El Reno: 1 Year Later

For the length of this blog project, the focus has been mainly on how the El Reno tornado impacted us as a meteorological community. Let's shift gears here and talk a little bit about how this devastating monster storm impacted the El Reno community.

First let's summarize some basic facts about the El Reno tornado to put this monster into perspective. The tornado first touched down at 6:03 P.M. central time and it lifted at 6:43 P.M. During it's 40 minute life span it grew to a whopping 2.6 miles wide, was on the ground for 16.2 miles, and reached extreme wind speeds in excess of 296 mph inside the tornado. This classifies as an EF5, but surveyed damage from the storm rates it at an EF3, mainly because a lot of structures weren't affected and it was hard to survey the damage for that reason.

With the Moore tornado occurring just 11 short days before El Reno, residents of the small town still had fresh memories of what a storm like this was capable of doing. Perhaps that is why many residents chose to evacuate the city instead of taking shelter in their homes. In doing so all the major interstates (35, 40 ,44, and 240) out of the city became parking lots as many residents were trying to head south to get out of the storm's way. Northbound lanes suddenly became southbound lanes said some residents. The roads were utter chaos, and it didn't help that the storm started to near the city during the rush hour. 

It's a stroke of luck that this deadly tornado remained over mostly open terrain. If the tornado had made that turn north somewhere in the beginning of it touching down, there would have undoubtedly been more damage as it would have headed directly into the more populated areas of El Reno. If the tornado would have continued on it's path, before making that bizarre turn north, it also would have went right into the heart of Oklahoma City. When it really comes down to it, the residents of both El Reno and Oklahoma City greatly lucked out on this tragic day. The losses suffered from this monster storm would have been more dire, had either of the two scenarios above played out.

Despite the tornado remaining mostly over empty flowing fields, like most storm chasers dream of, the emotional devastation brought forth by this monster was unimaginable. 8 people lost their lives this day and another 151 were injured. Amongst the injured included The Weather Channels Mike Bettes and TornadoVideos.net's Reed Timmer who both got a little bit too close to the storm.  They were the lucky ones, though. Others weren't so lucky. Richard Charles Henderson, Tim Samaras, Paul Samaras, and Carl Young were all storm chasers that perished in El Reno. We will never be able to get those precious lives back, but their memories will live on forever in our hearts. 

Remembering the TWISTEX Team: The Memorial Site

Recently, the StormTrackerWx team and it's May 2014 tour attendees were able to pay a visit to the make-shift TWISTEX memorial that is located off Reuter Road in El Reno, OK. This was a very humbling experience for all of us. Since the memorial was put up, it has been a goal of mine, and many others on our trip, to get the chance to visit it. Well, we made it and it was an experience that I, nor our team, will ever forget. To be able to pay respects to Tim, Paul, and Carl was a pretty extraordinary experience. Today, I just want to share a few photos with you, so that those of you who haven't had the chance to see the roadside memorial can experience it too.

Overall view of the memorial.

Close-up view of the plaque placed on the make-shift roadside memorial.

Here we can see Jason just taking a second to reflect on the moment and pay his respects to Tim, Paul, and Carl.

I've been waiting for this moment for such a long time. Here you see me paying my respects to 3 men I deeply admired.

Here,  Jason is documenting his experience at the TIWSTEX memorial.

Devin, Jake, and John take a second to pay their respects at the memorial site in El Reno, OK.

Just a slightly more artistic view of the TWISTEX memorial.

A close-up of the memorial's contents.

After some careful thought, I decided that I want to post the short commentary that I filmed while at the site. I apologize for the quality, it is not the best and the video is very busy, but I just wanted to share the thoughts I was having at the moment with you.

Jason is working on a special project for today. Stick around for today's post.
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Remembering the TWISTEX Team: Paul Samaras

Sharing more information about Paul Samaras is a bit more difficult. From my personal knowledge I can tell you that Paul was 24 years old at the time of his death and he was an amazing photographer, and the link to his photography page above displays some of his artistic skill. To give you a little bit more information on Paul, I would like to share an excerpt from the National Geographic article that I referenced in the last post.

Paul Samaras
Photo provided by: National Geographic

"Paul Samaras had been born on the same day as his father, 31 years later. When Samaras’s two daughters, Amy and Jennifer, were young, he had taken each of them out on a storm chase. Amy became noticeably scared when a fist-size ball of hail cracked the windshield; her first chase would be her last. But young Paul took to the experience immediately. He had inherited the Samaras passion for photography, and it was quickly apparent to everyone else on the TWISTEX team that the shy, scruffy-bearded younger Samaras possessed a creative gift that they lacked."

