Your Top 3 Chases/ Tornadoes/ Structures/Photos

[Eric Flescher]

Several chasers have been commenting about storm, structures, photos as their 3-5 best of all time.

Time for new thread. Post your top 3 whatever your want from the list or other . Does not have to be this year. Can be from whenever!!

I am sure I have more photos like rainbows, etc but here are my top 3 for now. Many more pics but here it goes to get this thread started

Mine

(1) Kirksville, MO 5/13/2009 tornado and morphing structure- link below. Photos below. Full accoun with more pics of this tornado etc at Storm Satori blog (see below)

(2) New Deal , TX 2002 (seen with Doug Raflik ) Huge wallcloud, beavertail and structures. The speed and movement in the wallcloud and beavertail was ruly amazing

(3) Dearborn, MO tornado 5/29/2004 I shot video and pictures from the ground as the KMBC channel 9 in the air was videotaping the storm from start to finish . There was a tornado / funnel which appeared after the Dearhborn torn dissipated

 

[Skip Talbot]

Ok, I'll bite even though I've posted variants of this a few times already, but hey the season is practically over. Top three intercepts:

1. Without a doubt Goodland, KS - March 28, 2007. The parent storm was nicely structured with a striated updraft base, but the tornadoes are what I remember most. The storm put down at least 6, 5 of which I witnessed, one (my avatar) was anticyclonic, one was a wedge with a horizontal inflow vortex, two were on the ground at once, plus funnels that did not touch down.
http://www.skip.cc/chase/070328/

2. Harrisburg, NE - June 5, 2009. Stovepipe tornado with a fantastic rope out, great high plains structure, and a beautiful mammatus display to cap it all off. A well rounded chase.
http://www.skip.cc/chase/090605/

3. Springfield, IL - March 12, 2006. This was a night intercept, and I have no photos so you'll have to take my word on this one, but great structure and tornado. A knuckled anvil shone silver in the moonlight, there were no obscuring clouds, and was further illuminated by anvil crawlers. The tornado, an F3, the highest rated tornado I've seen, was a big barrel that morphed into a trunk as it roped out. It was plainly visible from behind the hook, backlit by CG.
http://www.skip.cc/chase/060312/

 

[Michael O'Keeffe]

May 22, 2008 - Intercepted 9 tornadoes on 4 different storms of nearly all shapes and sizes except for a wedge in WC Kansas.

September 16, 2006 - Intercepted 2 beautiful tornadoes in SE South Dakota. Was our first major tornado intercept while chasing.

May 4, 2007 - The Greensburg, KS supercell and tornadofest will live in my mind forever both as one of the most intense chases of my life but also a real eye opener to see some of this destruction up close and personal just minutes after it happened. It was also a big accomplishment in my eyes as we nailed the forecast as we were able to get on the storm from before the first tornado and were able to go on and see at least 5 tornadoes there after.

 

[cdcollura]

Good day all,

My top three ... Off the top of my head - See below.

#1 ... June 12, 2005 near Crosbyton, Texas - Cyclic supercell producing a wide variety of tornadoes over a 3-4 hour life span.

#2 ... September 16, 2006 near Canisota, South Dakota - Large tornado's entire life cycle from genesis to rope-out along I-90.

#3 ... May 29, 2008 near Glenn Elder, Kansas - Cyclic tornadic supercell with the most incredible structure imaginable.

 

[John Farley]

1. Danvers, IL, June 4, 2008 - A slow-moving tornado that I watched through nearly its entire 20-minute lifecycle. It started as a wide stovepipe and evolved into a multi-vortex phase as it drifted along at about 20-25 mph.

http://www.johnefarley.com/chase60408.htm

2. Red Bud, IL, April 15, 1998 - A large but weak tornado west of Red Bud, IL, along with a menacing wall cloud and, later, several tornado look-alikes that weren't.

http://www.siue.edu/~jfarley/chase415.htm

The next two are a tie, not sure which was better but both were good in different ways, though each also had its frustrations:

3a. Assumption and Effingham, IL, April 16, 2006 - Two tornadoes, a brief, weak one near Assumption and a much stronger long-lived one southeast of Effingham. Unfortunately, the latter dropped as I was trying to get through Effingham, and although I had a good view of it for a short time, I was unable to photograph it because of traffic. By the time I was out of the traffic and back to a clear view, it had wrapped up in rain and/or dust and was no longer visible.

http://www.siue.edu/~jfarley/chase41606.htm

3b. The massive HP supercell that moved across western and central Oklahoma on May 29, 2004. I saw several funnels, hailstones 4" or larger, and an anticyclonic wall cloud, funnel, and possible tornado. I narrowly missed a few other tornadoes, though.

http://www.siue.edu/~jfarley/Chase 5-29-04.htm If you want to follow this link you may have to paste it in, as the space seems to cause it to drop the last part when you click on it.

