SUAAVES STORMS

Cloud to Ground Mania

2011-07-12T23:15:00.009-06:00

This last week of storms in the Denver Metro area have been quite impressive due to the annual monsoon moisture invading Colorado. Tornado sirens sounding in Commerce City with no tornado warnings, street flooding and downed tree limbs in Arvada and numerous severe thunderstorm warnings over the many of days. Today seemed to be no exception from the morning forecasts, however it appeared that today's main threat would be flooding and heaving rain as opposed to thunderstorms. Well such was not the case; heavy rain was non existent and a nice cell popped to the south of Denver around 9:30 pm. I was alerted of the Armageddon of lightning by facebook posts and roommate Justin Davis, as well as scared Sydney! As fast as I was frantically running around deciding if it was worth taking the dirty sensor, one bar of life camera out to capture shots, it was in tote and Levin Engelhardt was fast behind the wheel as we blazed after one of the most amazing lightning storms I have ever seen! These were some of the better shots I got before the storm took us over!

~SUAAVE

Thurman, Colorado Tornado

2011-05-19T12:35:00.018-06:00

Finally, a chase day was upon us in our backyard of eastern Colorado. I joined Michael Carlson, brother Eric Carlson and Kendell LaRoche, with target of Seibert, Colorado in our cross hairs to kick off my 4th year of chasing. SPC had a see text out for the area which would mean a great day if we were able to get a tornado out of the setup.

Our initial target was Seibert, Colorado. Models showed initiation around 3 or 4 pm with the upper energy coming through. On our drive to eastern Colorado we were lucky to say the least, if we saw one lonely cumulus cloud and we all tried to make a Cu field out of it; the overwhelming view Mother Nature gave us was a stratus-deck.

After the waiting game, a very long game in Seibert we continued to Burlington, Colorado. Soon there after we played the hurry up and wait game near Kit Carson, where we met up with other local chasers: Tony Laubach and Jon Van de Grift. After a couple of hours of throwing rocks and waiting thinking it was a bust, Michael noticed a actual Cu field to the west and we drove after it to investigate.

The whole day the majority of the dynamics were in place. We had a 30 kt lower level jet all day, with good up slope direction, dew points were plenty for Colorado in the low 50s, temperatures were good with some clearing in the late afternoon and we had near 500 Joules of Cape in the area. Once the upper level energy pushed though finally we got a storm forming to the north of our location and we got a land spout tornado in a see text day!

The fun was not over after the tornado. We headed further south were we witnessed large cloud to ground lighnting strikes. As we got closer to where to strike hit we noticed it started a large grass fire about 100 yards from a resident. Emergency crews came quickly after we called 911 and it appeared they put the fire out before any damge was done to the residents property. The day ended with a fantastic sun set and a full moon back droped with lightning.

The first shot of the tornado near Thurman, Colorado. The tornado is on the left center of the image. The condensation funnel was starting to show up nicely. Driving 60 mph the shot didn't come out to bad.

The condensation funnel grew more pronounced as we followed the storm.
There was damage reported with the tornado of downed power lines, a torn up fence as well as a damaged roof.
These stroms produced lagre CG (cloud to ground) lightning strokes. One of them caused this fire 100 yards from a home.
A car leaving the fire as it comes extremely close to the home.
A beautiful sunset was a great closing to a great storm chase.

Platte County Wyoming Tornado

2010-06-20T23:43:00.000-06:00

It seems as if a chase day comes along and I am unable to tangle with Mother Nature at her finest hour, she always seems to show her true beauty...that being said I knew when I was hesitant to go chasing on Father's Day, June 20th, 2010 I best find some way to make it out and I am sure glad I did. I accompanied Michael Carlson and Eric Carlson to Wyoming sensing it would be a good day leaving Denver with dew points in the 60s and LCL were nearly on the ground as we damn near drove through cloud decks on our journey up I-25.

The first storm we got on was a beautiful low precip supercell with a cork-screwing barber pole updraft. We followed suit to the north east as it came off of the mountains; apart from being possibly the most beautiful highly structured LP supercell I have seen in my hand full of journeys, it did not do much except produce a couple of nice wall clouds. Not to worry it was still extremely early in the day and more towers started to back build in the same exact spot as the first storm did.

