Scariest chases and close calls

[Rob Wadsworth]

Yeah...Quinter KS...

The Quinter storm was approaching as I was in the gas station SW of the I-70 at Quinter. I couldn't tell how close it was to me, as the sky was the color of a truck tire to my SW. I think it wasn't even close to 5 PM either. I was just 20 ft from the tornado warning siren when it first went off. I must have jumped three feet from a sitting position - no joke.

The cloud base was so low, wide, and large - there was no telling where it was coming from for sure - or how close. What made it all the worse, there was a tree line that partially blocked my view from that direction. Like a dummy, I got out of my car and began watching from underneath the gas pump canopy. With all of this lightning coming down too close for comfort.
"Next time", I said to myself "I'll stay in the car with this much lighting happening".
More like a deer caught in the headlights, I had to watch.

But when the wedge did break thru the tree line, it was only 1/2 mile to my W/NW. Probable that it was as close as 1/4 mile - but couldn't tell due the tree line.
There were a few StormTrack members out that day for that one...

Looking NW from the West side of I-70

It was one of my first and best chases. The day before was pretty productive as well. But this day was certainly the most frightening, as it was later rated as a EF-4. The day before had seen a few EF-1's and one EF-3. But I was jut too close to this one, and felt a little foolish for being ignorant of the actual location of the tube itself. I was pretty frightened for about twelve minutes. There was a young woman at that gas station that was almost catatonic. We were all pretty frightened.

Afterwards, I went to WaKeeney KS on the way back to my motel. Got stuck there as it became night and there were many tornadoes that happened within miles or closer. The truck stop I was at was full of travelers that couldn't drive on the road because the extremely dangerous conditions on I-70. Just 10-20 miles E on I-70 at that time, four diesel tractor/trailers were swept off of the road by a 1/2 mile-wide wedge at night. I passed that scene on my way back to my motel in Stockton KS...
It was a very frightening 3 hours in the dark...

 

[jshields]

my closest call from chasing would have to be last year with the kirksville tornado, and my story is somewhat similar to bart's story! i was late arriving for the tornado and pulled over on the west side of town just in time to see the tornado become rain wrapped as it approached kirsksville probably no more than a couple of miles away. i was there long enough to get about 30 secs of video before you could see the rfd and rain curtains start to fly across the open fields to my west. everyone that was there on the viaduct/bridge started leaving so i got in my car and did a uturn and then headed south through town the whole time keeping an eye in my rear view mirror. i too headed east on hwy 11 not knowing that the road curved back north before heading east again. i stopped briefly for a few pics of the storm thinking i had more time and was further ahead of the tornado than i was. afterall it seemed like it took forever for the tornado to reach kirksville. it rained hard for a while as i headed down hwy 11. the hwy ended up being closed about 10 miles down or so so i had to turn around. it was around here where i drove by tony l. and tim s.!! as i headed back west the storm had already crossed south of hwy 11 now. i soon began to see debris falling from the sky and eventually had to stop for a power pole down and barbed wire fence across the road. if i remember right tony stopped one more time to see if we were alright as there was one more car stopped at the debris across the road before he continued on. i had my video camera rolling this whole time and the tornado crossed the hwy within 1-2 minutes after i had driven by! it was definitely a close call! i included a couple of pics. the first pic is taken from my video after i stopped on the hwy and could see the tornado to my southeast. the second is me stopped on the hwy by the debris. note the white house in the background. thanks for the pic tony!! the last pic is of the tornado crossing the hwy, taken by darrin brunin i believe, again you can see the white house next to the hwy.

 

[Bob Hartig]

Let me just say that I hate HP supercells, and I get really nervous corepunching because I hate being in any situation where I can't see what's coming at me. Moreover, I don't trust radar because the best it can do is tell me where the storm was and what it was doing 4 1/2 minutes ago. Sorry, but I'm a chicken heart and I like to play things with at least some modicum of safety.

