What Did You Learn?

[Dan Rupnow]

I missed numerous, photogenic tornadoes in my first few years of chasing. But, the good thing is that I was able to learn from those painful "lessons". I would say my biggest lessons learned are:

1. Don't be too conservative on days with anticipated fast storm speeds. I would get so worried about losing the storm, that I would end up sitting much too far downstream while waiting for it's arrival. This meant that by the time I finally intercepted, the storm was either done producing tornadoes, or it was an HP rain-wrapped mess. It seems there is kind of a "happy medium" way to chase faster moving storms. Not too far upstream so as to lose the storm right away, but also not too far downstream so as to miss the whole show.

2. Don't leave home too early. I used to think that getting to the target area many hours before initiation was a good thing, but now I don't believe thats true. It seems all of that time to kill tends to make me over-think things and 2nd guess my forecast. Thus, I have come to prefer a more just-in-time approach, arriving approx. 2 hours or so before forecasted initiation, just in case things pop a little early. I would rather make a good forecast from home, and let satellite/surface obs. guide me along my way, versus making a good forecast from home, arriving too early, and then looking at too many models while waiting, and thus start to 2nd guess myself.

3. Don't get lazy. I have missed more than one tornado because I didn't put a full effort into forecasting, or I didn't want to drive to that better looking target area that is further from home. This also applies to not wanting to stay with a storm that is taking you further away from home or tomorrow's target area. That storm you leave at 00z to go get dinner might be the storm that drops tornadoes at 01z. Never give up on a chase while there is still daylight left!

 

[Mark Blue]

Every time I chase I score....and usually multiple tornadoes. Plus, I'm saving up for a camera to record all my chases.

I have been looking forward to Doren posting the videos of your chasing activities from last May and June, but that day never came, or at least that I'm aware of. Do you two have a YouTube channel that I missed somewhere along the way?

 

[James Hammett]

I've been burned so many times by the "homeward bias" over the years. It really comes down to not allowing myself time to get to the best target and early enough to make adjustments if necessary. Used to miss a couple of easy tornado days per year until I realized if I'm going to make it a chase day at all it's worth leaving a few hours earlier and spending more gas $$ rather than blow the whole day. Other times I've fallen prey to the "everyone's targeting X so I'm going to Y" secondary target. Sometimes if you want to see a 'nader you have to go to the circus.

Also for every time one gets pulled away from their target toward early junk-vection I bet there's another time pulling off early saved the day. It's just the blown days that get stuck in one's memory as being attributed to that.

 

[Sean Ramsey]

One of the things I've learned and actually had to make a rule to myself to implement this season is to chase til it's dark. I've missed a few dusk tornadoes by just being done earlier than I should have because I didn't want to get home or back to the hotel at 1am or later. A couple of quick examples: I missed the Grainola tornado in 2011 and the Cedar Vale, KS tornado on Sep 1, 2014 even though I was on both storms from the beginning. Had I stayed on either of them another 30 minutes I would nailed them.

A few years back I made it a point to be sure to get to my target in time so I wouldn't miss the show, but neglected the back end of the chase and failing to see the finale because of the urge to get back and not be tired the next day. Hopefully that won't be the case going forward.

 

[Shane Adams]

Basically, at least in my experiences, the only true rule of chasing is there are no true rules. There are guidelines, and gray areas that are flexible, but the biggest lessons I learned in my formative years were all based around taking "rules" too literally instead of just accessing the real-time situation outside my window. As far as tendancies, I'm like a lot of others: deviating from my "leaving home" target/chase plan. I always have a plan when I walk out the door, including a target town. Doing anything differently than what I have planned before reaching my target town has burned me 99% of the time. Even just a 10-15 mile detour from the plan can destroy a perfectly-poised day (11-7-11, my worst bust ever).

Chasing, despite all the technology and cheat toys, remains a mystery on many levels. The atmosphere is fluid, and fluid can be highly unpredictable. There are no failsafe dos and dont's that will net you the big tornado every time. Every situation is different. A lot of real-time, heat-of-battle deicisons I make once initiation occurs are done in a way that I cannot quantify into teaching purposes. I don't always know why I'm doing what I'm doing, but I know it's what feels right. I won't get into the old thread of "guts VS critical thinking debate" but a lot of what happens out there in my brain during a chase is very much seat-of-the-pants. I figure once I follow through with my original plan and get to where I wanted to start from, I've done enough thinking. From there it becomes more reaction than anything. And for my money/time/effort, I'd just as soon start from where I planned to be than just winging it as I go based on every radar sweep or surface update. I feel less aggravated if I fail as long as I stuck to my target, which quite honestly is more important to me than bailing to drive 90mph an hour away because I blew the forecast.

So quite simply, the biggest thing I've learned out there is to trust myself more. I'm not a meteorologist, and I certainly can't stand in front of a roomful of people with a powerpoint and explain what I'm doing. But I'm pretty decent at ending up where I need to be, at least enough of the time to keep me from wanting to quit. I'm less about methodology and more about results. There are days/setups where I never feel I get my head wrapped around things, and never pick a true target town. On these days I tend to just drift into a general area, and more or less let circumstances guide me. I feel much less comfortable on this type of day, but I don't always have an answer.

