HURRAY FOR PVA

Both models show nice PVA Saturday night into Sunday morning. Which is great for lift and increased vertical velocity. QPF is showing plenty of moisture for this and the NAM is showing if indeed we have a 10-1 ratio of snow we could see over a foot. Temps aren't that cold for the large light fluffy we se at -12 degrees C. So its inevitable the snow will be heavier and more wet condensing the accumulations. I think somewhere in the 8-10" range.
This storm doesn't seem to be as long lived as the previous "storm". However we do have the Jet paralleling the low so it wont kick it out to fast, but unlike last time the was a high pressure system infront of the cold front slowing it down. This is Colorado so wait ten minutes and all will probably change!

~Suaave

A Delightful Surprise

A huge piece of stripped bark in off of 55th and Carr. This very large branch behind me was ripped from a tree that was 25 yards away on the other side of the road.

Quarter size hail with some larger in Lakewood with up to 4 inches deep in areas.

Dense Dense hail fog in Lakewood and Arvada.
Wow what a surprise. It was such a pleasant evening watching a movie at Infinity Park outside before Mother Nature decided she wanted to play. Driving home on Highway six a seeing a massive SCUD bomb lit up by lighting, it was evident the night was about to become very interesting.
I positioned myself in the Belmar area...well ok I was staying there so it was not by choice, but it did turn out to be quite the location. Watching the action to the north it was obvious that this was some storm, especially after two sequential power flashes. After phone call upon phone call from friends and family in Arvada and quick looks at the radar it was our turn. Slowly the wind began to pick up and then the hail then straight line winds and larger hail and rain curtains.
After all had settled down the first sense that was awakened by going outside was the fresh smell of pine and torn bark. It smelt like Christmas and every car had a fresh coat of green foliage on it. Hail swaths the six inches deep in Belmar and hail stones the size of quarters with some larger.
Now it was time to see the carnage and see the damage that this storm left. It was slow going because of the massive eerie hail fog that the storm left behind. We didn't have to go far there were three substantial trees down in the neighbor hood with one that fell on a Jeep. Power outages sporadically throughout the Belmar area. Trees had the obvious pushed overlook with all the branches on one side that strong straight line winds would cause or a brief weak tornado. Traveling further to the north where the worst damage was reported, we traveled 30 blocks in a black hole from power outages from 10th and Wadsworth to 52nd and Wadsworth west. Where we found an enormous branch lying on one side of the road that traveled at least 25 yards from the tree it was snapped off of.
Watching this storm on radar I was shocked that there was not a tornado warning issued far earlier. There was an extremely large couplet that I noticed for at least three frames on radar near the Arvada area and a TVS (tornado vortex signature) for an extremely long time before a tornado warning was issued. Either way it was a fun storm and a big surprise for this time at night. Thanks for the treat Mother Nature!

Much thanks to my copilot and surveying partner of the evening Sydney!!

Suaave

A Beautiful Meso! (June 11th, 09)

A Massive Hail Roar!

June 12th Storm Chase

Silver Lining Tours 

We were hoping for some Palmer magic which is common this time of year especially with the flow across Colorado.  The nice thing about chasing the Palmer is being able to sleep in a making your way out there in plenty of time for initiation when it is a back yard chase.  

On this day we didn't see anything remarkable because dew points were low by about five degrees for any lowering of cloud bases...but these storms would soon turn in to classic hailers in Colorado.  We core punched this storm three times and was fun as hell each time.  I was treated to a massive HAIL ROAR that I had never been witness to before.  Its is quite amazing when you can hear trillion of hail stone 30000ft above you colliding in to one other.  It can be awe striking and a little eerie in the same moment.   All in all today was a fun chase, but nothing extremely exciting.

Suaave

A Nice Funnel With A Whales Mouth

Stinger Inflow Bands (June 11th, 09)

A Mother Ship

June 11th Storm Chase

Silver Lining Tours

It is quite an eerie sound as tornado sirens sound except for those who are chasing them...then it becomes music to our ears.  Our chase started of near Limon Colorado were we got on a nice supercell with good structure and a solid core, but soon our attention moved elsewhere.  Storms were firing near Pueblo and we needed to get there fast.

The first storm we got on was beautiful liberty bell shape with a nice wall cloud, but remained kinda low key.  Our attention turned to the south where there was another supercell rapidly developing.  Worrying about the outflow choking off our first target we moved south to position our tour between the two storms.  

This was some treat, being right in the middle of two storms that had such amazing structure and both that could produce at any moment.  The southern cell became the more dominant cell and over took the one to the north.  We chased it for over five hours.  It maintained its mother ship appearance for so long.  The core had over 4 inch hail and had a beautiful whales mouth on it.  One time producing a nice white funnel, but would not produce a tornado for the large chaser convergence that overtook the storm.  

Soon to make our way back to Denver we decided to take a small dirt road back to highway 287 which became the worse move of the day.  The photogenic cell quickly closed in on us leaving us no place to go as the exit to 287 was closed.  Our running the core by seconds we went back to see what she left and man was it impressive.   Over golf ball size hail at one time was tennis ball size and a great shear funnel for kicks and grins.  As it rolled into the night near Oklahoma and Texas we made our way back, but not before fighting off the mass swarm of chasers at the local McDonald's.  

Suaave