I also snagged the best lightning shot to date.

It was my first opportunity to not be the newbie in the vehicle. We toured with some folks from Oklahoma City, Texas, and even the UK and Brazil! Everyone had an absolute blast, and even though each day wasn’t filled with tornadoes, we always saw something.

The last storm I saw on tour with Rapid Rotation was the El Reno tornado. What started out as a “wow, first tornado of the tour on the 2nd to last day!” turned into a shocking view as the twister grew in size and barreled towards us. I will never forget the sound or the feeling as we drove away from it. I will never forget how calm and collected everyone was, how we didn’t react in a panic, even when we were stuck in the traffic fleeing the area. We were never in danger, but we could have been. Fortunately we were never *too* close, and we had an escape plan. My footage is below.

I know I haven’t written about Moore yet, I will. I didn’t expect El Reno to happen, and I didn’t expect us to lose some of the best and brightest in storm chasing. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the Samaras’s memorial service in Denver this past week. So, with all that’s been going on, Moore has been on my mind but not on paper yet. I’ll get there. Until then, here’s El Reno:

Kansas

A few days later, Chris and I headed into Kansas where we met up with a pile of other storm chasers in Greensburg. We waited, and waited. And…waited. Storms began popping up to the north and eventually to the south of where we were. As we were about to bust south, a little storm popped up nearby. We decided to chase it, just hoping for the best. What we got for the first 20 minutes was Funnel-Palooza 2013, where this storm put out little cold-air funnels everywhere. These funnels didn’t touch down, but we held out hope. I kept driving further and further north toward where the storm might cross, and a wall-cloud finally tightened up. As Chris and I watched (from my new Subaru), a funnel dropped and expanded into a very large, classic-looking tornado. It was lit from behind in a way that made it even more ominous. We filmed for a solid ten minutes before hail the size of a well-fed pigeon (note: not to be used for a legitimate hail size rating) began falling onto my shiny new car. So we busted east, happy with what we had filmed. The storm dropped another smaller tornado out of it a few moments later but we had a long drive ahead of us, and continued on.

That night we did get caught by a huge MCS (Mesoscale Convective System), and almost blown off the road by the gust front (VERY strong winds on the front of a line of storms. But we still made it home in one piece. We learned later in the week that the tornado was rated EF-4 based on wind speed, not damage. Still, at the time it was the largest tornado I had ever seen!

Bust a Tour

The very next morning we headed out with Damon and our friend Shane, along with three tourgoers to catch the storms expected to pop in Kansas and Oklahoma. We jumped the gun and went after some rain-wrapped tornado producing storms in Wichita. While we heard plenty of sirens and dodged quite a few hail cores, we never did see the tornado. But we were darn close to it. Let this be a lesson: do not chase HP (high precipitation, aka RAINY) messes, they can catch you! We were never in any danger, but we didn’t see anything either. The best way to catch a tornado like that is to be right up next to it. Hence why no one should ever do that.

Shortly after Wichita, we heard about storms popping up in Norman, Moore, and Oklahoma City (south to north, basically). In an effort to make it in time and still catch storms, we wound up getting some beautiful structure shots, overrun by a windy hail core, and saw the right side of a rainy wedge (wider than it is tall) tornado. But we missed any chance at a photogenic one that day. We also missed the tornado that ripped through Shawnee, a smaller town to the east of Oklahoma City. That tornado was later rated an EF-4 as well. We thought that was it for the big storms, and called it a day. The next day would be spent chasing tornadic supercells off the dryline, south of Oklahoma City.

Moore

I don’t want to talk much about Moore, I want to save a separate blog post for that. But I want to at least touch on it, as it happened in the same week as all of these other tornadoes. In one week Chris and I saw an EF-2 and an EF-4. We expected to see more tornadoes, but no one ever expects to come across what we did.

What started as a smaller tornado exploded into an ugly, swirling mass of noise and destruction. What followed was a traffic jam of epic proportions to try to get to Moore and help out, followed by a “rescue” of two uninjured ladies (who were in shock), days of Chris being interviewed by news stations from the US and many other countries, and donating to the victims. This is the first time in days that I’ve been able to write about the tornadoes BEFORE this one. I’m not quite sure I’ll ever feel the same about tornadoes, after finally witnessing an aftermath that no one should have to experience.

