Recently in Supercell Category

Arizona is not prime territory for supercells. Moisture, instability, and shear don’t superimpose often. The tail end of monsoon season is when that exciting combo is most likely to happen. And it set up perfectly this year on September first. This wound up being my best storm chase in Arizona yet, and rises above a lot of Plains chases.

A few days before, GFS was sparking my interest, hinting at a shortwave moving over monsoon moisture. By two days prior, 3KM NAM was indicating enough instability, bulk, and directional shear for supercells with tornadoes as a potential hazard. The day before, John Sirlin and I discussed target options. The MRCZ area on the Navajo reservation looked good early on, with options gradually moving southeastward toward New Mexico later in the day. John wound up driving north overnight to avoid Labor Day traffic and was in the Winslow area to catch an early morning shelf cloud over the Painted Desert.

I finally got moving and was hanging out on Sand Springs Road northwest of Tolani Lake by 1830Z. The sky was clearing after the morning storms and new convection was bubbling along Hwy 89 north of Flagstaff and gradually moving into the Little Colorado River Valley. The new cells struggled for a while, but even in their meager state showed they wanted to shear downstream and spin.

— 1910Z —
Convection building over the San Francisco Peaks

— 1941Z —
Weak convection drifting over Sand Springs Road

— 1957Z —

— 2016Z —
Mesoanalysis indicating conditions were primed for strong storms

By 21Z, a line of convection from Tovar to Garces Mesas was strengthening rapidly. And doing so further east than I was expecting. I raced to Tolani Lake and headed east on Indian Route 6820—a road I haven’t traversed before. It led me across dusty plains, mud pits, semi-dry washes, and encroaching dune fields as storms darkened to the north.

By 2130Z, I was about 10 miles east of Tolani Lake and the lead cell was directly north of me. It had an inflow tail, RFD cut and was showing a velocity couplet on radar. Fifteen minutes later, a wall cloud was evident, but contrast was poor and I couldn’t tell what it was doing. Dust was getting dragged into the storm, encouraging me to find spots to stop that weren’t obscured by trains of cascading dirt.

— 2113Z —
Heading down Rt6820 as the eastern cell rapidly strengthens

— 2134Z —
Structure taking shape on the lead cell, looking north from ten miles east of Tolani Lake

— 2145Z —
Wall cloud taking shape

— 2147Z —
Dusty inflow was an ongoing problem for visibility

— 2129Z —
Velocity couplet developing on the lead cell

At 2147, the wall cloud got fairly pointy, but I was still too far out and squinting through a bright sunlight to tell what was going on. The velocity couplet intensified at this point and the storm received a tornado warning a few minutes later. I just kept shooting photos and video in hopes of enhancing contrast later to see what was back in there. I wish I could have tightened zoom on video, but sun was too bright to finesse using the LCD viewer, so I had to keep it wide. That’s happened to me before. I need to work out a solution for that.

— 2148Z —
Wide view of the storm

— 2148Z —
Close view of the wall cloud

— 2148-2152Z —
Reflectivity/Velocity Scans with the storm at its peak

— 2155Z —
Tornado warning issued by NWS Flagstaff office

Pulling detail out of the shots and video later clearly showed rotation in the wall cloud. From 2147-2148Z, shots picked up a funnel rotating with the wall cloud. A couple zoomed images show what could be debris beneath the funnel at ground level. Right after this, the entire scene flooded with inflow dust and I had to move on.

— 2148Z —
Zoomed view of wall cloud and funnel

— 2148Z —
Contrast enhanced to show dust at surface

— 2148Z —
Contrast enhanced 7 seconds later

Meanwhile, over the last hour, John was right up under the storms, picking up at least one convincing tornado (to my eyes) at 2123Z, followed by other shots that I can’t wait to check out.

The RFD cut on the storm grew and continued to look promising, but I got detoured by a washed out section of road near Honey Spring and lost track of things making my way back to a different road. By 2213Z, the circulation had fully occluded and looked like a huge ice cream cone as a burst of hail and a high-based, roping funnel draped around it.

— 2152Z —

— 2205Z —
RFD cut from a muddy wash near Honey Spring that was too risky to cross

— 2214Z —
Occluded updraft and elevated funnel

The entire time this cell was being awesome, two other trailing cells were also spinning away. The middle one wasn’t faring too well and seemed to be riding elevated behind the lead cell’s outflow. I figured the third in line would be dealing with the same thing. However, it managed to hop south far enough to get surface based. So, eight minutes after the great ice cream cone view, I glanced over my shoulder and saw an awesome cow catcher RFD shelf scooping out of its base. Over the course of about five minutes, it picked up a shaggy wall cloud/tail cloud combo.

— 2221Z —
RFD shelf/rooting base beginning to develop on the trailing storm

— 2223Z —

— 2229Z —
Wall cloud/tail cloud developing

— 2218Z —
Reflectivity/velocity of lead and trailing cell along with struggling middle cell

It’s both an awesome and frustrating problem to have two beautiful cells competing for attention with spectacular volcanic plugs taking turns hiding them with each turn in the road. The lead cell was moving into lower instability and weakening, but still looked awesome and I didn’t want to lose it. So I kept after it, figuring the trailing cell was headed my way anyway. I just needed to get to a spot where the terrain would let me see them both.

