Chaser traffic post-mortem for 2019 season

This is where I got stuck that day, just south of that bridge. Why I missed Mangum and that particular traffic incident. Apparently the road farther to the east is paved and goes all the way to the bridge, but the road north out of Kirkland requires a 5-mile passage over dirt and sand.

That bridge on Hollis road is a no go if there is even a little bit of rain. It turned to mud 4 miles south of the Red River crossing. I looked on Google maps and saw pavement south and pavement north, but I didn't check all the way between. Thought I was being slick. I lost the Magnum cell that day because I got all the way down to the mud and had to backtrack out to Quanah to cross. There were maybe 4 others that went into that dead end with me. I probably passed another dozen on my way back out.
 
Yeah it's got a paved-all-the-way-through option. I've done both ways. I had an F-150 when I did the dirt/sand one though. Nothing my BFG All Terrains couldn't handle.
 
That bridge on Hollis road is a no go if there is even a little bit of rain. It turned to mud 4 miles south of the Red River crossing. I looked on Google maps and saw pavement south and pavement north, but I didn't check all the way between. Thought I was being slick. I lost the Magnum cell that day because I got all the way down to the mud and had to backtrack out to Quanah to cross. There were maybe 4 others that went into that dead end with me. I probably passed another dozen on my way back out.
I was probably one of those dozen you passed on the way back out. Got a sinking feeling as I saw people heading south on that road, and sure enough made my U-turn at the mud. That bridge offered a great sneak-in advantage with the March 18, 2012 Willow supercell. I thought I'd be sly again this time, but forgot about the unpaved situation from that direction.

Topically: Multiple days in the Panhandles and Oklahoma dished out a lot more traffic dwell time than I've been used to. I like to get off on the grid and avoid that fun, but conditions stopped that in most places this time. It really drove home that drought in previous years spoiled me for hanging out solo with storms in a lot of places and not realizing how heavy things regularly get in that area. Definitely motivated to schedule chase ops for June in the northern/high plains next year.
 
I don't have a lot to add to the specific chase days (they've been covered well already), but I'll contribute a few thoughts...

Chaser traffic this year was, in my opinion, worse than any other year. With that said, the chase season was highly concentrated into a roughly two-week stretch over a relatively confined area. Targets were often limited and on several chase days, there was really only one dominant storm to target. Since some of those storms occurred in areas with limited road networks, the traffic bottle-necked, making it, arguably, be much more congested than usual.

What stands out to me is how many accidents there were (chaser-related) and the frequency of reckless chaser driving/behavior. As you put more people into a confined space on the road (especially where there are limited road networks or only one storm to track), it is inevitable that there will be more problems. With that said, just take the accidents from noteworthy chase days in late May (I'm not counting the chaser who was hit by a likely non-chaser near Fort Stockton) and the tour van incident. I believe we are in an irreversible trend that will feature more reckless behavior and accidents. Part of it is to be expected due to numbers/probability, but the total amount of people chasing appears to be increasing exponentially. I would argue that the ratio of experienced/knowledgeable chasers to non-experienced/knowledgeable is shifting toward being more heavily weighted on the latter. Even as recently as a decade ago, I would say that the vast majority of chasers were experienced in one way or another. These days, I don't think that's the case.

What I also noticed is that once the historic stretch started to wind down and targets dispersed, chaser traffic dropped significantly. I chased 13 days in a row from May 20 - June 1 and after May 28th, I did not see many chasers out at all. The only small exception was on May 31st south of Fort Stockton. There were no traffic issues, but I did see a lot of chasers. Almost a surprising amount for so far south. Even May 28th was not bad, as I think chasers were almost evenly split into two different targets.

I have also noticed that the talk and engagement on social media (mostly Twitter since I'm the most active there and have a large reach) about chasing dropped off sharply into the last few days of May. It almost feels like it started to drop off a bit around Memorial Day. The rate of decline was perhaps even more than one would have expected. I'm guessing this is because most chasecations are over and there is probably a segment of the community that simply ran out of money, possibly from having so many chase days pop up in a row.

I'm curious to see how June will fare. I won't be chasing much this week or next, but I have chase time blocked off around the middle of the month. I'm hoping to be chasing in the Northern Plains for a good portion of that time and I'll report back with how traffic compares. I regularly do a lot of chasing in June, so I imagine I'll be able to get a gauge to how this June compares to previous years.
 
