January 25-27, 2013
We had a great weekend. Most of the week was spent in Big Lake, MN at the Minnesota Storm Chasing Convention. We spent the day with lots of chasers, got to meet once again with Sean Casey, and I personally got to talk to him on for about 15 minutes, which was just great. We also got pics of the TIV as well as pics with us and Casey. We also got to meet some other great chasers as well. To many to name.
The next day was the drive home which was a challenge. Our drive home consists of driving thru Minnesota and Wisconsin during Winter Storm Luna. During its worse, in a 80 mile stretch, we encountered rain, changing to freezing rain/sleet, changing to heavy snow, back to freezing rain, back to snow and so on. We saw at least 4 vehicles off the road including one SUV flipped over. That's when we called it a night. We drove 80 miles in about 3 hours which 30mph was top speed on the highway. The next day driving back was pretty much uneventful, until we hit Indiana and Ohio which had dense fog. We took our time going thru the fog which at times visibilities were less than a ¼ mile and made it home. A great weekend!!!
Minutes of Video: 196 Pictures Taken: 209 Miles Traveled: 1,479
February 22, 2013
We had a road trip/weather trip to southern Ohio. We did not encounter much weather. We also test ran our stream. Everything worked out well.
Minutes of Video: 90 Pictures Taken: 0 Miles Traveled: 215
February 25, 2013
An Winter Weather advisory was issued for parts of NW Ohio. A Wintry mess fell over Lucas county. A mixture of rain, sleet, snow, and ice fell most of the day. Rain dominated the day with the changeover occurring around 2pm. Light icing occurred on the trees and grassy surfaces. Some snow did occur, but not much. It was enough to make a slushy mess. Pics and video was taken.
Minutes of Video: 20 Pictures Taken: 92 Miles Traveled: 35
April 10, 2013
Severe thunderstorm watch #88 was up for most of western Ohio. Where we live, we were on the cold side of the front. We decided to head to the Lima area where its been in the 70s most of the day. As we approach Lima, the storm had already went thru, but there were more storms south. As we head towards it, we encountered wind, rain, and hail. The winds were strong, gusting an estimated 65mph and they were shifting, indicating we were under a possible mesocyclone.
We headed further south after stopping at a rest area and finally staged just outside Anna, Ohio.
We saw a possible wall cloud but it was near nightfall, so it was poorly contrasted. Velocity radar at the time indicated possible rotation in that area. We continue to take pics/video, watching the lighting, and called it a night. Pretty good for our first chase of the year.
Most of the equipment work really well. Need to do some tweaking on the computer to get better radar grabs, but all in all it work perfectly.
Minutes of video: 370 Pictures Taken: 71 Miles Traveled: 215
May 17-18 2013
It was a very long drive from Toledo to our stopping point in Salina, KS for this 40hr trek. We traveled almost non-stop Friday afternoon to early mid day Saturday to our “spot” in Salina, KS where a moderate risk was up with a 10% chance of tornadoes.
We had pick 2 target areas early in the day on the trip down there, Hays and Pratt KS. Hayes was just down the road a bit while Pratt was hours away. We decided to make Hays our target area and take a break at the hotel.
About an hour later, Tornado Watch #170 was issued for the Western half of Kansas, which included us. We loaded up the gear and took off for Hays.
We reached Russell, KS where we saw the storm ahead. Took some pics of some great looking Mammatus and continue west towards Hayes.
Reaching Hays, right in front of us was wall cloud. Contrast was increasingly becoming messy and the now funnel and wall cloud was becoming wrapped in the circulation. We was able to grab pics and video on this. We tracked it as it went to our north before we got hit with 90mph RFD winds. Later analysis on the pics did confirmed that there was a tornado there.
We continued west where we almost got into the hail core. We took shelter under an awing and observed hail up to the size of golf balls. After the hail let up we went back east towards Victoria, KS where we set up the cameras to get an awesome lighting display.
The drive back was an challenge in itself. The storms severity died out with sunset and all that was left was torrential rains. We had to drive thru rain falling at least 3in/hr. Speeds on the highway barely was above 30. But we did make it back and since all steak joints were closed by that time, we treated ourselves to our favorite pizza....Hawaiian!!!
Miles Traveled: 1,105 Pics Taken: 590 Minutes of Video: 163
Preliminary count:
Tornadoes: 1 Funnels: 2 Wall Cloud: 2 Hail: 2 (golf ball) Damaging winds and Flooding Rains
May 19, 2013
Our target area was Fort Scott, KS in South-eastern part of the state. As we drove, we noticed that the storms were firing more to the west. We adjusted our target to the Garnet area. We pulled in an Connco gas station to fuel up and look at data. While there we ran into Dr Tom Williams of the University of Illinois. The same place were one of my favorite meteorologist Ryan Wichman came from.