— 2229Z —
Trailing cell vs. encroaching terrain

— 2244Z —
Lead cell vs. encroaching terrain

I finally found that spot just east of Dilkon. The lead cell was losing its battle to remain surface based. But before it went fully elevated, it wrapped up one last occlusion. Not as beefy as the previous one, but still lancing out with one last funnel.

— 2249Z —

— 2310Z —

Meanwhile to the west, the trailing cell was getting a classic, sculpted look. At 2307, I realized a knobby wall cloud was dipping down out of its base. It was tough trading focus between the two storms, and wish I had been shooting the trailing one just a few minutes sooner, since reviewing radar later showed a low CC value under that circulation at 2304Z. Would love to have a few zoomed shots at that point.

— 2308Z —
Trailing cell and wall cloud

— 2308Z —
Tight view of wall could

— 2303Z —
Reflectivity, Velocity, Differential Reflectivity, and Correlation Coefficient

As the lead cell withered away, I set up for a time lapse of the trailing storm as it approached. It was a perfect spot with the stacked base spinning, morphing, spitting lightning, and draping feathers of precipitation as it aimed slightly to my south.

— 2326Z —
The trailing cell is now the main show as it slowly approaches

— 2336Z —

— 2351Z —

As it moved in, a new line of convection had filled in and was advancing quickly, shoving a low, gnarly shelf cloud as it tried to catch up to this spinning monument of rough pottery in front of me.

— 0007Z —
Lead cell now with a line of storms hot on its tail as seen by shelf cloud hugging the horizon to the left

— 0024Z —

— 2312Z —
Reflectivity/Velocity of line of storms rushing in

Staying ahead and in good position with that isolated cell seemed like a simple thing. I was planning to jog south on Rt 77 to Holbrook to get parting shots of it and pick up whatever new developments were inbound. But radar was showing me that the trailing line was getting serious, loaded with some big hail, and quickly expanding. I realized if I didn’t start hustling, it might cut me off from my planned route south, and punish my wife’s car in the process. So I only had time for quick stops or through-the-windshield shots as that isolated cell started to gust out and merge with the approaching line of storms. It wish I could have spent more time along that road. It looked down on an expansive, almost alien landscape with warm, late afternoon light flooding beneath approaching storm bases and greenish cores dumping on blackened buttes and red cliffs. Such a fantastic view.

— 0042Z —
Once great supercell now dying out

— 0043Z —
Panoramic view from Rt 77 as the hail-filled line of storms rushes in

— 0030Z —
Reflectivity/Velocity of my new predicament for heading south

With just a few miles to go before reaching I-40, radar showed that line of storms accelerating into a bowing segment with a very menacing load of hail. I wanted to get onto Hwy 180, but to do so, I had to head southwest on I-40 into Holbrook before catching 180 back east. I had a tough call—either bail east at I-40 to escape the looming core, or jog in front of it to get to 180. When I got there, it looked like I had enough time to spare and I made for 180. That turned out to be a very tense six miles. The wind was picking up ahead of the dark, towering column of hail, and bits of ice were starting to hit as cars and trucks began hesitating, not sure what to do. I finally breathed easier as I got around the curving arc of monstrous ice and heading back east on Hwy 180. The views were incredible again. The bowing segment was reorganizing and developing a mesocyclone as it sailed over Sun Valley. The core looked fierce as the sun lit it in orange highlights agains black shadows. Around this time, the travel stop where I had to make that tough east-west decision was getting torn up by baseball size hail.

— 0103Z —
Menacing wall of hail rapidly approaching my route to Holbrook

— 0134Z —
Bowing segment has organized back into cellular mode after dropping baseball sized hail east of Holbrook

— 0135Z —
Tight view of sunlit core and rugged shelf cloud

— 0051-0114Z —
Reflectivity/velocity of baseball filled bowing segment

The big hail-maker continued onward to the east, spitting lightning as it departed. Further to the west, another cell was working on a weak mesocyclone of its own. Not as persistent and strong as the others had been, but still winding up a beautiful storm. As sunset and twilight deepened, the lightning from that cell served up a perfect combo of purple strikes on an orange and yellow sky.

— 0136Z —
Sunset on Hwy 180 with a weaker cell trying to drape an inflow tail across the setting sun

— 0151Z —
Lightning dropping out of the core of the stronger cell to the east

— 0153Z —
More from the core of the east cell

— 0214Z —
Western cell gusting out with a spectacular lightning display against the twilight sky

A short time later, John and I caught up and shared a few stories and LCD previews before heading off to attempt some final sprite photos. No sprites for me, but still a serene view of Mars and the summer Milky Way drifting westward as distant storms flicked light across bubbling cloud tops and coyotes yipped amid the surrounding hills.

— 0346Z —
Mars, Milky Way, and flickering storms 130 miles to the south from Hwy 180 southeast of Holbrook

I hadn’t been forecasting this day to death…not even close. I was pretty much keeping a lazy eye on it for any option for strong storms as low pressure worked its way into southern Arizona. SPC had marked out southeast Arizona and southwest New Mexico for marginal severe probabilities, but a quick check of HRRR this morning hinted at some fun further north in the Little Colorado River Valley.

