Why To Not Be An SPC Chaser

[Justin Turcotte]

What day was this? I'm just wondering as I am from Michigan.

June 13, 2004.

 

[jamesmseitz]

April 24 2007

This was another day that came to my mind. I would put up graphics but for some reason it will not let me. It was a use Moderate day... I think everyone and there mother was out. There were some tornado's but most were not even close to where everyone was. The bulk of the Tornados were in Colorado.... No where near the Moderate Risk. I wish I could say that I was there but I was not. there were I think 20 or 30 Tornados that day.... And if my memory serve me right over half were in NW Colorado. Just another day the the SPC can Fool you. It is A GREAT Tool but that is what it is..... A TOOL!!! I use it too but you have to learn how to look for yourselves

 

[John Farley]

August 19, 2009 is another good example. Nearly all the tornadoes occurred in the 2% area, not the 5% area. This was a day when making a good morning forecast was critical - for the 4 long-track tornadoes that occurred in Illinois, a meso convective vortex that formed and moved across northern MO was a major player. By mid-morning, the models were picking up well on the interaction of this feature with a warm front moving northward into western and central IL, and it became evident that shear and instability would be better in IL than earlier expected. SPC did pick up on this in the 1630Z outlook, but by then it would have been a little late to be figuring out your target area.

I had a great day, catching the beginning of the 18-mile Manchester, IL tornado. The storm that produced that tornado actually produced a sequence of three long-track tornadoes from there to east of Springfield.

 

[Dean Baron]

June 17th 2009 up here in Minnesota:

The next day: June 18th, 2009 in southern Minnesota/northern Iowa:

 

[Eric Sipes]

April 13, 2007

April 13, 2007 was the biggest for me. Although I technically didn't handle any forecasting this day. That honor goes to Eugene Thieszen. Though most chasers targeted NE Texas, we stuck with the triple point. (SPC 2-5% tor risk) Boy, did it pay off! We bagged the Seymour, TX wedge.

There were only 2 tornadoes reported in the 15% risk area. Both of which were in the Ft. Worth area.

 

[Chris Heater]

Ah yes...as John Farley reminded me of August 19th 2009 was a heck of a day for us. I had originally targeted east-central MO early in the morning and was heading westward on I-72. We were about 40 miles east of Quincy, IL when I stopped for a brief time to look at new model runs and such (and the SPC). As the storms coming in from Missouri began to strengthen, we headed back east towards Springfield. We stopped in Rushville to intercept a tornado HP supercell but nothing really happened there.

Long story short, we booked it to Springfield (going after the southern storm). We actually passed nearby Williamsville around 20 to 30 minutes before they were hit by a large tornado rated EF-3. We caught one of the last long track tornadoes of the day near Lake Springfield, IL rated EF-1.

John Farley caught the 1st one of the day near Manchester which ended just north of Nortonville. The second one I don't believe anyone was on that i'm aware of which started near Franklin, IL and progressed to a couple miles north of Chatham (had it not dissipated, it would have gone through a heavily populated area as an EF-2). The one we caught was 3rd in line being the Lake Springfield EF-1 tornado. At the time we caught it, it was nearly rain-wrapped (a trend that day) and about 200 yards wide. Andrew Pritchard caught it a little further down the line. The last one of the day I think no one caught which was the Williamsville EF-3 tornado

All in all...an interesting day which taught me not to always follow that the SPC says. Here is the link if you want to check out the highly detailed tornado paths (ILX did it with google earth...a first!). http://www.crh.noaa.gov/ilx/?n=google_storm_survey_8/19/09

 

[Skip Talbot]

A good one that I can think of is April 10, 2008:

This is all from memory, but I can recall there being awesome shear profiles over the MS river valley, there was even talk of going to high risk. The area was socked in with clouds, however, and couldn't destabilize. Even though the MO bootheel and south into AR is chaseable, I didn't bite and instead played west central IL north of St. Louis. The winds were better backed there, moisture better than places up north, and a thin instability axis behind the dry punch coming in from the west. This was still too far south, however, as cold core conditions up in Iowa created low topped supercells that were prolific tornado producers. We saw some pretty convection at our spot but no tornadoes.

http://skip.cc/chase/080410/

 

[Scott Weberpal]

May 10, 2004 - Palmer Divide Magic. Ignore that 5% in Wyoming!

 

[Verne Carlson]

Ah yes Scott! May 10, 2004 - another day like that would be nice this year!

 

[Matthew Piechota]

John Farley caught the 1st one of the day near Manchester which ended just north of Nortonville. The second one I don't believe anyone was on that i'm aware of which started near Franklin, IL and progressed to a couple miles north of Chatham (had it not dissipated, it would have gone through a heavily populated area as an EF-2). The one we caught was 3rd in line being the Lake Springfield EF-1 tornado. At the time we caught it, it was nearly rain-wrapped (a trend that day) and about 200 yards wide. Andrew Pritchard caught it a little further down the line. The last one of the day I think no one caught which was the Williamsville EF-3 tornado

All in all...an interesting day which taught me not to always follow that the SPC says. Here is the link if you want to check out the highly detailed tornado paths (ILX did it with google earth...a first!). http://www.crh.noaa.gov/ilx/?n=google_storm_survey_8/19/09

I actually caught the last 5 minutes or so of the Williamsville EF-3 tornado northeast of Elkhart, IL.

This was an interesting day. two other guys and myself were orginally thinking MO but on ended up in Rushville when the MCV came through as the first tornado warning was issued. we did our best to stay with it but it passed us as we were east of jacksonville. We got to Springfield with 3 tornado warnings at the time, one south, one east, and one north. We chose the one to the north as it had a very intense couplet near Williamsville.

We ended up going through some pretty intense tornado damage jus east of Elkart to a farm house and barn before we caught up to the tornado.

Really wish we were on this thing from the start is it was on the ground for 24.5 miles I believe. Overall was a really impressive day in IL with some strong long-track tornadoes in the smaller risk area.

Here is a damage picture along with an enhanced picture of the tornado.






Another day that someone else mentioned was 4/30/09. I was on a chasing trip with COD and we were in western OK all day and played frisbee in this gas station parking lot till about 7ish before calling it off due to an impressive cap and going back to the hotel. On our way to the hotel, we looked north and towers were exploding so we blasted towards and on the way to it, it looked like this



this thing just exploded on the boundary and became tor warned and clear-slotted right before dark but never did produce a tornado as it went off the boundary and died quickly. This storm had amazing structure and wish I would have got a picture of it. I did see a good picture of it but forgot the chasers name.



clear-slotted



died quickly after this, did have really good lightning.