 

[Chris Hayes]

1) Top chase for me is deffinately May 23, 2008 Quinter #1 and the brief tornado afterwards. Then made the mistake of going south to Ness City to view the massive supercell every chaser and his brother was on while a few chasers saw Quinter #2. Missed Quinter #2 but still a great day. What makes this day #1? How close we were to Quinter #1 as it was approaching I-70.

2) Second best chase was June 12, 2004 Mulvane day. Saw the first needle tornado, the Mulvane tornado, and Rock Tornado. Some other things that were great about the chase was we got on the storm shortly after it went severe warned for the first time, and saw explosive convective development around the time of the Rock tornado. You could look up and see the clouds boiling up into the atmosphere

3) This one has taken some thought. I'd have to say my 3rd best chase was May 22, 2007. There was only 1 tornado for this day, but the structure from the LP and classic supercells make up for the lack of tornados, not to mention the hail roar we heard for quite some time.

Honorable mentions: May 24, 2008 3 tornadoes in Oklahoma, and June 11, 2004 tornadoes near Fort Dodge and fairly impressive mini supercell structure.

 

[Eric Treece]

#1 Without a DOUBT May 10, 2004. Slow moving cyclical supercell witnessed from start to finish 30 minutes from home.
http://www.coloradostormchaser.com/CedarPt4c-.jpg

#2 My first Tornado: Riverside Reservoir, CO Tornado July 21, 2000.
http://www.coloradostormchaser.com/RSR4aC.jpg

#3 No tornado but this will always be one of my all time favorite pictures because of how blue the sky was and how violent the updrafts were as this line of storms was forming......July 20, 2000, near Last Chance, CO.
http://www.coloradostormchaser.com/LastChanceC.jpg

 

[Brian Stertz]

#1 - May 3, 1999 - chased the F4/F5 from just northeast of Bridge Creek to Moore OK. Got cut off by traffic and debris in E. OKC . Enough said about that one. This one was put into a documentary Terror in the Heartland...with Jeff Piotrowski's intense chase moments (chased solo)

#2 - May 17, 2000 - while not an easy chase...the extra special Brady tornado show was to this day my best open video and tornado observation time ever. This ended up being widely seen on national media outlets the next day (chased with Jeff Piotrowski)

#3 - June 8, 1995 - crazy day in the TX Panhandle. Caught a large tornado that not many chasers saw that day. Had a ringside seat for a very impressive tornado west of Miami TX....went from a crazy mutliple vortex tornado to a very large one (almost wedge tornado) in minutes about 1 mile to our west. This one was on one of the Tornado Classics series tapes compiled by Tom Grazulis (chased with Mike Morgan)

May 4, 2003 was a close runner up on position #3

 

[Verne Carlson]

1) April 26, 2009 Roll, OK Tornadoes - in terms of our placement and the intensity experienced. This chase ranks tops in my mind.

2) Sept 16, 2006, Canistota, SD - still a favorite for many. The highly visible tornado #1 from the overpass and then having it come down I-90 ranks as my #2.

3) March 28, 2007, Beaver, OK - almost every storm that day produced from TX up to SD. Also the infamous Holly, CO tornado. We saw 6 or 7 tornadoes that day.

 

[Stephen Barabas]

Man. Everyone so far has awesome photos. Of course they're from the midwest and plains . . .and for now I'm stuck in New England. All I have are photos from Connecticut, so here are probably my top three. . . though it's hard to decide.

Cumulonimbus at sunset. Taken June 12th in Appomattox VA.

This was a convective squall line that occurred in the Northeast on May 31st 2002. The clouds were rotating and a brief tornado touched down about 1 miles from my house along highway I-84

Mammatus clouds captured from a tornado producing storm in Connecticut. This was in August of 2003.

 

[Chris Hayes]

1) Top chase for me is deffinately May 23, 2008 Quinter #1 and the brief tornado afterwards. Then made the mistake of going south to Ness City to view the massive supercell every chaser and his brother was on while a few chasers saw Quinter #2. Missed Quinter #2 but still a great day. What makes this day #1? How close we were to Quinter #1 as it was approaching I-70. Picture below is poor quality as it's a photo grab from my video.

2) Second best chase was June 12, 2004 Mulvane day. Saw the first needle tornado, the Mulvane tornado, and Rock Tornado. Some other things that were great about the chase was we got on the storm shortly after it went severe warned for the first time, and saw explosive convective development around the time of the Rock tornado. You could look up and see the clouds boiling up into the atmosphere

3) This one has taken some thought. I'd have to say my 3rd best chase was May 22, 2007. There was only 1 tornado for this day, but the structure from the LP and classic supercells make up for the lack of tornados, not to mention the hail roar we heard for quite some time.