Six overlapping runs of HRRR helicity swaths

Several runs were pretty consistently bringing up to 750 j/kg SBCAPE, 20-40 knots of 6km shear, low 50 degree dew points up into the LCRV. Those runs were also consistently laying down decent helicity swaths across I40 between Winslow and Holbrook. As the day wore on, dew points looked like they might cross the 50 degree threshold. By 2PM, convection was starting to strengthen south of Holbrook, so I took off to sample the goods.

And what goods there were.

As I headed east, one cell took over and picked up a very nice, cyclonic velocity couplet as it drifted north-northwest.

Reflectivity/Velocity Radar at 3:19PM (2219Z)

By the time I was within 50 miles, I could start to make out a couple layers of bell-shaped lowerings sweeping beneath the lurking darkness of the storm. As good as the couplet looked, I was pretty sure the storm was peaking and I’d probably missed the best.

Distant view of the storm base looking east from I-40 (2246Z)

Looking southeast during a quick stop at Hibbard Rd. before continuing east (2302Z)

About 10 miles east of Winslow, I exited at Jackrabbit road, trying to position a couple miles east of where I thought the storm would cross. I haven't scouted this area before, and got stuck with some pretty bland landscape options…shooting perpendicular across railroad tracks makes me sad. But the storm…the storm was incredible. The RFD gust front had scooped up a gigantic cowcatcher shelf cloud as it loomed closer. After snagging a few still photos, I set both cameras up to catch both wide and tight video as it moved in.

Five-frame stitched pano looking south at the approaching supercell from 10 miles east of Winslow (2315Z)

Close up of the leading edge of the RFD shelf (2319Z)

(2320Z)

Within a few minutes, my phone belted out a warning alarm, and there I was smack dab in the middle of a tornado warning polygon. Although there was broad rotation, I didn’t notice anything tightening up apart from some fun eddies underneath the gust front.

Finding myself in the center of a tornado warning polygon (2321Z)

(2326Z)

Both cameras shooting video (2326Z)

Road options were no good once it crossed the interstate and I headed back west to Winslow to take Highway 87 north. From there I watched a trailing cell try to make good on whatever was left to chew on.

Looking southeast at the weakening remains of a trailing cell from a few miles north of Winslow (0006Z)

…and the very important rainbow shot (0016Z)

So, yeah, it feels great to finally have been on a tornado-warned Arizona supercell!

Tornado Warned Supercell—Joseph City, Arizona—3 November 2016 from Jeremy Perez on Vimeo.

We started the day out in Dodge City where we had viewed several tornadoes the day before. This day’s chase took us further east into Kansas looking for convergence and backed winds along the dryline and other boundaries. As we made our way east on Hwy 50, we stopped at a couple abandoned buildings east of Spearville, at a spot on the map called Ardell. We had passed these the day before while shooting some sunset pics after the Dodge City storm. My daughter is a bit of an explorer and spent a lot of time checking things out, including peeking into a window where she was hissed at by a huge, cranky gopher snake that had wound itself around some pipes dangling over an inky abyss.

Exploring a towering abandoned building in Ardell.

The western suburbs of Ardell, Kansas :)

As we got further east, a long arc of clouds bordering hazy skies announced the dryline bulge. It was extremely cool to see it stretched out like that visually without even needing satellite. Although the satellite view was pretty impressive too, showing both the arc of the dryline and a boundary further east. Towers were trying to build on this eastern boundary, while others were brewing to our north near the triple (quadruple?) point. We gradually made our way eastward shooting landscapes along the way, watching the boundaries percolate, trying to decide between east or north.

Approaching the moist boundary of the dryline bulge [2010Z].

Radar view of the dryline boundary [2011Z].

Satellite view of swirling boundaries and growing cumulus fields [2030Z]

Landscape east of Macksville.

Triple point cumulus far north of Macksville [2031Z]

By the time we reached Hutchinson around 2145Z, convection was gushing anvils to our north near Claflin while the Wichita towers appeared to still be working on the cap, so we headed northwest to head for the northern target. When we got to a few miles southeast of Lyons by 2215Z, those anvils had gone orphan while a Wichita storm was finally taking off and looked like it had a nice, muscular updraft going. More self doubt followed as we drifted eastward and a new growing tower between Minneapolis and Lincoln to our north got going. I watched these two towers compete for attention north and southeast until Rt 61 a few miles southwest of McPherson when a final decision had to be made. I opted north, thinking that storm’s convection looked sturdier, had a backsheared anvil, overshooting top, hopefully the benefit of a boundary and better backed inflow to work with, and an easier intercept by this point.

By 2254Z, southwest of McPherson, the choice of storm target finally became clear. (Left: storm northwest of Salina—check! / Right: storm east of Wichita—farewell…)

As we got further north on I-135, the storm was looking pretty impressive as it approached the north side of Salina. I wondered if Bennington would see a repeat 2013 performance—and apparently a tornado did briefly touch down there while we were still making our way north.

Blossoming supercell north of Salina [2317Z]

We headed off onto the grid about 4 miles north of I-70 and had our first look at the base. It was working on an RFD notch, but didn’t look too impressive at the moment.

RFD notch nudging into the base east of Bennington [2339Z]

A corkscrew in the updraft west of Bennington [2349Z]

We got a little behind for a few minutes, but worked some very nice dirt road grid to catch up. After heading west another 5 miles, the storm really pulled together and we caught sight of a hazy, dark, cone tornado behind a thin veil of RFD precipitation. The pace of the chase really picked up after that. As we paced and worked to gain ground on the storm, the tornado grew in size while the choppy barrel meso above it took on Bowdle stylings.

