STORM CHASE 2004: JOURNAL
Friday, 5/14/2004 at 19:14
Woke up late, got to Dave's late. But it's all good, it looks like it will be dead until Sunday, giving us a full two and a half days to get to where we think we need to be.
Went the Northern route: 64 to 70. Picked up Kentucky and Indiana for new states for me. Lunch was at a Kentucky rest stop. Six in my van: Dave, me, Josh, Chase, and Ethan.
We have a 2004 Chevy Astro. I had to take the fender off to run a wire to the battery, no useable glove compartment, battery terminals were horrible to work with, etc. The over van is a Pontiac Montana. It was a bit easier to figure out, thanks to the Pulaski High School auto class... but when they hit a bump, the lights switch on and off.
Saturday, 5/15/2004 at 15:26
Finally got the APRS up and running. No idea what is wrong, but we have the aprs running through the Alinco. I tried to get the tinytrack running, but no luck yet. It won't power. I'll try with a 9V later on tonight.
Briefly ran the GPS straight into the laptop on street atlas, just as a last resort map. We thought about just drawing cartoon maps and uploading them to the webpage, just to entertain the few vistors.
Made a contact on a 2M repeater on the Yaesu.
Spent the night in Dale, IN, in the Ambest Plaza. $24.99 provided a pretty good room. Ate dinner and breakfast at the Family Restaurant, which was the only thing around.
We are trying to decide where to go. We figure Central Nebraska is a good place, but we don't want to get too far from CO for Monday, so it's a chess game as to how far we will track a moderate storm tomorrow.
Got several pictures of the St. Louis Arch. Added Illinois and Missouri today, and will probably add Kansas later today.
Sunday, 5/16/2004 at 9:42
Things died down. We have no CAPE anywhere. We are heading due west down Rt. 2 towards central Nebraska and hoping for a miracle. We have 60 knots shear in Northern Nebraska, but no CAPE. If we had CAPE around 4000 J/kg instead of 40 J/kg, we would be chasing a pretty severe outbreak.
Yesterday, we took 70 to 29 to Rt. 2. I didn't add Kansas, but I did add Iowa and Nebraska. I got a picture of how flat Nebraska is. One stretch around Rt. 2, you can see for quite a few miles.
We stayed at the Apple Inn in Nebraska City, NE. The people in that town were not too friendly, lots of Eminem fans between the ages of 14 and 20, just looking for fights.
APRS is up and running, though digipeaters are somewhat scarce. Dad sent me a track that he had been compiling. No contacts on 144 or 440 since the last post.
I checked my grades today and I did pretty well.
B+ Kinetics
B+ Communications and Professional Development II
A- Polymer Engineering
A- X-ray Diffraction
A Polymer Engineering Lab
A Geology Lab
We might head towards northern Kansas, since it has a risk for tomorrow, and we might get out from this light cirrus shield.
Sunday, 5/16/2004 at 2:46
We headed out I-80 to the Holdrege exit, only becoming deeper into the cloud shield. We turned around and are headed back to Lincoln, NE, as we anticipate a severe storm watch to be issued for that area. The cirrus shield has burned off down there, the temperature increased, the surface winds picking up, etc. If anything happens it will be later tonight. We aren't too far from Lincoln, so it isn't too far of a hike.
Made one contact on 2M, and heard some guys talking, but breaking up badly on 446 Simplex.
Sunday, 5/16/2004 at 3:47
On second thought, tornado warning near McCook, NE, so we doubled back west on I-80. Camreas are in position. The nearest repeater is in Kansas unless it tracks back towards Grand Island. We expect if it starts rotating, it will become a right mover and head more east than north east. Also, the surface temperature here (Grand Island) is higher than when we were in Kearney. We have the potential of a) the thing blowing up when it hits the warmer air and b) injesting an outflow boundary from this morning's convection.
Monday 5/17/2004 at 11:35
Yesterday, we chased an HP cell around Miller, NE. There were 11 cells in the area, two rotating violently, one producing a tornado. The weather channel shows a tornado video from the storm. That was lucky, the storm wasn't very well organized when that tornado was on the ground. We actually saw it when it was more organized. An interesting feature was dual inflow stingers, which I've never even seen a picture of. I have it on video, as well as anvil crawlers, several wall clouds, etc.
We took 40 to something to 10 to 2. Spent the night in Travellodge in Grand Island, NE.
Today, the CAPE in north-central Kansas looks to be around 2000 J/kg, and it is clear. It also has a lower level shear of 20kts, which we are expecting to increase.
Monday, 5/17/2004 at 13:55
Ran into a really friendly woman in Downs, KS who gave us a ton of maps and Kansas paraphenilia. Gave us a really good tip about a major road being under construction with heavy delays. We picked up a car that is currently following us, but we'll lose him soon enough.
Went 183 to 24, picked up Kansas as a new state.
Tuesday, 5/18/2004 at 12:11
We forecasted a storm to Hays, KS. We arrived south of Hays, where a weak dryline, a frontal boundary, and an outflow boundary from the previous storms were going to meet. A nice cumulus field went up and a tornado watch went up. We saw two cells develop; one was very ragged and disorganized, and one looked pretty organized, but maybe a little moisture starved. We chased the one to the southwest (the moisture starved one on the dryline) and it fell apart. The one to the northeast put a tornado down in Russell, KS. Tough day that way.