Also in the car was some of his students, Billy Ramsack, Chris Sexton, and Jake Vancil
This was a real treat. We decided to stage with him and let the storms come to us. We observed another line of storms pop up to the west and eventually go severe and tore off at 75mph. Our storm we was waiting on was almost here.
Severe thunderstorm warning was issued for our county (Anderson)
We got hit by the gust front with about 60 mph winds, picking up dust and dirt everywhere. We did get pics and video on that. That same dust was carried out to a field next to the gas station where it did begin to briefly rotate. GUSTNADO!!! It was at that time Dr. Tom and his crew decided to head back to Illinois. It was a long trip for them. We decided to stay and ride out the storm.
Another storm developed to the south of this current storm and headed towards us. It it reached us, we were slammed with 80mph winds and horizontal rain. We had several people got off the road and take refuge at the gas station. They reported that winds were bad and a tree had fallen.
After the storm passed, we were treated with a double rainbow. We took several pictures, including a few panoramic shots.
The day wasn’t over yet. As night began to fall, a tornado warning pop up to our south. We decided to go out and get some lighting illuminated shots. We staged on a road in the middle of nowhere.
That’s when our data and cell service quit. Luckily we staged on a crossroads so if the situation became bad, we had more than one escape route.
We recorded night time lighting, which we do believe there was a funnel in it. Another storm we noticed was quickly approaching us. We avoided the hail in that one and decided to call it for the night and find a place to stay. We needed up staying in Emporia, which did had a confirmed touchdown that day.
Miles Traveled: 340 Pics taken: 308 Minutes of Video: 529
Preliminary count:
Tornadoes: 1 Funnels: 1 Wall Cloud: 1 Hail: 1 penny & Awesome lighting
May 20-21, 2013
A long drive ahead of us back home. The entire drive was in a slight risk for severe. We ran across a few storms, not to bad. Due to an accident that shut down the highway and various road construction, we decided to stay the night in Warrington, MO. As we were relaxing, the county went under thunderstorm warned. We did recorded a few pics/video, but it was nothing much. Winds maxed out at 50mph and had another awesome lighting display.
The dive home the next day was uneventful. We did get take a bunch of photos on the way home including the Mississippi/Missouri River confluence.
Miles Traveled: 829 Pics Taken: 300 Minutes of Video: 163
May 28, 2013
Slight risk for severe today. No watches or warnings were up. A lone thunderstorm developed in the Toledo area. The storm did begin to rotate and this was verified on radar. It dropped a wall cloud over the city. Teresa was in Northwood and captured this unexpected event on her cell phone. Amazing day
Miles traveled: 30 Pics Taken: 3 Minutes of Video: 1
May 30, 2013
June 12-13, 2013
Moderate risk for severe storms today. A line of powerful storms was expected to cross into Ohio. A PDS Severe thunderstorm watch was issued for NW Ohio.
We went out towards the boder to meet up with the storms. During our trip out there, we encountered a single cell in the Whitehouse area. We stopped and took pics/video. The cell began to tighten up a bit and began to rotate.
Ten minutes later, it began to weaken and we abandoned it to contiune to the border.
We staged near Payne, Oh. We documented the gust front come in where winds topped out aronud 70mph where our anemometer broke.
We had a good chase and headed home. By the time we got home, another line hit us prompting a tornado warning.
We raced up stairs, put a new battery in the camcorder and recorded the storm.
Storm reports were pretty extensive. They were also 5 confirmed tornado touchdowns. The cloest to us was near Custar, Ohio where an EF-0 was recorded.
TORNADO CONFIRMED IN WOOD COUNTY ON JUNE 13 2013...
LOCATION...1 MILES WEST OF CUSTAR
DATE...JUNE 13 2013
ESTIMATED TIME...1225 AM EDT
MAXIMUM EF-SCALE RATING...EF0
ESTIMATED MAXIMUM WIND SPEED...80 MPH
MAXIMUM PATH WIDTH...50 YARDS
PATH LENGTH...0.9 MILE
BEGINNING LAT/LON...41.2846N / -83.8650W
ENDING LAT/LON...41.2846N / -83.8469W
Other tornado reports was in southern Ohio: Rockford, New Knoxville, and Randor
Miles traveled: 60 Pics Taken: 27 Minutes of Video: 65
June 22, 2013
Impromptu chase to Monore county, MI. A small cell popped up as we were out running errands. We did have our camera and the cell phone with us. The cell did become severe warned and did have weak rotation for a few minutes on radar. At the same time, we observed a brief spin-up. One photo was taken of this and could of been a possible gustnado.