This is all I could find about young Paul after doing some internet research. I was lucky enough to be pointed in the direction of a few friends and acquaintances of Paul's: Kayla, Melissa, and Tony Laubach. Everything that they told me about Paul, in our short conversations, is very useful and gives much insight into who Paul was. 

Paul was an introvert, being very quiet and shy around people that he didn't know well. Despite being shy in person, Paul had a fantastic sense of humor online. His talent didn't stop at photography, but it extended into animation and videograhpy as well. I was told that Paul started to get a little bit "bored" with plain photography so he branched out and tried the videography, which proved to be more of a challenge for him. Since the Discovery Channel was no longer with the TWISTEX team, it's a thought that maybe Paul branched out for that purpose, to try and capture their experiences in the absence of the their cameras. He was largely self-taught in the terms of photography and videograhpy, but the photographers that he crossed paths with out in the field probably offered him some advice.

Photo taken from Paul's photography page

Through the course of the day, I have been told by three different people that Paul was a very humble young man and that even though it was obviously there, he would rarely show outward excitement. "He was a good guy, very genuine, and had a great passion about him" states Tony Laubach. Whenever he would get a compliment about his talent, whether it be his art or his photography, he would always play it down. He never liked to take compliments. Paul's talent for photography was unrivaled by many other photographers, but he would never admit it. There would be many times when Tony Laubach or Ed Grubb would be talking about some photos they took and they would just go and look at what Paul had done. He would casually show them his shot and Tony and Ed would essentially turn their cameras off. "He captured us in ways that made us look like heroes with his video and photography and was well on his way to becoming on of the best in the field", recalls Tony of Paul.

Paul loved animation. As a matter of fact I am told that a few of his favorite animated movies were Wall-E, Tangled, Wreck-It-Ralph, and How to Train Your Dragon. He also had an interest in many aspects of WWII, such as fighter planes and weaponry that was used during that era. Kayla went on to tell me that Paul had an affinity for music too. He enjoyed many different types of music ranging from score composers to today's mainstream music. 

Paul loved his cats and he loved his family. He grew up with two sisters (Amy and Jennifer) and he seemed to be close with them. Family meant the world to Paul and he never spoke ill about them. One direct quote from Kayla was this: "I suppose some people are able to fit in with nature in all its forms, Paul was one of those people. Mother Nature always seemed to show off for him, whether it be in his art, or just random run ins with various creatures from day-to-day. He had a kind heart...He was always realistic, but never failed to be uplifting when others needed a kind word. He was a dear friend and genuinely caring, and I can say that there aren't many people in the world like him." This to me says so much about Paul. It gives you an insight that you might not be able to see otherwise. There is no website on the internet that can let you see into Paul's passionate soul, that it why I want to sincerely thank Kayla, Tony, and Melissa for sharing a little bit about Paul with me today.

Photograph by Paul Samaras

I would like to close by sharing this short paragraph that Kayla had sent me today during our conversation. I feel that this pretty much sums up perfectly what I was trying to get at by starting this project and I feel you all would benefit from reading it as well.

"Paul's life was cut short, as were the lives of his father and Carl Young. The loss that the world has experienced from their passing will be felt for many years to come, and not just by their friends and family, but by the field of science. Paul was to document their journeys, to offer insight into what TWISTEX did, and hopefully pair his footage with any data that they managed to collect. They had a passion for getting close to Mother Nature, but not for thrill seeking, for furthering the world's understanding of dangerous storms and how we could better prevent needless deaths caused by them each year."

Stay tuned for a new TWISTEX post soon!

Remembering the TWISTEX Team: Carl Young

Carl Young, self portrait.
Photograph by Carl Young.

Though Tim was the founding member of the TWISTEX team, he wasn't the only member. Tim took much pride in his team and since the last two posts were geared more towards him and his contributions, I would like to talk a little bit about Paul and Carl today. I've been reaching out to friends and acquaintances of these men to try to share some more intimate information about them. The knowledge you aquire on the internet about them are things that are just so generic and I feel it just doesn't sum up what these two extraordinary men were really like. I want to be able to get up close and personal and teach you about the compassion that these men had for what they did. I will have to separate this into two posts, one for Paul and one for Carl. I found myself acquiring a lot more information that I had previously thought possible, with the help of a few acquaintances, of course!

Let's start with the generic information that can be found on the internet using the Discovery webpage. Mr. Carl Young first started his endeavors with Tim when they met at a meteorological conference. It was at this very conference that Tim encouraged Carl to collect data from inside tornadoes as the main focus of his thesis research, which I am assuming was research for his master's degree. Carl then began to head out to the plains states every spring with Tim, starting in 2003, where they successfully tracked down over 125 tornadoes together.

