This is the journal of the first Whirlwind Tour of the season. The second is
here, and the third is here.
If you want to find out more about Whirlwind Tours, check out this page.
Saturday, May 04, 1996
Marty is expecting the arrival of his first Whirlwind Tours group on today, Saturday, and they will begin their "prairie adventure" the following day. Some of them were willing to let us include their names and where they are from. During their tour, we will be referring to them by just their first names, but for your information now here are their names:
Christi Endebrock, from Effingham, Illinois
Christi had toured with Marty in 1994, and had such a good time that she is going out again. Coincidentally, Christi is the "girl in the wind" during the "prairie weather" segment of Tornado Video Classics III
Shaun O'Sullivan joins the tour from far-away Staffordshire, England
Hara Ra comes from Santa Cruz, California
and last, but not least, Jennifer Staszel comes from Plymouth, Michigan.
To Jennifer: Thanks for your message--we just sent your brother the address for this page.
By the way, look for Marty on the program"Savage Skies" which airs occasionally on The Learning Channel, Discovery Channel or PBS. Remember, though, that even PBS and BBC specials sometimes distort the facts to make a better story.
Sunday, May 5, 1996
Today was the first day of chasing for the tour, and they drove 232 miles. The storms weren't cooperating though, and went further south. Softball sized hail was reported near Midland, Texas. There may be storms developing in their area tonight, however.
A television crew also joined them today, and will be spending the better part of a week with them.
They all turned in early, after checking out the maps and radar on the Weather Channel, of course.
Monday, May 6, 1996
Marty Feely and his band of storm chase adventurers abandoned Oklahoma and headed north. They were following a retreating jet stream that seemed intent on falling into a summertime pattern. They left behind hundreds of would-be stormchasers in Oklahoma and Texas, staring at clear skies or just rainy, tornado-free MCCs(mesoscale convective complexes). Before leaving Oklahoma, they toured the Twister filming site at Wakita and the Twister museum. Each member of the team bought at least one Twister brick(You too can buy an engraved brick and support the beautification committee.) The Seattle based KING TV crew were delighted at having something newsworthy and storm related to film, even if the storm was only in the movies. As it turned out, the warm front didn't behave as predicted, staying south, and did not move as far north as Nebraska, so again there were no daytime thunderstorms on Tuesday.
The members are really starting to click as a group, and everyone is having a good time.
Tuesday, May 7, 1996
The team only drove 90 miles today. They hung out in a park for a few hours, and set up the DSS dish for the first time. They plugged it into an outlet, and watched the Weather Channel. Ordinarily, chasers had to rely on staying in motels that provided the Weather Channel, but the little dish lets them get it anywhere they can plug everything in. Of course, it didn't show them where the storms were yesterday, because there weren't any, but there was some satisfaction in knowing that no one else was seeing anything either.
They also went to the Dodge City NWS office.
The KING-TV crew will probably get some lightning video even if they don't catch a tornado by the time they leave.
By the way, the team is driving a Plymouth Voyager with a few golf-ball-size hail dents in it. The last time it lost it's windshield was near Dimmitt, Texas in June of 1995.
Wednesday, May 8, 1996
On Wednesday evening, Marty Feely and Whirwind tours had to bail out from under a classic supercell on the Kansas-Nebraska border near Chester. With a radar-indicated tornado warning posted, and with sirens blaring, the spectacular storm began moving towards the southeast instead of east. In other words, in their direction! This right-mover didn't spawn a visible tornado for the tour, however. When the next supercell moved by it put on a spectacular two hour long light show. There was constant in-cloud lightning, with anvil zits 40,000 feet overhead. Marty played the "triple point"(surface low-dryline-warmfront) perfectly. He fine-tuned his original suspicions with some late NWS information. It was an outstanding chase effort considering that there was only one other good storm in the entire country, a supercell west of Wichita, Kansas.
Thursday, May 9, 1996
The Whirlwind gang started Thursday with a damage survey of what tornadoes did the night before. Gilead and Beatrice, Nebraska were struck. They surveyed Gilead, where a church was completely blown away. Fortunately, no one was killed in any of the tornadoes that occurred that night. It was a good chance for the crew to practice their Fujita Scale skills. It appeared to be at least F2 damage, possibly F3.
Getting into position for Thursdays's chase, they ran into Jim Leonard north of Concordia, Kansas. Jim, of course is one of the true old timers, having chased for more than 20 years. Jim was on the Leeza Gibbons talk show. His hurricane and tornado videos were featured on both the National Geographic program Cyclone and CBSs Forces of Nature. Thursday's chase was stormy and a bit dangerous. The supercells were all HP(heavy precipitation) and any tornadoes might have been hidden by rain.
The crew had to dodge tornado warnings to get to the motel Thursday night. They might have driven right into a supercell, so had to turn around and go the other way. They saw uprooted trees and downed power lines. There were a few scary moments near Linn. They saw debris blowing off trees and scud going the opposite way, and thought they might be in the "bear's cage." Not a place Marty wants to find himself with four other people!
