Storm Chasing

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

Is this an El Nino or La Nina year or something? What tha mother is up with all this crazy insane wind and storms Dallas has been getting the last half year or so

This is actually us coming off a La Nina cycle.

Pretty much every post La Nina cycle has seen severe outbreaks (1974, 1999, and I think there was one in the 60s too).

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

well done, glad youre safe.
any video?

I don't know what I have yet as far as video goes. One lesson learned from today was that we need more than two of us chasing.

My buddy/roomie drove, and I had navigator/photography/video/radar/make-sure-we-don't-end-up-in-the-tornado duties.

That was a hectic. There was about an hour/hour and a half period in Ardmore where we had three different tornadoes come through. One of the chasers reported an eighteen wheeler got flipped right in front of him about a quarter mile ahead of us on the second tornadic cell. They ended up having to take the driver to hospital.

So glad I made my buddy stop at the top of the hill I did and not go to the next one.

Got treated to a wicked light show on the way back, and chased the first DFW tornado well east of the Metroplex. Stupid funnel just wouldn't put down, and we gave up when we ran out of light.

[Cant_Be_Faded]

I didn't realize AHF was Bill Paxton

Did you see Jonas and his team of fancy F150's with their rival tornado monitoring technology?

[Cant_Be_Faded]

.

[lil'mo]

hwhoa! aggiehoopsfan is the storm chaser? i did not see this one coming

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

We had a really funny incident with Oklahoma Highway Patrol and an 18 wheeler. It was scary as when it happened, but is funny looking back on it.

We ended up on the north edge of a tornadic cell and took 35 to get south of it so we were out of the way (the hook was about 2 miles to our SW, and we could see the funnel).

So we're driving down 35 and some trucker had pulled off on the earlier cell and gotten stuck in the mud. An Oklahoma DPS trooper had the road blocked (one lane due to construction) so they could get a tow truck in there to get the guy out.

So we pull up and the cop is sitting there, and my roomie starts honking at him. Cop walks up to my window and says "is there a problem?" I say "well, we're trying to get the out of the way of that tornado that's forming over there *points in the direction of the funnel* but you're blocking the freaking road!"

Trooper turns around, sees the funnel, and says "oh ". Tells the trucker to hop in his squad car and tells the tow truck to book it south. So we're in a tow truck/OHP caravan with about 20 cars behind us hauling ass down 35 at probably 80-85 in a 60 mph construction zone to get south of the funnel.

Good times!

[BlackSwordsMan]

Is there a site that a name of the victims in joplin? I'm curious to see if the chick I know is on there. =/

[Cant_Be_Faded]

Somebody give me a functioning link so I can check out all these wicked tornados you guys posted non-working links for

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

I didn't realize AHF was Bill Paxton

Did you see Jonas and his team of fancy F150's with their rival tornado monitoring technology?

We did have a big chase team behind us at one point. I couldn't make out the logo on the side but they had all kinds of weather equipment all over the four SUVs in the team.

We got to Denton and had to make a call on the western storms (Manny alluded to them on page 19) or heading north to Ardmore. We chose to head for Ardmore with the idea that the storms would just keep coming in waves based on the radar at the time. We made it to Thackerville just across the Red River and the cell just to our west got tornado warned. Pulled over on 35 and watched it roll in.

I will say it was a total adrenaline pump to start things off. Very first storm we chose to intercept got tornado warned, and we sit there with the sirens going off in Thackerville and watch a wall cloud drop down. Didn't produce a funnel, which was frustrating as . I think if we had gotten a tornado on the first storm we would have just turned around and come home

We pretty much just bounced between Thackerville and Ardmore. Got mucked up into the second storm that came into Ardmore. Watched the wall cloud drop and the funnel come down, then the rain started coming down in sheets. We were sitting in the car watching the rotation come within a half mile of us. Were turned around on 77 ready to bail south out of the way. The thing got rain wrapped and we couldn't see jack.

As mentioned, an 18 wheeler got flipped just north of us, hope the driver is doing okay. Tried to make it south for the Gainesville, TX confirmed tornado but got too dark and too chaotic too quickly so we just called it a night.

