Silver Lining Tours vans rolled in Kansas

[Joshua Nall]

It's all about the time line. There are so many things that can be assumed. 5 or 10 minutes or a few miles makes all the difference. Storm evolution happens quickly too. It's tough getting all that straight in my head. Even if just the facts are considered there will be unknowns.
Why was everyone so confused? Seems like many chasers there were looking at something and not concerned with what was the ef2. What were they looking at? I'm sure if I were there with my grl3, I would have been unsure. I personally don't think anyone missed the HP structure. That is something you learn first year of chasing.
It's just that there was no indication there was something scary behind it unless you had more than grl3 data. I've personally only been caught twice by one with a strong couplet. Once do to road jam and once do to road dead ending at a river. But I have let some pass over on purpose that did not have a strong couplet and I will be rethinking that.

 

[Quincy Vagell]

Based on some comments I've been getting about a video I made on this topic, it seems as if the tour group itself might be in denial of what happened, or perhaps they still don't understand what went wrong.

One of SLT's tour guides says "south of the main tornado is where the incident happened," which is easily debunked by the NWS storm survey itself, but especially by Jon Davies' analysis and the review by several people in this thread. The "main tornado" didn't even come into existence until about 3-4 minutes after the incident.

At the same time that comment was posted, another SLT member made almost the exact same reply to my video, stating that they "weren't driving into the tornado..."

What were they driving into then? Are they suggesting it wasn't even a tornado that flipped the vans?

It's okay to be wrong to make a mistake. That's how we learn and grow in life, but the way SLT is handling this leaves us with more questions than answers about the whole situation. According to SLT, I am "not a legit meteorologist" and I'm not "smart enough," since I dare to question their claims about this incident.

 

[Joshua Nall]

Jeff Snyder was on to something with the radar images in his post above.

I surveyed the area today. I am not passing judgement or trying to get anyone in trouble. Mistakes happen. However, I felt compelled to find out what happened from a scientific perspective. This is a case that all chasers can learn from, and perhaps it could result in more caution being exercised.

The following images indicate what I think occurred. It is likely that a wall cloud was visible to the northwest of the tour group. However, it seems that a tornado (probably not visible) was already in progress to their southwest which went on to merge with the circulation to the north. The messy nature and volatile evolution of this storm was something probably more common to Dixie Alley. We see lots of small tornado signatures like the one observed in this case.

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Had a chance to read this thread again over the weekend. Seems everyone there was unaware of the EF2, and anticipating the development of the new tornado with the new area to the north.

The small vortex to the S seemed to be translating slightly faster around the broader circulation to the north. Perhaps this small tornado vortex had lost its influence on driving the storm. Looks like a merger or near merger to me. I'm sure there will still be much debate on this.

Also, I overlooked some posts and was confused by how terminology was being used. I do regret having such strong opinions, about risks particularly, without carefully considering all the posts, feelings and opinions.

In my opinion, the above is a good analysis.

 

[Joshua Nall]

I'm unable to edit my last post, and I'm supposing there may be a time limit on that. Just wanted to clarify, the analysis I was refering to when I said, "The above is a good analysis" is the post by @Matt Grantham that I linked to in my post. I was not talking about the post above mine. I have issues with most every other "analysis" presented here. Even when looking back at the A and B scenarios, we can't pick one are the other. Neither describe a complicated merger event.

 

[Jeff Duda]

Staff note
All level 2 and level 3 NEXRAD data are archived on AWS, completely for free. You don't need an account or anything. Go here: NEXRAD on AWS

The radar imagery from this event has been posted and reposted many times now. So let's end the posting featuring radar data unless you have a new point to make about it. Chances are, by this point, anything you may think to say has already been covered in one of the 300+ previous posts.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Another lesson I think that has emerged in this incident is that relying on GR3 for radar, for velocity in particular, is more dangerous than I realized. I've always known that the native velocity display is very coarse, but this is a real wakeup call of its blind spot. In fact, I use SRV most of the time in GR3 as it to displays the more subtle circulations better. But the superiority of Radarscope's SuperRes product is quite evident here, it's as good as Level 2 imagery. Had it been employed in this case, the EF2 would have surely been apparent enough for this incident to be avoided.

Perhaps the takeaway for all of us is to not rely on Level 3 velocity when considering any type of RFD or precip transect within a few miles of the business end of any supercell. A Level 2 or SuperRes product should be consulted as an additional decisionmaking factor in whether the maneuver is safe to attempt. That of course is leaving out the important points about data latency, rapid storm evolution, distance to the radar, etc that we've covered in this thread.

 

[rdale]

Good takeaway - but to clarify, GR3 displays SuperRes velocity (BR, BV, SRV, and CC.)

 

[Jeff Duda]

But the superiority of Radarscope's SuperRes product is quite evident here, it's as good as Level 2 imagery.

RadarScope does not have a "SuperRes" product...it's just literally the level 2 imagery output from NEXRAD. In 2019, almost all of the Plains has 4G coverage, so getting Level 2 data is not difficult like it was 10 years ago or so. For those who are not on networks that can accept 4G signal (say, those not on Verizon, e.g.) or for those who have data caps, Level 2 imagery can still be data prohibitive. But I would imagine this would not apply to any serious storm chasing tour business.