But I’ll keep chasing. We need to know how these things work, and we’re getting better at that every day.

More to come on the Moore, OK F-5 tornado in a future post.

We chased, and chased, and chased the past few months. Clearly I would have posted an update had we found more than sunshine and occasionally thunder, right?

I might be wrong.

For those of you who follow my Flickr or Twitter pages, I’ve been alive and well on there. We caught some gorgeous storm structure on most of our chases, and in fact I don’t think we’ve been sunned-out once yet. One particular storm in Montague county, TX dropped so much hail it sounded like a tornado. A beautiful, rain-free base appeared in front of us…and disintegrated just as the storm had built up enough energy. So continued the sad, severe weather conditions in 2013. Until yesterday.

We expected Spring to kick off with a bang when it finally warmed up. We didn’t realize the bang would be an outbreak of tornadoes in Texas. People were killed, and homes were destroyed. We narrowly missed the wedge that tore through Granbury, TX by about fifteen minutes. Originally heading south, the wedge did a complete 180 and headed into town. We were already on the way home when it happened. There is nothing beautiful about a killer tornado. But there are many things wonderful about the chasers that were able to stop in town and help with search and rescue.

On a lighter note, we did catch one of the tornadoes, and my first decent film of one is finally on YouTube! This tornado was relatively small, and didn’t do much damage. You can see debris in the video; reports were of some roof damage and one barn destroyed.

The pattern for severe weather continues this weekend, and the plan is to chase wherever we can. There’s the possibility of anywhere from Kansas to South Dakota, and then back to Oklahoma. I should mention that all this chasing will be done with a head cold. So, don’t judge my nasaly, low voice in the video above.

On to forecasting for the long weekend!

Make Storm Rush a film! Only 17 days left to help me chase storms and storm chasers. Even a donation of $10 will help. Remember, each donation comes with a reward from a book to your name in the film. There’s even a juggling lesson from a storm chaser! You have nothing to lose: if my project is funded you get an amazing prize, and if my project isn’t funded the money stays in your pocket.

17 days left to make this happen. I need your help!

How did I come up with the name Storm Rush in the first place? Before this site’s launch I noticed the rapid growth of the storm chaser community. It didn’t have to include only meteorologists; teachers, artists, and even kids still in high school were flocking to the chase. That’s where the idea for Storm Rush came from: it’s a storm chasing Gold Rush.

At any rate, that’s what this film will be about. And if you decide to help me fund it you can choose from tons of different prizes. That’s what I love about Kickstarter: you’re not just asking for money, you’re asking for help and collaboration. You’re rewarding contributors for their efforts. The idea is amazing, and I hope I get to share the rewards with you.

For more information on my Kickstarter project, check it out (and donate!) here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/684287083/storm-rush-the-chase-for-meteorological-gold

It’s a bittersweet move. For one, it came out of the blue to everyone and in some ways myself. For another, I do love Denver but it has its cons along with its pros. Dry air, I don’t like driving in the mountains, I can’t chase as easily as I can in the center of it all…the list goes on. Leaving my job is also a sad and rather busy affair. I didn’t give them much notice as I didn’t have much notice to give, and I’m not leaving the job for work-related reasons. I do enjoy my job, but it’s not enough to keep me in Denver.

So the big Storm Rush announcement? Relocating to Norman. Wow. I never thought I’d say that. In fact, I was the one laughing at my sister years ago when she contemplated the idea of moving there. Who’s laughing now?

Me, kind of. Laughing because I’m excited. And possibly slightly insane. But what would life be like without a little crazy? Certainly nowhere near as adventurous.

Chris and I skipped the Thursday night…um…festivities in favor of Valentine’s Day, and instead got to the Doubletree hotel Friday afternoon. It was great to run into everyone again, even though I had run across some of them while chasing on the plains. I’m hoping for even more run-ins this coming season. There’s one thing I neglected to mention about this Chasercon…

For the 15^th Annual Storm Chaser Convention, they had a t-shirt design contest. Guess who won? My first tornado wound up being on the backs of most of the attendees throughout the convention! This was great for two reasons: 1) it was my tornado!!! and 2) it got me into the convention for free. Boom. Moving on….