Carl wasn't always in the meteorology field. He actually got his start working on Hollywood film crews. The year 2000 is when he decided to head east and take a two month storm chasing adventure with his sights set on spotting a few tornadoes, if he was lucky. To his surprise he ended up catching over a dozen tornadoes during that trip. It is said that the raw force of mother nature was no match for the Hollywood pyrotechnics that he was used to. This exact trip is when Carl decided that he wanted to pursue a career in meteorology. He studied tornado dynamics and received his master's degree in Atmospheric Science from the University of Nevada, Reno.

Now, I am not quite satisfied with the information that the internet gives about Carl. It gives no insight into who Carl Young is, but rather tells us about his professional career. I am interested to learn about who Carl was outside of his career. I feel there's so much more to be said about him and his personality than what is portrayed through the media. I reached out to my acquaintance Melissa June Daniels, who was a very close friend of Carl's, to tell me a little bit more about him. After a quick talk with her I learned so many new and fascinating things about him that I might have never found out otherwise.

Photograph by Carl Young

Melissa told me that Carl loved to smile and laugh. He had a brilliant mind and that it was tough to keep up with. His knowledge was pretty much endless and he knew a lot about many things. When Carl was not out on the road with Tim and TWISTEX, he would actively take classes at Lake Tahoe Community college to learn more about acting, which he also had a knack for. Melissa said that his mind for memorizing things was astounding. There was one particular instance where Carl stood up on the church at Julia Morgan's Asilomar and recited all of Shakespeare's Hamlet to her, she said she will never forget that moment. Not only was he passionate about the weather and acting, but he was also passionate about music. Carl's music interests were endless, but he really seemed to love movie soundtracks, Depeche Mode, and lots of 80's bands. From what I understand, he was also a fabulous photographer and much like Paul, had an artistic eye for the perfect shot. This shows in the many photographs of his that you can find floating around the internet. Last but not least, Carl was a fabulous dancer, a sharp dresser, a very kind hearted man, and was very romantic.

I am glad that I got the opportunity to talk to Melissa today and I am thankful that she was willing to share some of her personal knowledge about Carl. I really wanted to get more information out there about how wonderful Carl was, and I think this post just might have accomplished that.

Stay tuned for a post about Paul Samaras! That's the next blog project endeavor! 

Remembering the TWISTEX Team: Safety and Contributions

Paul and Tim Samaras.
Photo provided by: www.thedenverchannel.com

The EF3 El Reno tornado has brought with it a lot of negative publicity to the storm chasing community. It has always been said that someone was going to be killed doing this, but no one would have ever in a million years thought it would have been Tim and his team. That would be simply impossible! Talk to anyone who knew Tim, they'd tell you he was the safest storm chaser around. Therefore trying to understand how this happened to him and his team is very hard to swallow.  He followed many safety precautions and always had the right to turn down any chase, which he did do. If a storm was too strong, too rain wrapped, if he didn't feel right about it, Tim wouldn't chase it. He never put anyone on his team in danger especially his son Paul who, like his father, took interest in storms at a young age and began riding along with the TWISTEX team when he was a teenager.

Tim's safety when chasing storms is just one of the attributes that made him such a respectable scientist in the community. He cared deeply for his fellow chasers and many went to him for advice. He would always give his honest opinion, no holding back. If you were afraid of the truth, you didn't go to Tim. This is yet another one of his attributes that made him so respected. He always gave the honest truth whether you wanted to hear it or not. From what I understand, when Tim spoke it was in your best interest to listen. And mostly everybody did.

Tim and one of his famous turtle probes.
Photo provided by: fox41blogs

Other than his safety standards Tim had contributed so much to the meteorology field. He was a storm chasing pioneer. What's even more incredible is that he is self taught. Everything Tim knows about our crazy atmosphere and the shenanigans that it can pull he learned by himself and by observing it. His research has made such strides in our community. It's a well known fact that the research that was done by Tim's TWISTEX team directly impacted and advanced warning times for tornados and severe weather. Turtle probes, which he designed himself, are now history making instruments. To this day, the information that his team has recorded from inside tornadoes has been unmatched. No other storm chaser has come remotely close to supplying atmospheric scientists with information from inside these violet storms, quite like Tim has. 

Tim deploying a "Turtle Probe".
Photo by: Cartsten Peter

On June 24th 2003 Tim and his turtle probes made recording-breaking history. One of his probes was able to take a direct hit from and EF4 tornado in Manchester, South Dakota. After all was said and done and Tim recovered his probe, which he was surprised to see sitting in the exact location he deployed it, the data that was retrieved was astonishing. This particular probe measured a pressure drop of 100 millibars at the tornado's center. This is the biggest pressure drop ever recored inside a tornado's center and the record still stands today. 