Lots of lighting was also observed. We sat in the same area for a bit. All of a sudden, a burst of wind at approx 50mph occurred and started to shift around. This could of been a possible mesocyclone forming right on top of us.
It was a pretty good chase since we did not have all our chase gear with us.
We did head out to another cell in Fulton County, Ohio but that cell weakened and did not pose much of a threat.
Storm reports of the day had a few wind damage come in.
Miles traveled: 82 Pics Taken: 135 Minutes of Video: 93
June 23,2013
A short homechase. We recorded a bit of the lighting approaching the house an a severe warned cell. Got a few good CG shots. A weak gust front of 20mph came followed by a brief downpour.
Total rainfall was 0.25 in 10 minutes.
Miles traveled: 0 Pics Taken: 17 Minutes of Video: 0
June 24, 2013
A line of storms came in around sunset and went out to the porch to take a few pics/video. The day wasn't very impressive although SPC did put out a MCD and later Severe thunderstorm watch #358 &360 for NW Ohio for some unknown reason. The line of storms weaken significantly as they crossed the OH/IN border. No warnings were issued. The watch was later dropped and hour later.
This was a success since I forecasted that the storms would not pose a threat to Ohio.
Pics Taken: 0 Minutes of Video: 0
June 25, 2013
Slight risk for severe across all of Ohio today. Many MCD was issued today and 3 thunderstorm watches (362,363, 366) was issued for Ohio and lower Michigan. We decided to make a quick local chase since we had work all day. We traveled up to Michigan and staged at a baseball park. We recorded a gust front coming in. That was followed by 40mph winds. Heavy rain was the main threat in these storms. As we returned home, another bout of heavy rain occurred. We measured .60 in about 10 minutes. Another good day.
Most of the storm reports came in was primary located in the Cleveland area.
Pics Taken: 8 Minutes of Video: 65
June 27, 2013
Slight risk for NW Ohio came in late in the day. 2 cells dropped from Michigan to mainly effect Wood and Lucas county. Heavy rains once again fell. Strong winds hit the western half of Lucas county where some tree damage and power outages occurred.
We didn't pursue these storms. We opted to view cloud structure from a distance and got a few good shots of an overshooting top.
Miles: 15 Pics: Minutes of Video: 6
July 19, 2013
Its been a long span of any significant severe weather. We have had many days where a few pop-up storms did go severe and dropped a few weak tornadoes. These storms were either short-lived or way out of our chase area.
This Friday, we watched a storm to our south from our weather lab. This storm was not severe, but it did have some good lighting in it. We went out and filmed for about an hour out on the porch. We did get some good CC and CG shots.
It was a good little storm-chase.
Pics Taken: 339 Minutes of Video: 32
July 27, 2013
No severe weather today but a intense burst of heavy rain fell. We went out to the porch once again and film the rainfall on our new HD camcorder. Footage turned out pretty good
Pics Taken: 0 Minutes of Video: 15
November 17, 2013
High risk for severe. We headed towards the Kokomo area as soon as the PDS Tornado Watch #562 was issued for almost all of Indiana, most of Michighan, and Western Ohio. We decided to stop and wait for the storms to come to Fort Wayne. Many tornado warnings was issued for the area.
Radar indicated that circulation was headed in our direction. Skies got green and winds picked up considerably. We viewed a few spin-ups and a possible occluded wedge.
These storms were moving at a rate of 70mph. Luckily the speed limit was 70 on the highway, and it was still hard to keep up with them.
As we pursued the storm along Route 24, we caught a glimpse of a flipped semi trailer in a ditch on the opposite side of the highway.
We abandoned the chase and made an u turn to see if everything was ok. Upon arriving on the seen, we located the driver who said that he was ok but visibly shaken. We called 911 and remained on the scene until EMS arrived.
By then, the storms were miles away and was unable to catch up with them. We called it a day. Observing 2 or 3 funnels, possible brief rain wrapped wedge, wind gusts up to 75.
Lots of damage reports came in. Walbridge and Rossford both lost power and cable (which was still out at the time of this writing.
An EF-2 Tornado hit the Perrysburg/Oregon area. This is where we was headed before the semi rescue.
Another tornado hit Jerry City and near Elmore ohio. Both were EF-1 and EF-0 respectively.
Lots of wind damage reports came in.
More updates will be added as they come available.
Miles Traveled-190 Pics Taken-150 Minutes of Video-300 Hours on chase-8