There were so many great speakers this weekend. Tim Samaras and Dr. Walt Lyons spoke about lightning photography, and the many amazing occurrences ultimately missed by the naked eye (aka “sprites”). Then Tim showed us Big Kahuna, a camera so large it doesn’t just get its own vehicle, it is the vehicle. And how much did Tim pay for this camera initially? $600 at an auction. Everyone else bidding on it was bidding for the aluminum it was made of. Tim paid just above the cost of the scrap. I’d say that’s an investment well made.

Jeff Piotrowski talked about what it was like being possibly the first person on the scene for the Joplin, MO EF5 tornado. The recount was mesmerizing. The footage he shot while in shock brought tears to my eyes. I think his talk finally made all storm chasers in attendance realize that nature isn’t just fun, it’s furious at times. Tim Samaras and Roger Hill handed out a survey asking attendees what they could do to make Chasercon even better, and under suggested topics the majority of submissions asked about first responder speakers. That made me smile.

Other notable speakers included Dr. Greg Forbes of The Weather Channel, Dr. Josh Wurman (known by most for his appearance in Discovery Channel’s Storm Chasers), Jon Davies, and Don Burgess, keynote speaker. Brandon Sullivan from Tornado Titans and Steve Hamilton both won speaker spots and educated (and entertained) us on Sounding Analysis and Chaser Safety, respectively.

It wouldn’t be Chasercon without an appearance by Tim Marshall, who this year donned his Logic Cap and took the stage as Spark the Vulcan, a relative of Spock’s. Tim’s talk, “Storm Trek” was both enlightening about the weather this past year and downright entertaining, with appearances (in photos) from all of our favorite Star Trek characters with some of the funniest comments ever, regarding 2012.

After the day of education came the banquet and video night. We laughed at some of the films (and the food, not gonna lie), were blown away by others, and most of all were extremely happy that this year Tim and Roger pre-approved all the video. We won’t say what last year wound up like, but we will say this year the room didn’t clear out before 11pm.

Sunday was met with a breakfast filled with bacon (you had to pay the hotel extra for the epic breakfast but it was WORTH IT), another session with Dr. Forbes, and Brandon and Steve’s sessions. After that the convention was over, unless you stuck around for the Weather Spotter Training. This was the first year I didn’t, but I’ll probably make it a point to get spotter training somewhere along the way before or during storm season, just to make sure I’m refreshed.

We decided to grab food at TGI Fridays east of the hotel, and while we were waiting for our food we were greeted with our first storm of the year: a dust devil! Hey, a rotating column of air is still a rotating column of air, no matter the size. And this one was pretty mean. It picked up some stuff lying around the street and tore off across a field. Nerds that we are, we all freaked out and waited for another to happen. At least we saw the one to occur that day.

Now onto storm season! Once Chasercon ends you can sense it in the air (and on Facebook) that we’re all just dying to chase the first cloud we see. Once the snow clears, y’all better be ready.

Chris McBee (@centralokstorms on Twitter) and I headed north for the weekend on January 25th. We spent the first night quietly in the hotel, unlike some of the other attendees (who, I found out later, had a blast). Saturday we headed up to the convention in beautiful, seemingly uninhabited Big Lake, MN.

Ken Cole (see: Tornado Glory) was the first speaker and ultimately my favorite. It’s always inspiring to see others in the field of media and design making their mark in the field of meteorology. Granted, Ken went to school for meteorology, but I digress.

Other speakers showed us what it was like being an on-air meteorologist, where some of last year and the rest of history’s surprise storms materialized from…and most importantly, the outlook for 2013. A lot of the predictions focused on Minnesota with good reason, but overall, 2013 looks to be a make it or break it year for storm chasers. The country-wide drought continues to persist, however, two things stand out for a more active season. There is a much more significant snowpack in the Rockies compared to last year (If anything, that at least lowers the fire risk). The other chance for a better chase season lies in the colder air mass over Canada, which hints at more instability across the plains.

But in the event of a repeat of 2012, let’s just say I’m glad I grabbed my passport.