Since Tim's death the TWISTEX project has come to a halt. Tim held the team together and was the person responsible for geting the funding for the project, as many articles has previously stated. A new National Geographic article that was published yesterday stated the following from Mike Nelson, a Denver-based meteorologist, "We've lost the genius of Tim. I'm hoping that someone he inspired will step in. It hasn't happened yet." 

With all of the above being said, I hope this instills a new curiosity in you about Tim and his team. Go, look up articles and videos, do a little bit of research! Please, learn more about this man and his team and all the wonderful things they had done for the meteorological community. I'll even start you off with two links to read, both are National Geographic articles. One from last year when this awful tragedy first struck and the other more recently posted to honor Tim a year later. Read them both and see how wonderful this man and his contributions were. If I can teach just one person about the passion and love these men had for weather, I will have done my job. Below are the links, enjoy the read and feel Tim's essence all around you.

The Last Chase
Storm Chaser Tim Samaras: One Year After His Death, His Gift Is Unmatched

Remembering the TWISTEX Team: Introductions

Left to Right: Tim Samaras, Paul Samaras, and Carl Young.
Photo provided by: ABC news.

With the anniversary of the monster El Reno tornado approaching in a little under a week, I believe now would be the perfect time to start a blog project memorializing Tim Samaras and the TWISTEX team. Little vortices of thoughts are spinning uncontrollably in my head making it difficult to pick a focus point for this project. This can be taken in so many different directions, but I'm trying to tell a story here and trying to figure out what story to tell is proving to be pretty difficult. How does one write a post/posts that would portray the exact feelings they have for Tim and his TWISTEX team? How can I get you, the reader, to feel the emotions I feel when talking or thinking about these men and their contributions to the Meteorology field? The words are just going to flow from my heart with the hopes that someone will pick up the emotions flowing out with it. When posting on a blog site like this, it's your goal to try not to be biased or make things too personal. In this particular case, it's very difficult to do so. To not use the word "I" when talking about this subject, is well, impossible. With this being said, please bear with me and know that these are my personal thoughts and feelings. These posts are how I would like to express myself on this very somber subject. They do not entirely express the thoughts and feelings of the StormTrackerWx team, but just the thoughts of one young woman who deeply admired Tim and his team.

Tim and his TWISTEX team.  Photography by Carl Young.

For those of you who don't know, TWISTEX,  is an acronym for Tactical Weather Instrumented Sampling in/near Tornadoes EXperiment that Tim coined. Now, I never had the amazing opportunity to meet Tim, but I do remember the first time I saw him on TV. The show was called Storm Chasers and I have been watching it since high school. I didn't regularly keep up with the episodes, but I wish I had. If I did, Tim Samaras and his amazing TWISTEX team would have came into my life much sooner than they did.  It probably wasn't until maybe a year before this tragedy struck, that I saw Tim and his team on the show. Over that short time my interest in Tim grew tremendously, like towering cumulonimbus clouds on the perfect severe weather day. I went through the entire series just waiting to see what Tim had up his sleeve in each episode that he starred. 

Tim Samaras and Carl Young.
Photo provided by: www.Discovery.com

There was something very different about Tim and his TWISTEX team. He had something that the other chasers lacked. A different type of passion and enthusiasm. A different type of respect and love for storms. He approached his chases more methodical than the others. I think that's what made me fall in love with Tim. He respected the storm, always. He didn't go after something he thought would be too much for him and his team. Safety was always Tim's first concern, it seemed to be his golden rule as a matter of fact. If a particular chase was going to be too risky, he simply didn't chase that day. No questions asked. Tim had the right to veto any chase and if he felt that it would be too risky, he would use that veto no matter what. Which brings me to the mystery question : What happened to the TWISTEX team on May 31st 2013. There is a lot of speculation, but no definite answers. Unfortunately, the only people who could answer that question are Tim, Paul and Carl. To my dislike, I guess it will remain a mystery...

The loss of these 3 men did not only affect their many family members and friends, but many people worldwide, such as us here at StormTrackerWx.com. Tim was an inspiration for meteorologists all over the country and our goal for this project is provide information about Tim and his team and how they have positively affected our meteorological community. The StormTrackerWx team plans to have something special posted on Saturday May 31st 2014, the 1 year anniversary of the storm, and we are working really hard to achieve this goal. Stick around to read more posts pertaining to Tim, Paul, Carl, the TWISTEX team, and the El Reno tornado in the upcoming days.

Be sure to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for future updates!

The Fun Summary Post!

Today is the day! I have finally finished my map of major places we visited on our journey across the United States while storm spotting. Before we left Indianapolis, Jason gave me an official milage count I would like to share with you as well. The mileage that the map gives will not match the mileage we traveled on our trip for various reasons, such as including driving to and from State College, and not including pit stops.

