Epic Fail Chase wall of shame

[Steve Miller]

Mine was definitely this year on 5/10 when I was chasing a high risk in Central OK, about 50 miles north of my house and, while chasing and missing a tornado near I-35 & 412, a storm fired SW of Moore that would later hit my home (with my wife in it in the shelter).

I knew there was a chance of the cell forming and going near Moore but chased the northern potential anyhow. That will not happen again. Turns out "Moore Magic" is the real deal and making the installation of an underground storm shelter top priority when we moved here was smart.

More info about that incident: http://www.hamwx.com/?p=2922

 

[Michael Towers]

Even though I’ve had a decent year so far with 7 tornadoes and some great structure it is nonetheless a record year for epic failures:

May 10: 2000+ total trip miles for one day of chasing where I was on the storm of the day as it went up near Alva only to fall behind it as it put down numerous tornadoes along hwy. 11. I couldn’t see the tornadoes just a few miles ahead of me, just the telephones poles snapped in half in their wake and the huge hook on radar that seemed to mock me as it continued to stay such a short but uncatchable distance in front of me. Even though I ultimately did see a tornado it was brief and the fact that I missed so many others due to my mistake qualifies the entire chase as a failure, an epic one given the distance traveled and circumstances. Oh, can’t forget a little salt in the wound…had I stayed in Medford as originally planned I could have just sat back and enjoyed the tornadofest.

May 22: Drove at breakneck pace for an 850 mile intercept. A navigation error as I approached the storm cost me about 30 minutes and according to my GPS logs I arrived in Bowdle only 15 minutes after the incredible wedge. The fact that I did see two tornadoes doesn’t compensate for missing what would have been the best tornado of my life. Total mileage for the day 1026. To drive so far and to come that close to something that amazing only to miss it because of my own error is indeed an epic failure. Watching the videos is nothing short of masochistic.

June 10: Left home at 7am with long odds but high hopes of catching a storm in Colorado. If I made good time and the cap held things off until later in the evening I’d have a shot at something. If not I had two additional days to chase with each having promising set-ups so I had nothing to lose and a chance for a first day bonus. Entering Colorado I’m happy to see three storms going up, none of them yet severe warned. A swarm of chasers is on the northern storm and it just went severe but I think the one to its south will prevail as the better of the two. However the third storm is east of the others, closer to me and according to data in a better environment. As a bonus there’s only one chaser from SN on it so it shouldn’t be a circus. Seems like a no-brainer but that southern cell is looking better with each scan while the cell to the east remains relatively unchanged. Thinking that would change for the positive given the environment I commit to the east cell which subsequently dies after I’m past the point of no return. The southern cell does become the best storm and puts down tornadoes, the last of which I see from a distance so far away its hardly worth noting. Consolation was the amazing structure near Last Chance but given the 1019 mile total for the day and the lost opportunity to see multiple tornadoes from close range makes it another epic failure.

June 5: Drove 0 miles. Epic forecast failure (Unidirectional from 850 & up + Large scale forcing + Illinois = Crap). Moderate Risk? Trust your own forecast, don’t be swayed by the experts! Better to work today instead of chasing linear garbage. Yeah, I really nailed that one! I’ve driven over 9,000 miles chasing this year and a tornado outbreak occurs less than 200 miles from home and I’m not there. Been chasing 9 years and still haven’t seen an Illinois tornado. This chasing business can be cruel.

 

[Ric Burney]

03/10/2010. As it is too painful for me to retype (or I am just incredibly lazy..) it can be read here: http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/showthread.php?p=262214#post262214

 

[cdcollura]

Good day all,

Woke up in OKC Memorial Day planning to chase ... But the occasional successes are so worth the pain and agony in between.

I had a pretty successful chase year (April to May) but I also have a DAY OF SHAME to share as well.

My DOS (Day Of Shame) is Memorial Day (May 31, 2010).

I was chasing my butt off for about 2 weeks straight, and was in Oklahoma City on May 30-31, 2010. I was slated to fly back to FL out of Dallas, TX (returning to FL) on June 1.

May 31 was a very (VERY) marginal chase day, but I forecasted and targeted the area from Guymon, OK and northwestward into SE Colorado to be the "sweet spot" for May 31.

I woke up really late that day, like 10:30 AM. Then, got suckered into watching a movie, ET to be exact. For chasing. watching a movie is a curse, like eating at Subway with crappy service (the 9-16-06 "Tony L" effect).

By about 11:30 AM I decided "what the hell am I doing" and packed up and headed west out of OKC and stopped in Woodward, OK for data. I watched a half dozen chase vehicles pass me as I was sitting there, but looking at the "2%" by SPC and not seeing much ... Plus nearly falling asleep as I was so tired (I was in fact solo chasing at 10,000+ miles from May 19 on) ... I (RELUCTANTLY) turned around and headed back to OKC.

