May 13 Tornado in Northern Missouri

Updraft Base

Updraft Base

This is the view that met us as we pulled off the road a couple miles north of Edina, Missouri, yesterday evening. “We” were Bill Oosterbaan, Derek Mohr, and me, and what we were looking at was the only supercell in Missouri on Wednesday, May 13, to produce a tornado–this despite a sizeable moderate risk that swept across most of Illinois and Missouri all the way down to Kansas and Oklahoma.

The storm was showing strong rotation, and had already put down a damaging tornado twenty miles to our west in Kirksville. We lost Internet connection as we approached the storm, but our last scan showed what appeared to be a storm merger with two distinct areas of rotation. The radar didn’t lie, and the proof of it provided an interesting scenario.

Wall Cloud Forming

Wall Cloud Forming

In the second image, you can see a ragged patch of scud ascending to the right and in front of the lowering in the background. This is the beginnings of what became an impressive wall cloud. Within a couple of minutes, the scud had matured into this…

Wall Cloud

Wall Cloud

The tail cloud to the right continued to grow to an astonishing length, displaying vigorous motion, feathering in rapidly toward the updraft. Meanwhile, a rain curtain began to wrap in from the south behind the wall cloud. This suggested a second mesocyclone following in the wake of the first area of rotation. I commented on this in the video I took of the storm, and my hunch soon proved true.

As the storm drew nearer, another prominent lowering began to emerge. It was exhibiting rapid motion, moreso than the more visually interesting wall cloud in the foreground. A tornado appeared immanent within this broad rotation, and in another minute multiple vortices were square dancing in the distance. One vortex soon tightened up and became dominant, fattening up into a nice hose. But the rain bands were starting to conceal the tornadic activity, and in a bit it was hard to tell exactly what was happening.

The storm quickly evolved into a nasty high precipitation beast, and from then on any tornadoes were effectively cloaked in rain.

Sorry, no stills of a well-formed tornado–I had set my camera down in favor of my video recorder–but I did manage to capture what looks to have been the beginnings of the multiple vortex phase.

Multiple Vortex Tornado

Multiple Vortex Tornado

No, you can’t see any visible touchdown in the photo, so maybe the circulation wasn’t tornadic at that moment.  If not, it was shortly after. I sure wouldn’t have wanted to be standing underneath it.

After the chase, Bill dropped Derek and me off where we had left our cars at the K-Mart in Springfield, Illinois. Then the three of us headed off in our respective directions–Bill toward Corydon, Indiana; Derek toward northern Michigan; and I back toward Grand Rapids. On my way home, I picked up fellow Michigan chasers Mike Kovalchick and Mike Bishop. They had experienced an automotive failure that took them out of the chase, forcing them to ditch their vehicle in Lincoln–truly a bummer. It was great to reconnect with Mike Kovalchick, and to meet Mike Bishop for the first time. Having a couple fellow storm chasers in the car sure made the long trip home seem shorter.

The day out chasing did me a world of good, but I need a good night’s sleep, and I have work to do tomorrow. By the time the next round of weather arrives, though, I should be primed and ready to go.

Getting a New Laptop

Last week my four-year-old laptop dissolved into a screenful of horizontal lines. It had been acting squirrely, and with the help and guidance of my ladyfriend Lisa, who is an absolute genius with computers and software, I had already had it partially apart for an inspection. It rewarded our efforts with a total freakout.

A day later, Lisa had the problem fixed. The laptop now seems to be behaving itself, at least so far. The problem may have been mismatched memory cards. Lisa removed one of the cards, and that may have done the trick. We’ll see. I’ve already seen the laptop behave itself beautifully for day after day on previous occasions, only to suddenly start behaving like it’s on drugs for no discernible reason. Sad to say, I just don’t trust it, nor does Lisa. And obviously, whether I’m writing copy for clients on the road or chasing storms, I’ve got to have a laptop I can depend on. It’s part of my livelihood as well as my safety net.

So I finally knuckled under and bought a Dell Latitude. And while I was at it, I bought the extra-tough E6400 ATG. That oughta last me for a while. Shock-resistant. Dust resistant. Moisture resistant. Faster than greased lightning on ExLax. And, I might add, pricey. But if it lasts me five years, I’ll be happy, and it sounds like it ought to.