Anyway, here is the map I came up with. This is a very general map just showing the towns we stopped in along the way. The routes aren't correct because one simply cannot remember the exact route we took to every single place we went that week!

A general overview of our route.

Based on the above map we traveled (including travel time to and from State College, Pa) about 70 hours 20 minutes and 4,397.95 miles on our trip. The official mileage that Jason gave me for the actual trip, including pit stops and not including the driving to and from State College, was 3,679 miles. Either way you look at it, that is a lot of driving. Even when I take out traveling to and from State College the amount of hours driven on this trip is still amazing, about 53 hours and 38 minutes!

The map that I made unfortunately doesn't tell you the names of the cities that we stopped in. That's why I'm here. I can do that for you. So for those of you that are curious, I am going to list, in order, the names of the cities that we stopped in for either storm spotting purposes or to stay the night,

1. Indianapolis, Indiana

2. Hull, Illinois

3. Quincy, Illinois

4. Memphis, Tennessee

5. Tuscumbia, Alabama

6. Little Rock, Arkansas

7. Mayflower, Arkansas

8. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

9. Norman, Oklahoma

10. Moore, Oklahoma

11. El Reno, Oklahoma

12. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (again)

13. Salina, Kansas

14. North Platte, Nebraska

15. Alliance, Nebraska

16. Ogallala, Nebraska

17. Indianapolis, Indiana (back where we began)

I also made a list of states visited, as a whole group,  during the trip. I am going to list them here along with their nicknames just for fun. They are pretty much in the order that we visited them.

Indiana - The Hoosier State

Illinois - Land of Lincoln or The Prairie State

Missouri - The Show Me State

Arkansas - The Natural State (current) and The Land of Opportunity (former)

Tennessee - The Volunteer State

Mississippi - The Magnolia State or The Hospitality State

Alabama - Yellowhammer State, Heart of Dixie, or Cotton State

Oklahoma - Sooner State

Kansas - The Sunflower State

Nebraska - Cornhusker State

Iowa - The Hawkeye State

My next venture for the blog is to try to get a place set up where we can put all of our photos and you can view them. I hope to get it up and working soon! Also we are still working on that video. Keep checking back for some updates. They will be coming your way soon!

The Long Drive Home And The Experiences We Took Home With Us.

We all woke up the next morning still in disbelief with what happened the day before. I can't say we were all awake when we woke up, but we had no choice but the leave Ogallala at around 7:15 am, despite getting into the hotel so late. The drive ahead of us was very long, as a matter of fact it was 932 miles which was 13 hours and 48 minutes. Now, don't forget the time zones! During this drive we drove through 2 time zones (from Mountain time to Eastern time) losing a hour each time. This made the trip technically 15 hours and 48 minutes, and we had to do it all in one trip. No hotel stops along the way. We were on a tight schedule and had to be back to Indianapolis that night. I must admit, I didn't think we were going to do it. I really don't think any of us did. Jason though, he knew he was going to do it, and nobody was stopping him.

The route we took from Ogallala NE to Indianapolis, IN.

Now, one might think that a car ride of this magnitude would be extreme torture, especially after traveling all over the country for the last 8 days in a 12-passenger van, but actually it wasn't. After all this traveling I became immune to the car ride that day. As for the others, I can't speak for them, but they seemed to be doing just fine. Every time I looked back they were either sleeping, taking selfies for SnapChats, taking video, having a sing-a-long, or playing some sort of game. For mostly all of the trip, Kat sat up front to navigate (that was her job). After we got closer to Indy and drove more into Jason's territory, he relieved her of her navigating duties. I think she was pretty excited. At this point I jumped up front just to see what it was like to help co-pilot the van. Man, despite what Kat might think, she had it made up there. It was so comfy and there was leg room and places to put stuff and it was harder to get car sick and well the list goes on forever.

While sitting up front, I got the luxury of being the DJ. When I played my music it seems everyone fell asleep. Ha ha, guess my music bored them! Naw, they said they couldn't hear it. They weren't lying though. The difference in sound between the front of the van and the first row was tremendous. It was super loud up front and really low in the first row. Now I know why Jason kept turning it down all the time, or kept it at, what I thought was, a low level.

While up front, Jason made a wager with me that we would be back at the hotel by 12:31 am. I was having none of that. I didn't believe him...my navigation said 12:45 am. We didn't bet anything but it sure was fun to see how it turned out. After leaving at 7:15 am we arrived in front our hotel at yes, you guessed it, 12:31 am. Teaches me to doubt the professional!

