Saturday, May 18, 1996
The new crew has arrived! The include:
John Brosio, an artist from Pasadena California. This is his third time out with the tour. We will scan and post one of Johns paintings in another day or so.
Kai Esbensen, from Edina Minnesota. Kai is also a repeat customer, having been on the same tour as John Brosio last year.
Jeff Reed from Bay City Michigan. This is Jeffs first time out on the tour.
Dominick Russo from Wood-Ridge, New Jersey. This is also Dominick's first time out.
The conditions for this groups chase look better than during the previous two weeks. The jet stream is swinging south, and should bring some disturbances that will tear apart the much despised capping inversion.
Sunday and Monday, May 19 and 20, 1996
The bane of all chasers beset the tour these days--good weather! Hissssss!! Boooooo!! They had fun anyway, doing a little hiking and rock climbing in Palo Duro State Park, taking the "official" tour of the Amarillo, Texas National Weather Service office, and going to see Twister!
There is probably going to be some real storm action on Thursday through Sunday of this week.
Tuesday, May 21, 1996
Marty and the Whirlwind gang had a great day! They ran into Bobbie Prentice, Scott Fitzgerald and Jim Leonard while on the road. Those chasers saw a two minute, ropey tornado 4 miles SE of Benkelman, Nebraska right on the state line NE of St. Francis in extreme NW Kansas The crew got on the stom too late to see that tornado, but caught up with it near Atwood, Kansas. Under a magnificent supercell, they encountered an "all-star" chaser convergence. The crowd included Tim Marshall(editor of the Storm Track Newsletter and seen recently on the Oprah Winfrey show, and in TVC III) Carson Eads(recently in TVC III and owner of the #1 chase vehicle in the world, the "Eadsmobile"), Jim Leonard AGAIN(recently a guest on Leeza, CBS's "Forces of Nature," the National Geographic special "Cyclone"), Gene Rhoden(Gene is the storm chaser in the Volvo commercial and also has video footage in the "Top 20 Chase Video Countdown" in TVC III) and about 10 other chase vehicles. This is what it is all about! They saw a spectacular rotating tower, with striations, "a gorgeous barrel in the sky," Marty said, "the best structure he has seen this year." The group was having a good old time! They stayed ahead of that storm. When they were north of Atwood they saw a brief spin up that may have been a weak tornado . A tornado warning was in effect when they entered Oberlin. They saw the tornado to the west, less than a mile away, and moving right towards them. It was a little after 9:30 PM, and outlined by very faint light from the west. The oncoming headlights on Hwy 36 also blocked their view, so they didn't get a real good look. Eventually bailing out because of storm and tornado warnings, they continued on to east of Oberlin In the Norton area, they hit a good hail storm, with hail from 1 inch up to golfball sized, on the ground. They checked into their motel at 1:15 AM, and are looking forward to more fun on Thursay, in the same area, or a little east of there.
By the way, there was a nice article in Entertainment Weekly this week on "tornado chasing tours," with Marty featured prominently. We have excerpted it here.
We had a call from our good friend Roy Britt as well. Roy has been chasing for many, many years, back when it wasn't cool. We also know that television stations are on the ready to alert people, and it is a very distinct possiblility that there will be a destuctive storm.
Wednesday, May 22, 1996
Marty checked in from Colby, Kansas, with a who's who of chasing all at the same motel. This includes all of the names mentioned yesterday, plus Matt Crowther and Betsy Abrams from the Weather Channel. They all "busted" in northwest Kansas. The few tornadoes were far to the west, in Colorado and Wyoming. Exchanging information, it was learned that Jim LaDue(seen in TVC I operating Howie Bluestein's portable Doppler radar on April 12, 1991 in front of the "what a classic" tornado) got his vehicle literally destroyed by baseball hail east of Cheyenne, Wyoming a few days ago. That same day, Bobby Prentice had two side and the rear van's windows blown in by a gustnado north of Atwood, Kansas on Wednesday. He had to drive to Denver for repairs before resuming the chase. This is an expensive hobby!
Thursday, May 23, 1996
The crew is back in Amarillo getting ready for what could be a very exciting weekend. Heading out for Perryton, Texas, they saw the first of three possible tornadoe this day. The funnel was half way down when it moved behind the buildings of Perryton, and by the time the crew drove away from the buildings, the funnel had lifted.
They also saw a large gustnado on the nose of a large downburst. It was reported as a tornado by law enforcement,but it wasn't attached to any cloud, so it wasn't really a tornado.
Near Pampa, two tornadoes were spotted, one an elephant-trunk-like mass of scud, the other a dust tube, visible for three minutes, with good back lighting. The NSSL Doppler radar crew and many other chasers were seen going every which way. For the second time in three nights, Whirlwind Tours was hit by a hail storm of marble to 1 inch stones, just after checking into the motel. South of Amarillo, the same storm produced softball sized hail.
