Day 11 – Caught in a mesocyclone

0 Comments Posted in Storm chasing 2009 On Sep 16, 2009

I was talking about broken expectations yesterday. I do not know what the opposite should be called, but it was certainly what happened today.

In the morning two girls dropped out of Tour. They have had a bit different expectations about Storm Chasing (more party, less waiting, more shopping, less driving). They were quite nice girls but the extra room in the vans were appreciated as well!

Today was a Travel Day again, that is, when you only get from one place to another in order to position yourself for tomorrow. The relatively negative mood, which lasted a few days were blown away again. The tour is coming to an end and we have been quite lucky to see so much. We just hope for one more tornado or something new!

Somewhere during my third nap of the day, we stopped at a village that promotes itself for having the world’s largest hand dug well. Surely it was a bit impressive but not as impressive as the fact that the village was virtually wiped out May 4, 2007 by, you guessed it, a tornado.

The tornado that swept through the city was about 2 km in diameter! They had a small museum (200 square feet), which was for the well, but which served as a temporary museum for the tornado also. We saw photos of the enormous devastation the tornado had made. In a tree, I found a piece of metal still sat wrapped around a branch …

A little bit later we stopped at a gas station where a seemingly harmless storm piled up a few miles ahead. Since we had nothing better to do we went toward it. It showed no “good” signs, and wasn’t even on Storm watch.

A sure sign that absurdly often prove to be a good sign is when we happen to have killed a bird with the windshield on the way in to a storm. This happened in Wyoming, tornado and also happened now. Apparently, the combination killed bird / tornado is very common for Cloud 9 for some reason.

We saw, however, no tornado today but what we experienced was just as cool.

Entering the storm we thought we saw a funnel, but it is so often wishful thinking and easy to confuse with Scud that one rarely reflects very much about it. Photo Evidence later showed, however, that it actually had been a funnel (a “tornado” that does not reach the ground). A little further into the storm all came at once, it got a Storm Warning and then got the status Tornado Warned. A bit later, we received information that a tornado had been reported from the storm. Of this, we saw very little since we once again ended up in the middle of the rain and had a hard time getting out of it.

Early on, we had taken the decision to make a core punch for fun because the chance that the storm could produce a tornado was minimal. Otherwise it would have been a better idea to stay outside in order to better see it. We realized, with hindsight, that it was probably the wrong decision to make a core punch. We officially gave up and started to ride out the storm again. What occured then made this whole day.

The visibility decreased rapidly while the wind and the rain intensified. In the end, the visibility so poor that one could not even see 15 feet ahead. The visibility on the sides were slightly better – maybe 20-30 feet. The wind continued to pick up and eventually it was ridiculously strong winds. Our guides who have been doing storm chasing and hurricane chasing hurricane in about 20 years estimated gusts of wind to 80 mph!

E i g h t y mph ! !

This corresponds to the power of being in the middle of an F1 tornado or a Category 1 hurricane. The difference, I believe, between being at 80 mph in a tornado and being in the same speed without a tornado is that in a tornado the winds are more concentrated in a certain point. If I understood my guide Charles correctly, we were in a “mesocyclone”, i.e. an undefined rotating air mass during a storm. An air mass that at any time can produce a tornado as well, even directly above oneself! We were quite happy that there were no hail for in that case our wind shileds would have been smashed to pieces. I mean imagine the hail you seen in my photos earlier. In 80 mph. From the side.

The most exciting thing about this was that you knew you were in the middle of the danger zone, in a storm with tornado warnings. This, with a view of 60 feet. I looked out the window and was just waiting for the rounded shape of a tornado to break off at the visibility line. The scary thing was maybe that I was actually hoping for it! Sometimes the logic is not quite there! If it would have been ok’d by the tour guides, I would have jumped out of the van to feel the wind in my body. Probably not the best idea either…

This was probably the most thrilling on the whole trip, including the tornado, and it came as a pure bonus. It felt a bit like a revenge for the previous day in which we expected everything and did not get anything special. Today, I expecting nothing and was caught in the middle of a raging storm.