So this was it. This was the end of what has come to be one of the most memorable experiences of my life. The friendships that were formed on this trip will remain with me forever. Our group was so tight-knit and everyone loved everyone. Oh, the snapchats that were sent during this trip! I saved some of them just to look back on. And oh man, all the antics that occurred! Especially the singing of Summertime Sadness, that song became our anthem! There was never a day where I woke up and thought that I didn't want to be with our group. Matter of fact there was never a dull day with this lovely group of young, free-spirited, Meteorology college students. We all just got along so well, like we were all meant to be on this trip together. I love every single one of you guys so much, and I am so thankful for the experiences that we shared together. Thanks for making this the best 10 days of my life, seriously!

Our fantastic group!

It was so sad to get out of that van for the last time. I seriously think I got separation anxiety that night. A few of us even gave the van a goodbye hug....Jake! It was something that we had come to know and love on our trip around the country, almost like an old reliable friend. This thing got us all around the country and never once let us down. Not even in the middle of no where, where for 100's of miles you didn't even see a house. I think it deserves at least a little bit of praise!

I want to take the time to thank Jason from all of us! Without him there really would have been no trip. All the time and planning he put into this blows me away. Not to mention all the driving he did to take us to where we needed/wanted to go. All the nights he went to bed completely exhausted did not go unnoticed. He worked so hard and made sure we got a very meaningful and educational experience from this trip. I learned so much from him. He taught us about Cumulus fields and the dynamics to look for ahead of them to spot potential for storm development. He introduced to backfilling in storms, quizzed us on our cloud formations and so much more. He even showed us how to have a little fun by taking us go-karting. Oh boy! That night was some of the most fun I had in a really long time. I also picked up a few new favorite songs to listen to compliments of him. Thank you for openly sharing your knowledge with us and leading us on the chase of a lifetime! You are a pretty awesome dude, if I can say so myself.

After settling into the hotel and spending a few more hours of quality time together we all went to sleep to wake up the next day and travel back to State College, Pa. Our drive back took roughly 8 hours and 40 minutes and we covered 550 miles.

Stick around for a summary of total time and total miles traveled. I'm working on a map to show the aforementioned and a list of all the states we visited. Also, during our trip we taped a lot of home videos. I hope to get that posted as soon as Jake finishes editing it! It will be worth the wait, I promise!

Our drive home.

The Opportunity of A Lifetime

As we drove toward the severe warned cell something incredible happened. It went tornado warned! So this was it, this is what we've all been waiting for. Jason said he had a good feeling about our position and this storm and we wasn't lying! We kept a close watch on our precious baby as we neared the position we needed to be in to intercept. With each passing mile bringing us closer to see the amazing structure of our cell, each of us became more anxious to get out of the van and just take all of this in.

They aren't too easy to make out, but the clouds on hanging off the anvil are mammatus!

As we came closer to the storm, we saw the beautiful structure appear before our very eyes. Thanks to Travis we got some very memorable photos of us pulled off to the side of the road savoring the beauty that was in front of our eyes. Here are a few of my personal favorites.

Our storm on radar. We are the blue cross-hair!

Shortly after taking these photos we moved to another position to observe the storm from a different angle. As we were moving to a new area, I'm pretty sure we witnessed another mesocyclone form right off to the left of us. Jason's face lit up when I pointed it out. He hasn't seen a structure like that in some time, so it caught his attention. We were like children in a toy store. Every last one of us. Put a bunch of meteorologist in front of a magnificent tornado warned cell and we all lose our sanity. I simply can't explain it. Imagine the most magnificent feeling you can feel, that won't even describe how we felt this day. For some of us, if not most, this was our biggest dream come true. I know for a fact, it was mine.

After repositioning we found ourselves in a field to view the magnificent structure that developed right in front of our eyes. The view from this field will be one that we never ever forget. The pictures speak for themselves! All the photos below were contributed by various members of our group. Thank you to every one who supplied these beautiful photos to post here on the blog.

Panorama of the group and the storm.

A stunning cloud-to-ground lightning shot.

Here we see Jason taking in the beauty of the storm before his eyes.

There are just no words to describe the pure beauty of this very photogenic storm.

You can see the rain shaft, if you look closely.

Cloud-to-cloud lightning.

Beautiful black and white shot.

Another panorama.

After the storm had withered away, we all went for dinner, then headed out on the road to find a hotel for the night. Ultimately, we ended up in Ogallala for the evening after driving for 147 miles and 2 hours 22 minutes. This night was a late one. We stumbled into the hotel around 1:53 am, and we were all exhausted. Thus concluded our chase trip, sadly. We went out with a bang! I plan to post a few more things on here about our trip, so don't be sad. You'll hear from me again soon, I promise. I have a few more ideas up my sleeve and still have to talk about out crazy trip home the next morning. Stay tuned for more blogging!

The route we took from Alliance to Ogallala. Took some very remote roads for a little while. A bit scary.

