One Eye On The Sky

Sitting in the car in an extremely humid and hot Kansas, not far from Manhattan, where I studied at K-State 03-04.It is a fairly typical “before” scenario.Everyone walks around a bit restless, moving back and forth into the gas station and buying more and more junk food (I have eaten such bad food the last week it is almost ridiculous!). Once in a while people come up talking to us, being a bit curious about what we do and sometimes also a bit troubled. What we consider our great joy is typically their nightmare – a fact which is easy to forget sometimes.

The conditions for today looks really, really good so if you’re reading this after 22:30 it might be fun to watch our webcam.. Right now we just sit and sweat … and waiting.

The amazing day yesterday ended in a really nice hotel, simply because we could not find anything else. Not a problem to me, since lodging is included in this trip!

This weekend is expected to be really good and it appearantly started of really well. Saturday, however, was a “bust day. This means, you go out to an area that has the right conditions, but nothing never really happens. We stopped at a cornfield in Iowa and it was extremely hot and humid, but absolutely nothing happened. The highlight was when we went into the little town nearby (Sidney, Iowa) and bought a Fat Tire ( Colorado beer), sat down by the water tank and just chilled out.

Another interesting thing is to look at the group dynamics among us. How groups are formed, and how different people react to the boredom which quite often is apperant (5-6 hours in the car per day!). I guess how you treat the boredom depends alot on how well you are prepared for it, mentally and with stuff like books etc.

Sidney – One of many village names having a counterpart in the world.

George hosts a TV serie called Angry planet where he is documenting everything from tornadoes to avalanches and volcanoes. He works occasionally on Cloud9Tours.

We drove on to the cloud that had created the tornado earlier in the afternoon. It still had a strong rotation which created a super cell with a beautiful round shape with different layers. We went in under it to look for more tornadoes but the supply had run out.

Instead, we once again experienced the tremendous feeling of being under a super cell with a wall cloud underneath eating its way over the fields. The sun was about to set, which painted the sky in dozens of lovely colors. When the sun went down the dying storm played out a lightning spectacle I have not seen the likes of before. When you have seen what nature can do during the day and then hear the storm clouds rumble and flash, then it is easy to feel very, very small.

We called it a  day around 22 o’clock and began to move against the hotel and something to eat, having the twin super cells next to us. They moved diagonally along our route, towards the highway we drove on and flashed between each other, and lit up the whole sky. It was probably 2-3 flashes per second! This accompanied with the radio in the dark announcing: “We have a tornado warning. Go down to your basements. Go down to your basements. This is a very dangerous storm. This is a very dangerous storm. etc. etc.”.

The day ended at a restaurant that, a few minutes before, had lain in the way of super-cells but survived. We ate dinner with the whole group of researchers,  TV people, etc.

What a bloody day!!

Supercell with clear round stock. I know, let’s go under it!

A little closer, the wall cloud underneath is clear and large.

Here we are just at the edge of the cloud. The wall cloud (dark gray) are eating itself onwards as something from a disaster movie.

The cloud is so well defined that you see a completely straight shadow of it.

Looking the other way you can see the second super-cell that is as finely rounded and very, very well defined. The wall cloud underneath is barely visible.

The sun begins to go down and creates long shadows of the mammatus clouds.

A magnificent sight

I took about 50 pictures here. This was the only flash I caught At this point it flashed only every 10 seconds so it was a bit difficult.

We came back to a local restaurant and watched the weather news. The feeling was very much like when you have been to a football game with your favorite team and see them win. Then you come home, watching the sports news to see the goals and everything else from all other angles, and discuss each others’ perceptions of today’s event.

Huge hail balls. They used them as ice for drinks

Also check out the Weather Channels very nice video report from the tornado.

I do not remember if it was the same storm we ended up by a bit later, but I believe so. We stopped out on a field where a wall cloud came in slowly and majestically. It was the perfect arrangement for a beautiful tornado, but the rotation was not strong enough. It created a very clear funnel (i.e. a tornado that does not reach to the ground) but could never reach all the way down. A very beautiful experience that I could enjoy more now that the adrenaline had begun to subside.