I stopped at the OKC memorial to "pay my respects" (it was Memorial Day after all), and headed back to take a nap at the motel in OKC.

I looked at the radar, and THERE it was, way past Guymon, OK, in SE Colorado ... The "pink" warning areas and lots of "kidney bean" red areas and / or shear markers on GRLevel3. I clicked on one, HOPING and PRAYING for "radar indicated a tornado..." only to see "storm chasers are tracking a large and dangerous tornado..." - WTF? - I kicked myself and cursed "ET".

I looked on ST, and saw the NOW thread, with tube after beautiful tube - Not hurting anyone, over open country, and (if you wanted to) with the ability to drive right up to one, put a "probe in it" or something, and walk away unscathed.

I was so sick - Only the successful chases during the prior two weeks (and hearing the VORTEX II team ALSO blew this setup off) cheered me up and kept me from losing my mind (but it still hurt).

No offense, V2, I share your angst. BTW, out of curiousity: Did V2 catch a movie that day (or eat at Subway) too?

I even made the mistake of making a comment on the NOW thread, with the line "I am drooling in OKC" and "so much for 2% - good luck to all who bagged" (rhetorical comments not allowed) and got an infraction for it / post was deleted ... Sorry about that.

Oh well, that was my "oops" day of 2010. The POINT is it happens to ALL of us chasers, veteran or newbie. It's like fishing. Whe big ones jump as soon as you turn your back on the lake. Never give up the ship (but we DO have our limits too) ;-)

 

[Scott Hammel]

@ Chris Collura: ET? Oh man!

For me this year, it is the May 22 Bowdle, SD day. Dann Cianca and I had been looking at this setup a few days prior and were completely sold on it until the day of. As I recall, there had been a few cap bust days right before then and the cap looked pretty strong that day as well. We both had commitments the next day, so it would've been a long marathon chase from Denver and back all in one day. Needless to say, we decided to pass on it. I suppose the thing that makes me feel better is that had we left when we planned and decided to go for it, we still wouldn't have made it there in time. I was able to at least watch from home as opposed to watching it from 150 miles south which would've been far more painful.

This year has been tremendously good to me, so I don't really consider it "epic" fail. I got the Campo tornado (redeemer of the year) and a bunch of other good stuff a lot of others didn't get to see so I'm able to easily stomach a few missed days here and there.

 

[Patrick Martin]

For me Memorial Day this year has by far been my biggest epic fail. I was already on chasecation, and after busting in NE 2 days earlier, my chase partner and I (after agonizing over whether to go or not) finally decided not to chase it b/c it seemed to marginal and we did not want another long drive back after a bust.

My target all along had been Springfield CO. You know how the rest goes. I'm not sure the scar from this will ever fully heal.

 

[Skip Talbot]

Sounds like missing the big one is the biggest moment of shame for most on here. I missed 5/31/2010, but I'm not too upset about it. Although not an SPC chaser, had I driven from Chicago to SE CO just to find myself sitting in a 2% and a blue box, I'd be wondering what the hell I was doing out there. Its just disappointing that some one of the best days of the year occur on what looks like the most marginal setups. I had played a number of upslope flow days already this year that looked just as good, but didn't turn out like that of course. You literally have to chase every single setup and have unlimited resources if you want to catch every amazing event like this, and that's just not realistic for me so it doesn't bother me.

Anyway, I posted video of my "shameful" moment driving into the culvert on June 11. Its pretty amusing:

 

[Andrew Stoller]

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.

Hell, I live 2 hours away, had my gear packed, and debated with myself for an hour whether to chase that day. I didn't...

%&*%#@!!!!!

 

[Chris Vagasky]

I'm going to make this short and sweet, since this one bothers me so much to this day.

April 24, 2006. El Reno day.

I was chasing for a local station at the time, and for whatever reason, wasn't given a call to go out. I ended up going out anyway, but had no data. Started out around Cushing, saw some flooding, hail, and a weak wall cloud.

Got back to the station, and they sent me out again. This time telling me to target Deer Creek. Well, there's a Deer Creek, Oklahoma, along the Kansas border, and a Deer Creek - Edmond, in the OKC Metro.

So, instead of heading west on I-40 to hit the Hefner...I was taking I-35 due north towards Kansas, when I got a phone call from a friend of mine who was on I-40 watching the tornado. I was in a company truck, and hit the Kilpatrick, heading towards El Reno at 90 miles an hour.

Missed the whole show.

 

[Eric Treece]

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.

I second this. The latest one was last year as I sat in Colby KS watching Verne Carlsons web cam of a giant stovepipe tornado about 8 miles from my house. The list goes on and on.........