Much Excitement!

Wow. Since that last post so much has happened. Our trip literally exploded at the end. I'm going to have to split the last 2 days of our trip into 2 or 3 different post to give you an accurate representation of what happened.

Where do I begin? Ah, yes! After the pitstop at the random gas station we stopped at a Dairy Queen somewhere along the way just to talk about what we wanted to do. Now at this point, I think we were all starting to get a little discouraged, we talked about heading back east to get a start on our trip home. After waiting a few hours, there were still no storms initiating at the time. Something changed though. Just as we all lost hope, Devin and Jason came back with an interesting discovery, storms were indeed starting to fire to our west. I guess they had a conversation in the DQ while everyone was out in the van. They came back and basically said we have a few hours yet, they felt good about our position and they wanted to head north some more. They both had a hunch that something was going to happen in our favor.

At that point we headed back out on the road toward North Platte, Nebraska. When we got there we decided to do a few more rounds of go-karts while waiting for the storms to fire. How we ended up by yet another go-kart track is beyond me, but it was there and for 5 dollars a race we couldn't pass up the opportunity. There were 2 tracks, one strictly a racing track, the other a challenge course. The racing track was fun, but the challenge course was much better. It was covered in talcum power and the name of the game was to try not to spin out. We were split up into 2 separate races. Mike, Travis, and Devin were the guinea pigs for the first race. Jason, John, myself, and Matt went second and Jason put the GoPro up on the front of his car the document all the action. As soon Jason pulled out his GoPro fell over so he had to hold it the whole time, but we still had a blast. The course was indeed a challenge and a great way to pass time as we waited for storms to start firing.

As soon as the go-kart shenanigans were over and we saw that storms finally started to initiate, we all piled in the van faster than one could even imagine. The time it took 10 of us to get in that van, and get back on the road was simply incredible. That's what happens when 10 people who are crazy about severe storms knows that something is going to happen, the adrenaline rushes. The van broke into a series of "Wooooos" (It's a van joke).  It took us a total of .2 seconds to get into chase mode. We set out on the road very excited that we finally got a break. We were about to witness the most impressive thing that most of us has ever seen.

This is the route we took to intercept our storm. It was a 3 hour 19 minute, 188 mile drive.

The drive to intercept our storm was one of the most anxious that we had on the entire trip. It was the last chase day of our trip and we hit the jackpot. Just imagine all the emotions and excitement that was cooped up in that 12- passenger van. We were all ready to explode. We worked together so well to get to our storm. I'll leave the excitement build for the next blog post! Keep reading!

Here is the storm we decided to chase. 

On the Road Again

The last 2 days have really been uneventful, in terms of chasing. After making a few pitstops along the way from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma at Pop's Restaurant on Route 66 (Pop's Webpage) and the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center (Cosmosphere Webpage) we ended up in Salina, Kansas for the night.

The giant soda bottle that stands in front of POP's.

A never ending wall of a million and one differnt kinds of "pop" at POP's on Route 66 in Arcadia, Kansas.

The drive from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma to Salina, Kansas took roughly 3 hours and 37 minutes and was a 247 mile drive. I'm pretty sure we are really close to hitting the 2,000 mile mark on our trip, if we haven't already.

For some reason, yesterday was a pretty stressful day. I definitely felt a bit anxious by the time we got to our hotel for the night. The last 2 days of hotel searching has been pretty rough, looking for a hotel for 10 people at a reasonable rate is not as easy as one would think it is. Searching for hotels for 2 hours and not coming up with anything because half of them do not have availability and the other half is too expensive, is slightly stressful, especially when your not just trying to find a room for yourself but a whole group of people. Thankfully Jason came to the rescue and found us one, because my efforts were an epic fail. He found a pretty great place to stay for the evening.

Moving on to todays events! We met this morning to talk about our plans for today. Again, our chasing options are pretty minimal and almost out of reach. There is is a slight risk up near the extreme northwestern corner of Nebraska, but it doesn't seem we will make it there in time. It's an 8 hour drive, meaning we wouldn't get there until around 5pm tonight, which leaves us a small chase window before sundown. Right now the general plan is to head up toward Hastings, Nebraska, which is in the see text area for the Day 1 convective outlook. The drive from Salina to Hastings is about 168 miles and 2 hours and 40 minutes.

Our plan for today. We might actually get more north than this, but Hastings is where we plan to regroup.

This is the Day 1 Convection outlook. We are aiming to be in the green area in Nebraska. The yellow area is a bit out of reach, unfortunately.

Once we get to Hastings we will regroup and figure out what direction we need to go in order to get into position to catch a storm if we can. At the meeting this morning we talked about how hit and miss these storms will be today. Jason mentioned how the storms will be elevated storms and short-lived. They will rain themselves out in about an hour or so, therefore catching up with one will prove to be difficult.