As exciting as it was for the crew, it was a scary time for the residents of Beatrice, Nebraska.
Friday, May 10, 1996
Friday was a travel day back to Amarillo. The cold front had pushed all the way to Dallas overnight, and the storms would be over for a few days. This does not mean that there was nothing to do. Passage through Liberal, Kansas means a must-stop visit to Dorothy's house. Dorothy, you know Dorothy--she was the one caught up in the tornado back in 1939, and carried to OZ. Saturday it is rest and recuperation, doing the laundry, and a big night out at "Twister!"
Saturday, May 11, 1996
The Whirlwind gang had a relaxing day. They are in the Amarillo area, and visited Cadillac Ranch. For those of you who don't know, that is where a number of Cadillacs are partially buried, nose first, coming out of the ground at an angle. You can see it from the highway. It is on the west side of Amarillo. Don't ask me why.
Saturday afternoon they took in the late matinee of "Twister." Their expectations were pretty high, and having a week's personal experience under their belt now, as well as having been interested in tornadoes for years, they noticed many errors. They enjoyed it for was is was--Hollywood. Marty gave it 7(out of 10), Jen gave it a 7, Shaun gave it a 6, Hara gave it a 6.6, and Christi gave it a 5.
The theater had a large display in the lobby. a 10 foot high cardboard tornado, of course. Elephant trunk shaped.
They did a quick exit poll in the lobby, and folks comments ranged from "pretty good" to "awesome special effects."
Sunday, May 12, 1996
Classic and gorgeous supercells were seen today! With beautiful, slowly rotating wall clouds. Once again, Marty brought the gang to the absolute perfect place to see a tornado if one was going to form. Several other chasers were seen in the area, including Jim Leonard again.
Monday, May 13, 1996
There was a good storm on the dryline in the Amarillo, Texas area. This was the fourth straight storm in which the tour was in the tornado warning area when the warning was issued, which is where you should be if you know what you are doing. There were photogenic storms with anvil crawlers and weak mammatus at sunset. Other carloads of chasers were in the area, hoping for something more. King TV from Seattle is still with the crew, and has decided to expand their program to a half hour.
Tuesday, May 14, 1996
The tour hung out at the Amarillo NWS office for a while. There was one good storm on the dryline--this one near Childress, Texas. And our tireless crew was right there...the fifth straight storm with Whirlwind Tours right in the warning area. Best video of the day was of a classic downburst plume from this "Panhandle magic" storm. Plenty of gustnadoes were seen also, and there was nickel hail. They headed for Altus for the night.
Wednesday, May 15th
This was a day for museums, state parks, and sitting under the take-off paths of huge jet aircraft at Altus Air Force Base, under a seemingly unbreakable cap in southwest Oklahoma. Plans are to use Thursday, May 16th to travel north, at least into Kansas, and set up for what almost certainly looks like a stormy weekend for the northern plains. Looks like whatever video will be shown at the storm chase party might be taken this weekend.
Thursday, May 16, 1996
Originally, this was to be a travel day, heading north for a Friday outbreak in the northern Great Plains. When the possibility of that outbreak evaporated, the group headed for the Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge northwest of Lawton, Oklahoma. The drive through the refuge looked like a little piece of Africa, with large creatures roaming free. Christie had wanted badly to see a buffalo, but as it turned out, she saw more than she bargained for. She was captured on video running 15 feet ahead of a huge charging buffalo...more dangerous than the bear's cage. Sunset was spent at the site of the Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing.
Friday, May 17, 1996
It was time to cry in one's beer with other chasers under the unbreakable cap. There were visits to NSSL(National Severe Storm Laboratory), the University of Oklahoma, and to Bob and Tracey Prentice's home(Bob, of course, is famous for his "I'm glad I took the day off" quote on the Billings, OK video in 1991 and the "Damn, that was a big bug" comment northwest of Vernon, Texas in 1995). Bob is an instructor at the NWS Nexrad school, and has probably seen more tornadoes in the past two years than any human being on the planet. He is Marty's chief advisor on chasing strategy.
Saturday, May 18, 1996
It is back to Amarillo and the last glimmer of hope that on this last day, some manner of "Panhandle magic" would happen...it didn't, but no one complained. It was an exciting two weeks and their lives will never be the same because of it.
Here are the statistics for their two week chase:
Out of 14 days, there were 8 chase days.
On five of those days they observed severe weather up close.
On three of those days they saw supercells up close.
On the six non-chase days there were 3 down days, and 3 travel days.
They drove a total of 3,270 miles in the two weeks--right in the average range for a 2 week tour.
The number of chase days for that two week period was also average.
They missed an F2 tornado by 10 minutes in Chester NE on May 8th, due to darkness and detours.
Sean got good video to take back to Great Britain. And did King TV got good supercells on Beta-cam.
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