First view of the growing tornado as seen from 7 miles west of Solomon [0009Z]

Strengthening cone tornado as seen from 5 miles west of Solomon [0013Z]

Wide view of the tornado and sculpted RFD cut [0013Z]

Growing tornado and chaotically detailed meso [0016Z]

At 240th road, I headed south and got onto I-70 to try and gain some ground on it, snagging blind photos out the window along the way. Just a bit before the Solomon exit, we encountered a sheriff hollering at a tour van operator who was parked on the side of the interstate while his tour group was loping across the median. Yikes.

Dashcam view of tour group getting busted for Interstate frolicking [0025Z]

Shrouded tornado lurking north of Solomon [0026Z]

View to the northwest from the northwest side of Abilene [0038Z]

We made our way to the east side of Abilene and Indy Road just north of I-70. It was a perfectly elevated spot to watch the dusty, stovepipe tornado approach and widen into a large cone as it crossed our road a little over 2 miles to the north. It served up the best set of photos and video I’ve ever gotten of a tornado. A couple of locals, a father and I think his teenage daughter pulled up and talked about this being the first they’d seen even though he’d lived in Abilene his entire life.

View from Indy Rd north of I-70/northeast of Abilene as a stovepipe moves across the landscape [0050Z]

Close view of the dusty stovepipe [0053Z]

Tornado and rippling RFD cut getting ready to cross Indy Rd. a little over 2 miles to the north [0054Z]

Crossing Indy Rd [0055Z]

Tight video frame view of tornado base after crossing Indy Rd. [0057Z]

As it passed to the east, RFD shrouded the view and was pretty intent on knocking my tripods over, so we packed up and pulled back east onto Old US 40. Because the storm was nudging increasingly south and we didn’t want to play tag with the approaching tornado, we turned south on Rt 43 at Detroit to get some distance from it. I was concerned that by the time we found a good east-west road we might not catch back up until the river infested, choppy road network south of Junction City. So we lost it at that point and snagged sunset photos of a beautiful trailing cell before heading further south and shooting some nightscape shots with fireflies, stars and receding lightning near Antelope.

Sunset and striated structure on trailing supercell [0134Z]

Stars, lightning and headlights reach into the sky near Antelope [0411Z]

Chase map for the day — 25 May 2016

Close up chase map showing photo locations and approximate tornado locations.

Zoomable/interactive chase map

Video highlights from the chase

NOAA Abilene-Chapman Tornado Survey — 25 May 2016

Our May 24th chase started out in Shamrock, OK. We got a really good rate at the Shamrock Country Inn—it was clean, new beds, recently refurbished by a motivated new owner. The doors are a bit sticky, but I can definitely recommend it.

We made our way north, looking for likely spots for storm initiation along the dryline or intersecting boundaries from the Oklahoma Panhandle up into southwest Kansas.

Backroad scenery in the Oklahoma Panhandle between Logan and Slapout.

Indian blanket flowers east of Slapout, OK.

Eventually, satellite imagery showed the cumulus field getting more agitated north of Englewood, KS. This gave us a chance to drive through Englewood and revisit a view we had over four years ago when we chased a lonely, low-topped LP supercell north of town (14 March 2012). I noticed Stephen Locke—another storm chaser whosephotography I admire—filling up at the gas pump. I had a chance to say hi before moving on to the growing towers to the north.

Silos and developing towers from Englewood, KS. [2102Z]

We made our way to about six miles west of Ashland and shot time lapse of the building towers to see what would take hold. The one I was shooting wound up gaining strength and we headed off to watch it develop.

Vorticity and random high-based funnels showing up in the developing cumulus field. [2138Z]

The storm of the day looms in the distance—west of Ashland, KS. [2156Z]

Roads were dry and in pretty good shape, so we stayed off the main highways for hopefully more unique perspectives and less crowds. It worked out pretty well. As we got about eight miles east-southeast of Minneola, the storm was developing a wall cloud that looked like it had potential.

Traveling the dirt roads but avoiding the dicier ones. [2238Z]

Wall cloud developing in the base of our rapidly strengthening supercell near Minneola, KS. [2240Z]

I hated to leave our spot in case it put down a brief tornado while we were on the move, but we needed to keep up. We made our way north and by the time we were a couple miles north of Bloom, the tendrils dropping out of the wall cloud looked pretty imminent. So we stopped in time to capture a developing condensation funnel touch down for our first tornado of the day. It turned out to be a great spot, with enough altitude to capture some intervening countryside as the silhouetted funnel danced and twisted against a distant tree line. We were about 12 miles away at this point, but the view was great. We hung out at this spot for nearly 15 minutes as it grew in size. At one point I was thinking that this must be how Rozel looked in silhouette—apparently this one is being referred to as Rozel #2 by some :)

Condensation funnel of the first tornado reaches for the ground. [2301Z]

Tornado #1 churns in silhouette west of Minneola—about 12 miles from our location. [2303Z]

Inflow tugs at my daughter and chase partner as the first tornado strengthens north of Minneola. [2308Z]

Tornado #1 bulks up as it moves northward. [2313Z]

We eventually had to keep moving to stay with the storm. While repositioning, the original tornado began to occlude behind a haze of precipitation. My daughter asked if there was a different tornado forming further to the right. Sure enough, a thin rope had descended from the fresher wall cloud while the previous tornado was still in progress. This was our first tornado pair. I hate to call them twins, because the emaciated second one wasn't even close in appearance to the first—more like the mole that shows up on the stronger twin when it absorbs its sibling I guess.

