"When and Where to Chase"...Which areas OUTSIDE of "Chase Alley" are at least passable?

[Bobby Prentice]

Many storm chasers have been frustrated over the years by trying to chase into the trees, hills, low clouds, etc. east of "Chase Alley." The recent May 10, 2008 outbreak is another in a long-series of these encounters.

I've got an article on my website titled "When and Where to Chase" that might prove useful to those trying to determine which areas outside of "Chase Alley" are at least passable.

I recently updated the article with a new map of the tree obstruction hazard titled "Forest biomass of the conterminous United States." This map probably provides the most accurate depiction of the tree obstruction that chasers would encounter out in the field.

The Color Landform Atlas of the United States provides detailed maps which show terrain obstructions such as mountains, hills, and rivers.

Color Landform Atlas of the United States by Ray Sterner (JHU)

What these maps indicate that could have been useful on May 10, 2008 is that southeast KS, adjacent areas of far northeast OK and the Springfield Plateau region of southwest Missouri is much more passable chase territory than the Ouchita Mountains of southeast Oklahoma or the Boston Mountains (Ozarks) of northwest Arkansas. Meteorology is obviously a critical factor, but often times chase territory trumps that.

 

[Mike Peregrine]

I think that Butler-Lamar-Joplin-Neosho and points west are all acceptable. There are parts of extreme eastern Kansas that are rough going, but for the most part I can usually find a tree-free spot to stop and look at stuff. Extreme SE Kansas would work just fine if there were just a few more (and better) road options. The area around Parsons is usually great for viewing storms, and I've been watching chasers catch stuff around there for years. It's just that the particular events and the way they happened yesterday blocked a northern attack completely.

Into SW Missouri, I think you can forget from Mt. Vernon to points south and east. Missouri and Arkansas are two of the most beautiful places I know down that way, but as for chasing, it's practically impossible. Joplin is a pain in the butt to drive through, but the terrain around there and Carthage is fine for seeing stuff.

 

[Joey Ketcham]

Extreme SE Kansas would work just fine if there were just a few more (and better) road options.

I think the road network here in SE Kansas is by far the best compared to what I've chased on in Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Nebraska. The county and dirt roads here are split up into square mile sections for the most part and unlike in NW Kansas where the roads turn to mud the roads here are actually gravel and you can get down them pretty quickly if need be even if it's raining.

Southwest Missouri isn't too bad depending on where you're at, like you said the areas around Joplin, Lamar, and Nevada are pretty good for chasing, but the roads in SW Missouri are horrible and the road network is horrible, but you can make due and the land is flat enough that if you can find a clearing from the tree's you can have a great view. Chasing in southern Missouri is a joke, pretty much from Neosho south into Arkansas isn't doable, and I learned this yesterday (5/10). It is pretty pointless to even try chasing in southern Missouri, Arkansas and Eastern Oklahoma. The area's I chased with in Nebraska were good, nice flat land and able to see in all directions around me. The only problem I had was roads were horrible in the area I chased in, had many paved roads that suddenly turned into dirt road. NW Kansas is ok, nice and flat but when it rains don't expect to go down any dirt roads because they just turn to mud.

 

[Joel Wright]

Iowa and much of Illinois is very chaseable in my opinion. Lots of flat, open farmland and prairie. There are river valleys that are loaded with timber, but those are few and far between.

The main problem up here is getting decent storms to go after. Not so much the chasing terrain...

 

[Jason Foster]

I'll expand that idea

I'll expand on the Iowa and Illinois areas and say that Indiana and Ohio also provide for possible chase areas were roads and terrain are good enough to meet the "chaser standard".

For me in the mid-atlantic, I avoid the western areas because of the hills and mountains. I also avoid the metro areas....so that takes me north and east. There's a small sliver of chasable area along the MD/PA line. I also tend to drive east toward the Chesapeake, and then further east. The Delmarva is flat and largely agricultural so the tree factor is minimal.

There's also Florida. Most of the southern 2/3 is chasable, except below the Tamiami trail where it's pure everglades. Between Tamiami and Lake Okeechobee, it can be a little difficult to navigate the roads thru the sugar cane fields, but it is possible. Very bumpy though with the roads mostly made of loose limestone gravel.

The biggest problem going outside the alley is two fold. First, you have the obvious population increase that creates more traffic on the available roads. And most folks in these areas (outside the alley), don't know what to make of chasers and tend to get in the way more often. For me personally, I would rather just miss a storm that deal with the aggrevation of chasing in populated areas.

