May 23-25, 2014 New Mexico Supercells

We got the pleasure of spending 3 consecutive days in the upslope region of southeastern New Mexico between Carlsbad and Roswell. Good moisture, lift, instability and shear would fuel beautiful storms each day. The prairies of New Mexico provide a gorgeous setting to watch this daily round of severe weather. Storm motion was quite slow, allowing us to sit and photograph/video each storm. Lightning was great, as was storm structure. One storm pictured below with the pink/red background came VERY close to producing a tornado near Artesia. Each storm shown also produced very large hail to baseball size. The guests had quite a treat during these 3 days!

May 21, 2014 – Denver, Colorado Tornadic Supercell

The second of two super days in eastern Colorado! May 21st had much better moisture and shear than the day before did, while the Storm Prediction Center issued a tornado watch and warned of potential strong tornadoes in the area. We started the day home, a rarity for us, and didn’t have to go far. By early afternoon a cluster of storms formed over Denver, with the easternmost storm intercepting the best parcel of air and becoming a significant supercell. Just to the east of DIA, we sat looking down the notch of this beast as it spun wildly. It produced a couple funnels and what we are sure was a partially rain wrapped tornado that was only visible from the northeast looking southwest. Several other chasers saw what we did and there was a period of a few minutes where multiple vortices were spinning on the ground! We stayed with the storm as it cycled and moved eastward into more stable air. It slowly weakened at that point, never being what it was initially. A fun chase day, close to home and the tour was able to stay in the same HAIL BEATEN hotel that night. Piles of hail a couple feet deep were all around!

May 20, 2014 – Eastern Colorado Tornado Warned Supercell

May 20th was the first of two good Colorado severe weather days. This day featured returning moisture, albeit not optimal, strong shear and good upslope flow to generate storms. A few high based storms formed off the Palmer Divide by mid afternoon and the southern most storm intensified later, becoming the storm of the day! This supercell tracked all the way into western Kansas giving us quite a show with fantastic structure, a couple funnels, huge hail to tennisball size and a lot of lightning. At dusk one of the prettiest structured storms, lit up by lightning, became tornado warned near the town of Burlington, CO. It truly was a sight to behold!

May 11, 2014 – Southern Nebraska Tornadofest

What can be said of this day! Caryn ran a private tour and this was one of the final days, and an amazing event it was! A warm front lay across southern Nebraska, while a dryline extended south from the surface low. By late afternoon several storms formed north of the warm front in the cold air where there was not a capping inversion in place. Finally the triple point storm formed, and rapidly became severe. It didn’t take long for the supercell to nearly anchor and become violently tornadic. It produced several tornadoes, including a huge wedge near the town of Sutton, Nebraska. It also produced numerous tornadoes Caryn and the tour were able to witness, of about every shape and size imaginable! Roger was in Oklahoma City with a new tour arriving this day and managed to run north into Kansas and capture a couple very pretty supercells, one of which likely produced a brief tornado.

May 10, 2014 – Orrick, Missouri Tornadoes

I must admit what happened this day was a bit of a surprise. Low level moisture was quite lacking, however, pooling along the warm front deepened the moisture and allowed cloud bases to come down a bit, low enough to produce at least 3 tornadoes we witnessed. Several storms exploded over the Kansas City area, and the tail end storm ended up riding the warm front east/southeast on the strong shear and temp/dewpoint gradient. It became tornadic near Orrick, as an EF2 tornado unfortunately hit town. We also witnessed a brief elephant trunk and a larger cone/wedge looking tornado east of there. Fortunately there were no fatalities with any of the tornadoes.

May 8, 2014 – Southern Minnesota Tornado

May 8th took us quickly north to southern Minnesota. A warm front, triple point and advancing short wave would set the stage for several severe storms this day. Tornado threat seemed to be tied to the warm front and it did not disappoint! We were ALMOST late getting there due to the long distance we had to travel, however, we arrived right as the storm became tornadic, witnessing a large multivortex/cone tornado south of Judson, MN. Soon though, the storm crossed the warm front into colder air and weakened. All in all, it was a short, but successful chase day! Due to my concentration on the task at hand, I did not capture a decent photo. This tornado pic is from SLT guide Travis Farncombe. Thanks Travis!!

May 7, 2014 – North Texas/Southern Oklahoma Supercells

What a fun chase day this was! We intercepted several storms in northern Texas and one in particular near the town of Henrietta would become one of my favorite supercells of 2014! The structure was top notch, it’s motion was nice and slow, and it was extremely photogenic! Although not tornadic, it came close a couple of times to producing. Later, a second supercell formed west of Wichita Falls, Texas and moved north across the Red River into southern Oklahoma. This storm was extremely electrified and also tornado warned. Both supercells produced hail baseball sized as they churned across the countryside.

April 28, 2014 – Mississippi Tornadoes

The long quiet period in April came to a crashing halt on this day. A strong trough pushing across the southeast US with abundant low level moisture and shear, would result in a violent tornado outbreak. After spending the night in Arkansas, we blasted east across southern Louisiana into Mississippi and arrived near the town of Yazoo City, MS as a rapidly intensifying supercell approached. Due to storm motion and direction, we could not stay up with it, so we played the stairstepping approach and dropped south for the next supercell in the line. This one would produce the Louisville, MS EF4 killer tornado. We approached it from the north very carefully as the tornado blew past us at 50 mph hitting a housing subdivision in the south side of town, killing several people. A few of the SLT guests and myself jumped out of the van and started digging through rubble, finding an injured woman and a trapped dog. All ended well, and as the National Guard arrived we left to let them secure the scene and continue to dig through the mess left by the tornado.

April 1, 2014 – North Texas Tornado Warned Supercells

April 1st appeared to be the first day of a two day chase. We did an on call tour as Caryn and Roger headed to north Texas to play the dryline. It didn’t disappoint! Severe storms, two tornado warned, developed and gave us quite a show near Throckmorton, Texas. Although there were no tornadoes, these storms had super structure and produced hail to baseball size. Day 2 of this event turned out to be a raging squall line and thus, the results were not post worthy.

October 4th, 2013 – Northeast Nebraska/Northwest Iowa Tornadoes

October 4th looked crazy on paper. Great shear, super lift, great instability and moisture for Oct spelled big trouble for the folks in eastern Nebraska and western Iowa. We left early morning in heavy snow and fog from our home in Colorado, and headed towards Lincoln, NE where we’d decide to head north or east. A supercell formed north of Columbus and was moving away from us so we decided to play the patience game for something further east. Soon a wedge tornado formed from the first supercell and we were feeling pretty bummed. Finally our storm got going as it crossed into western Iowa, dropping a large tornado west of Sloan. After an occlusion, a second, third and fourth tornado formed and the latter becoming a large 1.5 mile wide wedge heading near Climbing Hill northeast towards Cherokee. We had to stop the trip as we encountered a destroyed farmstead north of Climbing Hill, where our search resulted in no injuries, except farm animals. Fortunately, no fatalaties occurred that day, but a lot of destruction of property. Here’s a 10 minute video from this day:

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