Friday, May 24, 1996
There was lots of hype on the Weather Channel on the possibility of tornadoes, but the few that materialized were all hidden by rain. It was a frustrating day having to deal with HP supercells. At times the visibility near the New Mexico border was near zero in blowing dust. The region is in a drought that is probably worse that the drought of the Dust Bowl days. Jim Leonard's brand new (rented, ha ha, by the British Granada Television crew that is following him)Grand Voyager got badly beaten up by tennis-ball-sized hail(including a cracked windshield). This was the ninth straight chase day in which the crew was in a tornado watch box at the time it was issued... not bad Marty. The target area for Sunday is southwest Oklahoma.
Saturday, May 25, 1996
The promise of "the outbreak of the year" was not fulfilled. Most chasers headed for southwest Oklahoma, and found themselves under a line of intense thunderstorms with small tornadoes hidden by torrential rain and hail. At the last minute, Marty and the crew got a phone call from Matt Crowther that steered them towards the most likely tornado area, western Kansas. They were 25 miles south of Sublette when the most photogenic tornado of the year danced across the prairie in front of two chasers from Colorado Springs, Colorado. Being closer to this classic tornado than 95% of all chasers was no consolation. They were on the cell just south of the tornadic one. It was still a spectacular day, with wall clouds and 60 mph outflow picking up not just dirt, but actual stones from the ground.
Sunday, May 26, 1996
The next few days will be quiet. It is time for laundry, and sightseeing in Nebraska while waiting for warm air to surge back up from the south, and the next Pacific coastal storm to work its way east.
Monday-Wednesday, May 29, 1996
There hasn't been very much to report the last few days. After a great start last week, the weather got nice. What a drag!
Thursday, May 30, 1996
On Thursday, the crew were part of Marty's second longest chase ever over 635 miles! All the way down to Portales, New Mexico then back up to Amarillo. They got to the Panhandle just in time to find that morning storms had stabilized the air, and clouded it, so the Texas Panhandle didn't have a chance. But they got to a storm west of Clovis just before sunset, a little hailstorm and real nice lightning. It was very pretty at sunset, but they were pretty wimpy storms as the Panhandle goes. Oh, by the way, there is another John Brosio painting on his page.
Friday, May 31, 1996
The search for the photogenic tornado goes on, although we saw some badass supercells west of Clarendon at about 8 PM. They did see a 2 or 3 minute tornado that was a small funnel, a dust tube, just up to cloud base, several miles towards the east, but the big story was the supercell that formed under a rather high based updraft. They were watching and staying with that storm for a good 2 to 3 hours, before it finally and explosively developed in less than 5 minutes from that high base, going from what didn't look like much to a roaring, howling, dust eating supercell! Just awesome! It was one of the most exciting near-storm environments Marty has ever been in. And of course everyone was having a great time! They can't wait to see the video! Later on they were in two towns when the sirens went off. The second time was in Hadley when the radar showed two storms developing. They were actually between the two funnels--one a half mile north of us and the other a half mile south of us. There were a couple of anxious moments there, but Marty could not confirm a touchdown, just funnels less than 1000 feet off the ground over a field less than 1/2 mile to the southwest.
They got a call from our good friend Matt Biddle. Matt and his chase partner Mark Herndon were the two chasers hired by theTwister folks. Matt's home page isn't finished, but he does have a few snapshots of his experiences on the set, including one of Helen Hunt. Mark and Matt worked closely with Vince Miller, the Meteorological Consultant for Twister. Anyhow, Matt said that they had gotten a ten minute tornado in southwest Kansas, but once again, there was no condensation, just a dust tube. He also said that somebody got their windows blasted out by a gustnado, just like Bobby Prentice. And sombody got some baseball hail damage too.
Saturday, June 1, 1996
The Whirlwind gang hung around Amarillo today. They went to the National Weather Service office, and ran into Matt Crowther and Betsy Abrams, Chuck Doswell, Al Moller, and about 4 or 5 other chasers. It ended up at a kind of an impromtu chaser party in the NWS library, with everyone showing video of their chases this year.
Matt and Betsy are a husband and wife chase team. Both work as meteorologists at the Weather Channel. Chuck and Al were the chasers who took that unforgettable video from Pampa, Texas, on June 8, 1995, seen in TVC III. Dr. Charles Doswell, III is a senior research meteorologist at NSSL in Norman, Oklahoma, and participated in Project VORTEX. Al Moller is a warning preparedness meteorologist with the southern region of the NWS in Fort Worth, Texas. Both are excellent photographers as well. You can see Chucks photography on his own home page You can see Al's on the slipcase of TVC III.
One of the points of discussion is that there is good video being shot this year from chasers' "own back yard," rather than during chasing trips. Some of it is being taken as chasers are heading for somewhere else!
Anyhow, it was a nice way to end up the tour.
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