Honorable mentions: May 24, 2008 3 tornadoes in Oklahoma, and June 11, 2004 tornadoes near Fort Dodge and fairly impressive mini supercell structure.

 

[Stephen Barabas]

Awesome pictures, everyone. I'm envious.

 

[Eian Greene]

My top three would be: 5/10/2004, 8/9/2004, and 1/24/1997 (Smyrna/Murfreesboro TN event, I was just 11 back then)
Living in Calhan, Colorado - I got to see a couple nice setups in 2004, right from my house. on 5/10/2004, I got to see that wallcloud that ended up producing a number of tornadoes to my northeast. On 8/9/2004, I had a short-lived tornado 1/4 mile away, and it's funnel afterwards was aloft, passing right overhead and over Calhan.

8/9/2004.

 

[Bob Hartig]

Springfield, IL - March 12, 2006. This was a night intercept, and I have no photos so you'll have to take my word on this one, but great structure and tornado. A knuckled anvil shone silver in the moonlight, there were no obscuring clouds, and was further illuminated by anvil crawlers. The tornado, an F3, the highest rated tornado I've seen, was a big barrel that morphed into a trunk as it roped out. It was plainly visible from behind the hook, backlit by CG.
http://www.skip.cc/chase/060312/

I'll never forget that chase. My buddy Bill Oosterbaan and I intercepted the storm at Columbia, MO, and tracked with it all the way back home to Michigan. At that time, all we had for radar was the NOAA stuff, and that trip was our first experiment with using velocity scans--and not SRM, at that, just base velocity. Thankfully, it was enough to keep us out of serious hot water outside of Springfield. We saw the couplet just south of us advancing toward the highway and decided to pull over and try to make visual sense of the storm. Where we were, I could look up and see clear sky and the moon shining overhead, but the tornado crossed the road only a mile ahead of us. Bill saw the funnel, illuminated by a power flash; all I saw was the wall cloud afterward. After hopping back into the car and encountering the damage path a minute later, it was sobering to realize how close we'd come to driving right into the tornado. God surely was protecting fools and rookies that night.

By the way, Skip, great writeup in your blog. It sure brings back memories.

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

Good day all,

#3 ... May 29, 2008 near Glenn Elder, Kansas - Cyclic tornadic supercell with the most incredible structure imaginable.

Every time I see this picture, I start to drool.

 

[Chris Hayes]

Here are links to the youtube videos of my top 3 chases

1: May 23, 2008 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_Nz4-8o0T8

2: June 12, 2004 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcKr6MwhRDY

3: May 22, 2007 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hecMkany9i0

 

[Doug Raflik]

#1 5-22-08 Grainfield, Gove chase...

Mire pictures here...
http://www.wxnut.net/5-22-08.htm

#2 5-12-04 Harper county Kansas

#3 5-23-08 Quinter 1 and 2

Doug Raflik

 

[Ben Prusia]

#1 - May 8, 2003 - Lawrence, Kansas. Still getting my feet wet in storm chasing ended up intercepting a quickly dying supercell that spawned a tornado that hit the city of Lawrence and then quickly died northest of town.

#2 - July 7, 2004 - Russell, Kansas. A chase where I saw no other chasers...drove out to Russell from KC on a whim and intercepted a monster supercell with impressive structure and the storm dropped multiple tornadoes on its 15 MPH turtle pace to the southeast.

#3 - May 4, 2003 - Kansas City. Local chase through a big city...only 2nd time chasing ever.

Pictures are coming soon. They are on my USB hard drive that doesn't want to work with my desktop.

 

[Scott Weberpal]

I have about 5 chases I could consider for my top 3 so I'll choose 3 of them in no particular order...


May 10, 2003 - Lima to Good Hope, IL

I waited patiently on the IL side of the Mississippi River for a cyclic supercell to cross and hope it would still continue to produce tornadoes - boy did it! I was a little worried about navigation with storm motion at 40+ mph, but I was able to keep up with the storm for over 2 hours documenting 3 fairly large tornadoes with a beautiful ropeout near Good Hope at dusk.

July 14, 2003 - New Ulm/Lake Crystal, MN tornadoes

This day got me hooked on getting close. A tornado developed 100 yards in front of myself and chase partner Chris Gullikson near New Ulm, MN. The tornado grew into a beautiful white cone as it threw trees into the air a short distance away. Eventually, another storm would produce a few more tornadoes near Lake Crystal which we viewed from a distance.