Meanwhile, if it turns out that the mismatched memory chips were in fact the culprit, and that my old laptop behaves itself from here on, then it should serve as a great backup.

I hate to spend so much money for this new machine. But I’d hate even more to have my radar suddenly break up into a bunch of lines while I’m chasing a tornadic supercell in Kansas. And I have a feeling that this new laptop is going to be a dream. So I guess it’s money well spent. I can’t wait to find out.

The Tornado Fest That Wasn’t

Now that Sunday’s brouhaha in Tornado Alley is over and done, the big question seems to be, where were all the tornadoes? The turnout was there, the fans were waiting, but besides the rope and the wedge/multivortex/stovepipe that my buddies Bill and Tom witnessed near Crawford, Oklahoma, in company with a multitude of other chasers, there just wasn’t anything to make postcards out of. The big show never showed. Even the lone supercell that wandered north out of Texas into Oklahoma’s higher helicities never produced, despite its lack of competition. Oh, there were a couple of twisters in Kansas, and with a tally of four, Iowa had the most reports of all. Ironically,  it wasn’t even in the PDS high risk area.

This is by no means to criticize the crew at the SPC; those are some highly adept meteorological minds, the finest in the world. No, it’s just to muse at the vagaries of the weather. Rudimentary as my own forecasting skills are, I’ve nevertheless come to realize that no matter how good a forecaster one becomes, the weather is still the weather. Capricious. Subject to subtleties that no one gives weight to until after the fact. The butterfly beats its wings and a tornado fires up in Texas–or a seemingly volatile setup falls apart.

Judging from the YouTube videos and the photos posted on Stormtrack, a lot of people managed to be in the right place at the right time for the one storm in Oklahoma that did produce a couple very photogenic tornadoes. But the event was a far cry from high-risk mayhem.

Guess I can’t feel bad about that, since I was sitting at home nursing a chest cold while my mates were out there roaming the Plains. The cold now seems finally poised to start breaking up, and hopefully in another day or two I’ll feel halfway human again. It’s just as well that I get this nonsense out of the way now, so I’m up to snuff physically in a couple weeks when my buds and I head out to the Alley for an extended tour. I hope that by then, there won’t be any lack of the right ingredients in the atmospheric brew to make the trip worthwhile.

Severe Weather Forecasting Workshop and Southern Plains Drought

It’s Thursday, and I’m in Louisville, Kentucky, with my buddy Bill. He’s got business here, and I’m taking care of business here on my laptop, and then we head to Norman, Oklahoma, for a severe weather forecasting workshop with Tim Vasquez. At times like this, I’m grateful for the freedom and mobility that come with being a freelance writer. As long as there’s work for me to do, I can do it pretty much anywhere provided I have my laptop and Internet access.

I’ve been hoping to catch a little early-season convective excitement this Saturday. Not sure that’s going to happen, though. The wild card seems to be moisture, but capping may also be a problem. It would be a shame to make the journey to Oklahoma and not see a little decent, Great Plains weather. Of course, that’s not the focus of the trip–the forecasting workshop is–but still, a supercell or two would be nice. Unfortunately, it looks like a cold front will provide the lift that finally busts the cap, and that suggests “linear.”

Sunday is the workshop, so I don’t much care what the weather does that day. I’ll be in class.

Monday may offer another crack at things, and it may be our best opportunity. It’s too far out to say (for that matter, Saturday is still a bit too far off yet to feel either good or bad about it), but assuming that the southern Plains at least get a bit of rain to relieve their dry spell and give the ground a good soaking, moisture may not be the question mark that it is for Saturday’s setup.

Frankly, the current forecast discussion on Stormtrack is the first time I’ve given serious thought to the effect of soil conditions on convection. I had always thought of ground moisture and evapotranspiration as just enhancements to the return flow, not potential deal-breakers. To my mind, a nice, deep low pulling in rich dewpoints from the Gulf of Mexico would more than compensate for dry regional conditions. But more than one seasoned Great Plains storm chaser has looked at the current drought conditions in Texas and Oklahoma and opined skeptically about the chances for 2009 being a good chase year in the West unless the region sees some rain.

Ah, well. The season hasn’t even begun yet, so I’ll take what I can get and hope for better as we move into May and June. Right now, it’s nice to simply see the sun shine, feel fifty-degree temperatures, and know that winter is drawing to a close.