Most Intense storm chasing moments...

[George Flickinger]

Probably the most unnerving experience for me was evacuating my Mother from Orange, Texas during Hurricane Rita. I was in Texas covering the storm for some regional Fox and NBC stations and CNN, and the hurricane just happened to run over my hometown.

My Mom's house was one of the many damaged by falling timber, and my sister's house and also my aunt's house in rural Orange County were totaled.

 

[John MacKay]

I've posted this one on a thread before.

May 8, 2003 - Nevermind I slept through a tornado warning for Riley county at 5 AM (and slept through the weather radio). We were on one of the shelter floors in the building anyway, so this wasn't as bad as round two.

It was almost like May 4, 2003, just the supercells didn't create as many violent tornadoes (they still did some damage). One of the storms blew up just 5-10 miles south of Manhattan and went tornado-warned within 10 minutes. I had a chase partner along with me (note, I only have a weather radio with me) as we went toward the area of rotation, only it was already north of I-70. We drive south to I-70 and drive east since no storm is within 30 miles to the south of us. We see a nice wall cloud about 10 miles S Wamego (where a tornado was reported sometime during all of this). All of a sudden, a severe thunderstorm warning is issued for 1 mile west of Alma. Just as we passed the 1 mile to the Alma exit sign going east. We had no choice but to ride out whatever came on the shoulder, and boy did the crosswind scare us (I should note this was a high risk day with more tornado warnings than severe thunderstorm warnings at any given time). It had to be close to 70 mph with maybe up to nickel-sized hail. But a vehicle rocking around on the southwest side of a supercell is a situation no one wants to be in. I found out later it was just some thin line that developed on the southern end of the storm we watched, but definitely not a hook.

About Chirs Hayes May 22, 2005 encounter, I remember the cap holding on strong with a good probability of significant large hail looking at the SPC's significant hail parameter. As the storms developed about 5-10 miles north of Douglass around 10 PM, I told my mom we have a very good chance of getting large hail (she remembered me talking about it earlier in the evening). We ended up getting some scattered shots of tennis ball-sized hail. The average size of all of the hailstones was about ping-pong ball-sized, about 20 minutes after it fell. That is the largest hail I remember seeing in Douglass in my life, including the June 19, 1992 hailstorm that pelted the Wichita area.

 

[davecarlsen]

July 17, 2001, just west of Jamestown, ND.
We were chasing supes going up all over us and decided on one just to our east. It crossed the interstate before we did, however, and we stupidly decided to try getting through it anyhow. Outflow winds away from the storm were somewhere around 30 kts. When we got into it, they kept getting stronger and stronger. But then the wind wasn't so much of a concern as the hail began; first fairly small, it grew to about baseball-sized. There weren't a lot of them, but hitting the driver's side window at wind speeds that were now approaching 80 kts, I was sure the window would be smashed.

I was ready to bail out of the car as well, as the wind was making the side start to lift and I was worried about a rollover.

I had to change my shorts (figuratively) after that, once we got away from the storm.

 

[Jeremy Bower]

Scary chase moments

May 29, 2001 - Quitaque, TX - Unforunately we made the biggest mistake a chaser could ever make and that is not pay attention to how much gas is in the tank! We pulled into a gas station at Quitaque literally on fumes to find that the power grid had been taken out by the storm so we couldn't fuel up at that time. So here we are stranded in the town with this monster supercell approaching and sirens going off. Its funny in the video, here I am taping this event and all of the chasers are passing us going through the town (If you were in that area on that day, and saw people standing around in this nothing town, that was us, lol). The RFD hit and we got back into the vans. The next moment I'll never forget is this one British guy getting in and saying "Funnel cloud, straight above us." I stopped taping and looked up to see the canopy over the gas station being lifted up slightly :shock:

June 27, 2005 - Valentine, NE - Supercell developed pretty much at dusk near Valentine and I was able to get some good shots. We went back to the hotel and we were treated to the closest constant CGs I ever experienced. One was so close that it literally seemed the thunder came before the strike. Needless to say the smell of ozone and cow pastures is something I won't soon forget.