 

[Shane Adams]

As frustrating as yesterday was terrain and storm speed-wise, what ended up killing us in the end was poor decision-making, and in a few cases, not making a decision quick enough. I can never say we'd have had a view of the storm even if we had stayed ahead of it, but I'd always rather stay ahead and have a shot than get left behind.

But what killed yesterday the most, as it turns out, was my forecast. I wanted extreme SW Arkansas originally, but because we were delayed in leaving until 10:30am (waaay later than I wanted to leave) I was afraid the show might be early and we'd need to get east because of storm speeds, so I went to Plan B which was I-40 east, just to get ahead of everything. The show, as it turned out, really wasn't too early, and we could've easily made my original target in time. Mistake #1.

When the stuff along I-40 early on crapped out, I took us to Hot Springs, feeling that would be a good spot to sit and wait for the new stuff firing later in SW Arkansas...which actually fired in SE Oklahoma 100 miles west of where I anticipated it. Mistake #2.

Once storms did fire in SE Oklahoma, and I saw they were only moving 30-35mph, I decided they were too far away and moving too slow for us to have a realistic shot at getting to them before dark. Also, thinking they would be overtaken by the CF soon, I expected them to line out after an hour or so. As everyone knows, they all stayed discrete for hours and produced numerous tornadoes. Mistakes #3 & 4.

And finally, once we got our tornado-warned cell we'd been flanking for over an hour, I bailed on my original plan to keep moving east and then swing around southeast up ahead of it (to stay in front) and in a heated moment of haste, said "f*ck it, turn north" and took us on a collision course directly for the storm. Mistake #5.

So as bad as the terrain and storm speeds hurt us yesterday, I cannot blame this bust on Arkansas. We busted because I screwed up in every aspect of the chase. That's probably the main reason I don't like having a computer with me on the road...constant data means I'm constantly changing my mind. If I'd been blind I would've driven to the SE Oklahoma/SW Arkansas border and sat waiting. I might have busted as well, but I would've been sticking to the plan. Nobody's (or no state's) fault but my own.

 

[Steve Polley]

SE OK/SW AR

Chris Rice and myself targeted the Broken Bow area. Had plenty of time to make the target which we did around 19z and waited for the storms to fire between there and Dequeen, AR. Original storms fired and north of Broken Bow so we went after these cells heading for the Hot Springs area. Realizing that these cells were not maturing we cut back towards the Broken Bow area again. We decided that if we went north on 259, we would be in the mountanous area of EC OK with no visibility. We sat just north of town here and watched the tor warned cell move in. Watched the wall cloud with a small funnel but because of poor visibility, we were unable to see the lower features of the cloud base. Stu Robinson reported a rain wrapped tornado just a couple miles north of our location. We knew that the terrain would be a challenge but it was enticing given all of the parameters. Lessons learned from this chase was that the storm motion and speed was a little much given the terrain they were moving over. Also complicating matters was the lack of data connections in this area. In my opinion, most of AR and EC OK are a no go for chasing except for the eastern portion of AR. Hoping for more favorable chase setups further west.

 

[Paul Redmond]

Indiana, from Indianapolis northward offers excellent road networks in a wonderfull grid pattern. However the storms are generally smaller and tubes very brief, with exceptions. That was my experience during my time there. South of Indianapolis, you are in the hoosier national forest and hilly country. Not fun there.

 

[Mike Peregrine]

The points concerning chaseable areas in the midwest that are typically considered to be outside of tornado alley and yet offer good options for chasing correspond well with the forest biomass map that Bobby posted above.

Basically, I think it comes down to this:

Where there are lots of hills, there is much less farming.

Where there is less farming, there are many more trees.

All of it works together.

 

[Adam Lucio]

Eastern IL is wonderfull for chasing, the I-57 corridor is great for about the norther 3/4 of the state. The land is very flat with a few rolling hills.

Northern IL is also very good with the exceptions being the Chicago metro area [for obvious reasons] and the NW corner of IL near Dubuque, IA...I chased that area on 6-7-07 and do not plan on ever going back. You basically have one highway [US-20] and most of it is 2 lanes going through 35mph speed limit towns. Not to mention you got the Mississippi there as well.

But like others have mentioned, we havent seen a decent setup here in awhile. Maybe if this blocking pattern in canada shifts and brings the storms north of where they currently keep tracking we could see some action in June, but I wont get into that.

 

[J Holder]

Kansas Flint Hills (especially Eastern Chase, Butler counties) are best avoided. Not only are they crooked as hell they're treacherous after a storm.