RSS
Better Lucky Than Good?
Monday, May 31st. Memorial Day. A day that started in Missouri and moved to Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma and finally back into Kansas. A day that began with little promise and ended with epic conditions and an unmatched experience. A day that will stay in my memory for the rest of my life.
6am - Kansas City, Missouri
After meeting with the rest of my chase group on Sunday night and having our first weather brief, we set 7am as our departure time from Kansas City. Our target area would be Southeastern Colorado, clear across the state of Kansas. The Storm Prediction Center had issued a Slight Risk for severe storms with a small area of interest in far SW Colorado, extreme N Texas, NW Oklahoma & SW Kansas. This area was designated with a 2% tornado risk, meaning the chance of a tornado occurring within 50 miles of a given point in that area was 2%. Given the small potential for tornadoes and the distance we needed to cover, the mood wasn't entirely ecstatic. There was a small pocket of optimism which could be chalked up to it being the first day of the tour. And so we found ourselves, a few minutes past 7am, with a full tank of gas, crossing the border into Kansas and heading southwestward towards Wichita.
3pm - Greensburg, Kansas
We stopped for foodand gas outside of Wichita and continued west, still with most of Kansas to cross. At around 3pm, we passed through the town of Greensburg, KS, which was devastated by an EF-5 tornado on May 4th, 2007. 95% of the town was leveled and eleven people were killed by the 1.7 mile wide tornado. Since then, the town has taken the opportunity to rebuild using "green" technology, but the scars left by the massive storm are deep and will never fully heal. Passing through, the empty cement slabs and broken, leafless trees were a strong reminder of just how powerful tornadoes can be.
4pm - Dodge City, Kansas
As the afternoon progressed, we stopped in Dodge City for gas and a bathroom/stretching break. We also took advantage of the improved internet signal to take a look at the weather models and current radar. Visible satellite imagery revealed that several storms were firing in our target area of Southwestern Colorado. Things were looking up. And then, things looked even better.
4:03pm - Dodge City, Kansas
In the time it took to use the restroom and buy a souvenir hat, some gum and a soda, the storm in Colorado had begun to drop funnel clouds from its base and was tornado warned based on storm spotter reports. This is an important distinction since storm cells can also be tornado warned if they show certain characteristics on radar, and the potential exists for a tornado to form at any moment in that area. When a cell is warned based on reports by storm spotters or storm chasers, things are actually happening already. There was some bad news. We were currently 155 miles from the base of the storm. As in hours away. This was problematic, since many tornadoes last only minutes, some even seconds. Nevertheless, we all jumped in and headed towards Colorado.
Not long after getting back on the road, we saw the anvil top of our storm. The "anvil" is so named because the cloud has reached the top of the troposphere and cannot rise any further, so it spreads out, like an anvil shape. The anvil for this storm was extremely long and crisp - meaning the storm was powerful and had plenty of energy to continue building. Looking at radar, we noticed something strange. The storm, which was still tornado warned, wasn't moving. It was building, and the clouds inside it were moving, but the storm wasn't advancing eastward or any real direction in particular, it was just staying put and strengthening.
6:00pm-ish - Manter, Kansas
Against all odds, this storm was still tornado warned. For nearly two hours, it had built and strengthened and dropped an occasional funnel from its cloud base. It had not produced a sustained tornado, but as we approached the Colorado border, we could see the pronounced cloud base and vigorous cloud to ground (or CG) lightning. In two hours, the storm had moved less than 20 miles. It seemed like the storm was waiting just for us. This was going to happen!
5:20pm-ish - Springfield, Colorado
Time seemed to stand still as we closed an incredible distance on a storm that had been under constant tornado warning for over 2 hours now... Having crossed into Mountain Time, it was like we'd been given a bonus for having made it all the way across Kansas. As we reached the town of Campo and headed west on a small dirt road, the scene unfolded directly in front of us. In the rolling fields west of town, we positioned ourselves directly south of the storm. We could see the wall cloud descending from the main cloud base under the storm. This was really going to happen!
6pm-ish - Campo, Colorado
We were in perfect position. The wall cloud was about 1/4 to 1/2 mile to our west-northwest. We watched with incredible clarity and detail the mechanics of tornado-genesis. We watched the rear flank downdraft (RFD) wrap around the back edge of the storm and meet the updraft being sucked up into the clouds above. We saw the rotation tighten and create funnel clouds again and again, trying to create a tornado. Several times the cloud reached almost all the way to the ground, only to be pulled back into the cloud base above.