I’m having trouble understanding how good forecasting helps all that much, as posted by others above. I’m not saying it doesn’t help at all: It gets you on a storm early and in good position, maybe you have some time alone with it before it gets crowded, and you’ll make earlier decisions about when/where to move as the storm evolves, so that you are not playing catch-up at the back of a long line of cars. But the bottom line is that eventually the hordes arrive, and you’re going to get caught in it no matter how good your forecast was. At that point, your advantage is gone. It’s still a pain in the a$$ to find a place to pull over, to get back on the road, and you’re constantly worried about lingering too long to enjoy the storm because you don’t want to end up at the back of the caravan. I just think it’s impossible to ensure that you’re always leading the pack, you’re going to be in the caravan at some point, regardless of how good your forecast was. Now, having better knowledge of the roads can help, but that’s a separate issue, I’m specifically talking about the forecasting comments here.
 
That's how it was for me on the Lamar Colorado storm on May 26th. It was my first plains chase, so this was my first real experience with chaser convergence. I tried my best to stay near the front, but there was an instance where I got too far ahead of the storm itself. I missed the McClave tornado for this reason. There was also the instance where I sat and watched a rugged looking wall cloud form but fell behind the crowd. One things for sure, I really enjoyed this chase, even with all the other chasers out there. I'd gladly do it again! As many others have said, chase plan, b, or c. My only regret was calling off the next 2 days of chasing, because I stayed in Colby KS the night after the Colorado chase. Which had me in great position for the next day. It just makes me hungry for next year, because there will be no chase I back out on.
 
Again, if you have the experience and understanding you can visually (and from radar, I guess) see the clues that let you know when it's time to change from 'stay ahead of the storm' to 'snipe that tube' mode. I've only ever been surprised a few times recently by a storm producing, one of them was the Katie/Wynnewood storm which I had positioned myself ahead of. I just had to back track south in the opposite direction most people were going anyway. I don't consider myself an expert or whatever, but I have taken the time in my years of chasing to learn the visual clues. I guess the once a year for a week chasecationers don't get that luxury, but that's why they also end up at the back of the line. Enjoy your 51 weeks wherever else you live. I moved to the buckle of the bible belt to see tornadoes, not because I didn't like liquor sales after 9pm or Sunday the lords day, where you also can't buy cars because jesus. I put up with this state 52 weeks a year because I enjoy the dozen or so days with big ass tornadoes.
 
..I don't consider myself an expert or whatever, but I have taken the time in my years of chasing to learn the visual clues. I guess the once a year for a week chasecationers don't get that luxury, but that's why they also end up at the back of the line. Enjoy your 51 weeks wherever else you live. I moved to the buckle of the bible belt to see tornadoes, ...

Yes, I’ve always suspected that we chase vacationers are looked down upon as lower tier chasers, and now we are quite literally at the back of the line 😒. Seriously though, you are correct, even with a two-week trip each year it is difficult to become proficient, with a long-term average of probably 5 good chase days per year. It takes a couple of those chases just to shake off the rust from the prior year which accumulates after 50 weeks of not chasing. It is simply not enough experience or “practice” and at that rate could take 100 years to get really good.

Not a problem I am likely to solve for another 10-15 years, at which point I will be retired. I still won’t be living on the Plains, but God willing I’ll be able to spend most or all of the season out there. Until then I guess I’ll have to take what I can get as a “recreational” chaser.
 
Not even really looked down upon as lower tier chasers, but there is definitely a home field advantage. Of course I went a long time between chases so I had some real rust to shake off too, but it was like riding a bike for me, minus all that hard physical labor stuff. lol.

Seriously, it's a trade off. Would I love to live somewhere that's awesome most of the year? Of course. I can't have my cake and eat it too, though, and quite literally I live in Oklahoma for tornadoes. My salary is lower here than it would be in say Austin, DFW, Atlanta, anywhere on the east coast or west coast or Chicago or any other tech cities. Of course, our cost of living is low too. Our summers are hot, and the weekend sightseeing trips are limited here. And we still have a stupid traffic problem because Okies are %!@%$!%!@$ annoyingly slow drivers and way too courteous. So my trips are to places that are cool, and that is something i can control. Banff in the summer will always be Banff in the summer, and I can concretely plan a week to go there not during storm season and enjoy myself. The trade off to that is that I have to live in Oklahoma, but I'm there for the storms whenever they happen. Marginal setup in March <2 hours from home? I'm there. Supercells in October or November? Sure, lets get in the car.

There's no looking down upon the others who chasecation (except perhaps Dave Lewison, for the lulz) and live elsewhere. I'm pretty sure they live much healthier/balanced lives than I do.
 