Tornado #1 occludes while whisker-thin tornado #2 reaches down to the right. [2321Z]

About seven miles south of Dodge City and still on the dirt roads, we found a really good spot to watch as a new tornado took on Rozel-like proportions as a thin rope tornado flicked around on the east edge of the elongated wall cloud. There may even have been another tornado intertwined with that rope, but from my perspective I couldn't tell if it was just extra scud tendrils. The view of the main tornado at this point was spectacular. We were further south of it, so now it had some side lighting and showed a lot of dimension. We hung out at this spot for another 13 minutes or so before heading off to the dreaded main highway. (Rain was starting to effect the area and I didn't want to get us stuck in the mud.)

Tornado #3 gains strength while at least one rope—tornado #4—reaches down at far right. [2330Z]

A wider view of tornado #3 as it is southwest of Dodge City and about 10 miles to our northwest. [2331Z]

Tornado #3 taking on Rozel characteristics. [2332Z]

A wide view of tornado #3 as seen from about 7 miles south of Dodge City. [2333Z]

Wide view of the second pair of tornadoes we observed. [2335Z]

A wide structure view as the storm feigns being tornado-less. [2338Z]

Ropeout of tornado #3 rematerializes while its parent supercell continues northward. [2338Z]

Closer view of tornado #3 ropeout. Wall cloud at right is producing ground circulation—not sure if it's a continuation of tornado #4. [2339Z]

Hwy 283 was about as insane as I was worried it would be—absolutely packed with chasers and locals. Despite how crowded it was, most everyone was driving, parking and loitering in an orderly fashion. We parked at a couple spots to get photos as a fifth tornado morphed into various forms—barrel/multi-vortex/cone/elephant trunk/rope—west of Dodge City. We took the highways around the east side of the city, watching as the #5 occluded and roped out while a new, sixth tornado descended from the apex of a wasp-nest shaped meso. The highway was at a decent elevation, so we had pretty good views of the action north of the city as we made our way around. By the time we got northeast of Dodge, the sixth tornado had sprouted a satellite rope funnel of its own—video from other chasers shows this in contact with the ground as well, so—tornado number seven.

One of the many forms of tornado #5 as it was moving northwest of Dodge City—as seen from Hwy 283, about 9 miles away. [0002Z]

Ropeout sequence of tornado #5 as we navigated the east side of Dodge City. [0004-0008Z]

Tornado #5 occludes while tornado #6 drops north of Dodge City. [0010Z]

Tornado #6 sports a satellite, tornado #7 north of Dodge City—about 9 miles to our northwest. [0016Z]

By this time, new supercells were encroaching from the south it looked like our original cell was jogging to the east. So to avoid getting pinched, we bailed out to the east and made a half-hearted attempt to get on some other tornado warned cells east of Kinsley. That wound up seeming like more effort than it was worth, especially after the spectacle we just experienced, so we hung out for a while just west of Lewis on Hwy 50 and grabbed sunset photos.

One of the DOW vehicles samples a different storm east of Kinsley. [0109Z]

Sunset lights up the cold west flank of a passing supercell east of Kinsley. [0134Z]

Sunset and flooded back roads east of Kinsley. [0144Z]

A fire rages south of Lewis—presumably lightning caused. [0150Z]

A spectacular roll cloud sporting Kelvin-Helmholtz waves drifts by west of Lewis, KS. [0215Z]

After the stunning sunset, we headed back to Dodge City for dinner and a hotel for the night. While eating dinner, Arizona storm chasers Adri Mozeris, Trey Greenwood and Corbin Jaeger stopped by to say hi and we got a chance to talk about all the unbelievable things we had seen that afternoon.

Throughout our chase, I'm pretty sure we observed seven tornadoes, where two were on the ground at the same time on four occasions. I'm still having trouble believing we actually witnessed all of this. Other chasers reported seeing on the order of twelve tornadoes. So the numbers in my account don't represent the actual sequence of tornadoes on the storm—just the ones we saw ourselves. Like the Rozel/Sanford tornadoes, I could be convinced that what I counted as two tornadoes may have been continuations—where say one of the thin ropes seemed to disappear, but may have actually still been stirring up ground circulation before turning into a larger tornado later. I'll update things if I find out differently.

Chase map for the day — 24 May 2016

Close up chase map showing photo locations and approximate tornado locations.

Zoomable/interactive chase map

Video highlights from the chase

NOAA Dodge City Tornado Survey — 24 May 2016

I had my eye on potential for this setup in the days leading up to an annual visit to Elk City. I headed out about 7AM with an initial check-in target at Hope, Arkansas.