Right now we are on the road heading to Hastings. We are heading north on 81 in Nebraska. The group just made a pitstop at a gas station on 81 to look at CAPE, CIN, 500 mb vorticity, and visual satellite. After taking a look at that, we see that Hastings has a lot of CIN and is lacking in CAPE. There is a Cumulus field that is in Colorado now, that we are keeping an eye on. The purpose of that is to see where the Cumulus field is heading via visible satellite and look for places east of it where CAPE values would be sufficient enough to help some storms fire. Unfortunately, in our case CAPE isn't looking too good. We will keep a close eye on the conditions as we move closer to Hastings, which is about an hour and half away from our current position. 

While you wait for an update on our plans and position, enjoy a photo of our exciting scenery.

Our never ending view of nothing.

A Day Full of Meaningful Experiences and Humbling Reminders of the Power of Mother Nature

For the most part we stayed in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma for the day. Despite being in this general area all day it was a very busy day packed with tons of things to do. First thing in the morning we stopped at the Storm Prediction Center to get a tour. The tour took a total of about an hour and we all learned a lot. Here are some photos from our experience at the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma.

Here we are learning a little bit about the types of radar vehicles that the SPC uses. We also were told a little bit about up and coming radar advances and ideas.

Here you can see 3 out of the 4 radar vehicles that the SPC houses. The 4th one is unfortunately out for repair.

Perhaps my favorite type of radar vehicle, the Mesonet vehicle. These vans drive as close as possible (with being as safe as possible) to a storm and collect data of what's happening inside the storm.

The view from the Oklahoma University Student Weather Center at the National Weather Center Building.

Here is a group shot of us at the SPC in front of some abstract art. It's a tornado!

I believe that the photos above can pretty accurately show most of our trip. I do have a lot more photos to share, but to put them all in here would make this post extremely long, therefore I only chose a select few.

After touring the SPC we drove through Moore, Oklahoma to see the remnants of the tornado damage that was left from last year's devastating EF5 tornado. There were still a few reminders of what destruction had occurred that day, such as the destroyed medical center, which now resides in temporary white buildings in the lot of where the old medical center used to stand. Also a small housing development across the street from where the medical center once stood is still being repaired and rebuilt. Every time I see one of these areas that have been devastated by a tornado I just can't help but to stop and reflect on what these people may be feeling and how they felt that day. If I could ask you, the reader, one favor it would be this; Take a second to ponder what you would do in this situation. How would you feel? What thoughts would cross your mind? How would you react to this situation? Those are just a few things that I feel would be worth thinking about. This is a very sensitive topic in these towns and we must be respectful of the trauma they have been through. 

The next stop on our travels for today was something very near and dear to my heart. It's something that I have been wanting to get a chance to see since hearing that it was there. I am talking about visiting the Twistex memorial. Our group got the opportunity to do that today, and I believe that it is an opportunity that we would have never gotten had we not been on this tour. I want to thank Jason, for all of us, for making this happen. To be able to memorialize three wonderful guys who really were in this field to improve the data and research is just a wonderful opportunity. I personally did not know Tim, but Jason did, and the conversations that we had about him made me feel Tim's essence.

 I am trying to keep this blog as more of a group thing, but I really wanted to mention how much I aspired to be like Tim.  As a young person interested in severe storms, I looked up to him and admired him. Oh, how I wanted to one day meet him. That dream was taken away from me when the 2013, 2.6 mile wide,  EF3 El Reno tornado so unforgivingly took the lives of these three wonderful men. To be able to pay my respects to Tim, Paul and Carl, truly did mean the world to me. More than anyone can ever know. This is an experience that will stay with me, and I'm sure every single person in this group, for the rest of our lives. It's a reminder that no matter how skilled you are, these storms are utterly unpredictable and dangerous. Even the best of the best can get caught in one, and that was proved true when the experienced Twistex team perished in this monster tornado. In the photo below we see Jason paying his respects to Tim, Paul, and Carl, and documenting the Twistex Road Side Memorial site.

In the photo below, I am personally paying tribute to the Twistex team. Thank you to Travis for documenting this very special moment for me.

I guess all that's left to say is that today was a day filled of very meaningful experiences for our group and we are all happy that we got the opportunity to feel what we felt and see what we saw. It really opens your eyes and makes you think a little deeper and reminds you to just appreciate your life. One day you may be here, and the next you may be gone, like the Twistex Team. I'll let you take that all in and ponder it for a little while...

The plan for tomorrow is to have a meeting at 9:15 am to get talking about some upcoming chase opportunities. I'll update again as soon as possible.