Ever since the May 3, 1999 outbreak (I was only 7 at the time). My goal has been to move to Oklahoma, to chase these things on a consistent basis. The image that stuck in my head for years was the image of the wedge, with a satellite right next to it. I currently live in Illinois and have been chasing here since 2009. Just got to hope for the good warm front set ups that Illinois is notorious for. Chased the dry-line for the first time this year and had a great chase. Working on getting a place down there now.
 
Convergence will not always be as bad as it was this year, and there are two reasons that it was worse this year than in the past:

a) haze. Easily the most frustrating aspect of chasing this year was the haze, and it made convergence way, way worse.

On 5/20, I dove into Texas after the storm fairly early south of Childress. I was in the inflow notch on a plateau overlooking the canyon about 3 miles southeast of the circulation. I couldn't make out a storm base, let alone the multiple brief tornadoes reported. It forced me, and everyone else, to get closer to see, including those who were clueless. Instead of dealing with that, I went back through the canyon to get ahead and yet within minutes the traffic began to pile up in Childress because everyone else also knew that there was no good viewing until we were out of the canyon. Ultimately, even with the lack of roads and even with just one storm, the crowds would thin accordingly, particularly among the local yokels that we all ramble on about, as people who prefer viewing from a distance would be able to view from a distance and those of us who prefer a more aggressive approach would be in more manageable crowds, such as was the case on 5/26 in Colorado or 5/17 in Nebraska.

On 5/23, I bailed from the notch of a classic supercell and cut through another canyon in the TX panhandle southeast of Perryton ahead of the crowd. In a scenario where there should have been visibility, there was none, and while it is true that we had a miracle of a road to play with to get up close and personal on a slow moving supercell and 100+ chasers were on it, it was manageable - until it was dangerous, that is. Many were stopping in a dangerous position directly in the path of an impending tornado (and a half-mile wide wedge 30 minutes later), the only place where you could actually see. I turned my car around and waited in line to get out and get ahead, where I eventually bailed on the storm, knowing that those I passed were taking an unnecessary risk but ultimately making their own dumb choices. I am glad I did not see the traffic jam that took place underneath that meso when they all simultaneously had to move at the last possible second without any room for error.

b) the cap, or lack thereof, and messy storm modes.

My experience with dryline storms is fairly limited living in the midwest, but I know how to chase them. Better yet, I know how not to chase them. The triple point goes first, the remainder of the dryline remains capped for another hour, and then there are multiple supercells, generally more isolated and less rainy. This is exactly what almost happened on 5/7 with the Tulia storm, but that day got very messy very quickly, and those who were baited by the SPC's 15% hatched zone around the boundary intersection or by the earlier initiation up north realized that their only shot at an isolated storm was to the south. Those who were on the Tulia storm as it initiated outside of Lubbock were fairly lonely for awhile beforehand, and had those storms up north been more isolated with a little bit of capping in place during the daylight hours, there would not have been convergence issues that day because there would have been no need for those who played the early storms to change their strategy.

Early initiation isn't necessarily a death sentence, and there were plenty of days with early initiation this year that otherwise lived up to their tornado potential. Yet I chased every day from 5/17 through 5/28 and only once did I chase storms that were fighting a legitimate capping inversion - 5/22, when I targeted central OK instead of NE OK. A storm went up near Lawton, which, as had been the case to that point, was hard to view with the haze. It looked as if it would sustain itself and even prompted the NWS to extend a 10% hatched risk down through that region, but it (probably for the best) got capped off within two hours of initiation. There was no convergence because other storms had already initiated north of Oklahoma City. The local Oklahoma crowd had already flocked to the first radar blips, the first warnings, and the first tornado reports in Guthrie. I had never felt so lonely in Chickasha in my life. I only ran into convergence as I adjusted north toward Red Rock later in the day to chase a storm that looked ready to go only produced briefly after dark before I bailed on it.

There are some realities that we are going to have to learn to deal with as chasers, and one of those is that yes, we will encounter highways with a line of a couple hundred of us chasing after a storm. Another of those is that in that line, there will be idiots who think that it's safe to pull over with two wheels in the road, who watch the storm and glance at the road instead of watching the road and glancing at the storm, and who think streaming scud is the coolest thing they've ever seen. Some people will chase based on the SPC, and despite the fact that some of us do our own forecasts that sometimes "beat" the SPC it is a good thing that people pay attention to the SPC and that the SPC is getting much better at correctly outlining risk areas. We won't get such a hyperactive pattern in most future seasons, but we won't be dealing with the haze and the constant mess caused by early initiation that we did this year, and that will help to thin/spread out the crowds in the southern plains drastically.
 
Back
Top