A funnel out on the wheat field

We stop again, this time since our tour guides wanted to talk to a guy that has been doing storm chasing in 50 years! It’s the guy in white, I saw him in a book I bought later so I guess he is somewhat of a storm chasing celebrity.

This was one of those days when everything goes right and you see things everywhere. To the left of the sun is a so called “sun dog”, a miniature sun next to the sun (as a part of a halo). A celestial phenomenon that I have no idea whatsoever of how it arises.

Two super-cells joining each other. One can see the lenticular clouds on the right cloud and Mammatus on the anvil (“roof cloud”) above.

Here you can clearly see that there are strong winds on a higher altitude. They pull out the upper part of clouds to a so-called “anvil”.

A picture where the camera, for once, is not pointing upwards. An hysterically long train.

Yep, today we found a tornado – and what a tornado!

Everything looked pretty good in the morning, the first cloud we went out to seemed to have all the attributes we want: a low floating wall cloud, strong rotation and large hail.

We come out just in time to bring out our cameras. The cloud, short thereafter, starts to shape a funnel which then goes back into the cloud. At the second attempt it reaches all the way down to create a tornado. It grows rapidly and soon reaches a base of a few hundred meters. After a short while we end up in the path of pea-sized hail and start to regroup ourselves.

During our repositioning the hail storm grew to the order of golf balls. The car was then actually under a rain of ice balls as big as golf balls! The noise inside the car was crazy, when the hail hit the roof, windows and windshield.

We set off to the next point where the tornado had more of a rain cloud around it which slowly rotated and simultaneously made the tornado a little bit difficult to see. We drove further out on a road that was bordered by dozens of storm watcher cars. By then the tornado was heading straight at us from the right. I wanted to stop but was not completely listened to

Finally, we positioned ourselves on a small plateau where we had a great view of how the tornado roped out – the last stage. We were lucky enough to have the sun in our backs which made the tornado completely white. A fantastic sight!

And this was just the beginning of the day…

Touchdown – a narrow funnel reaches all the way down to the ground. The funnel becomes a tornado.

The tornado is fully developed and is surrounded by hail as shown by the greenish color around.

One can see how the tornado extends up to a tube up into the cloud

The tornado becomes enveloped in rain and becomes a bit harder to see

New position, tornado has begun to die out a bit, you can see how it goes into a green hole of hail

This sight was so beautiful that we take it from another angle!

Now we are up on the plateau and the sun is in our backs. One can see how it begins to taper at the bottom.

Check out the “smoke rings” around the top part!

The narrow part becomes larger further up and makes it look like a bird with a beak

Me and the tornado

A terrific sight. The tornado starts to rope out and spins around on its own axis.

10-15 minutes after it started, it just disappears. I have had a stupid grin in my face all the time. The mood in the car is ecstatic.

I’m just about to leave our hotel in North Platte, Nebraska, so I do not have time to write or upload some pictures. One thing is for sure though – the shit hit the fan yesterday and it was a fantastic day!

It starts here with this photo. I will return with the rest of story during the day or the evening:

During Day 3, we learned how storms work. Today we learned that storms are not always too reliable.

In the morning we hurried up early from Colby, KS, to go to the Colorado plains. For the day, these plains seemed the most likely to create storms which basically means:

1. The air needs to be moist air so that clouds are shaped. This is usually (always) supported by winds from the Gulf of Mexico
2. A strong wind in the upper atmospheric layers that kind of stretches out the cloud so it doesn’t “choke itself”.
3. A strong surface wind at the ground blowing at an angle to the upper winds. This “puts a spin” on the winds.
4. Probably a lot more, but this is what I have learned  this far
   

The air started bubbling pretty early in the afternoon (as it usually does near the Rockies) so we went out to some very promising and beautiful clouds.The sun was shining brightly upon them and with the Rocky Mountains in the background, it was a fantastic sight! The storm started a bit but then died out as a hissing balloon so we went back to our base camp in the area – a small shopping center.