The rest of the weekend was spent hanging out with everyone from Convective Addiction, ChaserTV, Storm Assist, and everyone else that was able to make it to the unfortunately short weekend. It was a great time, and it geared me up for Chasercon (post coming soon) and the 2013 chase season.

Bring it. I’ll even chase Minnesota!

How did it break, you ask? Well, that’s a story for a time that isn’t right now. But the good news is it was only the back. See?

I decided to purchase a new back for the iPhone off of Amazon, since the only issue with it was the tiny glass splinters I could get in the side of my face if I actually decided to use the darn thing. I purchased a kit for about $10 after s&h, got it this evening and went to work.

Did you know that Apple uses screws that only their special screwdrivers can remove?

WRONG! Although they are five-point screws, a simple pocketknife with a teeny-tiny toothpick/sewing implement will get the job done. I removed the two screws and popped off the back while wearing latex gloves.

In case you’re wondering, the above is what iPhone guts look like. And no, I wasn’t in a clean room. I was wearing latex gloves and operating over a Bounty paper towel placed delicately on my IKEA coffee table. Moving on, I snapped the new back on, learned that screws are more difficult getting back in than taking out, and after maybe half an hour of struggling with everything and making the screws fit accurately and flush, I had a brand new iPhone…back.

This post is really about the importance of an Otterbox. They’re relatively cheap when you think about the fact that all they do is protect your costly smartphone. Everyone should have one, especially in the field. Because really, you never know what’s going to run it over and when. But as I learned recently, it was only a matter of time.

I promise next time I’ll post about something weather related.

Storm Assist DVD

As I spent my weekend watching chase videos from 2012, I realized…2012 wasn’t that bad. I managed to see 7 tornadoes; technically 8, but I couldn’t confirm the Norman, OK one as it ripped up the earth just beyond an unfortunately tall patch of trees. I saw 5 of my 2012 tornadoes the very next day, the day after Chris McBee and I started dating (and we’re still together! woo!). But, I digress.

Although the final storm counts were significantly lower than the previous few years, some astoundingly picturesque severe weather formed across the country last year. From the April 14th outbreak across Kansas and Oklahoma to Superstorm Sandy, it seems footage was captured for almost every severe weather event in the lower 48. We’ll get to the Canadian tornadoes another time.

Have you ever storm chased? Have you ever been like me and just sat around wishing there was more footage to watch? I have your wintertime blues answer: Storm Assist. I purchased the DVD last week and finally got the chance to sit down and really watch it. So many storm chasers contributed to this DVD, and all of the footage is utterly spectacular. You really experience the motion of each tornado as some chasers get…well…closer than I ever get (except on April 14th). You’ll see wedges rip up the earth, watch tornadoes rope out so delicately they look completely harmless, stare at twin tornadoes seemingly dance around each other, and so much more that I need to stop before I spoil it all. My one recommendation: watch it in the dark and prepare to be spooked!

My personal favorite so far is the May 19th Central Kansas tornadoes in the wind farm. The backlit tornado looks downright ominous, and you continually hear a low roar in the background. And the most spectacular part for me is when the camera points upward to the top of the funnel. The anatomy of a tornado rarely comes in any clearer than that. And if the video starts to get too quiet for you, the hail will wake you up.

…And yes, I do feel bad for those windmills.

Storm Assist does more than get you the best footage of the year, they get help for those in need after the devastating effects of severe weather. As storm chasers, we help as much as we can when disaster strikes, but we can do so much more with just a little help. If you’re looking for a new storm chasing DVD, I give Storm Assist a five-star rating. And with the DVD for only $20 (Blu-Ray now available for $25), you get 100 minutes of tornado footage and photography from over 40 different storm chasers. You can watch the DVD trailer and purchase it here: http://stormassist.org/store/

I felt this DVD packed so much for such an amazing price that I just had to write a review for it. Storm Assist donates all profits to a charitable organization local to the impacts of severe weather through the year. It’s never been easier to help those affected by severe weather. Help those in need while getting entertained with some of the most spectacular storm footage to come out of 2012.

…Did I mention you get to watch Caleb Elliott and Skip Talbot storm chase in an airplane?