 

[James Gustina]

Mine came as of yesterday:

After having a long string of busts(four in a row), I decided i may as well try and get something in the moderate risk area. Storms were in two areas. The stronger, more organized storm cluster was in Kentucky, with a strong squall line approaching from the West into Southeast Indiana. I picked the squall line in Southeast Indiana because i was already behind the N. Kentucky storm and would have had to drive through blinding rain to get to where i wanted to be.

So i left around 8:30 to head towards Harrison, Ohio. About 15 minutes out from Harrison I saw the best shelf cloud i've seen in person. Now here's where it turns into a mega fail. First I could not remember how to turn the flash off, which made it impossible to take photos because we were blowing down a highway and couldn't pull onto the narrow shoulder far enough to be considered safe. So i was forced to try and take photos through the windshield. Of course they didn't work. About 20 minutes later I remembered i could have turned the dial one notch left and had it on video(which would have recorded the entire shelf cloud fine). But it didn't end there. My camera decided to have battery failures under the line as the core was approaching. So I ended up with diddly squat to show for heading west.

Not a very bad bust, but kind of disheartening after having two errors caused by yourself on one chase after four consecutive busts.

 

[Kevin Walters]

April 8, 1999 in SW Iowa. Got behind a storm on the surging dryline and never could catch up. I made a poor choice when I took a county blacktop in Adams county and the storm blasted past me. If I would have been patient and waited just ten more minutes I would have witnessed a violent mile wide tornado. Storms were moving at 50mph and I moved when I should have stayed put.

 

[Andrew Stoller]

May 24th this year - took this one hook line and sinker:

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/md/md0688.html

Saw the cells developing off the Palmer Divide near Limon, visually from my home. Flew out the door - by the time I got to Limon, those storms were already in the NE panhandle producing tornadoes. Lesson learned - well, actually no, because I still do it! You can not get ahead of a thunderstorm that is moving as fast as your vehicle... Storm motions were north at 65 mph.

 

[Tim Vasquez]

June 2, 1995 -- While the Tulia TX tornado (link) was going on, I and another forecaster got suckered on some junk around Lubbock, I think near Cotton Center. I had to work on June 4/5, so I missed out on the smorgasbord of 1995, though I was on both of the damaging May 1995 hailstorms in San Angelo.

May 24, 1998 -- I was up in far north Oklahoma for this outbreak and only saw one pathetic rain-shrouded tornado. This was a real lesson in the difficulty of chasing alone, as I really couldn't drive safely, navigate, and monitor this storm (and the cell collisions). The smoke/haze problems didn't help. Got to settle for some good anvil crawlers after dark though.

October 4, 1998 -- Totally missed this one. Tried to intersect the line near Enid hoping to get into the best dynamics (as it seemed a lot of the "great stuff" in 1997 had happened up north rather than down south), and once I figured out what was going on with the grand show down near Watonga I had cell after cell between me and the new target. Geez. On top of that we almost got creamed on I-35 by the nighttime Moore tornado (sorry, I guess that's Moore Tornado #852).

Tim

 

[Adam Lucio]

Ive had many big failures as well. Some of which are this year.

5-19-10: Got on the ONE storm that didn't produce. That was a tough pill to swallow. That was one of those days where it seemed like every chaser in history scored except for us.

5-24-10: Missed round 2 of SD wedge fest because we were lazy and didn't want to get out of bed until checkout time. Could have easily been there as our hotel was in Aberdeen only 2 hours away.

6-5-10: Although we did nab 2 tornadoes from a distance near Peoria thanks to good last minute decision making...I should not have been baited to IA and seeing the amazing footage from others that day still makes me feel like I largely failed.

My worst local fail though would have to be 9-22-06: I was just starting to expand my chase distances at this point, and without any sort of data I ventured 3hrs from home to chase a MDT risk in IL/MO - the only radar I saw all day was from a rest stop on I-55. Sure enough, 3 tornadic supercells tracked over the chi metro area. 20 mins later the phone rings and it is my father saying the sirens are going off at home and the sky is wicked. I came home with nothing.

Yea, it happens. Some of them are harder to swallow than others. Busting when storms dont happen doesnt bother me at all. Busting when everyone else in the area scores is a bit tougher to handle. Driving 10 hours, catching nothing PLUS missing something big back home is the hardest pill to swallow though.

Each time it happens I go through a brief phase where I think I suck and I really don't know what I am doing. After that passes though you learn to realize its just part of the game and that it is impossible to be on every tornado that happens. Like the original post says, as long as something is learned from it, you will continue to grow and become more successful.

It also helps to be having a good year too, because knowing the type of year Ive had has been an outstanding one helps ease the pain a bit when I blow a big day.