Is 2010 the most photogenic tornado year to-date?

Jason Persoff said:
I have to admit, Greg, I had no idea that your avatar photo was from Campo. That's amazing: I'd assumed that was the Pampa, TX, tornado that hit the rose farm. Before this year, I couldn't have told you where Campo was on a map of SE CO. Now I know it's a breeding ground for (rare) amazing tornados.
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It has sometimes been called the "Boise City OK tornado", but it occurred about 1 mile south of the state line on Hwy 287, much closer to Campo, and about 1-2 miles from where the 2010 Campo tornado crossed 287. Our 1991 tornado remained about 1/2-3/4 miles to the west of 287, slowly moving north during its lifecycle.
 
2010 isn't going to let 2004 run away with a title that easily is it. Been a lot of wedges this year too. Year of the wedge? It seems like the all or nothing year to me. Days are either going mad with wedges/etc or just not doing much of anything else worth a darn.
 
I think there is no doubt this is the best chase year overall, for multiple big photogenic tornado events. However, for each individual it still can vary wildly. If you are a person who can chase often and/or lives in the Plains- it is much easier to score and score big. However, for us that must travel out and have jobs, if you mess up when you are out and are not out for a lot of the big days, then a big year for everyone else can still be just OK or even lousy where some are swimming in big tornado days. My experience this year is in the middle. I was not out for Goodnight, Bowdle and the past two days. On May 10th I was on the only storm that did not produce big, the Red Rock cell. Then on the Faith day I chased in Nebraska, no tornadoes. On the Campo day I was still in OKC getting ready for my longer 2 week trip, blew the day off because it was "only" a 2% risk. Ouch. Then on the Deer Trail day I lingered a bit too long on the cell in far northern CO, missed the two main tubes, but got good structure on the storm later on.

I did see probably 10 tornadoes or so, but the only one that was significant was the OK panhandle hose on the 13th, and I got only fair pictures.

This was an outstanding year for me storm structure wise- but tornadoes, only average. So it goes for a chaser that cannot chase continuously like Roger Hill.
 
mcrowther said:
I think there is no doubt this is the best chase year overall, for multiple big photogenic tornado events. However, for each individual it still can vary wildly. If you are a person who can chase often and/or lives in the Plains- it is much easier to score and score big. However, for us that must travel out and have jobs, if you mess up when you are out and are not out for a lot of the big days, then a big year for everyone else can still be just OK or even lousy where some are swimming in big tornado days. My experience this year is in the middle. I was not out for Goodnight, Bowdle and the past two days. On May 10th I was on the only storm that did not produce big, the Red Rock cell. Then on the Faith day I chased in Nebraska, no tornadoes. On the Campo day I was still in OKC getting ready for my longer 2 week trip, blew the day off because it was "only" a 2% risk. Ouch. Then on the Deer Trail day I lingered a bit too long on the cell in far northern CO, missed the two main tubes, but got good structure on the storm later on.

I did see probably 10 tornadoes or so, but the only one that was significant was the OK panhandle hose on the 13th, and I got only fair pictures.

This was an outstanding year for me storm structure wise- but tornadoes, only average. So it goes for a chaser that cannot chase continuously like Roger Hill.
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Or hit as well as Roger Hill on those days you were out that he was as well. I mean sounds like you did have plenty of good op days at your disposal. So seems an excuse is at least equally to be placed at messing up, as time out in this case.

This is much like me, I'm not blowing them out of the water or even close, screwing up more than bagging. I just don't like how this sounds like it's all just chalked up to Roger being able to be out all the time. He's also essentially nailing each and every day ( http://www.silverliningtours.com ). Much like Andy Gabrielson has done this year. The "he's out all year" deal, well just tends to leave a sour taste in my mouth, since many that are like that always get that thrown back at them, rather than the fact they are also much better chasers(when that is the case, which sure isn't my case...the being out all the time chaser...given I "nail" about 10% of things lol).

It's something special some of these people are able to do.

Seems that nw KS stationary crazy sup June 11th was the only thing able to fool EVERYONE. Guessing you were out that day as well, day after CO structure?

V2 has been out all these days and well... ouch.
 
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I've had problems logging into ST lately, but I was making the comparisons between 04' and 10' as well. I scored great tornadoes in both years on May 10 and June 10. But one thing I have noticed THIS year than any other year are the number of satellite tornadoes.........has anyone else noticed this? Or is it just me?
 
mcrowther said:
I did see probably 10 tornadoes or so, but the only one that was significant was the OK panhandle hose on the 13th, and I got only fair pictures.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but 10 tornadoes seems to be a pretty darn good year for "hobby" chasers that don't do it fulltime. I've been told we're riding a lucky streak, but our group has only gone out 8 times from MN and has seen over a dozen tornadoes. If we didn't make some mistakes, it would be almost double that, but we're still extremely pleased with our season.

