Missed the Tornado Because I Was Out Chasing

[Bob Hartig]

So it turns out that Sunday, while I was out with Kurt Hulst thrashing around through the jungles of Allegan and Barry Counties, Michigan, a tornado formed 4 miles southwest of my apartment in Caledonia.

This is the second time I've missed a tornado right in my backyard because I was out chasing. The first time three years ago was even worse. I could have stepped out onto my balcony and watched a small tornado blow through just a couple blocks away. But where was I? Down in Indiana driving home from a failed setup.

Who else has had a similar experience--a time when you traveled all over creation when you could have just stayed home and let the action come to you?

 

[Adam Lucio]

9-22-06:

I chased with nothing back then. No internet no laptop all I had was a NOAA radio. I drove 3hrs down state towards Springfield and busted completely while 3 tornadic supercells went through Chicago, one of them actually produced a tornado on the lake MI shoreline, the tornado moved out onto the lake where it became a nice fat cone. I wrote about it here: http://www.aerostorms.com/092206.php



I wanted to throw my phone out the window with all the phone calls from friends and family once the sirens went off.

Even this year on 6-23. Tornado warned supercell tracked right over my neighborhood while I was 90 miles west messing around in a squall line. The results were the same in both cases, but I would have much rather not spent 50 bucks in gas when I could have filmed the same exact thing from my front porch.

 

[chadvia]

Yep! You can read the details of it here...
http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/showthread.php?t=24478&highlight=epic+chase+wall+shame

In a nutshell... drove from Ohio to Missouri with destination of Kansas... turned out it was going to be a bust and turned around. By the time we reached Indianapolis there was a tornado spotted seven miles from my house.

 

[Zachary Lassiter]

Ben Holcomb gets them all the time.... when hes in Iowa

 

[Rob H]

Every chase in MN is like that for me. I'm guessing that people with this problem live in the Northern Plains, Eastern Midwest, and maybe off the Rockies - all places where forecasting tornadic storms can be difficult. You don't get the big EHI/CAPE target on a triple point play in these areas or nice isolated storms as often as you do in other states like KS/OK/NE.

Minnesota on the whole is a difficult place to chase due to terrain and road network. This year there have been 40 MN tornadoes, and I have 1-2 to my name even though I've been out chasing almost every day. The lows this year have mostly tracked through the MN/SD/ND border zone and the north half of the state gets this pull back effect which drops a ton of tornadoes but there are no roads, and lots of lakes/trees. The southern edge of the state is great for chasing, but you run into "oh no, Iowa cap bust" issues.

The center of the state is weird. The metro area gets tornadoes, but they're usually in low-reflectivity, low-VIL MCS. There are also a lot of LSRs that read "LAW ENFORCEMENT - UNCONFIRMED" or are from the public, so I wonder if these are sheriffnadoes or if they really did occur. I live in the metro, and there have supposedly been over a dozen here from the last month or so, and I've only seen pictures of one or two. It stings a little when I see a report 20 minutes away from my house, but then I never see pictures of it and wonder if it was really chaseable in the first place.

 

[Tony Laubach]

Bob, my MO in chasing has been to miss countless tornadoes within an hour of my place here in Denver. Windsor, Aurora, landspouts out the wazoo... happens all the time with me.

Biggest FAIL in this manner for me was living in Circleville for 13 years... later the same year, I moved, an F-3 ripped through not only my town, but hit ONE STREET down from my old house.

 

[Shane Adams]

I'd bet this happens to more than a few chasers over their careers. I know living in Norman for 15 years as I did, I rarely just targeted my own town and just sat at home waiting. My instinct is to hunt, so even if the target was close, I'd venture out twenty or so miles and just wait for initiation. This eventually would lead me to go after the first thing that popped up, and if that took me in a direction away from home, that's where I'd end up....and if better storms formed closer to home later on, I'd miss them.

I find it horribly ironic though that once again, my absence from a town removes the "safety" barrier I seem to throw over them when I'm a resident. Norman experienced two major tornadoes the season after I moved after 15 years of nothing while I was there. The town I grew up in for 17 years was hit the weekend I moved back in 1993. And north Texas was virtually non-existent on the severe weather front in 2010 now that I'm down here.

 

[Verne Carlson]

Bob, my MO in chasing has been to miss countless tornadoes within an hour of my place here in Denver. Windsor, Aurora, landspouts out the wazoo... happens all the time with me.

Ditto here, except that work has kept me from leaving town too early and this has helped me catch more of the local action.

 

[Ben Holcomb]

Ben Holcomb gets them all the time.... when hes in Iowa

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh What?

 

[Karen St John]

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh What?

I think he's acknowledging your love affair with Iowa's weather...

If it helps, I won't rub it in about all the tornadoes you will miss in Michigan. Of course, I prolly won't have the storms, anyway...

 

[L.B. LaForce]

Yeah, no kidding. Lets see, I chased 6/19/09 in IN, and got a supercell, but never tor'd, although later that night in MI on the way back, 3 tornadoes happened-just quick spin-ups. Sunday, the tornado was north of me while I was in Allegan on another cell.

TIPS for MI Chasers:

1.Don't always go after the cell that looks supercellular, or looks like it had the best chance of producing
2. MI tornadoes are about being in the right place at the right time. They only last like 5 minutes here, there is trees galore, and they are almost always rain-wrapped, so bring your rabbits foot.

Oh yeah, and if you happen to capture one on cam, and you give it away, you deserve to be punched in the face.

LOL

 

[Jason Foster]

June 1997 - Chasing in the Plains - F4 tornado in Frostburg, MD
Jan 1999 - Trip to Dallas --> Epic DC Ice Storm
Sept 2001 - Moved to Miami from MD--> Univ. of MD tornado hits (F3)
Sept 2004 - Moved back to Miami from MD/chasing hurricanes --> Massive tornado outbreak in VA & MD from Ivan remnants.
Summer 2005 - Moved back to Maryland from Florida--> Hurricane Wilma crushes S.FL.

There's more cases, but the bottomline: Bad things happen to places I leave.

 

[Jarrod Barnett]

I think we've all written a fail story in chadvia posted a link to. It happens. Ya cant win 'em all.

I was out roaming around Sunday afternoon/evening in SE MI, NE IN, NW OH. Didnt see much of anything though. Where we were about 6pm or so in NW OH it went from nothing then looked to be coming together and then fizzled out. The story of 99% of storms around here.