That being said, I've probably felt scared at times when I didn't need to, and not scared at times when maybe I should have been. The closest encounter I've had with an actual tornado didn't exactly scare me, but it sure provided a good deal of tension. That was May 22, 2008, east of Oberlin, KS. Like a million other chasers, I was out with my buddies for the big tornadofest. We had already intercepted one tornado as it approached Oberlin, but it was too rainwrapped to chase safely, so we ditched it and headed several miles east, then south toward another cell that was moving up from the south. The road we took put us on a collision course with the rotation, which we wound up racing from opposite directions toward US 36. We beat it there, but not by much.

Once we reached the intersection, we headed east a few hundred yards, then pulled over. I spotted a rope funnel in the distance, but it proved to be just a satellite to the main tornado, which Bill noticed shortly after. At that point, it was a large, bowl-shaped funnel, and it was questionable whether circulation actually was occurring at ground level. Whatever it was, it was moving directly at us, so we scooted down the road another quarter- to a half-mile, then pulled over again. At this point, a condensation funnel suddenly formed, did a multi-vortex thing, and then widened rapidly into a fat cone which crossed the road probably about where we had been. The guys say we were within a quarter-mile of it; I tend to be cautious in my estimates of distance, but they were very likely right. We were too close for comfort but not close enough to panic, and if I hadn't seen another tornado in 2008, that encounter alone would have made me happy.

The following day was actually scarier for me. We'd been following one big HP monster, but we parked our vehicle when the RFD winds and low visibility put the kibosh on it. While we sat there waiting for things to die down so we could proceed safely, the winds abruptly shifted. It wasn't a happy moment, and there wasn't a thing we could do but sit there and hope that the sky wasn't about to drop on us.

 

[Jacob Ferden]

Mine is pretty lame compared to all these others, but it would have to April 25, 2009, where I ended up driving from west to east through Enid on the main drag, just ahead of the storm that was about to produce the Enid tornado. I just beat the core and managed to view the tornado from the east through power flashes shortly thereafter. I don't think I was ever in extreme danger, but let me tell you, when you're driving through the west side of Enid, while listening to your weather radio announce an imminent circulation headed right towards you, it changes your perspective in a hurry.

 

[Chris Vagasky]

I was pondering other scary chase moments and recalled another one. I believe it was early May in 06 or 07. Another after dark chase, myself and my chase partner were on a tornado warned storm (radar indicated). We were SW of Woodward,OK on a blacktop called Tangier Rd. The wall cloud base was huge and was nicely illuminated by the city lights of Woodward.

We were directly underneath the wall cloud and my colleage Grant Johnston and Mark Dillard was 3 or 4 miles north of us. I'm guessing the cloud base was at least 5 sq. miles across. It was dead calm so we were driving slow with our windows down and scanning the ground and cloud base as we were moving north. Suddenly and without warning we heard the most terrible sound I have ever heard. It's hard to describe but it sounded like 10 million birds were whistling somewhere outside the pickup. It was incredibly loud and only lasted about 5 seconds and just as suddenly was dead calm again. The wind never changed and was barely a breeze before, during and after. We never saw anything, but I'm fairly convinced we had a brief spinup somewhere close by. It scared the crappola out of us both. Another learning experience.........

That was May 07...either the day before, the day of, or the day after Greensburg. I don't remember which..

 

[Brian Stertz]

Happens to me the same way Greg on the KS Turnpike/I-35....remember one long haul chase back from Oklahoma. Had one solid car-wash vip 5/6 core from Perry OK all the way to Olathe. At one part I started to get the willies in the Flint Hills where that family got washed away a few years ago. As far as dangerous chases, Sept. 22 2001 willl always be my top one. Just cannot put into words the shock n' awe that day.

http://vortex-times.com/92201chase

 

[Dustin Wilcox]

My "scariest" moments always involve being Stuck as opposed to the actual storms, three instances when I thought I was done for good and spending at least the night in BFE come to mind...