My chase partner and I have discussed Roger's success this year as well. The only time this year I've really seen him bust was 5/24 - we were parked next to him in Murdo, SD under blue skies and nowhere near the Faith, SD tornado that day. To be fair, that has a rough day to forecast. He's definitely on his game at the moment.

Willoughby Owen also has had some amazing pictures this year if no one has mentioned that yet.
 
Robert Hurkes said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but 10 tornadoes seems to be a pretty darn good year for "hobby" chasers that don't do it fulltime.
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In a normal year, you would be correct, However, my 1-3 minute mostly small tornadoes totally pale in comparison to the "Big 5" events this season from a photogenic/duration etc etc standpoint- I would have killed to have been at just one of: Bowdle, Faith, Campo, Dupree, Albert Lea. Those were 5 "lifetime" events in one year, and I missed them all. Thank goodness for the storm structure I got or I would be completely bummed.
 
mcrowther said:
In a normal year, you would be correct, However, my 1-3 minute mostly small tornadoes totally pale in comparison to the "Big 5" events this season from a photogenic/duration etc etc standpoint- I would have killed to have been at just one of: Bowdle, Faith, Campo, Dupree, Albert Lea. Those were 5 "lifetime" events in one year, and I missed them all. Thank goodness for the storm structure I got or I would be completely bummed.
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If it makes you feel any better we were late to the party and vaguely saw two small tornadoes on Bowdle, busted on Faith, didn't chase on Campo and Dupree, and showed up late to the party on Albert Lea. Wakita and Last Chance were our best days this year. I think part of this "photogenic" year has something to do with a larger number of chasers getting closer and closer, while having better technology and adding photography skills to their chasing repertoire.
 
I'm sitting here looking at another very formidable looking radar image in north-central Kansas and envying the people who are positioned on that storm. Although the season was slow to start and the chases weren't always easy, the tornadic supercells have definitely been there for the picking to a much greater extent than in 2009.
 
I feel as if the introduction of the NSSL WRF/NMM WRF and HRRR, is changing the bar of forecasting. Roger Hill has done an amazing jobs of getting alot of the big events in the NP.

I'm very happy with my chasing for the year. There were 9 days I chased for a total of ten tornadoes. Including tornadoes in the Black Hills and the Last Chance, CO tornadoes (3). There were no blue sky busts and as far as I can remember, each chase day featured a supercell. Quite a few experiences with ambiguity/possible scud or maybe a tornado or possibly just cloud bases on the ground. Great fantastic structure and a very brief tornado near Gurly, NE. That was my favorite storm of my year by far. Watched the 6/10 supercell near Denver from two miles from Denver International. It was great watching the congo line come into the L-R runways and then watching the last two planes throw their rolls royce engines into high power to abort their landing against the menancing backdrop of an HP supercell. Beautiful show!

This year has been quite a year and more then a couple memorable tornadoes but I just don't know if it can compare with 2004. That year was very memorable for the isolated supercells that would erupt along the plains or come in from NE Nebraska and made SE SD a very nice place to live at the time.
 
Surely 2010 has taken the prize by now...if it hasn't then I really don't know what it will take. Someone should do a comparison.

Everything this year is just tornado-ing. My count for the year is 32. Many storms are putting down 5+ tornadoes. If you would have told me it was possible to see so many tornadoes in a year I would say you are a liar...until now.
 
If any doubt existed about the veracity of 2010 being the most photogenic tornado year ever, I cite both science and subjectivity. Observe:

Roger Hill (whose very name causes instant lift to LFC) captured around 40 tornados in the past week, many of them in SD and MN of spectacular beauty. I've seen some of the most amazing structure shots of derechos, LP cells, and predusk classic supercells (i.e., Last Chance, CO) than I can ever recall. I feel saturated on chase reports from the past 45 days from targets up and down the Alley (but mostly north of I-80).

But the objective part comes in here: 2010 has been merely average in the volume of tornados since the beginning of the year. In fact, 2010 has JUST surpassed 2005 in terms of tornados-to-date (a year where I spent most of my time chasing rainbows), and shockingly still has yet to surpass 2009 for YTD tornados. That's right, 2009 still had more tornados to-date than 2010. From the SPC site:

torngraph-big.png


If this were a math equation to the effect of Quality Tornados (QT) divided by Number of tornados (NT) = Awesomsauce Tornado Quotient (ATQ)

(phrased QT/NT=ATQ),

then 2010's ATQ exceeds all other years, IMHO. Admittedly, 2004 and prior years are not included in the analysis. But note that 2010 hasn't even produced an AVERAGE number of tornados to-date.

There. That should seal it. :)
 
40 tornadoes in one week for Roger is impressive but I remember 2-3 days in 2004 where there was around 80 tornadoes reported for a single day including the outbreak on the 22nd that produced the 2.5 mile wide Hallam, Nebraska beast and the numerous tornadoes in Iowa that day. I would like to see a comparison from this year to 2004 or even 1991 before I jump on the band wagon. Comparing this year to the last 5 years does not really prove this is the year of years in my opinion.
 
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