since we were approaching the core, we decided to take a southern route that would take us to a good east/west highway to our south. The gravel road turned into a narrow dirt road and didn't go south. It turned back to the east and we got back into the rain. I had no choice but to continue on as there was no way to turn around. The road turned to grease and with a slight crown on the road it was very difficult just staying in the middle. I bounced off the side of the road 3 or 4 times (the ditches were a few feet high) and thought for sure I was tearing the sides of my van up but I just kept going since stopping would have stranded us out in the middle of nowhere. It felt like we drove like this for 20 miles, but in reality it was probably only a couple. I was never so glad in my life when I saw the road ahead of us turn to gravel. There were a couple of spotters parked at the intersection where the road turned to gravel and I would have loved to have seen the look on their faces as we came slipping and sliding towards them with mud flying everywhere.
5 minutes after we got back on tera firma, I turned to Kinney and Doug and asked them if they got that on video. Unfortunatley neither one of them was taping as they were white knuckling whatever they could hold on to and were afraid they would upset me by documenting what was almost certainly going to be a bad situation.

Chris

 

[Damon Scott Hynes]

Originally posted by Andrea Griffa
And your biggest fear of 2004 chases?
:

29 May, Cameron Missouri. 9-ish at night, heading on limited-access US-36 west toward a lightning-lit tornado, and wondering whether I'd come across a turn-around lane before I came across the tornado! I didn't want to stop while facing toward the tornado, but I didn't want to get stuck in the mud in between lanes...

 

[Andrea Griffa]

Originally posted by Chris Gullikson+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Chris Gullikson)</div>

<!--QuoteBegin-Andrea Griffa

And your biggest fear of 2004 chases?

Well, this is what it looked like on the west side of the meso looking towards Danville...
http://www.f5hunter.com/5-12-04/slides/IMG_2947.html
Your fears were well justified.
[/b]

I can't believe Chris...It's simply amazing!But in the same time it's so terrifying :shock: I thank God so much

 

[Bryce Stone]

The scariest thing for me this year was this: I saw way too many families, idiots, and morons around rotating wall clouds. Many times this year, I have seen people acting stupid and showing no regard whatsoever to tornado conditions, and the lightning which accompanies these storms. Whole families were standing in the road East of Mulvane.

There is an ad on Oklahoma radio right now (about the mandatory seat belt law) where an OHP trooper says something like, "My job is to protect you. Sometimes that means protecting you from your own carelessness and negligence." With the idiotic actions I've seen this year in Kansas and Oklahoma, I am very scared that someone will see the need to "protect" the public. In all honesty, based on what I've seen, they need it . . . :lol:

I did have one scary moment on May 12th. I made the foolish decision to get on a dirt road. Trust me, don't ever do that in Kansas. I got caught after dark right in front of the supercell which had dropped tornadoes in the Harper area. I made it one mile down the road, but no farther. It was pitch black, and they had a tornado warning on the storm heading right for us. I could see one light from a farmhouse to the SE, so I knew that we were okay, even though we were under hail, lightning, and torrential downpour. I knew if that light went out, I was done for. Fortunately, it never did.

My chase partner and I waited until the main storm had passed (some very scary moments ), then my partner drove while I pushed the car an entire mile back to the pavement. In that mile, we had no choice but to go though two stretches so flooded that water was up to the doors. We both got COVERED in mud, and my car had mud caked all over the interior from getting in and out. I have never been so happy to see pavement in all my life. I suppose it was a lesson learned, though. And we did see tornadoes that day, so it was worth it.

Maybe I need protecting. :lol:

 

[Jack Beven]

Originally posted by Andrea Griffa
And your biggest fear of 2004 chases?

May 22. After chasing the Furnace County Nebraska supercell from Hebron to Beaver City and back, I turned south on U. S. 81 to try to get clear of the weather just as it was getting dark. I got to Chester, Nebraska and it started hailing - marbles to possibly golf balls. There is no cover in Chester I could use to hide!

Fortunately, the hail stopped after a few miles instead of getting larger. But when I got across the Kansas border I stopped and looked west to see this. I shudder to think what would have happened if I had been 10 minutes later coming down 81 in near-total dark with this tornadic supercell approaching.

Adding to an already scary situation, there were a lot of people driving north on 81 either to chase this storm or the Hallam storm. Given what happened in Hallam, I'm not sure this was a good day to play tag with supercells in the dark.

And to add even more fright, the storms started to backbuild along either the dryline or the outflow boundary from the Furnace County storm, which I think is visble behind the tornado. I went all the way back to Salina before I was convinced I wouldn't get caught in a fresh cluster of supercells.

Scariest moment all time for me? May 27, 2001. I got caught in the "People Chaser" derecho near El Reno, Oklahoma on I-40 - most likely driving into the RFD of one of the embedded HP supercells. Pitch black dark except for the lightning, zero visibility in horizontal rain, and winds gusting anywhere from 75-100 mph trying to blow me off the road.

Jack Beven