Epic Fail Chase wall of shame

[chadvia]

As much as I hate to tell this story, it's too funny not to share. I live in NW Ohio and was anxious to go chasing again this year and decided to head toward Kansas at 3:00am on 6/11/10. I knew it would be a gamble since it looked like most of the action would be in Eastern Colorado, but decided to try it anyway. By the time I reached Saint Louis, I then knew the trip would be a bust if I tried to go the rest of the way. (Colorado was too far to reach by evening) After spending some time in Saint Louis, my son and I decided to head back to Ohio.

Here's the real upsetting part...

By the time we reached Indianapolis, the radar showed some nice storms in NW Ohio. We joked how we should have stayed at home and chased. Then my phone rang...

To make a long story short, we had a brief tornado only seven miles from my house and two other report funnel clouds. On a day we drove 900 miles in hopes of a day or two of chasing, we really only would have needed to use about one gallon of gas.

I do hate to admit such a story, I'm not going to live this one down for a while. Anyone else have an experience they want to add to my wall of shame?

 

[Skip Talbot]

Chad, I've got a good story for you that happened on the same day and its also shameful.

After intercepting a storm southwest of Limon on June 11, I decided to keep going west after it went HP to get some pretty shots of new storms coming off the front range. I pulled off the road near Calhan, CO next to a deep but narrow culvert. After watching the storm for a few minutes I forgot the culvert was there and couldnt see it from the driver's seat, just a flat sandy shoulder that I thought I could use to turn around. I turned and drove right into the damn culvert. The front end of the van went into the hole, the bumper slamming down on the far edge of the hole. The front tires of my front wheel drive minivan were suspended in midair. I was definitely not getting out of there on my own. Two locals stopped within minutes, one had a chain and the other a pickup and they just yanked me right of there. The front bumper is loose but the van seems fine otherwise. I felt like a complete idiot. Shameful story, but I'm thankful as it could have been a lot worse and thank God for those kind hearted locals.

More along the lines of your story. I can't tell you how many times I've been out in Kansas or Nebraska or somewhere and my family back in Chicago calls me to tell me that the sirens are going off there. The conversation usually goes something along the lines of, "Skip? Where are you?" "Kansas" "What's the weather like there?" "Sunny and muggy" "Well the sirens are going off here..." Just another fun part of chasing.
.

 

[Bob Schafer]

Oh boy, here we go. I wasn't really going to post this, then you had to go and start this thread. Today of all days.

Skip, I wondered how you fared after we met Friday! Obviously, you know you didn't miss anything epic.

Skipping the story about the tornado that was on the ground for a half hour 5 miles from my house 6-5-2008 while I was in KS chasing the HIGH...

Today I spent the whole afternoon on my back, shirtless (so I wouldn't ruin a shirt), in the pouring rain and lightning in front of O'Reilly's Auto Parts in Perryton. (I couldn't find a mechanic to work on it. Sunday, ya know.)

5 miles SW Perryton, I lost my serpentine belt. I got a new one at O'Reilly's, only to find out that the reason I lost the other one was because the only thing attaching the A/C compressor to the engine was the one tensioner bolt. The bolt that used to attach it to the engine had fallen out. There's more to it, but let me just say two things and then finish the story:

1) I don't think I've ever been so cold in June before. The hot shower I just took felt great.

2) Chris, the manager at O'Reilly's, loaned me brand new tools to try to fix the car. I kept walking back in, sheepishly saying stuff like "Could I possibly borrow a screwdriver?" and "Well, now I need a 13mm wrench". Every single time (about 6 of them) he went and grabbed a brand new tool off the shelves, ripped it out of its packaging, and handed it to me. He insists he can still sell all of them. I dunno. To anyone reading this, please, if you can, buy something from him if you ever happen to be in Perryton with 5 minutes to kill. Oil & filter. Wiper blades for next year. Whatever. Thanks! (and tell him I sent you.) He's one block east of McDonald's.

 

[Kory Hartman]

Wow... very nice of the guy, Bob!

Back on the original topic...

I missed THIS:
http://mnwxchaser.com/070505/070505004.jpg

90 minutes from my house... completely ignored the warm front and chased the "HIGH" risk in central Neb.