May 10, 2004 - Elbert County, CO tornadofest

This was one of those days you may have missed unless you were paying close attention to the mesoanalysis. SPC had a 5% tor in SE WY with a 2% stretching south to I-70. It became clear to me that the southern end toward the Palmer Divide yielded the best tornado potential and thus blew off SE WY. A few storms moved off the front range and choked, but eventually 3 seemingly benign updrafts developed over the Palmer Divide and merged into a beautiful cyclic supercell that went on to produce over a half dozen tornadoes in two hours.

Honorable mention chases (in no particular order):

April 11, 2001 - E. IA cold-core tornadofest.
June 25, 1998 - S. WI - my first tornado.
June 17, 2009 - Grand Island area tornadoes.

 

[Terry Tyler]

Nice work yall. Mine arent as impressive compared to some of the work displayed on this thread, but heres my top three from the south so far. Its difficult for me to choose the best days, but in the overall scope of things these three are probably the most signifigant.

(3) * 5/2/08 - Wall cloud with intense visibility and structure for southern standards. Northern most of a pair of tornadic supercells across Northern, Mississippi. This particular one was spotted outside of Holly Springs, MS.

(2) * 5-8-08 - Tornado, approaching the Lee-Itawamba, MS county lines. The tornado produced EF-3 damage 20 minutes before photo and produced EF-2 damage 3 minutes after photo.

(3) * 5-2-09 - Tornado in Northeast, MS. This tornado had no warning and had several reports of damage from Auburn, MS in Central, Lee county to Fairview, MS in Itawamba county.

 

[Bill Doms]

#3 July 13 2003 Rapidan, MN. This is the other storm which Weberpal referenced in his post.

#2 June 4 2005 Hiawatha, KS

#1 May 5 2007 Yankton, SD.

 

[Dustin Wilcox]

Tough to narrow it down to just three; each and every tornado/chase is rememberable for a variety of reason. Two things I really enjoy that help get a chase day to the top of my list 1) Close intercepts, I enjoy nothing more than getting a close intercept when it can be done safely; I love to hear the roar of the tornado, it's what I remember and replay more than any other aspect of a tornado. The second and substantially less important thing is, nailing tornadoes with no one else around, I love nothing more than filming a spectacular storm with no one else around. All that being said, it's no surprise the top 3 days on my list are days when I was able to get close intercepts, seems if I am able to hear the tornado all else aside, that chase will quickly leap many others on my list...

As of Today: 1) May 22 2008 Filmed several tornadoes, including a (true) wedge as well as a large and quickly morphing tornado from a VERY close distance. What pushed this day to #1 is the fact that from the time I saw the first tornado all the way to the last one (7 if I recall correctly) I didn't come across even one other chaser, unheard of this day and age...

2) May 29 2008 Glen Elder crazy storm that produced some extremely exciting structure and tornadoes, the treat this day was how the storm track and road network provided for multiple close intercepts, including watching the tornado cross over the Glen Elder dam just from less than 1/4 mile. I know there were a lot of chasers out this day, though up close it wasn't a problem, only negative this day was the fact that the tornadoes were close to dark, hurting photo and video ops...

3) June 17 2009 Grand Island Storm not just in my top 3 because it was recent and is fresh in my mind. This truly was a special chase, was able to watch the storm from birth and follow it through many cycles and document a hand full of tornadoes.
http://www.severechase.com/6.17.09.html

Tons of "honorable Mention's" but the ones that hurt the most to exclude are:
4-15-06 Beatrice Tornado Close Intercept
3-28-07 Bird City area and Multiple Tornadoes
4-21-07 Tulia TX Tornado
5-23-08 Several Tornadoes including couple large ones

 

[Brandon Lawson]

I don't really have a lot of good chase days to choose from, so here are my top 3:
1. June 17, 2009 Grand Island, Nebraska
2. March 28, 2007 Texas Panhandle
3. June 12, 2004 Mulvane, Kansas

Honorable mentions:
-(January 7, 2008 Monett, MO) it was my first chase with my mom and I almost got hit by a tornado
-(May 4, 2003 Girard, KS) managed to miss almost everything because I was very new to chasing and got stuck behind debris in Girard, KS. Missed a tornado that was probably only a couple miles from where I lived at the time on the far western side of Joplin, the same tornado that went through Carl Junction. My uncle has footage of that tornado and it was a massively obese cone.
-(March 23, 2007) Hobbs, NM or close enough. Drove 7-8 hours by myself on the spur of the moment and met up with Reed, Joel, Curtis, Matt, and Daniel for some close enounters.

 

[Shane Adams]

It's virtually impossible to narrow this down, but for the sake of the thread here's my top three all-time:

1. June 12, 2004 (Mulvane)
2. May 29, 2004 (the Tornado Machine in south KS)
3. May 3, 1999 (no need for description, this was one of the most significant outbreaks of all-time)

24 tornadoes between that trio including an F5.