The motion was intense in the clouds, yet the storm was moving extremely slowly across the ground, meaning we could comfortably stay very close to the action. While my previous tornado intercept was lightning quick, reactive and a bit dangerous, this was completely free of fear, and almost leisurely. A few times, the strongest rotation was just a few hundred yards from us. It was one of most incredible experiences of my life. We kept re-positioning ourselves for the better part of an hour until we ran out of south roads. We watched as the wall cloud finally crossed over our road and into a wide expanse of prairie to our east, between us and the town of Campo.
7pm - Campo, Colorado
Almost at the top of the hour, a beautiful white funnel cloud descended from the storm above. This one was different than the ones we'd been watching for the previous hour. This one was more focused, the rotation more precise, the descending motion more intense. This was finally, improbably, magically even, going to happen! With a chorus of cheers, the funnel touched down and became a tornado. Even better, the tornado was extremely photogenic and best yet, it was in a field with minimal structure and property in its path.
As the tornado intensified, so did the storm and it began to move away from us with increasing speed. We had run out of roads heading south, so we backtracked north and then east into the town of Campo. There was a generous ground cover of 1/2" hail through town and south along the main highway.
Time Unknown - Keyes, Oklahoma
As we drove further on, there were more and more vehicles on the side of the road, and we soon learned why. The first tornado had lifted, but a second powerful tornado had dropped down soon after in its place. We continued to drive south into Oklahoma so we could find an east road that would let us get a close view once again.
Finally, we closed in on the tornado west of Keyes as it was weakening, watching as it "roped out." We continued to follow the cell eastward, watching as it morphed into a "mothership," a cloud formation named for the unique rounded shape similar to the alien mothership in "Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind." There continued to be ample motion within the storm but it produced no more tornadoes. We had watched the entire life cycle of a tornado, from the descending of a wall cloud, to the formation of funnels, to the initial touchdown and finally to the death.
Talking with veteran storm chaser Tim Samaras later that night, he estimated that the ground speed of the tornadic winds was somewhere near 200mph. He had a pretty good view of it - less than 100 yards from it as it crossed the highway in front of him and some other storm chasers. There was minimal damage from the tornado - only a few power poles had been knocked down - and nobody had been injured. The tornado was particularly photogenic and took place in a beautiful part of the country. From a storm chaser's point of view, it doesn't get much better than the Campo tornado on May 31st, 2010. We had been incredibly lucky, and with the excellent guidance from our tour guides Dave Holder and Olivier "Klipsi" Staiger, we intercepted one of the more photogenic tornadoes of the past few years. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good, but it's never better than to be lucky and good...
6am - Kansas City, Missouri
After meeting with the rest of my chase group on Sunday night and having our first weather brief, we set 7am as our departure time from Kansas City. Our target area would be Southeastern Colorado, clear across the state of Kansas. The Storm Prediction Center had issued a Slight Risk for severe storms with a small area of interest in far SW Colorado, extreme N Texas, NW Oklahoma & SW Kansas. This area was designated with a 2% tornado risk, meaning the chance of a tornado occurring within 50 miles of a given point in that area was 2%. Given the small potential for tornadoes and the distance we needed to cover, the mood wasn't entirely ecstatic. There was a small pocket of optimism which could be chalked up to it being the first day of the tour. And so we found ourselves, a few minutes past 7am, with a full tank of gas, crossing the border into Kansas and heading southwestward towards Wichita.
3pm - Greensburg, Kansas
We stopped for foodand gas outside of Wichita and continued west, still with most of Kansas to cross. At around 3pm, we passed through the town of Greensburg, KS, which was devastated by an EF-5 tornado on May 4th, 2007. 95% of the town was leveled and eleven people were killed by the 1.7 mile wide tornado. Since then, the town has taken the opportunity to rebuild using "green" technology, but the scars left by the massive storm are deep and will never fully heal. Passing through, the empty cement slabs and broken, leafless trees were a strong reminder of just how powerful tornadoes can be.
4pm - Dodge City, Kansas
As the afternoon progressed, we stopped in Dodge City for gas and a bathroom/stretching break. We also took advantage of the improved internet signal to take a look at the weather models and current radar. Visible satellite imagery revealed that several storms were firing in our target area of Southwestern Colorado. Things were looking up. And then, things looked even better.
4:03pm - Dodge City, Kansas
In the time it took to use the restroom and buy a souvenir hat, some gum and a soda, the storm in Colorado had begun to drop funnel clouds from its base and was tornado warned based on storm spotter reports. This is an important distinction since storm cells can also be tornado warned if they show certain characteristics on radar, and the potential exists for a tornado to form at any moment in that area. When a cell is warned based on reports by storm spotters or storm chasers, things are actually happening already. There was some bad news. We were currently 155 miles from the base of the storm. As in hours away. This was problematic, since many tornadoes last only minutes, some even seconds. Nevertheless, we all jumped in and headed towards Colorado.