We waited a while in the shopping center and later went out to some new promising objects. This cloud split up into a northern and southern cloud and we bet on the south one – which typically is the best choice – but it also died out as a hissing balloon. Instead we saw, to our frustration, on the radar that the northern one blew up instead. It was going in 30 mph and was already at some distance so there was no chance to catch up with it. We went after another cloud a bit half-heartedly, but then gave up and went back to our base camp again.

It really is not always easy to chase storms. The conditions can be there but is not always optimal. This year, the weather conditions have been generally poor, but improved bit-by-bit since the beginning of our tour. Even if the conditions are good, not all storms mature into supercell / tornadic state.

Another problem when you storm chase – and something that requires a lot of experience – is positioning yourself for the storm. You want to be positioned a bit on the front edge of the storm but driving there is not always as easy. A basic problem is that the storms like to go southwest and the roads either south or west!

In rural areas you can sometimes be driving north, north and further north when all you want to do is take a turn westward over the fields! Another problem, especially evident in Colorado, is that even if the Midwest is flat, there’s always some hills and if you are in the valley between the hills you don’t see very much of the storms.

Well, in anticipation of possibly going out again late in the afternoon, we gave up a bit and sat in the rear of the best-equipped van, bought some local beer and looked at the Attack of the killer tomatoes.

Two boring days in a row now, and it shows in the group where some are starting to get a little bit frustrated.

Some pictures from the day:

If you have watched the Discovery Channel, you might recognize this – TIV: Tornado Intercept Vehicle. We bump into it a bit now and then. Here driving behind us.

Vortex 2 – A major research project followed by the Weather Channel here in the U.S.

The first cloud we chased today. At the bottom of  the”vacuum cleaner” you can see a slightly blurryvpart. This is the wall cloudet I wrote so much about in Day 3. Here you get a little bit of perspective on how massive the cloud is compared to that wall cloud. A tornado would therefore only be a small dot in the horizon in this picture.

Here we have gotten a little closer and the wall cloud is a bit more clear. The cloud has started to die and the trunk (or the vacuum cleaner) is getting thinner. The analogy with a vacuum cleaner is actually not completely wrong since this is the inflow of air into the cloud.

Rocky Mountains in the background

Mammatus clouds (or “Boobie clouds” as we say in the car). A phenomenon which can be very beautiful.

Just in the middle of this cloud, you can something looking like a stack of plates on top of the cloud. These are called lenticular clouds, they are quite beautiful and perfectly round.

A perfectly normal rainbow will end this picture series. It looked like a double rainbow from the the car but the photo doesn’t really reflect this.

As mentioned, it looks promising for the next couple of days and you can follow our trip through GPS and webcam here: http://www.cloud9tours.com/chasecam/index.html (note: since this blog entry is written two months after this trip took place, you will not see anything right now…).

I will try to put the image here and see if it gets updated a bit now and then:

You spend many long hours in the car on this trip. I was fully aware of this and it was also a bit of one of the things I really looked forward too. . This spring, I have been busy with something from the moment I woke up to the seconed I had fallen asleep in the evening, so to be bored is quite nice and a sign that you are starting to lose your stress.  When you get bored going you come up with a lot of things as well. You get ideas and talk, talk, talk about a lot stupid stuff. I was lucky to end up in a tour with a very fun group and everyone is really doing their best to make things happen. Basically, at each gas stop someone purchases some form of toys or the like…

Here are some examples of what you do when you’re sitting in the car 5-6 h per day:

• Soap bubble-clay pigeon shooting with…I have no idea what it’s called in English
• Water fights
• Teach Australians how to sing / kill the Swedish national anthem – especially this was hysterically funny
• Sleeeeeping
• Playing with all kinds of toys
• Taking stupid photos
• Visit a bunch of weird “sights” you run into on the way
• Talk, talk, talk…

Louisa in her wig

Soap bubble clay pigeon shooting

The world’s largest ball of twine. I suddenly found a new meaning with my life!

