Where are the Stormy Days?!

Last night turned out to be a late night, so I really didn't get a chance to blog. But here I am awake bright and early and wanting to write about yesterday's experiences.

Firstly let me post the pictures of the meetings that I couldn't post yesterday! Thanks to Travis for sending me these photos!

This picture was taken on Tuesday night in Memphis, Tennessee, I believe. Here we are trying to figure out where we wanted to head on Wednesday morning. Jason actually has his computer screen up on the TV but you can't see it here because of the glare.

This photo was also taken in Memphis, but this is Wednesday morning. Here we decided to head to head toward Hunstville, Alabama. We really ended up in Tuscumbia and caught a decently photogenic squall line. Here is a photo that Travis screen-shotted from his radarscope app.

Above the blue circle represents our approximate position in Tuscumbia, Alabama. There was no lightning or thunder associated with this storm, but there was heavy rain and a good amount of wind. We all enjoyed it!

Okay, now on to yesterday's events. We met with Jason around 9:15 am to have our morning meeting and decided to head from Little Rock, Arkansas toward Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The trip took about 4 hours and 47 minutes and 339 miles. Yesterday was a day off from chasing because quite frankly, there is nothing to chase. 

This photo from Jason shows the devastation that occurred.  There was nothing left.

On the way to Oklahoma City we came across a damage path from the EF4 Vilonia tornado that occurred a little over 2 weeks ago on April 27th. Seeing a freshly made damage path was quite sobering for all of us. I'm 100% sure this was the first time that any of us have seen anything like this. I know that when I saw the damage path from the highway my heart sank. I felt this overwhelming sadness. I took a long minute to reflect on the situation and reflect on my feelings. I'm sure everyone else felt the same. After we pulled off to document the damage the van was quiet for a whole 2o minutes. We all just sat there and took it in. It's a very humbling reminder of what Mother Nature can do in a matter of seconds. Chasing is not all fun and games. Our purpose is to get out into the storms to collect data to help increase warning times. A matter or seconds can be the difference between life and death. 16 people lost their lives in this storm, and with the research that storm spotters, such as us, are doing we can hopefully prevent lives from being lost, in these situations.

After stopping to document to Vilonia damage path we headed out to Oklahoma City. In Oklahoma City, we checked into our hotel at the airport and ventured out to find dinner. Upon the other group's recommendation we stopped at Cattleman's Steakhouse to grab a nice hearty steak dinner. Here is our group photo taken by our awesome waiter that night.

Upon filling our tummies with some steak, we headed out to a place called celebration station. I must admit, it was the most fun that I have had in a really long time. The name of the game was go-karts. The first time around was just child's play, the second time around was when the fun started. We got in those little karts with every intention to have a ton of fun. Well let's say we did exactly that! Kat's go kart stalled first, which almost caused a pile-up. Then after that there was an 8 car pile up that followed around one of the turns, Devin might have caused that one. Here is a snapshot photo of the epic Meteo go-kart pile up.

Afterwards we just headed back to the hotel and called it a night. Our day was filled with a bunch of fun and I'm positive all of us had a great time. I would like to add one thing though, we are only finding extracurricular activities because of our lack of storm chasing options. At this point in time we have had a three day break where there were no options available to see any significant storm structure. After being in a 12-passenger van for hundred of miles you just need to release some energy. Go-karting was our way of doing this. As soon as a viable chase day opens up we will be back on the road and talking some hardcore meteorology.

You Miss 100% of the Shots You Don't Take...

...And that's why we gave it a shot.

This morning we started our day off, like usual,  by having a meeting with Jason to talk about our plans for the day. I wanted to share some photos of our last few meetings that Travis took, but unfortunately the wi-fi here isn't up to par and it won't load my photos. I will try to share them tomorrow, I promise!

Now let's get to business, today was indubitably a long day for everyone. I'm positive that the amount of driving that was done has broke records for all of us. I know that I,  personally,  have never been in a car for that many miles before. Now,  don't take this as a bad thing because it certainly is not. It gives our entire group some pretty awesome bonding time. If you want to learn a lot about someone just throw them in a van with each other and send them on a road trip.