Crossing the threshold on Hwy 70

I wasn’t sure I’d ever take the plunge into chasing Arkansas, but after working on my chase map last year I had a better idea where potentially decent chase terrain/road network would be. I also spent the night before studying how highway/secondary roads would play out with northeast moving storms. Even the heavily treed areas (outside the mountains) still have patches of farmland where some peeks can be taken. I had resolved to stay far ahead of storms as long as I was in the heavy trees. Turns out I didn't need to mess around with them in the thicker areas. I figured I had time to shoot some landscape photos on the way—southwest Arkansas is beautiful.

Hwy 371 and Prairie Creek - Howard County

Outbuilding along Hwy 371 - Howard County

Fenceline along Hwy 278 in Washington, AR

Once I got to Hope about 2:30PM, I knew I had to keep moving. Convection was initiating and I was going to be in the middle of it instead of out ahead.

I made my way through Camden, Fordyce, and then to Star City where I was far enough ahead of the developing line of storms to figure out the best option. I wanted tail-end-charlie in the southernmost batch of convection—closest to better moisture before the cap pinched the line off. At 2230Z, the southernmost convection was about 30 miles to my west near Fordyce. There would be clearer views in farmland just to my east, so I headed that way and looked for a good intercept spot along AR-11 about 3 miles south of Grady.

Reflectivity at 2238Z

Fields and farm roads were flooded everywhere, so I knew any use of the road grid was out of the question. Paved roads were dense enough to get within 5 miles of anything in the area, with the main issue being river crossings for the Arkansas River spaced about 35-40 miles apart at Little Rock, Pine Bluff and Pendleton. The end cell did me a lot of favors and strengthened nicely as it approached. The flooded fields made for some interesting photography options that I wasn’t planning for.

Tail end cell approaching on AR11 - 2239Z

As the rain free base moved closer, I could finally see that RFD was carving out a glowing hole punctuated by a wall cloud with nice tendrils and rising motion.

Rain free base sturdying up with rising scud - 2306Z

Lightning strike poses with my time lapse and video setup - 2315Z

Wall cloud taking shape across flooded fields - 2322Z

Closer view of rotating wall cloud - 2322Z

It was far enough off that I had plenty of time to set up for time lapse and lightning shots as it moved in. As the cell got more to my north, RFD finally punched a huge skylight in the base. A line of trees was blocking my view somewhat, so I raced about a half mile up the road and did another quick setup to watch events unfold.

Looking up AR-11 as RFD cuts open the rain free base - 2330Z

I got video and still cameras tripoded up for shots just seconds before a noodle slipped out of the wall cloud and made contact (2335Z). The fact that I just broke a three year tornado drought with an Arkansas tornado was freaking me out. The seemingly imminent grief of chasing Arkansas with trees, vegetation and flooding actually made for the best tornado photos I’ve gotten so far.

Funnel reaching for the ground - 2334Z

Funnel making contact - 2334Z

Evidence of debris - 2336Z

Arkansas tornado over flooded fields - 2338Z

While I was snapping away, a couple drove up in a car, motioning for me to come over. Trusting that the video camera was doing its job, I headed over to find them in Heightened-Awareness-Mode (understandably), fumbling with a cell phone trying to show me a picture of a tornado that just touched down, and how careful I needed to be. It took a few tries before they understood that, yes, I was actually trying to take pictures of it right now. Meanwhile my unattended SLR & tripod had blown over and face planted into the soil while I wasn’t watching. So as they took off, I ran back, lamented my fallen camera, unscrewed the thank-goodness-for-that UV filter and kept shooting.

Inflow winds and the toppling of a camera

Still can’t believe I’m watching a tornado over this waterscape - 2340Z

The tornado roped out about 9 minute after it touched down and I took off for the Pendleton river crossing.

Starting to rope out - 2341Z

Last bits of the rope out - 2343Z

I couldn’t catch back up or get in good position to catch some newer convection to the south, so I tried for parting lightning shots that didn’t turn out any good. After that, I crossed the Mississippi at Helena and boondocked along US 61 before heading north for the March 15th setup.

Reflectivity and Velocity at 2335Z

As I downloaded my photo and video media, something didn't seem right about my video footage—there wasn't enough of it. As I dug into it, I came to the terrible realization that I had the video camera in pause mode during the entire 9 minute tornado sequence. The anguish is making my guts clench as I type this. I had that video framed and focused perfectly the entire time. But I guess I was juggling too much photography and planning the next move to get everything right. I keep working on the fact that I got a lot of good still shots and just a tidbit of the first touchdown on the far edge of my dashcam video.

Not realizing at this crazy moment that the video camera (bottom center) is not recording — ouch

Chase Map - 13 March 2016

Photography locations for approaching supercell and tornado

Although this tornado is not plotted on the SPC Storm Reports for 13 March 2016, it is documented here: NWS DAMAGE SURVEY FOR THE 03/13/2016 TORNADO EVENT

Our last chase day on the high plains was also set up to be a pretty marginal day. We headed out of Goodland toward far northeast Colorado and took in some more sights along the way.

Barn in northeast Kansas

We caught our storm of the day near Holyoke as it rolled southeast out of the Nebraska Panhandle. It sported a proto-wall cloud for a while as it churned closer. It had a buddy to its east that looked better on radar at a few points, but that cell was getting seeded and the base was obscured much of the time. We had a really good view on a hilltop south of Holyoke and spent about a half hour watching both cells kick up dust storms as the western one drew some of the dust up into its updraft.