TRUST. TRUST. TRUST. In myself.

 

[Skip Talbot]

I know that when the boundary layer cools it can be favorable for tornado formation because the temp/dewpoint spread lowers (as does the LCL), but how is a cooler boundary layer going to help overcome a cap for initiation?

Boundary layer cooling actually strengthens the cap because as your boundary layer air at the surface cools, the warm inversion aloft becomes much more pronounced and your inhibition goes way up.

Storms that do develop after the boundary layer has cooled or when there is a strong cap are often elevated, meaning they're drawing their inflow above the capping layer and not from the surface. You need surface based storms for tornadoes, so even though your storm relative helicity, low level jet strength, and T/Td spread becomes more favorable for tornadoes, an elevated storm won't be able to make use of these parameters since it's not drawing in air from the surface. Of course there are exceptions, which is why you still get tornadoes after dark. Strong warm air advection, dynamic forcing, or a powerful storm system/frontal boundary can keep storms surface based well after dark so if you blow off the nocturnal show because the CINH is forecast to go way up, you may still miss a tube (as I've done).

This lesson was from May 25 in New Mexico. We watched turkey towers go up and fail all afternoon and the cumulus field finally thinned out and we had clear blue skies as the sun went down. Convective inhibition was the issue all day and it was forecast to become much stronger as the surface cooled. So we called it a chase and unloaded our gear in the room and went to get dinner, and that's when this gorgeous but at least partially elevated supercell went up in the clear air. We left the restaurant to intercept it, not wanting to miss the show to get our camera gear.

Perhaps others can explain why boundary layer cooling seems to aid or coincide with initiation of elevated convection like that raging MCS that often forms overnight in late spring and summer type setups. Perhaps it's the strengthening of the low level jet as the boundary layer decouples.

http://skip.cc/chase/140525/

http://www.theweatherprediction.com/habyhints2/420/

 

[Marc R. O'Leary]

When photographing lightning, I would be pointing my camera in the direction I thought was right, which in most cases was right. Sometimes though if there was a lull and I would see flashes behind me. I'd think maybe I should move to that direction, almost every time I did ( and I know you see where I'm going) I would miss a good /great strike. I do move a little with time keeping in the direction with the storm but now I resist that temptation to completely change direction and stay with my gut instinct until a fair amount of time has passed.

I've had this same experience..."its always behind you" type nights...lesson learned: buy a second camera and shoot in front and behind simultaneously.

 

[John Olexa]

I've had this same experience..."its always behind you" type nights...lesson learned: buy a second camera and shoot in front and behind simultaneously.

I have actually considered it! LOL. If you have ever seen David Stillings ( The lightning stalker) in action, he is a riot!!! When it happends to him he paces, throws his arms around even has trouble saying complete sentences. He just cracks me up everytime I see him.

 

[Marc R. O'Leary]

I've done that. But I also find myself doing the lightning dance in the middle of nowhere when I catch something really good.

Or I'll be staring into the sky, arms spead wide yelling "SERIOUSLY?!?!" at the storm.

My wife thinks I'm a lunatic.

 

[Nick Nolte]

My biggest badge of shame from 2014 (which, in itself, was my worst chase season so far) was my epic failure on the Pilger, Nebraska event. I made this a one day chase trip marathon from Michigan leaving the evening prior to the event. When I do this, I don't tend to do very well, and I think my judgement suffers from non-stop driving. I should tally my stats on how well I do on marathon runs. Anyway, I had left home around 22z on the 15th and drove to Austin, MN shortly after 8z where I checked into a hotel for about 5 hours of sleep and I was back on the road west just after 13z.

I haven't tackled writing my chase logs from 2014 because there isn't much to write about, but now I regret it because you forget the details if you don't write it down soon after. However, on that day I distinctly remember my plan was to drive west on I-90 and setup in Sioux Falls for staging. Then 13z SWODY1 came out and shifted the tornado probs south and west, further than I was expecting. Anyway, I finally got into SD just before 17z and there was a line of storms west of KFSD already in progress and I decided to go play the end of that line as there was an axis of 500 m2/s2 that it was going to run into. My thought was, this is an early show, this is the best chance. I even remember discussing it with a couple of other friends in the area. Tornado probs on models were better in SD that NE. HRRR was consistently plotting helicity tracks through KFSD, etc, etc. Earlier in the morning I was concerned about that cloud shield behind the overnight MCS in Nebraska which persisted to 17z or so. I think in my brain I had written off Nebraska entirely based on these things.

I stubbornly stuck with the crappy storms near KFSD until 19z when I got bummed out and...here's the cringe part...started to head back east on I-90 planning to go home. Yes, that's right, I was calling the chase at 19z. I remember sending a message to Rob Hurkes complaining about the day and that I was headed home, then he mentioned they were in Nebraska. So, I stopped after actually crossing back into Minnesota to look at vis sat. Of course, my heart sunk at that point as Nebraska had cleared out and a bubbling Cu field was showing up. I then pulled up mesoanalysis to see 5000 J/Kg uncapped cape in the same area. .