Anyway, once again, I digress. This morning's meeting consisted of a lot of uncertainty of where we would ultimately end up, but we did know one thing, Mississippi was out. I believe this was the case because the amount of CIN that had to be over come to get CAPE values we needed to be worthy of producing storms was just not worth traveling for. This left us two options; go north into Kentucky, where the terrain is mostly hilly and not great for storm spotting, or go south to Alabama where there was a more robust CAPE value of around 500 J/kg. In the end we ultimately decided to make the 215 mile and 3 hour 31 minute drive to Huntsville, Alabama. Around 10:15 am we hit the road.

After seeing some storms start to organize to our southwest we decided to stop short of Huntsville in a little town called Tuscumbia, Alabama. Here we stopped for lunch at this little Mexican place called Fiesta Mexicana. This made Faith a very happy lady. She's been dying for Mexican. After we filled our bellies with some authentic Mexican cuisine we set up shop not to far down the road in a parking lot with a pretty decent view. And we waited.

While we waited we took some photos - artistic, group, and selfies. We played a few games. We talked. We witnessed, what I think, was most of our first roll cloud sighting. That sure was really cool! But most importantly we watched the radar and waited in anticipation for the first raindrop.

Waiting for the storm to approach is probably the most nerve wracking thing a storm spotter can experience. You kinda have all these emotions inside you just waiting to explode, and when you see the first strike of lightning, smell the rain-cooled air, see the coolest cloud, that kinda happens. You just explode with joy, excitement, or whatever it may be that you are feeling in that particular moment in time. We didn't get lightning or thunder like we had hoped, but that didn't mean we weren't excited. Oh were we excited! We just have all this energy built up inside of us and when the first rain drop fell and the stronger wind gusts came, we soaked up every bit of it. We stood in the rain and enjoyed it. We didn't get the big storm we were hoping for, but we got a storm, and that is something! We took a shot and got something, we were thrilled!

At the end of the day we made the journey to Little Rock, Arkansas. It was a 284 mile, 4 hour and 28 minute drive. During this drive John found dinner while Jake and I searched for hotels to spend the night. It was most definitely a group effort to make tonight happen. I really enjoy our group. When it really matters we band together and can get stuff done. Yeah, we can be a bit unfocused and indecisive at times because of how excited we all are to be out here living our dream (which I'm sure doesn't help Jason's cause) but when it really matters, we work together well and I feel that is really important.

In the end, we worked together to find dinner at a really happening bar and restaurant in downtown Little Rock called Big Whiskeys. After trying to find parking and then trying to figure out how to pay for the parking ( I've never seen parking paid for this way in my life, ever) we finally got to sit down and eat. We talked about music and our day's experiences and just spent some good 'ol fashioned bonding time together. I'll admit it, I was so tired by the time we sat down that I was awake and hyper so I probably talked a bunch (sorry guys). Jason and the crew was tired as well, but we still had fun and enjoyed our meals. By the way, if you're ever in downtown Little Rock and can figure out the parking, I suggest you try to find this place and eat here. It's really nice and the food was excellent.

After dinner we had a really interesting experience with one of the locals and then got on the road to get to our hotel. Now at this point the van is pretty much on E so we were sweating bullets and crossing our fingers that we had enough gas to make it to our destination, Days Inn, and find some gas. Lucky for us, Jake and I did a pretty decent job deciding on a hotel because there is a gas station right next door! Phew! Jason, you can stop sweating now!

So the plan of attack for tomorrow is to meet up with our commander-in-chief at 9:15 am to discuss our plans, get gas in the van (which is so conveniently located next door) and high tail it out of Arkansas.

Now that it is really late (3:22 am), I am in need of some much needed sleep. I will update again as soon as possible and share some pictures too!

Pictures!

I really just wanted to share some more pretty cool photos that I took from our first day out chasing. These are all from Hull, Illinois. Enjoy! I hope to have many, many more!

Never Too Late...