[MannyIsGod]

I'm in Western KY. No time to watch the weather at the moment. But I heard an 80% chance for a tornado in western kentucky (i'm in the morganfield area) for tomorrow. Can anybody confirm this? Got no basement, nowhere to go.

I can confirm its not 80% by any means.

[MannyIsGod]

This is actually us coming off a La Nina cycle.

Pretty much every post La Nina cycle has seen severe outbreaks (1974, 1999, and I think there was one in the 60s too).

Sorry, thats just not true. Most La Nina's don't see huge sever outbreaks.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

Sorry, thats just not true. Most La Nina's don't see huge sever outbreaks.

Sorry if I didn't word that right. Was reading a discussion last night about how we were ending a La Nina period, and historically we have had outbreaks at the end of those La Nina periods.

[MannyIsGod]

AHF, good man. Sounds like you had a blast! Glad you got to do it and were smart enough not to approach the storms. I get really irritated everytime I see video from people within 100 yards of a ing tornado.

[MannyIsGod]

I really want to plan a chasecation but its so hard because of the unpredictability of when these situations occur. Nothing has happened in West TX/East NM this season so that limits the only "local" option I have as well.

[MannyIsGod]

people are suffering!!!!!! and yall are sitting in your comfortable chairs jacking off over it.

Really? This is the angle you're going for now? Thats like Mookie complaining about being too comercial while wearing a giant ass Reebok logo on his chest.

[Cant_Be_Faded]

AHF, good man. Sounds like you had a blast! Glad you got to do it and were smart enough not to approach the storms. I get really irritated everytime I see video from people within 100 yards of a ing tornado.

Why would that irritate you, they're taking all the risk and you benefit.

[MannyIsGod]

Because they chase stupidly and the moment one of them dies you're going to see bull like making places trying to make it illegal to chase. I'm super shocked one of them hasn't died yet. Only a matter of time.

[Cant_Be_Faded]

Yeah but they still have provided people like you with bad ass footage to learn from.

Storm Chasing stupidly/smartly sounds pretty subjective to me, I'm sure there are some who would think all of it is stupid.

Hey someone give me a link, that stream link provided earlier has footage from like 2 PM of nothing but a big grey sky and rain.

I want to see the yall were tripping out over earlier.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

AHF, good man. Sounds like you had a blast! Glad you got to do it and were smart enough not to approach the storms. I get really irritated everytime I see video from people within 100 yards of a ing tornado.

Yeah, as I mentioned before the chase, we make it a mission to stay south and east of the storm as much as possible. We had an exciting 10-15 minutes or so where we had to punch through a core when we realized that we were stuck on the north side of a storm that popped up and had a spotter confirmed tornado going on. We were bent on getting south of that as we weren't in a very good spot.

Made for a tense few minutes watching our GPS location relative to the hook echo on Radarscope (best app ever BTW!), but we cleared it in time to turn around and watch the wall cloud and funnel work to our north.

I will say we saw a LOT of chasers out today. Stopped counting at twenty obvious chase vehicles when things started getting crazy and I was focused on the radar, storms, and roads.

Stupid thing didn't touch down though, which was annoying.

We definitely had a blast on the trip. 4:30-8:30 went by in what felt like five minutes. It was just one TWarned storm after another coming. Crazy! Hope everything turned out alright for folks in Oklahoma, but I saw there were fatalities up north and west of OKC

[HighLowLobForBig-50]

im wondering how far south that dry line goes and if this line of storms is still capable of producing tornados cause it keeps poppin closer and closer to SA.

[Cry Havoc]

Storm Chasing stupidly/smartly sounds pretty subjective to me, I'm sure there are some who would think all of it is stupid.

And those people would be the ones who are uneducated on the subject of storm chasing.

[MultiFabbs]

Reading this thread is too much work for me. I wish somebody would just hold my hand instead!

[GinobiliForTres]

I can confirm its not 80% by any means.

Thank you very much. The TORCON (how reliable is this?) has Western Ky at an 8 out of 10 for tomorrow.

[Cry Havoc]

Thank you very much. The TORCON (how reliable is this?) has Western Ky at an 8 out of 10 for tomorrow.

Yeah, I think it's a virtual certainty we're going to see more tornadoes tomorrow. How intense they are, that's the question.

[MannyIsGod]

Another high risk day.