We spent the night in Hays, KS at a Motel 6. I met W0TOR, from MN, who was on the Russell storm. This morning, I started snapping pictures form the videos of the Nebraska storm. So far, nothing of the inflow stingers, but several good video clips.
Talked to dad last night. I was able to power the tiny trak, sent it programming, but it hasn't been picked up by a digipeater or anything yet, it still shows us in Japan, 9 days ago.
Today, CAPEs of 4000 J/kg, shear of 60kts, and a strong cap are found around Wichita, but it is most likely overcast. Doesn't really make sense. SPC had a slight risk over central Kansas, but on the last update, took it down. It's probably a busted chase day today. Tomorrow, there is a slight risk in IA, NE, KS, and MO, so we might just punt today and head up there.
Tuesday, 5/18/2004 at 2:09
Yesterday's route was 281 (NE) to 181 (KS) to 24 to 183. When we actually chased, we went 183 to La Crosse, KS, west on Rt. 4, past McCracken, KS. We then took a dirt road to 183 and went North and South a few times on Rt. 183.
Today, we took 183 to 70 to 135 at Salina.
Wednesday, 5/19/2004 at 14:42
Yesterday, we were in an area of high convection, but nothing could bust through the capping inversion. Busted day. We were going through a ton of back roads that weren't labelled, making naviation fun. On the way back, van #2 made up a bunch of nerdy meteorology songs that were hilarious. They even made up a fake national weather service "capping warning" for N3MRA, and advised me to get the hell out of Kansas. Brilliant, to say the least.
We had some promise this morning. A hatched 15% area of an F2-F5 tornado included western Iowa, Eastern Nebraska, etc. CAPE is approaching 5000 J/kg, shear is at 70kts, etc. The SPC even staffed extra people today to help out. The problem is, once again, the cloud cover. It has been haunting us all week.
We spent last night in the Apple Inn again in Nebraska City. I was too tired to really do too much last night and this morning, as it was a late night. I did, however, get listening to APRS working using a CB antenna and the Icom 281H. We've looked at a few weather stations: W0HII and W0NWS, particularly.
Today, we went out towards Lincoln, doubled around and came back towards Omaha. We are trying to find a way out of the cloud cover. It's kind of dismal look so far, but we are working on it.
Thursday, 5/20/2004 at 12:34
Yesterday was a busted chase. With all the high expectations and all, we did not even get a thunderstorm. In fact, the only things happening in the country were near the Mexico border and in Salem, VA, actually. They had a downburst that damaged the stadium there.
Last night, we stayed in the Super 8 in Council Bluffs, IA. It was pretty good, too close to a Burger King, as I spent the last two meals there. I also bought an Iowa T-shirt, since I didn't feel like doing laundry. Post cards went out today to Jimmy and Mom Mom.
APRS is now transmitting in Van #1 with the Alinco and receiving into UI View from the Icom 281H using the CB antenna to receive. No contacts yesterday, but I did stop and chat with N9ROI and learned a bit about the linking system used on the Des Moines repeater system. Apparently, everything is linked together there, so that's really cool.
Friday, 5/21/2004 at 12:45
Busted chase day. We were where the only convection was firing, but nothing could break the capping inversion. We headed southwest towards Dodge City, KS in hopes of heading towards the panhandle of Texas. As it turns out, the system didn't develop, so we spend today headed back towards the KS/NE border, hoping for the best. It's at least sunny today.
We stayed at the Econolodge in Dodge City, KS. It was hot and humid tonight.
Sunday, 5/23/2004 at 12:34
Friday, we spent the day chasing a storm through Canker City, KS. We ran into some pretty heavy hail, it had a TVS, too. We approached from the northwest though, so we went through part of the hook, saw no tornado, but we did see several wall clouds. The storm put off such an incredible lightning storm, we had to pull over. The National Weather Service Warning included the phrase 'continuous cloud to ground lightning' and they weren't exaggerating.
We spent the night in the XL Motel in Hastings, NE.
Yesterday, we found ourselves right in the middle of a tornado watch box. We drove to Grand Island, NE and waitied for the storms to fire. While there, we ran into a Penn State group with three DOWs, some guys from the UK, and an IMAX film crew.
The storms started firing and we drove maybe 45 minutes southwest. I talked to W0WWT, KC0DXA and KC0RAR to find where the first tornado was located. We drove south of Holdrige and saw the second tornado generated by this storm. We watched it form, and then get wrapped in rain. As soon as it started to wrap, we drove away, only to get caught in traffic leaving the cell. We got caught in the RFD, which was pumping out 80mph winds, hail, etc. Then Daniel comes across and says 'tornado, th-th-three o'clock' and sure enough a second tornado had formed about 200 yards to our right. We were caught in a caravan, but luckily all of us got past the tornadoes before they crossed the road.
A little ways down the road, we ran into some damage. A lot of damage. Irrigation flipped over, trees down, powerlines down, mobile homes flipped over, it was pretty bad.
So far, at one point there were 29 tornadoes on the ground, 4 1/2 inch hail confirmed, 1 confirmed fataility, Hallan, NE was wiped off the map, a train derailed, etc. Pretty bad stuff.