Day 4 was a pure Travel Day. We were moving up from Texas to western Kansas (Colby). When we arrived we once again bumped into a big bunch from the Vortex 2-project (known through The Weather Channel). You run into about the same bunch of storm chasers all the time! We have, however, only seen the armored car from the Discovery Channel once.

In the evening we decided to try the nightlife in Colby, KS. Suitably, the bar was called Twisters, and it had pictures of tornados and storms on the walls. The clientele was basically a dozen local guys who all had:

1. Working shoes
2. Light blue jeans
3. White t-shirt / short sleeved shirt
4. A Cap. Really! Everyone!

Just like most people in the Midwest they were really nice and fun to talk to, despite being ultra-conservative farmers who lived in Colby all of their lives. In addition, there were also a couple from the local research / TV Team Vortex 2 in the bar (not wearing the Colby uniform).

On the big TV screen on the wall they were first showing UFC but then the Weather News was on the rest of the night. In a bar Talk about subculture.

People were generally very excited because all the data suggest that the shit is about to hit the fan. It might start to become interesting already today, but especially this weekend. Keep your fingers crossed!

A so-called Dust Devil we saw from the road. A sort of mini-tornado and you’ve probably seen one at some point. It is relatively large and can be seen just to the left of the houses. It is also a picture of how incredibly  flat it is in some places!

Today was quite a classic day of Storm Chasing. We woke up, had breakfast / brunch on Ihop and by then our guides Rocky and Charles had made a plan for today’s trip. They look at their radar images, listen to weather reports, look at their gadgets and make estimates where it is most likely that the super-cells and tornadoes will be created. Today, it proved to be the western Oklahoma and northwestern Texas, so we started moving in that direction. Charles has access to local radars in the car that enabled him to analyze the storm clouds around. He then looks for rotating super-cells with a doppler and a density-radar.

Today we passed a number of smaller cells on the way down through Kansas, but none looked really interesting. Instead, we focused on a double cell being formed in northwestern Texas and sped on southwards. On the way down there we drove past another cell which at first did not seem interesting at all, but began shaping up really quickly.

What one can see then is how the storm clouds are gathering up and starting to spread at high altitude. One can measure the rotation of the inner cloud. When you then start to see a “wall cloud”, then it begins to get really interesting. This very day outside Canadian, Texas, it was just like this. A wall cloud began to lower itself down from the cloud and created formations of small clouds down toward the ground. If a wall cloud starts to rotate, it can produce tornadoes.

A storm cell growing really large is called super-cell and is a magnificent sight. Our storm cell developed into one and we drove through it at the small village of Canadian, TX. Rain and hail poured down, and the clouds seemed like they were 100 meters above. When you also know that the roof basically can start to spin into a tornado at any time, your pulse really goes up a few notches!

We went out the other side and then kept ourselves just outside the low wall cloud. It flashes quite frequently and when the wall cloud silently floats in and over you, it is just plain powerful. It looks very much like when the mother ship in Independence Day floats over the sky!

Absolutely amazing!

Images from the storm:

This is how it looked from inside the car when it suddenly started to become interesting. A wall cloud is beginning to shape. In fact, one of these clouds started funneling during a short time, i.e., the prelude to a tornado. However, it was so far away that I did not even notice it.

A little bit later, the wall cloud has grown a bit larger. A wall cloud is only the very lowest part of the storm and the size of it is just a fraction of the entire storm cloud. However, it is the wall cloud that is most interesting in the case of shaping tornadoes.

  A bit later. Here you can see a bit more of the entire storm. Notice how flat it is around and above the wall cloud!

Photo from when we run into the storm cloud and is heading out on the other side.

Now the storm quite well developed. One can see the rain coming down on the far left of the wall cloud and then how the storm goes up in different layers. Next to it, the sky is clear blue!

  You stand by shooting photos, admiring the cloud that floats in as a mother ship from Independence Day. Then it starts to flash very close to where you stand, you drop into the car again and drive a little further away.

A face in the cloud at the edge of the storm cloud