Farm and building supercell south of Holyoke || 2150Z

Pair of cells south of Holyoke || 2155Z

Shooting time lapse || 2200Z

Gust fronts on both cells kicking up dust || 2210Z

Eventually they swept by just to our north and teased some brief rotation in a quasi-RFD push, at the same time things seemed to be generally gusting out. We paced it along some pretty rugged roads through Alvin and southeast into Nebraska. The west edge of the convection wound down as the eastern cell took over. We were too far out of position on slow, twisty roads to catch it. As we wound our way back to better road options, we paused to get a box tortoise out of the road and get closer look at it.

Gust front with brief rotation in a slot on the leading edge || 2215Z

Visiting with a Nebraska box tortoise

My daughter seeing if tortoise wants a grape

Some messy convection was rolling east along Highway 36. So we headed back into Colorado between Idalia and Burlington to check out the gust front before ending our trip with great sunset views.

Convection struggling to stay cohesive south of Idalia || 0120Z

Advancing gust front over Burlington || 0150Z

Remains of a gust front south of Burlington || 0200Z

Fiery Colorado sunset || 0220Z

A small bit of twilight convection over far west Kansas || 0250Z

Apart from the rough road patch east of Alvin, the day was pretty easy-going and I had time for a lot of time lapse photography. Those time lapse sequences and other clips from the trip are in the first segment of the 2015 Storm Chase video I wrapped up last month.

Storms of 2015

This was the craziest and best chase of our five-day trip. After overnighting in the car near Wray, we headed back to a target area east of Denver and spent about an hour with a storm that struggled south of Strasburg. I was unsure about veered wind profiles downstream in the deeper moisture, especially noting SPC guidance that storms would probably tend to grab supercell structures early on before lining out. And that's kind of what this storm was doing. It had joined some friends and wound up on the south end of a mushy line of storms moving to the east and northeast by 21Z. And it appeared to be weakening after that.

Developing storm south of Strasburg || 2020Z

Storm struggling south of Byers || 2045Z

So I let it go, figuring I didn't want to waste energy on eventual garbage. Not a good idea, as it turns out. But I was worn out and feeling kind of sorry for myself about missing the Simla storm a couple days earlier and not seeing so much as a cold air funnel on anything yet. As we sat in a spot with horrible data for accessing current radar, I figured the whole day was probably destined to be a wreck of grungy, linear convection. To show how miserable I was making myself, I even mulled the idea of heading into Denver to catch a movie so the whole day wouldn't be a complete disappointment.

South end of line of convection moving away || 2135Z

I probably spent a good twenty minutes in my pity party, facing west, watching sad blobs of convection trying to get going over I-20. When I finally turned back 180 degrees, to my immense shock, the departing storm had separated from its linear friends and blossomed into an enormous, incredible mushroom cloud on the eastern horizon. My self pity turned to shock and then anguish. It seemed too far gone to catch up to. I had been re-defeated.

Sudden, explosive convection south of Last Chance || 2200Z

I'm not sure what kind of soliloquy I was rendering at that moment, but my daughter finally decided it needed to stop. With simple optimism: "We should try to catch it anyway." I love that kid. I'm glad she said it and glad I listened to her. We hopped on I-70 and made our way eastward. The whole time I was working the math of two moving targets and the time/location of intercept. If only the storm would stay interesting that long.

RFD and wall cloud as we approached Bethune || 2345Z

We finally caught up to it near Stratton with decent wall cloud and RFD action ongoing. Then we got ahead of it a couple miles north of Burlington. There was a sleek, saucer shaped lowering on the original meso with a new base forming to its south. I'm not sure whether that bell-shaped base was receding behind its own RFD curtain or if it was getting hidden by the developing forward flank of the new updraft. Either way, it was the greatest view of a meso handoff I've had so far.

Saucer shaped base north of Burlington || 0000Z

Meso handoff in progress north of Burlington || 0005Z

We were in good position on a fantastic road grid with an easy-moving storm, so the photo ops were excellent. At one stop, the new base was looking particularly awesome and I stopped to grab shots while the video camera was running. It wasn't until reviewing video later that I realized a cold air funnel had been twisting around for a couple minutes on the west side of the base.

New base northeast of Burlington || 0015Z

Cold air/shear funnel behind rain free base || 0013-0016Z

We paralleled the storm as it moved eastward. An RFD surge carved an inverted soft-serve ice cream cone into the base at one point. Not ten minutes after that, a glance out the window revealed a beautiful funnel whirling away inside some sort of strange RFD eddy on the south edge of the storm. We pulled over quickly to hop out and get shots. Time was of the essence, so we didn't wind up with the best foreground elements for photos. That issue took a back seat to the fact that we were standing on the side of the road looking up as a gorgeous funnel stared us down. Turning around to find my daughter embracing the outflow topped this off as the best storm chase turnaround ever.

RFD carving the base northeast of Burlington || 0025Z

Funnel and core between Burlington and Kanorado || 0035Z

My daughter embracing the outflow as the funnel dwindles || 0035Z

By now, the storm had fallen too far behind the expanding outflow boundaries and started to wither away. So, we paused to photograph an idyllic farmscape south of Kanorado. Then we enjoyed the view of an inbound gust front moving in from Colorado before calling it a night at a comfy hotel in Goodland.