April 24th 2008 stuck near Osborne KS at like midnight in a Valley on a pure Mud road, no towns anywhere around and no cell phone coverage, luckily after accepting the fact I was spending the next 12 hours there, a Fire Truck on a hill 2 miles away spotted the flashers and was just curious who would be on "THAT" road...

May 23rd 2008 After an absolutely crazy day on the 22nd, I couldn't find a motel in SC NE and tried sleeping in my car, didn't work so well so I was up early taking the "scenic" route back to my target area of Wakeeney KS, sure enough at about 8 a.m. I got on a road and made it to the point of no return, after a couple hours (literally) I made it out, but not before overheating and blowing my power steering, I limped into Podunk town and got that fixed, at which point I parked for the rest of the day and joined the rest of the crew; it would happen too that where I parked would get hit by a tornado later that day, luckily nothing fell on it, or maybe unlucky I guess...

May 29th 2008 somewhere North of Glen Elder an unexpected curve in the pavement gave way to pure mud, a quick look at radar made the situation much more scary with a massive shield of heavy rain 2 counties W hauling E, luckily I at least had someone else in range on the radio, as Jeff was just 2 miles South of me in a similar situation, after about 30 minutes he managed his way out, and came to bail me out, JUST as it started to pour again...

Those three "scary" situations, combined with a couple other adventures, (notably May 25th) really did a number on my willingness to venture off road, they too really did a number on my car, by the second week of June I was in something new... Kansas really that poor that they can't afford a Minimum Maintenance sign every now and then?

As Far as storms, I really can't say I have much that was super scary, not sure I'll ever have anything top Brian's story above...A full size cottonwood missing me and my car by 5-10' last year was probably the "closest call" I've had...

 

[nickgrillo]

Almost the same story as me... 3/12/2006 was by far one of the most pain-in-the-neck, interesting and scariest chases of my life. Got blasted by >100mph winds just to the south (less than <0.25mi) of the main F3 tornado, which were easily some of the most intense winds I've ever felt in my life. IIRC, we weren't too far from eachother on this date.

This happened to me while tracking an F3 at night through Springfield, IL on March 12, 2006. We followed the the tornado from behind the hook, backlit by lightning. After it roped out, the lightning also died down but we stayed behind the storm at what we thought was a safe distance. The weather radio announced the tornado's position as one mile to our south, so we came to a dead stop to plot a course not wanting to drive into it. At the same time we got blasted by intense winds that abruptly did a 180 and came howling from the opposite direction. It was unnerving to say the least. It turns out we were still well behind the bear's cage and the report on the wx radio was probably just delayed.

 

[Jason Young]

Mine would be ,

2-10-09 Lone grove.

I did a core punch to get from Wilson on Hwy 70 to Lone Grove and got way to close . To make things worse the tornado was makeing it's way toward Sulphur . It was very intense .

6-7-07 Comanchie , Ok.

Got lost between Comanchie and Loco . In heavy rain , on a dam and a weak wall cloud . What a night.

 

[Susan Strom]

My scariest moment was when I was photographing lightning near Cave Creek, Arizona in 2004. Four men in a pickup truck saw me in the desert, started hooting & hollaring, then made a quick u-turn and tore off after me. They were drinking out in the desert looking for trouble. When I saw them speeding toward me, I ran around my car and dove into the driver's seat in what felt like 2 seconds and sped away. I pushed it to 90mph, with a back door open and tripod hanging out the window. The only reason why I got away from them was that I was faster and sober.

This is one reason why I always tell new chasers to have an escape route, park with your car pointed in the direction of quick exit if need be. Sometimes it really is the Wild West and you have to get out fast.

