Epic accidental chase wall of fame

[Marc R. O'Leary]

Just to counter the wall of shame thread; lets hear about your accidental great days and catches.


I'll start...my first ever tornado was the southlands mall Aurora CO tornado. I went out to set up for structure and lightning...way before I understood severe storms. I was about a mile north of genesis when I looked south and saw something out of the ordinary, for me, and suddenly theres a twister. Seconds later got a terrified call from my wife asking what she should do after seeing it from the kitchen window.

I told her to not worry,and get outside and take pictures! (She grabbed the critters and hid in the basement) Since i could see it was moving away from the house.

Got some great pictures (IMO) that I'll post when im not on my tablet.

So share yours, if any...accidental GOOD days.

 

[Marc R. O'Leary]

Pic as promised. Nothing special...just my first.

 

[Alex Heimberger]

Nice accidental catch! Thanks for sharing. My accidental catches happened years ago in SW Michigan. Not necessarily chases but partly the reason I've got into chasing across America.

Grew up close to Lake Michigan when I was a kid. Every once in a while would get to see a waterspout from the many beaches along the lake. Saw one in Michigan City which was quite a stout tube. Saw a few in St. Joseph/Benton Harbor area. Believe the most recent one I witnessed was in South Haven when I was at the skatepark. Again all happened growing up in Michigan as a kid so unfortunately no videos or pictures. Was more into skimboards or skateboarding. Most of these a couple decades ago. It's a pretty magical scene to witness. I think that's because you know nothings getting destroyed and no ones getting hurt. Plus I've always loved water and seeing something like that over water is amazing.

 

[Todd Lemery]

Many years ago, before anybody had heard of cell phones or the internet, my brothers and I would see a tornado warning on TV, make a mad dash to the car and wonder why we couldn't see any tornados. We weren't smart enough to know that the odds of us catching up to a tornado were right about zero.
So anyway, I was at work in Marinette Wisconsin when a beautiful storm rolled through. It had lots of lightening, wind and hail. Nice. As it passed I went up on the roof of the building to watch it move across the bay of Green Bay. I no sooner got up there when a tornado dropped down and moved across the bay. It hit Door county Wisconsin as an F3. (Door county was about 18 miles away). That was my first tornado and nobody would believe me until they saw it on the news that night. I guess part of the reason nobody believed me was that leap years are more common than tornados in my neck of the woods.
That event made me realize how little I knew about storm structure and tornados. Up until then, I didn't even have a clue as to what part of a storm I should even be looking at. I was shocked that there was a tornado when the storm was "over". I'll never forget it because it was my first one and it completely surprised me. As a side note, the tornado sirens never went off.

 

[Bob Schafer]

I made my first trip to Ireland in 2007. The very last thing I expected to see was a tornado. Well, okay, it wasn't a tornado, but I did see a waterspout. While just relaxing and having a cup of tea at Mizen Head I suddenly nearly soiled myself when I glanced out the window and saw it.

 

[Adam Lucio]

Mine is a well told story and if you know me you probably know which date I will be picking for this one.

June 7, 2008.

There was a MDT risk in IA that I was upset I would be missing because I had oral surgery to have a tooth pulled that morning. While sitting at home in agony spitting up blood everywhere a cyclic supercell blew up in C IL and tracked just south of Chicago, dropping 8 tornadoes along its way. I caught one of the last ones as it crossed a major interstate. This was actually my first GOOD tornado catch in my career and put my name on the map so to speak. I will admit the only reason I saw this tornado is because over a month prior to the date I scheduled that appointment. Funny how that works sometimes.

 

[Nick Nolte]

Anytime I can bring up Dexter, I will lol, so my epic accidental chase day was March 15, 2012 intercepting the Dexter EF-3 straight out of work a mere 20 miles from my house. Just working in Jackson like normal, step out the back door at 5pm and an atom bomb of a storm is to the east and I'm like 'wat?' 15mph southeast storm motion that day, just everything about it was atypical for Michigan. Intercepted it already in progress and got to stand in one spot and watch it for 10 or 15 minutes before I had to bail. Had no gear on me because this was pretty out of the blue so all photos and video were from my iPhone which is why my video is shaky (and has 'tape skewing'): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUCUzl7foO8

mmmm look at that classic signature

 

[Marc R. O'Leary]

Nick...I grew up in Grass Lake...small world!

 

[Marcus Diaz]

I'm about to lay out an example of Caprock Magic right here. So this was a day before the day before the day type of deal. While most people were en route to the TX Panhandle for what looked a promising setup, I was working as usual back on April 20, 2010. I knew I had to get my work done so I could chase on April 22. I knew there was a small chance of some storms that day, but did not expect anything crazy. Dewpoints in the upper 40s/low 50s for the day. We were sitting between 2 mid level lows (one on each coast). The setup was sub-par to say the least. An MD was issued which mentioned some severe weather way up to our northwest, but nothing major (look at those dewpoints). Regardless, as the afternoon wore on, a storm popped northwest of Amarillo. It kept growing and not moving much, but eventually it rolled slowly southeast. I decided to leave work and intercept the storm. I drove about 10 miles from my job west near Bushland, TX and sat under the meso. After about 5 minutes of waiting, the storm dropped a tornado that lasted about 5 minutes. It was probably the best surprise day I can think of. Close to home, photogenic, and slow moving. But just like Nick, I didn't have a great way of taking a pic. This is the best I could do on short notice.