This post is a little late, but I still want to share with you what our team did for the day. This morning around 10:00 am we had a quick meeting to talk about today's plans. We ultimately decided it would be best to get into position for tomorrow's chase day since no super interesting weather was showing up for today.

Around 10:45 am we headed out to grab breakfast at Daylight Donuts in Quincy, Illinois (since most of us woke up late and missed breakfast) and we met up with the other team of chasers from Penn State. They told us a little bit about their plans for the next few days, which included heading out to Joplin, Missouri to visit the Joplin tornado memorial site and they planned on touring the SPC (Storm Prediction Center). After meeting up with our good friends for a little while, we all went our separate ways and we planned on heading toward Memphis, Tennessee.

The drive consisted of some very different terrain. There was a lot of farm land throughout the drive mixed in with some hilly and tree-filled land. We did see maybe a few lightning strikes from afar and a little bit of cloud structure from the distance, but nothing too exciting. Just a ton of bonding time and nice long game of catch phrase. We actually retired it because between yesterday and today we have gone through every single category. Our plan is to get another road trip game to play, such as a Mad Gab or something of the sorts.

Anyway, I digress. After a 405 mile drive and around a total travel time of about 7 hours we arrived in Memphis and decided to stay at another Comfort Inn and Suites (that seems to be the trend). After spending about a half hour of down time, we all piled back into our 12 passenger van and ventured out to find dinner. We were originally going to go to this Mexican restaurant next to the hotel, but that fell through when we saw that it was really small (good thing we did't walk). We then got on the highway and got off an exit not far from the hotel and found a place called Corky's Ribs and BBQ, but parking for a 12 passenger van was absolutely impossible so we turned around and headed back toward the first place we saw. That place was called Buckley's and it was good. We all enjoyed our meals and the food and service was fantastic.

After dinner we headed back toward to the hotel and had a short meeting with Jason, about tomorrow's situation. It seems if anything is going to happen weather-wise tomorrow, it will be early. The general consensus was to stay around the Tennessee/ Mississippi area and catch any worthy storms as we seem them fire. We are in the perfect position to go North or East as needed.

The plan is to meet with Jason around 9:15 am to have a quick weather briefing and then head out from there. If nothing interesting fires, we will then head to Oklahoma by tomorrow night to begin getting in position for this weekend since the next 3 days are going to be pretty uneventful.

I plan to update again tomorrow as long as internet service allows me to. To end this post here is my favorite picture of the group that I took in Hull, Illinois yesterday while waiting for the storms to move in.

First Day On The Storm Front

Good Evening!

So, this is the first official post of our storm chase trip. I just wanted to share what we have been up to out here. Let me first introduce you to our team. 

Jason Berry - Trip Director and Driver

Katharine Kobylt - Lead Navigator

John Vittorio - Assistant Navigator

Jake Segall - Radar Specialist

Matthew Kovall - Wx Radio Correspondent

Faith Eherts - Social Media Manager

Ashley Ellis - Blogger (that's me!)

Travis Patterson - Chief Photographer

Mike Levine - Photographer

Devin Boyer - Equipment Specialist

Now that I have introduced everyone I can tell you about all the wonderful experiences we have enjoyed thus far. Yesterday the group traveled from Pennsylvania and met up in Indianapolis and enjoyed a laid back night. We actually drove through some storms on the way to Indy that caused us to pull to the side of the road. Visibility was so low! We arrived at the hotel in two separate cars at different times. Faith, Kat, Jake, and myself arrived first at approximately 5:30pm. We decided to find dinner and see a movie. Devin, Travis, John, Matt, and Mike arrived around 7:45 pm and then proceeded to explore downtown Indianapolis and stop for dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings.

Today was a busy one. What is even more exciting is that we weren't expecting to get any chasing in, but we did! Our day started at 9:30 am in Indianapolis with a quick meeting to gather our thoughts on the direction of our day. We hit the road around 11 am and headed for St. Louis. The initial plan was to get into position for tomorrow's storms, but that changed right around the time we hit St. Louis when storms starting firing to our southwest around southwestern Missouri.

