So... what's the verdict... 2011 chase season

[Ken Johnson]

Could be like me and only get to chase when there's nothing to chase at all. It never fails, when the weather is active, I can't chase, but when it's slow and nothing, I have all the time in the world. As a matter of fact, the weather looks like it could be rather active early next week. I'm off work, but will be on vacation back east with the family. So there will probably be a high risk and multiple tornadoes. Just my luck.

 

[Mike Thompson]

It has been pretty much a storm less spring in the Minneapolis area due to a persistent cap killing any storm formation, I haven't even been able to get lightning pics yet!
We had two severe days, the first one had me stuck at a Twins baseball game, though I did see some impressive hail.
The second was May 22 when we had the Minneapolis EF2, I missed the intercept by 5 or so Minutes as it crossed over U.S. 10 at the north end of its path before dissipation, due to traffic issues with people cramming under overpasses. Continued to follow the storms up I35W and saw a good amount of rotation near the 35W-E split and found a safe place to pull over and watch and lucked into seeing a brief EF0 form and go for a couple minutes and then was gone before doing any major damage!
That was my first successful tornado chase!

 

[John Farley]

It has been a good year for me so far, despite messing up on two of the biggest days, April 19 in IL and May 24 in OK. But I've seen supercells nearly every time I've chased, including some very spectacular ones. Highlights include the Good Friday supercell that hit St. Louis (and was a thankful exception to this year's pattern of high fatalities), 3 or 4 Arkansas tornadoes on May 25, and a perfect view of the Hannibal, MO 100 mph microburst last Thursday. And we are in an active pattern in the mid-Mississippi Valley again this week.

 

[James McCormick]

It's been an A+ year for me because I don't normally get to chase a ton and I definitely don't get to define which specific days I chase. I lucked out and picked a good chase-cation week the third week of May. I got to chase April 9th in NW Iowa, I got to chase the sunset tower in SW Kansas on May 20th (anybody who saw that tower as the sun went down knows what I'm talking about), I got a bevy of tornadoes from the two supercells near Ada on the 21st, and I got the Wagoner County OK tornado on May 22nd. Have a bunch of neat stories from other days that weren't that big as well. Screwing up March 22nd SW of Des Moines seems like forever ago.

 

[Dean Baron]

2011 has been, to put it nicely, crap for me. 1 epic marathon bust to KS and a few other blue sky busts with another trip to northwest KS that only produced a non-photogenic (albeit still cool) tor warned storm, but I hate walking away with no pics or little good video to show for it. The most photogenic storm I've seen so far was an impromptu 60-70 mile chase through the Twin Cities here. I havent given up on 2011 by any means, as it's only mid June and the northern plains will get setups through August, but damn I was expecting more. Maybe 2010 spoiled a lot of us, but still, it feels like that spark I had last year is starting to fizzle this year...

 

[Jason Foster]

Chased the Carolina High Risk outbreak, but Northern Virginia
traffic made me about an hour too late. F--ing beltway.

That jam SUCKED. We still got in position (thank you DeLorme, Google Traffic indicators, and years of experience with I-95), but JUST in time. We got socked with another jam (this time a true accident just past the Amer.Leagion Bridge) on another NC chase, May 23 (captured another funnel/tornado).

 

[Andy Jackson]

My best tornado experience this year was the Mapleton, IA supercell/tornado unfortunately, damage was being done to the town at the time. The 2/27 chase down in OK was pretty fun with some nice hail and caught the tail end of a tornado. The Irony is I stayed in Joplin the night before. 5/10 in Minnesota was a good chase. 4/17 Girard, IL I was in good position for the tornado if it would have been a bit slower, good experience non the less. 5/22 started out with the excitement of chasing Southern MO. Any happiness for the chase was soon marred by what happened at Joplin. 5/23 OK was better for me than 5/24 because I got to see storms develop/redevelop as well as some nice hail and some close lightning.
I still have hope for a couple more days of at least a photogenic supercell and maybe a tornado, but I think I'm gonna keep it close to home.

 

[TrumanBoyer]

We East-Coasters might also get some more chances this year. And there are always hurricanes, with NE-quadrant-completely-impossible-to-predict tornadoes. But stay out of the Tidewater areas, you get stuck way out on those finger peninsulas with flooding and trees all over the only road... and the storm just cruises along...

Do I sound bitter? Damn right. FIVE ZILLION tornadoes this year, I got 2, maybe 3 but I won't count the dubious one. I got the F5 I always wanted, but it killed 153 people, and it was practically invisible. But I remain an optimist. For now at least.

Kudos to those of you who had a good year. For those who didn't, take some time off to heal, I think there is plenty more to come. Clean those lenses.

 

[Andrew Stoller]

This year has been the suck for me as well. A flat tire and WTF - every freakin road between Garden City and Oklahoma City under construction, put me an hour behind the May 24th outbreak. I was behind the El Reno tornado by about 5 miles and there was nothing but a wall of huge hail and flooding rain......and my Verizon data decided to crap out on me.

I almost want to give up chasing after that fiasco. Back to work until next year I guess. Had a few decent local chases with decent structure and hail and that's it this season.

 

[Karen St John]

We East-Coasters might also get some more chances this year. And there are always hurricanes, with NE-quadrant-completely-impossible-to-predict tornadoes. But stay out of the Tidewater areas, you get stuck way out on those finger peninsulas with flooding and trees all over the only road... and the storm just cruises along...

Here's hoping. If Michigan (my home) gets anything, it will be later in summer, into the fall. Hey, it can happen!. Plus there's always Indy...