 

[James Wilson]

Another lesson I think that has emerged in this incident is that relying on GR3 for radar, for velocity in particular, is more dangerous than I realized. I've always known that the native velocity display is very coarse, but this is a real wakeup call of its blind spot. In fact, I use SRV most of the time in GR3 as it to displays the more subtle circulations better. But the superiority of Radarscope's SuperRes product is quite evident here, it's as good as Level 2 imagery. Had it been employed in this case, the EF2 would have surely been apparent enough for this incident to be avoided.

Perhaps the takeaway for all of us is to not rely on Level 3 velocity when considering any type of RFD or precip transect within a few miles of the business end of any supercell. A Level 2 or SuperRes product should be consulted as an additional decisionmaking factor in whether the maneuver is safe to attempt. That of course is leaving out the important points about data latency and rapid storm evolution that we've covered in this thread.

Absolutely correct … As I was going down 54 I had GR3 up on the laptop but Radarscope on the phone. GR3 showed the rotation in front of me but RS was WAY better at showing exactly where I should avoid. I will be keeping GR2 and RS on only from here out. I do not know what they were running but you do not need radar to know not to be directly in front of an HP storm.

 

[Dan Robinson]

I'm assuming you still need to subscribe to a paid L2 data source to pull that live with GR3, correct?

 

[Jeff Duda]

You do not need to pay for a service. There are free ones out there. Here is one of them: Index of /level2/raw

I have been chasing for 10+ years now and have used free sources for all but one of them. I have not had severe latency issues in probably 5 years now.

 

[rdale]

I'm assuming you still need to subscribe to a paid L2 data source to pull that live with GR3, correct?

I don't know of a free SuperRes data source for GRLevel3. But the overall point is that if you are charging customers for storm chasing - you probably should not be relying on free data sources.

 

[Quincy Vagell]

I was recently contacted by one of the tour participants who was injured in this event. She is very concerned and wants help, but has asked me to not share her name. Based on her accounts, which I asked her to share in her own words, and the fact that she reached out to me specifically, I have no reason to disbelieve in anything that she shared.

From what I can gather, she is challenging that the tour group breached their contract when they ended the tour early after the incident on May 28th, 2019, when the tour was scheduled to continue through the 31st. Prior to the incident, she said they mentioned they were going to chase in Texas on the 29th, but after the incident, they changed their tune, saying that there were no more storms to chase for the rest of the tour.

She also shared some disturbing information that seems to solidify the case that SLT knowingly made poor decisions and tried to cover up what had really happened. Additionally, she says that the group has been unresponsive to her repeated attempts to follow up with them about the incident, during which she was injured (minor physical injuries, but much more significant psychological ones), had the tour ended early and some of her belongings were damaged or destroyed.

Unfortunately, based on the verbiage in the Tour Agreement that she passed along to me, I'm not sure that she a strong enough case to file any sort of dispute against SLT. This is where you all may come in, as I will share some direct quotes from her and see if anyone has any insight. I am not an attorney and I am not an expert with storm chase tours, so I told her I would reach out to some peers and see what we could come up with.

Since she does not live in the United States, this makes this situation even more difficult. In her perspective, she put a lot of trust and money into this tour, only to have it cut short after several in the tour were injured. It sounds like one individual was seriously injured. Below I will share direct quotes from her to better tell her side of the story. In addition to helping her out, I think some of what she said is very eye opening about how SLT operates, including a claim that they did not have any first aid kits on hand, despite claiming on their website that they did. Even I carry a first aid kit and I chase alone...



In my opinion, if SLT were to handle this incident in good faith, is it too much to ask that they at least offer a partial refund to the group, since the six day tour was cut in half? If that's too much to ask, why not at least be honest with them on the 29th and explain, that due to extreme circumstances, that they trip was going to be ended early and that they would do anything that they could to make up for this? It sounds like the tour just ended and the participants were left in limbo until they hired additional vehicles to transport the participants back to Denver. Also, if this was truly an accident, why would they ignore messages from participants who made major sacrifices and payments to join their tour? Even something as simple as "we're sorry about the incident and we are here to help you. Let us know what we might be able to do in order to resolve any concerns."

The more I hear, the more I am disturbed about this incident.

Why risk so many issues? I would be thoroughly embarrassed if I had a tour group and an incident like this happened. I would want to be as transparent as possible about what happened and try to be there for the participants who could have lost their lives. The only thing that silence does is lead to more suspicion that there was a cover-up.

 

[Steve Holmes]

Something very telling in her messages. To paraphrase: "I was in shock. That's why I was so quiet in the days after. Having had time to process it, I'm getting angry."

Those of you who have been in damage zones right after tornadoes recognize this. Shock numbs survivors at first. It seems like they should be angry or impatient or grieving or whatever, but the body shuts down the mind in self-defense. Eventually, though, a person "wakes up." I expect more of SLT's clients to speak up as they wake up.

As to Quincy's suggestion that SLT say, "We're sorry about the incident": I bet a lawyer has told them to avoid saying that for fear it can be taken as admission of guilt. Some states have "I'm Sorry" laws that allow people, usually doctors, to apologize without it coming back to bite them in court, but this is far from universal.

 

[Robert Edmonds]

Have her contact the FMCSA, help organize a story so the FMCSA gives a crap...

Edit: Mentioning the crash was in another state from where it started, and there were injuries may help when contacting them. I would also write an actual letter, not an email.

For a news story, just need a reporter to ask the state and federal regulators why they don't care about tour safety or insurance, and mention you are talking to the state and fed side, that way they can't pawn it off as a federal or state issue. Like I said I was told by a regulator, nothing is going to happen till someone dies. I'm sure a quote like that would go over well.