With the storms firing to our southwest we decided to go ahead and chase a few of the cells while we had the opportunity. We headed north toward Hannibal, Illinois and ended up pulling over in the small town of Hull, (population of 500) where we watched the developing storm head right for us. In Hull, we all got out of the van to spectate the oncoming storms. We took photos, videos, talked, and gawked over the lightning. It was an absolutely great experience. 

Hull was one of those stereotypical midwest towns that you think of when you think of the midwestern states. Farm fields and farming equipment surrounded us and we pulled over in a tiny parking lot with a small abandoned garage in it. The view was great, with the exception of the buildings that blocked the structure of the storm that we were interested in. 

After the storm died down, we headed back to find a hotel to stay in for the night. We drove back to Quincy, Illinois and as we were driving back we ran into some more storms with some pretty spectacular structure. I'm pretty sure we actually "core punched" one of the cells. The rain was so heavy we couldn't even see 10 feet in front of us. It's one of those experiences where you absolutely love it and hate it at the same time. 

Once in Quincy we checked into our hotel and went for dinner at a place called the Riverside Smokehouse Grill. We all gathered around the table and talked about our storm experiences from the day and laughed a lot.

Currently, we are in the hotel and getting ready to settle into bed for some well needed rest. It's been a long and exciting day! Our plan is to meet in the lobby around 10:30 am to have a debriefing with everyone. There is another team from Penn State that will be joining us for tomorrow morning's meeting.

I'll update again as soon as I can. Goodnight everyone!

Storm Flash: 07-31-2013

Here is what is making headlines for Wednesday, July 31, 2013.

StormTrackerWx.com Debuts SpotterNet

SpotterNet focuses on the use of Twitter hashtags and active feeds to denote regions where severe weather has occurred, is occurring, or is imminent.

To post to SpotterNet, simply select a region on the map.  Each region is assigned a designated hashtag: Northwest #nwwx, Southwest #swwx, South Central #socwx, Midwest #mdwwx, Southeast #sewx, Mid-Atlantic #mdawx, and New England #newwx.

By clicking "Tweet #", the page's designated hashtag is automatically generated in the body of the tweet, and will be populated in the page's feed upon submission.  While undergoing beta testing, users are encouraged to send site feedback and report any problems they might encounter.




StormTrackerWx's First Ever #VIPchase

Ever wanted to know what it is like to track nature's most violent storms?  Here is your chance!

StormTrackerWx's first ever #VIPchase will be held Tuesday, August 6th from 1-3 PM Eastern Time.  The event allows users the opportunity to take part in online discussions and ask StormTrackWx Team Members questions on Facebook and Twitter.  There will also be announcements regarding chase team news, site additions and changes.

Exclusive access will also be granted to "Members Only" content, in which Official StormTrackerWx chase merchandise and apparel will be available at a low cost.  Even bigger, save 15-25% when booking a seat on the 2014 Storm Chase Tour during Tuesday's event only!

#TrackTheStorm
 

Chase Day Outlook: Severe Storms Possible from Illinois to Kentucky

Today's chase day, and StormTrackerWx.com is once again tracking the threat for severe storms across the Midwest and Ohio Valley.

Unlike previous days this week, ongoing convection ahead of a mid level trough will serve as focus for storm development later today.  The disorganized MCS across Northern IL/ IN is poised to drop south and east into Central Indiana, where afternoon CAPE values are forecast to approach or exceed 2,500 j/kg.

Much uncertainty still exists as to the exact strength of storms, due to cloud cover limiting the amount of daytime heating at the surface.  The bulk of daytime heating will likely occur along and south of Interstate 70, where steep lapse rates will aid in large scale ascent for storm intensification.

Current thinking is numerous mid level impulses will come together to produce a significant damaging wind event in advance of an approaching mid level trough.  The tornado threat will likely be limited to areas that see discrete cell development ahead of the main line of storms, within the reservoir of steep mid level lapse rates and higher surface CAPE values.

For now, StormTrackerWx Team Members will mobilize north of Muncie, Indiana just north of the 5% tornado risk, and hope to be streaming Live chase coverage later today.

Be sure to Like us on Facebook and Follow us on Twitter for future updates!