Not long after getting back on the road, we saw the anvil top of our storm. The "anvil" is so named because the cloud has reached the top of the troposphere and cannot rise any further, so it spreads out, like an anvil shape. The anvil for this storm was extremely long and crisp - meaning the storm was powerful and had plenty of energy to continue building. Looking at radar, we noticed something strange. The storm, which was still tornado warned, wasn't moving. It was building, and the clouds inside it were moving, but the storm wasn't advancing eastward or any real direction in particular, it was just staying put and strengthening.
6:00pm-ish - Manter, Kansas
Against all odds, this storm was still tornado warned. For nearly two hours, it had built and strengthened and dropped an occasional funnel from its cloud base. It had not produced a sustained tornado, but as we approached the Colorado border, we could see the pronounced cloud base and vigorous cloud to ground (or CG) lightning. In two hours, the storm had moved less than 20 miles. It seemed like the storm was waiting just for us. This was going to happen!
5:20pm-ish - Springfield, Colorado
Time seemed to stand still as we closed an incredible distance on a storm that had been under constant tornado warning for over 2 hours now... Having crossed into Mountain Time, it was like we'd been given a bonus for having made it all the way across Kansas. As we reached the town of Campo and headed west on a small dirt road, the scene unfolded directly in front of us. In the rolling fields west of town, we positioned ourselves directly south of the storm. We could see the wall cloud descending from the main cloud base under the storm. This was really going to happen!
6pm-ish - Campo, Colorado
We were in perfect position. The wall cloud was about 1/4 to 1/2 mile to our west-northwest. We watched with incredible clarity and detail the mechanics of tornado-genesis. We watched the rear flank downdraft (RFD) wrap around the back edge of the storm and meet the updraft being sucked up into the clouds above. We saw the rotation tighten and create funnel clouds again and again, trying to create a tornado. Several times the cloud reached almost all the way to the ground, only to be pulled back into the cloud base above.
The motion was intense in the clouds, yet the storm was moving extremely slowly across the ground, meaning we could comfortably stay very close to the action. While my previous tornado intercept was lightning quick, reactive and a bit dangerous, this was completely free of fear, and almost leisurely. A few times, the strongest rotation was just a few hundred yards from us. It was one of most incredible experiences of my life. We kept re-positioning ourselves for the better part of an hour until we ran out of south roads. We watched as the wall cloud finally crossed over our road and into a wide expanse of prairie to our east, between us and the town of Campo.
7pm - Campo, Colorado
Almost at the top of the hour, a beautiful white funnel cloud descended from the storm above. This one was different than the ones we'd been watching for the previous hour. This one was more focused, the rotation more precise, the descending motion more intense. This was finally, improbably, magically even, going to happen! With a chorus of cheers, the funnel touched down and became a tornado. Even better, the tornado was extremely photogenic and best yet, it was in a field with minimal structure and property in its path.
As the tornado intensified, so did the storm and it began to move away from us with increasing speed. We had run out of roads heading south, so we backtracked north and then east into the town of Campo. There was a generous ground cover of 1/2" hail through town and south along the main highway.
Time Unknown - Keyes, Oklahoma
As we drove further on, there were more and more vehicles on the side of the road, and we soon learned why. The first tornado had lifted, but a second powerful tornado had dropped down soon after in its place. We continued to drive south into Oklahoma so we could find an east road that would let us get a close view once again.
Finally, we closed in on the tornado west of Keyes as it was weakening, watching as it "roped out." We continued to follow the cell eastward, watching as it morphed into a "mothership," a cloud formation named for the unique rounded shape similar to the alien mothership in "Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind." There continued to be ample motion within the storm but it produced no more tornadoes. We had watched the entire life cycle of a tornado, from the descending of a wall cloud, to the formation of funnels, to the initial touchdown and finally to the death.
Talking with veteran storm chaser Tim Samaras later that night, he estimated that the ground speed of the tornadic winds was somewhere near 200mph. He had a pretty good view of it - less than 100 yards from it as it crossed the highway in front of him and some other storm chasers. There was minimal damage from the tornado - only a few power poles had been knocked down - and nobody had been injured. The tornado was particularly photogenic and took place in a beautiful part of the country. From a storm chaser's point of view, it doesn't get much better than the Campo tornado on May 31st, 2010. We had been incredibly lucky, and with the excellent guidance from our tour guides Dave Holder and Olivier "Klipsi" Staiger, we intercepted one of the more photogenic tornadoes of the past few years. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good, but it's never better than to be lucky and good...
posted by Blake at
10:29 PM
2 Comments