 

[Jeff Hawkins]

I will confess that on 6/5/10 the SPC forecast and the models showed SE Iowa was the place to be. I got up Saturday morning seeing this and high-tailed it to SE Iowa where the skies opened up sunny in Mount Pleasant at 2pm...I then went west about 40 miles to Ottumwa where supposedly the best setup point should be (according to the models).
Needless to say, I watched on radar as some storms fired nearby but nothing like I expected (there also was a line moving NW to SE north of Des Moines). No rotation, no nothing. I headed east back to Mount Pleasant to make my next move.
Found out a bit later there were storms firing in west-central IL that became tornadic...there's lots of posts here describing them elsewhere.
The timing was hard...it was around 7:30pm...I could head east and meet up with the storms, risking that by the time I got there they would have died out or gone linear, or that it would be after dark (I have minimal ability to chase after dark). Or I could just drive north back to I-80 and drive east, to home. I chose the latter, and drove home watching lightning in the clouds far off to the south as I drove home.
In retrospect, the trip was a bust, but it also was a success. I didn't see anything, but I did follow my first rule of chasing handed to my by Fabian Guerra..safety first.
So this means that the worst bust always holds a lesson to be learned.

 

[Mikey Gribble]

Dude I can take the cake with epic failures. My credentials in that category are unmatched.

I sat just east of Greensburg the day the EF5 hit there waiting on storms to fire. Was fully aware of the potential that day and for some reason still unknown to me decided to leave and head back to Wichita after storms fired because I wanted to get a good nights sleep for the outbreak that was going to happen the next day. I was literally there already and bailed because I'm lazy.

On May 12, 2004 I was on the Harper county tornadic supercell. I was only about a quarter mile away from the F3 as it crossed the highway and picked up that house. I had the exact same view as McPartland, whose video everybody has seen where the house gets picked up. In fact in somebodys video of the house getting hit on CNN you could see me parked in front of them resting the camera on my spare tire for a steady shot. Only problem was that I forgot to hit record and didn't realize it until the tornado roped out. That was the first time I saw a house get hit and didn't get it on video.

The next year on April 21,2005 I got on the Neosho county tornadic supercell. Same story, I'm right behind an F3 tracking down the road in front of me. No other chasers were close by. There were a few on the storm, but they were southeast of the tornado. I am a few hundred yards away when it starts to hit this house/farm. The video was amazing. There was debris wrapping around it, the car at the house got propped up in a tree. It was awesome (they didn't get hurt btw). Only problem was that I decided to manually set the white balance on my camera for the first time about 15 minutes before I got on the storm. The video is all bright white and you can barely see anything. Doh!

Those are probably my top 3. I have a list a mile long of colossally stupid mistakes. I think I've learned every possible lesson there is in storm chasing the hard way.

 

[Rob H]

Those are probably my top 3. I have a list a mile long of colossally stupid mistakes. I think I've learned every possible lesson there is in storm chasing the hard way.

Mikey, those are some "good" mistakes

I've only been seriously chasing for a year now, so my list is small, but I'm certain it will grow very nicely. Missing the big Bowdle tornado on 5/22/10 hurt bad. We sat at a gas station assuming that the towers going up weren't 100 miles away (they were) and waited for echo tops confirmation on Threatnet (which never happened). Always trust your eyes over the data!

Technology failure/ignorance on 5/10/10 resulted in me failing to get in focus video from a vantage point no one else really had. Don't buy a brand new camera that you're not familiar with and haven't field tested on what you know is going to be a big day. Same goes for any new technology - I've gotten in the habit of chasing local air mass thunderstorms to test new things out now.

Mistakes can be rather humbling, but they're part of the game and I appreciate everyone sharing theirs. My chase partner keeps quoting someone (I think it was Tim Marshall), saying that the mistakes and busts are what keep you coming back every year.

 

[Ben Holcomb]

I've made my share of stupid mistakes. Not recording being in a tornado or at least the outer circulations/RFD from the Yazoo day....

But my biggest mistake was not sticking to my target on June 5 of this year, and being baited to iowa where I got to play catch up the rest of the day and didn't see a thing.

PROTIP: Never go to Iowa. Ever. It sucks. Bad.

 

[Jarrod Barnett]

You actually arent all too far from me Chad. Yeah that stuff was BAD that night. I wasnt able to go out because I was out for my girls birthday but sittin in the bar in Sandusky which is right on the lake, I kept listening to my weather alerts and watching the radar and told everyone it looked like something bad was going to happen. Im disappointed I was right as 6 people died that night and actually one of the girls who was out with us is friends with a police officer that was injured when the tornado hit, she left after she got the call to head there.

We called it a night and about 2:00am I got woke up by the Tornado sirens going off in Sandusky.


