One Eye On The Sky

Can hail really be exciting? The answer is Yes!

This promising Sunday started out slow and it was not until the around 4 in the afternoon when we actually landed at our first prospect. A very beautiful cloud that seemed promising, but above all gave us a…sense of hail. Firstly, we heard a constant and fairly loud rumbling above us while we observed the storm. It was like thunder in the distance but consisted instead of hail inside the cloud that fell down, caught up and tumbling around on each other. How can small hail grains make a noise like this? We will get back to that at a later point.

This cloud fairly quickly turned uninteresting. Fortunately though, we had  just to turn 180 degrees around to find another storm cloud. It was just one of those days. We began to follow it but since we had positioned ourselves for the first cloud, we were completely wrong for the other. As a result, we had to make a so-called core punch, i.e. go straight through the storm to reach the right place.

This core punch was a long and tedious process of constant rain and at constant risk of hail. It was also pretty exciting to constantly be driving in the storm’s immediate trace. The rain, however, makes it very hard to discover a tornado, so we were quite keen to get us out of the core.

After chasing through Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri, we finally reached the edge of the storm and passed it. By then it was sunset, which gave the whole cloud, a very eery looking color. Everyone hoped for a tornado right there and then for it would have become quite wonderful pictures…but we were to see no tornado today. The cloud had apparently produced a tornado later that night, but tornado hunting at night is quite another matter.

Today’s big adventure nevertheless was hail. First, the unspeakable hail rumble in the afternoon, secondly when we were once again gunned with golf ball sized hail on the way from there. The worst, however, was when we drove past the small village of Oregon, Missouri, arriving a few minutes after the storm had passed. Their tornado siren was running which created an even more dramatic dimension to what we saw on the ground. Hail the size of oranges! Oranges!

One realizes then that we were standing under a cloud in which tens of thousands of orange-sized spiny ice balls defy gravity only because of upward flowing air, tumbling upside down and constantly getting bigger and bigger …

Can you imagine the people who live there? You hear on the radion in the morning that there are tornado warnings in your county and that you should keep your eyes open. You continue to hear reports as the storm seems to be heading straight at your village. At 5.43 p.m. a tornado siren is started and the sound drowns everything in the village. You go down into the basement with your family and just wait for a possible tornado to rip your house apart. First, the wind start to rorad, an artillery of hail roars against the ceiling, walls and windows.

When the storm have passed you go out into your garden or farm and realize that you are standing in Mother Nature’s driving range. You also realize that you are very happy not to have been caught outdoors. The punishment for being outdoors during a storm is stoning with ice rocks!

Move to the Midwest anyone?

Wheat is beautiful. One just want to lie down and sleep on this bed of wheat.

A perfect storm structure as it looks on radar. An important little detail is the little hook on the bottom of the cloud, saying that the cloud rotates – a lot.

An almost perfect storm structure, that unfortunately did not turn out to be very interesting.

A ridiculously long train of storm chasers, scientists, etc. following the cloud. We are, however, first in line! This season has not been a particularly good storm season and the creations of specific storm zones tend to attract everyone!

Our long drive in core punch was during massive rain at times. Here a few cars are waiting for the storm to pass, under a bridge. A very bad protection for possible tornadoes, since you are at risk being crushed under the bridge.

One of the larger hail we found. . It had already started to melt away and was probably a bit more spiny before.

Most of the hail was not orange sized – this was more the normal size.

Hail core – seeing this one can understand a little better how the hail is created. Freezing rain lands on small hail grains and builds layer upon layer and gets bigger and bigger.

Imagine hearing a tornado siren, you look out and up at the sky and it looks like this.

The closest we got to a tornado this day. It was not even a funnel, just a bit low altitude clouds – Scud.

The relatively difficult storm hunting in Missouri (traffic, many hills, many trees, bad roads) ends with a wonderful sunset which is also lit up by a nearby field full of fireflies.