 

[James Simonds]

My best accidental chase was the same as Nick's: the March 15, Dexter tornado. I had been in Chelsea most of the day, completely oblivious to the changing conditions. I hadn't even checked the weather report that morning because, after all, it was March in Michigan (I later read the SPC had given SE Michigan a 2% chance of tornadoes). Needless to say, I was quite surprised to hear sirens start going off. I didn't know what was going on. I looked north, and that's when I saw it: a dark, menacing wall cloud. The next four hours involved me chasing the storm all over the place, eventually leading me down to Dundee where I stopped in at Cabelas.

Back then I didn't even have a smart phone, so all I managed to capture are some of the worst storm photos you'll probably ever see. Nick took the best shots of it that I've personally seen.

 

[Shane Adams]

Mine is definitely the October 24, 2010 Rice, TX day. We went out the two previous days and couldn't get a storm to do anything near the ground (actually ended up in Rice on the 23rd with a tornado-warned storm that was undercut). So that burned up our Friday and Saturday. On Sunday, I was feeling very lazy, robbed of my weekend to that point, and not very "chasey". However, because Bridget was persistent and got me up off the couch, we had one of our best days ever, and without a doubt the best "surprise" chase of our lives......

http://www.passiontwist.com/102410chase.htm

 

[Brett Roberts]

By far the most accidental would be the 2009-06-12 nocturnal tornado in east Norman. I drove about a mile from my apartment strictly to shoot lightning and wasn't even thinking supercells, when I glanced at radar and saw an incredible, spiraling hook echo on TOKC reflectivity.

Second place would be my most recent chase -- this past fall on 2014-09-01 near Dexter, KS. I was chasing for structure and lightning, and particularly after so many failed occlusions during daylight, couldn't have been more shocked to witness a photogenic elephant trunk right at dusk.

The common theme between these "accidents" for me seems to be that my skills as a photographer go down the crapper when I'm not prepared!

Honorable mentions: Bennington (2013-05-28) and Sulphur/Ada (2011-05-21) -- days where I nearly chose not to chase, but some weird circumstance (or a chase partner) led me to anyway.

 

[Robert Forry]

My apologies for the almost "thumbnail sized" pics. I'm still trying to locate the video I pulled the stills from. Mine accidentail chase was on Super Tuesday on Feb 5th, 2008, near our home at the time in Jackson, TN. It was just a little past 7 PM when the cell that had caused considerable damage in SE Memphis made it's way into Madison County. We had tracked the storm on GR3 from our home, and my wife and I took off for it when we realized it was going to move away from our home. These shots were taken looking NW at the storm (intersection of US Hwy 412 and US Hwy 70, near Exit 87 (I-40)), which had just it gone through a small sub-divison near Christmasville Road. The tornado, which to us appeared a parent circulation with a smaller satillite twister rotating around the meso. I believe the damage survey done by NWS Memphis determined this to be one tornado which was cycling. The storm was rated as EF4 and destroyed the Student Commons at Union University.

 

[John Farley]

Mine would be my most recent chase - September 29, 2014 west of Chama, NM. I had been working all day on re-arranging some travel plans, so had not paid too much attention to weather. I knew it was a potential chase day on the plains of eastern CO and NM, and that strong storms were possible, to a lesser extent, in and west of the mountains. Finally around 3 p.m. I had finished with the travel plans and looked at radar to see a very intense storm near Navajo Dam, just east of Farmington, NM. It was in a spot far from both the Albuquerque and Grand Junction radars, where I had never before seen a decent return that showed up on both radars, but this one was red on both. And moving in a direction where I could easily drive right down U.S. 84 for an intercept near the state line. So, out I went. I figured it might be a supercell, and after I was on the road it became SVR warned, but I was expecting nothing more than good storm structure and maybe some impressive hail accumulations. However, the storm had other ideas, producing only the second tornado ever on record in Rio Arriba County, NM, right near the split of U.S. 84 and U.S. 64. Elevation there is around 8,000 feet, and it is a few miles west of the Continental Divide. As it turns out, there were two tornadoes that day, both west of the Continental Divide (the other was in west-central CO). Here is a video capture of the tornado I saw:

 

[Max Olson]

August 24, 2008, we had just returned from a family gathering up north of Denver. When we returned home to Parker, CO, we noticed some solid updrafts outside. We stepped out and withen a few minutes, we had a funnel. My dad and I hoped in the car and took off. The line of storms streched accross Douglas and Elbert County, presumably along a boundary, and the event yielded quite a few landspouts. Palmer Divide magic never fails!