Anyways.... I have a story... On May 7th this year I headed out at 8am for my 10 day adventure in Tornado Alley like I do every spring with my bestfriend. That morning before we left I was listening to the weather radio and what they were calling for that day and I told him "Dude I think we should stay here for this. It looks promising.".

Looked at the radar and figured that we would just leave as normally this area is like the Bermuda Triangle for storms. Stuff blows in or brews up and *POOF* its gone.

Well we headed west and started driving through this storm that was developing in Indiana & Illinois throughout the afternoon.

About 5pm Im listening to weather alerts and looking at the radar on the laptop and it looks promising.

Severe Thunderstorm Warnings were issued....well as soon as the crap started hitting the fan back at home the texts started flying into my phone from all my family & friends like "you shoulda stayed here and chased its getting bad." blah, blah blah...

About an hour after the warnings were issued I get a media message to my phone, it downloads, I open it, its a picture from one of my best friends back home who lives down the road from me. Instantly I see a scene thats very familiar to me... the fields behind my house.... but this time they have a HUGE rotating wall cloud almost directly above them.

In my own freaking backyard! Seriously! I could have been sitting on the john taking pics of it. lol

It never produced anything except some hail and strong winds.

If I wouldnt have left I could have watched this entire thing roll into my back yard.

Oh well... ya win some ya lose some. ANY actual chaser has missed storms or made bad calls. Its part of the game. You live & learn.

On May 10 though we made up for that loss by getting up into some good stuff in Enid, Oklahoma which actually produced.

Mikey is actually the one who put us up in the mix that day as we were chasing with him.

 

[Tony Laubach]

Well, there isn't a forum long enough in the world to fit my wall of shame... how many times have I left Colorado.. hell, just Denver, only to have tornadoes there. I have missed 3 in the last 2 years that were within minutes of my apartment. Missed dozens of others within 75 miles of my place over the last few years. Do it multiple times every single year... I am cursed with my resident state.

 

[Shane Adams]

Woke up in OKC Memorial Day planning to chase...looked at data....decided it wasn't worth a drive to the SE tip of Colorado (that had been my target for three days)...drove home. You know the rest.

June 13, 1998....the day that will haunt me forever....turned down a chance to chase locally with my normal chase partners at the time because I was RSVP'd to a wedding reception of a few close friends.....had chased June 8 and busted so I expected nothing.....my ride for the reception was late, which gave me plenty of time to watch live coverage of a local OKC metro tornado outbreak....three of which my partners observed. Since that day I will blow off any "normal life" plans no matter how close a friend/important an occasion the event might be....don't include Shane in any plans between March and July.

There are so many others, I could write a book. But the occasional successes are so worth the pain and agony in between.

 

[Chris McBee]

Woke up in OKC Memorial Day planning to chase...looked at data....decided it wasn't worth a drive to the SE tip of Colorado (that had been my target for three days)...drove home. You know the rest.

I also decided not to head to SE CO and I live in OK. That's how little respect I gave that day's setup. Missed that glorious tornado and have been kicking myself ever since. Epic fail.

 

[Jason Young]

Well I feel the pain . Mine would be the May 10th ooutbreak . Thought nothing would fire in S.C. Oklahoma , so I went to Perry . Sure enough while I am shotting the worse video I have ever shot , a storm fires around Duncan and I
am 100 mile's away . The wife and kid's love's reminding about there two trip's to the shelter . Another sad one is me messing up and hitting the record button to many time's and not recording the Lone Grove tornado as it went through town a few blocks to my east . Yes , I am still mad that I missed the shot of the year !

 

[Brendon Lindsey]

Well well one clearly stands out for me, last year. I sat in a trailer park all day in the small town of Lone Grove, OK until about an hour from sunset. The storms were way off to my west but I knew they should have been popping where I was... So I didnt chase those and decided to wait. Many individuals from the trailer park asked me if it was gonna storm and be bad, I told them it looks to be setting up that way. I waited for four hours and gave up probably 45 minutes to an hour to early. So sad. I cant really hold the recent beauty in the OK panhandle against myself, bc I would have never drove to SE Colorado by myself for a marginal setup. To much of a risk, I kinda tell myself if it happens it happens. Im starting to analyze risks haha.

 

[Chris Hayes]

Biggest epic fail for me that I can think of was May 29, 2008. It was a succesful chase, and it wasnt. I got on the supercell that would produce one of the Kearney tornadoes. After watching the tornado from the south side of 80, I purused the storm eastward for a little while. I saw multiple chasers getting off 80, and heading south! I continued on 80. Ended up missing the storm of the day across NW/NC KS.