Farmstead southeast of Kanorado || 0120Z

Gust front moving in south of Kanorado || 0150Z

Our third chase day came after a very late night of bailing out of our hotel as a tornado-warned storm approached Limon at 2:30 in the morning. But a hotel stay is awesome after sleeping in the car the night before, and we were close to our target area between Limon and Denver. Insolation was a problem and I think the morning's cloud cover hurt potential for the day, but we still wound up on several supercells.

We caught our first two storms on Kiowa-Bennett Road east of Denver. We followed the second one for about an hour. I made an attempt to get ahead of it on Rector-Leader Road, northeast of Byers, but had to back off. The dirt road was turning to mud the further north we went, and gust front moving in too quickly to give it a shot.

Wall cloud on supercell #1 from Kiowa-Bennett Road || 2015Z

The TIV looking for another target on Kiowa-Bennett Road

Rain free base on supercell #2 from Kiowa-Bennett Road || 2055Z

Gust front south of Strasburg || 2120Z

Advancing shelf on Rector-Leader Road || 2200Z

The closest we could get || 2205Z

Road options wouldn't let us stay on that storm, so we bailed on it. While storms 60 miles to the east were getting ready to spin up tornadoes, we waited for another close optin to roll up from the southwest. This one was more strung out, but still nicely structured as it crossed Highway 36 and morphed into a beautiful shelf north of Last Chance.

Storms 60 miles to the east that eventually produced tornadoes || 2230Z

Watching as supercell #3 moves in between Byers and Last Chance || 2230Z

Supercell #3 crossing Highway 36 east of Byers || 2235Z

Gust front between Byers and Last Chance || 2240Z

Storm moving over Shamrock || 2300Z

Terraced shelf cloud north of Last Chance || 2355Z

After that, I decided to head east to see if we could thread to the other side of a couple tornado-warned storms near Kirk. It was a long shot, and didn't work out, but we eventually wound up in spectacular country along Highway 385. The lightning show north of Wray wound things down for the day.

Back side of supercell #4 facing east from Kirk || 0100Z

Sunset on the landscape south of Wray || 0150Z

Lightning show north of Wray || 0245Z

This was an incredible day for a lot of chasers who targeted eastern Colorado. If you don't already know, just run a Google image search for "Simla Colorado Tornado" and bask in the amazement. My morning forecast perusal had dabbed a target option in the Simla vicinity as an 'Upslope Magic' option. I opted for a Kansas triple point target near Oakley instead.

The morning forecast analysis

We eventually drifted even further east near Zurich where better parameters seemed to be evolving. It wound up being a long wait. This part of Kansas was strikingly beautiful and begged for some photos while we waited for the cap to break along the warm front.

Kansas countryside near Zurich || 2115Z

Lone tree and capped sky at Zurich || 2120Z

Freshening up with a view

Loitering cattle that can't get any further southeast || 2140Z

After more waiting and hoping, and getting hints of amazing things happening in Colorado, we made our way to Stockton. I was really worried the cap was going to win and we were going to wind up with a complete bust. However, as convection started to fire in western Kansas, thin bubbles of cumulus finally started trying to hold their own in our area around 8:30 PM.

Thin streamers of cumulus finally taking a jab at the cap || 0130Z

Stockton homeowners about to get a great light show in a couple hours || 0130Z

More cattle not worried about building storms and anvils || 0140Z

We moved back west to view a storm that quickly blew up north of Nicodemus. We stayed on this awesome, nearly stationary lightning producer while grabbing time lapse footage. A nicely lowered base swung into view to our north and lightning told a staccato tale of scuddy, ground-scraping wonders beneath.

Lightning strike beneath an active supercell north of Nicodemus || 0235Z

Scary scud & who-knows-what beneath the Nicodemus supercell || 0302Z

A storm further west near Seldon wound up with a tornado warning around this time. We stuck with our storm though because I figured it had as good a chance of doing the same, and it was in a lot better road position for an after dark chase. Despite tantalizing goings-on beneath the updraft, our cell never went beyond a severe warning.

After our Nicodemus storm seemed spent, we slowly made our way westward. I wanted to get back to Limon for the night, but storms were stalking our path back and I didn't want to risk hail cores or worse after dark. So we waited them out and shot a bit more lightning photography.

Roll cloud/shelf cloud and lightning lurking over our way to Limon || 0340Z

We made it to our Limon hotel around 2AM just in time for a cell to go tornado-warned to our west as it headed straight for town. So we got back in the car, tired and cranky, and headed south of town to let the storm move through.

Tornado-warned cell approaching Limon || 0653Z

2015 went down as another year without a tornado. However, awesome weather was still in abundance, and I got to enjoy some exhilarating storms with at least one gorgeous, white funnel that stared us down between Burlington, Colorado and Kanorado, Kansas.

This year I put a lot more effort into tracking down mesocyclone potential in Arizona and wound up with some beauties. Three of them were solid, daylight examples of Arizona supercells, with deep rotation lasting over an hour. A couple more nocturnal supercells hid their structure behind terrain and darkness while other daylight examples of rotating storms were more transient and weak—but still fascinating during their brief, messy lives.

This is a video and time lapse compilation some of the amazing storms I chased and photographed across the high plains and Arizona in 2015.

Storms of 2015

Music:
Beautiful Shapes by Louis Romanos Quartet
Forgotten Shore by Dhruva Aliman
beatpick.com