After I got several miles down the road, I pulled over to catch my breath because I was still shaken. I called a chaser friend who was out working the Bradshaw Mountains for lightning, about an hour from my location. This is a rugged cliffside road with ghost towns around there. I was describing what happened and all of a sudden the other chaser heard gunfire closeby during the downpour and lightning at Yarnell Hill (the name of the steep cliffside road) and had to abort the chase and get out of there quickly. I couldn't believe it, we both had trouble that night in two different locations. The next day, I was told that two bodies were found out there near the gunfire at Yarnell Hill.

 

[Chris Wilburn]

Another close call for me was on May 22, 2007 after seeing the Hill City, KS tornado. We tried to keep up with the storm and I stupidly tried a dirt road. The road wasn't too bad at the time, but it got worse to the point there was no turnng back. We actually made it quite a while before being stuck in a huge rut on the side of the road. We were stuck there for about 2-3 hours and there was another tornado warned cell that was heading very close to our position with reported baseball size hail. Talk about feeling helpless! The storm missed us and we eventually got unstuck so nothing major came of it.

Nothing major in the way of storms anyway. lol We had the Graham County volunteer firemen come pull us out. They pulled us out alright! They pulled too hard and pulled the tow bar right of the front of my SUV. We made it to Hays, KS that night only going 35 mph or so. We chased the northern TX panhandle the next day with a stop in Dodge City to get all that caked mud out and the tires balanced. The car would shake violently if going 45-50 mph or so. After the stop in Dodge City the problem was solved. I actually laugh about it all now looking back on it.

 

[Jeff Snyder]

I can think of a few over the years -- those times when I wished I had access to a teleport system to remove myself instantly from a hairy situation.

April 21st, 2005 (SE KS / SW MO) -- Gabe Garfield and I essentially were being chased by a large HP supercell with reports of tornadoes. We missed the main tornado near Parsons, and we chased the storm until sunset N of Joplin. However, owing to limited road options, we ended up having to continue eastward out of ahead of the storm in hopes of finding a good south option to get back to I44. Lots of RFD action and wall clouds (and amazing lightning)... We also got stopped by a train just as the RFD was about to blast us, too. Oy.

May 29th, 2008 (S NE / N KS): After having marveled at the amazing structure of the tornado-producing supercell W of Beloit, KS, we tried to keep up with the "action" area associated with a dissipating tornado near Jewel, KS. Unfortunately, a road that we were planning on taking to the east ended up being dirt (well, mud, actually), so we needed to retreat a short ways west and south in hopes of keeping up with it. Just as we had turned around and plotted out a new route, we noticed a funnel above us to the immediate south, and a dirt swirl in the field 1/4 mi S of us. Uh oh. We ended up missing the tornado by a few 100 feet, though Dick M (IIRC) and company were not as lucky. It was dusk (and getting dark quickly), I was confident that we were south of the now-dissipated Jewel tornado by a large enough distance to be safe. Oy!

May 22nd, 2004, also got a bit hairy after dark east of Firth, NE. We wanted to give the storm one last shot (by that, I mean we wanted to get a view of it one last time), but had to abruptly do an about face and retreat southward quickly when pink insulation began raining down on us on very strong westerly winds.

Nearly every situation I've been in for which I've wished for that magic "get me out of here now!" button has involved a previously-tornadic HP supercell at night. Blasted, those things!

 

[Shane Adams]

I've told this story before (and told that I've told this story before, before) but mine was May 5, 2002 near the Lesley/Lakeview, TX area. We were part of a huge line of chasers tracking a violent supercell right at dusk. Just after dark, it turned hard right, engulfing us and several other chasers in the most insane RFD I've ever experienced. The tornado was ahead of us, arching power lines, and we got the RFD in our laps. Highest sustained winds/wind gust I've ever been in by FAR.

Ripped all three of our magnet-mount antennas off the roof simultaneously, bent a window-mount set of "rabbit ears" (with a metal bracket) over about 130 degrees (they were pointing towards the ground afterwards), pushed the truck across dry pavement like we were on ice, snapped a power pole next to us, which went airborne and flew into the truck, hitting the portion where the hood meets the windshield (I remember watching the cross arms slide off the hood), and for the finale, lifted our back wheels off the ground and moved us 3-4 feet before setting them back down.

