Do Storms Give Your Street the Brush?

[Terry Tyler]

we get alot of good things here locally...an F-2 hit just down the road from us about 6 or 7 years ago, and you can still see the damage to the trees and whatnot...

personally, i would be chasing the whole south, but right now as it is...i aint got the funds, or the equipment to really mount a serious long distance chase just yet...

they call "tornado alley" around here like pontotoc county and whatnot...especially if you go south of here, near egypt mississippi...if anyones familiar with the state, and have been around...i go down there everyonce in a while, and the landscape is almost plains like...MS gets plenty of good storms, and i usually wait for something like yesterday with the neigboring counties where they have warnings, because not just is it hard to do ANYTHING without decent intel on the storms, but its very dangerous too, so i go where i know all the roads and whatnot...

bottom line is, it doesnt matter how close or how far you are from the storms...you gotta have some good intel to know where everythings at, that way you can stay up on your game and be sure to know...whether its near your house, or out in some other county...you know where its at...

 

[Patrick Boomer]

Hi Dan
I also prefer to watch from home base or within a mile or two, and rarely more than 50 one way. I like to meet them out near the foothills and let them pull me back toward home. Things brew up fast here and I got stung in 06 by going out too far for a look and getting preventable damage at home while I was gone. I didn't like that at all and it won't happen again.

Thankfully, we are also in a bit of a shadow right here, about 2 square miles from what I have seen over 12 years, and I think it has to be terrain features that are causing it. Nasties to the north, nasties to the south, but not one direct hit since we have been here. We have a good sized ridge/hill ~3 miles to the NW and one big hill about 20 miles to the SW and they both seem to split or push storms around us here.

 

[Dan Nichols]

Yesterday, during our first foray into 70 degrees this year as well as a beautiful stormless day, I did what you might call an "exploratory chase". A town approximately 20 miles east of me (Tolland, CT) is a more active storm area than here -- what isn't? -- and has a nice park with a clubhouse / lodge overlooking a pond. This park is an excellent vantage point to view a teriffic thunderstorm, but I could not remember well enough the locations of any of the buildings from which I could observe (and stay dry). But the dry run and reacquaintence was just the ticket to jog my memory, and therby avoid any last-second fumbling, if the time comes when there's a storm bearing down in dead heat. So if the radar looks right for that area, then -- Zoom!! -- there I'll be!!

Perhaps some of you might know of such a location in your chase area in which to view some future great spectacle. Just practice your routes when you've got the time, so you'll not be befuddled while under pressure......