So, I turn around, get back to KFSD, blast down I-29 to Beresford then west to 81 to go south through Yankton. It's 2030z by the time I get back to Yankton and a mere 10 minutes later the first tornado warning comes out for the cell that exploded southwest of Stanton, with me 60 miles to the north. Anyway, long story short, I finally caught up to the storm at the tail end of it near Wakefield where I caught a glimpse of a rain wrapped tornado for a few seconds, of which I have no photographic evidence. Pics or GTFO right? Story of 2014 for me, lol.

So, then, of course, on the way home I see all the double violent tornado photos and videos on Facebook. I've busted on chases where other's have succeeded on what could be career days for people. 5/24/11 and 5/20/13 come to mind. 6/17/2010 I opted to stay home and not chase since it was in the middle of the week. Then Pilger happens, another 6/17/10 type event, and I've missed it again! So much jaw dropping footage from that event coupled with the fact that I missed it by 20 minutes or so made it quite painful. I didn't really care for anything chasing related for a bit after that.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was my epic fail of 2014.

To answer the "What Did You Learn?" part of this thread, I found out some things about me and how I perform during the chase in certain situations. When I do single/two day marathon runs I tend to not focus like I usually do when I'm out for multiple days. In this case, I drove 600 miles to western Minnesota into the wee morning hours, sleep for four hours then continued driving for another 300 miles. That can be taxing, and I don't think it's necessarily a fatigue from driving thing (I love driving and road tripping), but I just don't focus on details at that point. I start chasing on auto pilot, I guess. That means I don't analyze properly or make proper decisions on where to target or intercept. It also means I wasn't even watching Nebraska this day. I was in the mode of one and done in South Dakota. I honestly don't even remember looking at Nebraska as a target before the day.

tl;dr: 6/16/14 I didn't plan properly, didn't target properly, didn't execute properly, gave up way too soon, and in general I think I was very nonchalant and disengaged. Hopefully I don't pull that crap again. 2015 storm season can't begin soon enough.

 

[Marc R. O'Leary]

Grass Lake?! Thats my home town!

 

[JustinPhillips]

2014 I learned a lesson that really turned my season around. Never ignore general/see text days if they are really local. Got alot of my best storms of the year because of this including a tor warned sup at night 30 mins from home. Low key days within an hour of home were huge all season even though outlooks and models didnt show huge potential alot of those days.

 

[Michael Gavan]

Nick, I'm on your way if you want help driving! I'm just north of Kalamazoo.

In 2014 I learned that rainshafts are now wedges when you have customers to please. I also learned that vuvezelas are now mandatory chase equipment. Also, $6500 for a new motor is a storm chasing cost I did not anticipate.

Also, Don't schedule 36 hour marathon system upgrades for a customer in June. Ever. Not Ever. A Pilger will always happen on that day. Always.

 

[Marcus Diaz]

Nick, I know how hard it was to write that story. My gut twisted just reading that. Its events and screw ups like that that make you rethink what you're doing with your life. Anyways, good to hear from you again. If we meet after a chase, I'll buy you a beer and dinner!

 

[Michael Towers]

My biggest failures (or missed opportunities) are simply the result of not giving myself enough time to get to where I ultimately need to be. Bowdle is the event that stands out the most, I swear that one will haunt me to my grave. I’m a night person and getting up early isn’t easy for me, sometimes the thrill of the upcoming chase does the trick but other times the thrill is buried in sleep. Well, that morning I slept later than planned and that extra hour of sleep coupled with a disastrous navigation error led to missing what would have been to date one of the best tornadoes of my life. I still bagged three tornadoes that day but that did little to ease the sting of missing that amazing tornado. Since then I’ve always tried to leave the night before if a chase target extends beyond 500 miles. Instead of the single day marathon it’s better to get a few hundred miles under my belt and give myself a better chance of reaching those far distant targets in plenty of time. The $100 or so for the hotel is well spent if it makes the difference in getting to the storm on time while the cost of missing a Bowdle can’t be measured in money.

Another thing I’ve learned is to not even do a chase if I’m not going to be “all in†for it. If external factors limit the scope of a chase then forego the chase altogether instead of driving hundreds of miles only to be teased by storms you can’t pursue. Best example is the Wayne tornado, I had to be at work early the next day so my window of opportunity would be limited. But if something went up by 4 in Iowa I could maybe nab a tornado or two and still get home in time so there I sat in Avoca hoping something would pop nearby but knowing the front in Nebraska was the place to be. A couple of hours later nothing had popped but those wedge reports were coming in and to say I was frustrated would be an understatement. I could have been there seeing wedges and I could have even headed north to intercept the cell as it came into Iowa but if I did I’d never get home in time to get proper rest for the next day. So this not-so-hard-core chaser headed home and pledged never again to go out on a chase if I can’t devote to it to the fullest extent.