 

[Sean Ramsey]

I consider 2011 a successful season for several reasons. First, I made it a point before the season started to find a way to modify my work schedule to allow for more chases and extend my chase territory. I was able to chase southern Colorado, Kansas and far eastern Oklahoma as well as my normal area...and it allowed for more chasing, which was pretty much anytime a decent storm broke out. As far as tornadoes, I witnessed my first EF-5 tornado near El Reno, so that moment in itself was huge. I busted more often this year, but that goes with more chasing. The main thing is I got to chase more this year than any other year in the past, and to me that's worth everything, regardless if I got tornadoes or not. Can't wait til next year!

 

[Tim Supinie]

My season was kinda meh. I chased more this season than I have in previous seasons, but I only have one very low-contrast photograph and maybe 15 seconds of visual on a tornado to show for it (that was the EF3 near Lookeba, OK, on 24 May). Though I was on a cell near Kingfisher, OK, on 23 May that really tried and had some pretty nice structure.

This is probably mostly because I prefer to chase in Kansas and Oklahoma and west of I-35. 24 May was really the only good day in that area, and we sort of blew it by running into the damage path from the Lookeba tornado. By the time we got around the damage, we were way out of position.

EDIT: I should also say that I watched the storm near Ada, OK, on 21 May from the observation deck at the National Weather Center. It was cool/impressive to look at from Norman, but still not quite as fun as being there.

 

[Brett Roberts]

After a grueling first several years of my chasing career ripe with the kind of mistakes that keep you up at night months later, 2011 is the first season I can honestly say I don't have many regrets at all. My tornado days included 2/27 (N OK), 4/14 (S OK), 4/24 (N TX), 5/21 (C OK), and 5/24 (C OK). Off the top of my head, my biggest blunders were not chasing 4/9 (IA) and targeting S OK instead of SW MO on 5/22, both of which I can live with having missed for different reasons.

It was certainly not a banner year for Chase Alley, on the whole. I particularly feel for the central/northern Plains contingent, because virtually every noteworthy Plains chase day has been in or near OK, it seems. Of course, this worked greatly to my advantage, along with the rest of the OKC/OUN crowd. If I'd been smarter and avoided some long desperation trips to places like SW TX and N NE during down periods, I could've probably kept my tornado/mileage ratio pretty darn high this year.

It's been a few weeks since the remarkable OK chasing stretch of May 21-24, and I still can't quite process it. The western half of this state had been nothing but a letdown, year after year, since I arrived in 2005. Even 10 May 2010 didn't change that sentiment for me, because Wakita paled in comparison to all the activity that happened in the jungles later on. In terms of chasing, 24 May 2011 was everything I'd originally hoped that day would be, and then some. It just feels so strange to be talking about having seen large, highly-visible tornadoes right down the highway from home, as opposed to a day's drive away.

I guess from an objective standpoint, I'd rate 2011 below-average, even despite featuring one borderline-historic outbreak in decent terrain. However, up until mid-May I was convinced it would be in the running with 2006 and 1987-89 for biggest season fail ever, and that really wasn't the case.

 

[Brian Press]

Well this year was a first for me in a lot of ways. .. I brought my whole family out to the plains for 36 days! It was amazing.. I have 4 little kids and my lovely wife so it was amazing and a great time to spend with family. Coming from California, it's always a treat to get to see some good stuff out here. We rented a home in Hoxie, KS so that was home base but we did do quite a few overnighters. I think it's a great location for spot chasing!

We saw a total of 5 tornadoes and tons and tons of epic storms, lightning, baseball hail (and dents), supercells, structure, crazy clouds, 70-90MPH winds in NE and saw a shed get destroyed right in front of us! We saw all kinds of stuff. We also cough over 20 frogs, saw deer in out front year numerous times, went fishing, saw buffalo, sheep, got to milk cows, find chicken eggs, decorate Gourds, ride an ATV all over the place, got interviewed by the Hays New Paper and on and on the fun went! So yeah, it was successful for us for sure. Also, another success was that this was the first time I was able to leave my business (Wedding Cinematography) and let it be run by my amazing team members. So yeah, wish I would have seen more Tornadoes but we did see..

5/13 - SD - 4 President Faces carved in a mountain side!
5/17 - Colorado - Two Land Spouts
5/23 - OK - Tornado right over us
5/24 - OK - El Reno Wedge. (I was kinda took it easy on this chase since I had my wife and 4 little kids. Probably should have pushed it a bit harder but was feeing a little tentative with the fast storm speeds and kids.)
6/13 - CO - Saw A little (I mean little) land spout in CO yesterday. So small didn't even film it, but the storm was awesome and striated and got some more dents!

And best off all, we had a lightning Bug intercept at the creek near our Kansas Home! Totally a cool way to end the trip.. The kids thought lightning bugs only existed in the Movies!

So all and all it was amazing and I put about 9000 mile on our rental van! Insane!

You can check out some of our adventures, videos, and photos on our little blog we started! http://thepressclan.com/
Still about a week and a half behind, but I will get to it. Have some more photos and videos to put up! Here is a few of my favorite shots from the trip!

See ya next year Great Plains!!

Brian

 

[Daniel Christianson]

2011 has been a crappy year for me so far,(excluding the *Mapleton/Rickets IA event* other then that nothing but bust after bust, storms not forming where they were supposed to develop even with all the great ingredients in place, CAP issues to say the least and most the day's have fell on the time i have to work. That and the fact there has not been any good lightning is putting some doubt on the rest of the season, i dont buy' into the late season or early fall stuff here at all.