I'm not sure what the minimum wind speed required to lift a vehicle off the ground or push one across dry pavement is, but we had that and then some. A few weeks later, when we returned to that spot on another chase day, we discovered the road was lined with trees for the most part. However, there was a gap in the trees where we had been parked, which was nothing but open field. I've always believed we received the highest winds of almost anyone that night because of the open area across from where we sat. I've been in high winds associated with severe storms many times, and NOTHING even comes close to this night. I only wish it had happened during the day, because all you see on the video are a few power flashes and a few pairs of tail lights. You can however tell when we're getting pushed/lifted, because the camera's fixed on a tripod; when the lights ahead of us move to the right, that's us getting pushed from the left, Beyond that, all you hear is a howling wind.

Anyone who has my "A Perfect Spinning Circus" DVD knows what I'm talking about.

 

[Stephen Levine]

My scariest time for sure was due to flash floods. The year was either 2001 or 2002 and It seems that Clovis NM is perfectly designed so that flood waters from everywhere else drain right into downtown. After driving through a storm that brought a yellow light of concern up for me (night time, complete darkness, 2-lane road with nowhere to pull over-no shoulder and everything flying sideways from left to right as we went north. I had to drive on the yellow line just to see where I was going; visibility only 1/4 car length in front of me) we ran into deep and rising waters when reaching Clovis. It was already nearly midnight and we had no motel that we could find to check in to after a long day of driving and chasing. So I took a vote among the passengers: who would rather stay, possibly for hours in this spot, and who would rather try our luck at pushing through. . The vote was unanimous to push on.. so we did and terror seized my body as I felt the tires start to slip from the pavement. I drove with one tire on the elevated median strip to help us gain traction.. Thank God we made it, but then we ran into 4 more just like this in Clovis alone. It was truly terrible.

 

[Paul Knightley]

I'm sure this will pale in comparison to what many of the other more veteran chasers here will post, but my scariest moment was in May 2008, during the time that the tornado went through Kearney, Nebraska. My wife and I were late on that chase due to work, so we were screaming west on I-80 towards that monster cell as it was tracking right along I-80 just to the east of Aurora. We were keeping an eye on this thing on AccuWeather radar (low res on the cell phone) and it appeared to be staying just to the north of the interstate so we thought we could skirt along the south side to get behind it for some better visibility. This was an HP beast, and we ended up driving right into the insanely heavy rain this thing was producing, we had practically zero visibility. Local radio was reporting that there were supposed spotter reports of a tornado on the ground at or near the spot where we were. We couldn't see a dang thing, but at that moment we were getting absolutely pummeled by wind gusts that came out of nowhere- that is the only time I truly got worried or even scared on a chase! We found an emergency turn-around and screamed back ahead of this thing, only to find out that a few minutes later semis were overturned along the interstate and power lines were taken down right at the spot where we had been before turning around. Not sure if an actual tornado ever hit there, though- I don't recall if anyone ever got any visual confirmation there due to the extreme HP nature of that storm.

There was a tornado near Aurora - I didn't really get much footage of it (if any!) but certainly got the huge RFD! http://www.youtube.com/user/paulknightley#p/u/11/sUtMQZznKvc

That was a pretty scary chase for us too, but we remained just outside the RFD so it wasn't too bad.

I think the scariest was probably May 22 2004, when we arrived in Wilbur, NE, not too long after the tornado passed through. It was dark, more tornado-warned storms were coming in from the west, and we had no radar in the car! We planned to carry on east, ahead of the next line of storms, but got stopped by downed power lines, and had to head back west to Wilbur. We finally got a call through to a mate who had radar - he told us to head north, which we did! Although looking back on it we were probably fine, in the dark on a stormy evening, surrounded by tornado warnings, and with no radar, it was scary! I purchased WxWorx for the next year's chasing trip!!