We quickly repositioned to the same location as we were for the previous storm. The surface winds were howling into this storm with feeder bands pouring into it as well. The National Weather Service called us to ask our observations at our location. At this time it dropped one very nice funnel and we were unable to confirm if it ever touched down. NWS told Michael it had strong rotation and we were in great location which would soon become evident. As this cell came skirting off the mountains it took a south easterly jog before going mainly east. The was a large rotating wall cloud and as soon as the RFD cut in the wall cloud tightened up and produced a beautiful cone tornado, the first I have witnessed!

The first storm of the day, beautiful LP supercell.
It developed quickly into a massive rotating barber pole supercell with stunning structure.
My first tornado shot; this is from the second LP supercell that back built behind.
The first tornado lifted and formed this second tornado that last approximately 15 minutes.
A clear RFD cut on the second tornado with an amazing cone tornado.

Close to the end of the life cycle the cone started to pick up debris!

Scottsbluff Fury

2010-06-08T20:12:00.000-06:00

I was accompanied on one of my favorite chases yet by Seth Linden, Cameron Redwine and Christian Johansen. Our target area was Kimball Nebraska where we ran into some HUGE chasing convoy, with all sorts of fancy cars and truck...I'm not sure what that was all about. The first storm went up in Torrington Wyoming just west of the Nebraska boarder; we headed towards Scottsbluff Nebraska to intercept the dominant storm of the day. The storm had moments of rotation while we could see it and a massive core, there was possible lowering at times. The interaction of a short wave aloft really destabilized the atmosphere and helped form another large supercell just to the southwest of the original storm we were on. This storm made for an interesting chase as we skirted the bears cage with trees blowing down and what appeared to be power flashes as well. The storms were outflow dominant and were moving close to 40kts and gusts of 80mph which could have caused the damage. There were definite rotation with this storm and a tornado reported, however we were not witness to this as it was an HP bomb! We were treated to an lightning show of epic proportions on our drive home to Denver...all in all a great chase day with some cool cats!

A vertical shot of the supercell near Scottsbluff Nebraska. Over 3 inch hail reported in the core.

Another shot of the same storm, the appearance of a lowering cone shape, however to hard to tell from our vantage point and no real rotation was evident at this time.

A cool shot near Sidney Nebraska. We were treated to one of the most amazing CC lightning storms I have ever witnessed on the way home!

Another shot of the cloud to cloud lightning...what a show!

First Attempt at Lightning

2010-06-06T18:19:00.000-06:00

A nice boundary formed just northeast of Denver about 6pm; storms starting firing off that boundary shortly after, however did not due much because of a stout layer of warm air aloft. The storms tracked east and dissipated contributing the the separation of charges which made for a nice lightning storm full of CG's from about 8pm until about 10pm. This was my first good photo-op for lightning with my new camera so I had to take advantage. I went to my favorite viewing spot for lightning over the city, Thundercloud Park with Sydney and managed to get a couple of decent shots with my new DSLR; they didn't turn out to bad for my first attempt and not really knowing what I was doing and have a wobbly tripod adding to the blurry foreground.

HURRAY FOR PVA

2009-11-13T10:02:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-21T09:17:00.000-06:00

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)

2009-06-15T00:17:00.000-06:00

A Massive Hail Roar!

2009-06-15T00:07:00.000-06:00

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

2009-06-14T23:58:00.000-06:00

Stinger Inflow Bands (June 11th, 09)

2009-06-14T23:55:00.000-06:00

A Mother Ship

2009-06-14T23:32:00.001-06:00

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

A Beautiful Beaver Tail!

2009-06-08T00:23:00.000-06:00

4 States In One Day

2009-06-08T00:12:00.000-06:00

Tour With Silver Lining Tours

June 7th, 2009

Turkeys must be a good omen! On the last two chases each time we have seen wild turkeys and each time very good chases! We traveled four states and 840 miles on day one of our tour. We targeted a lager supercell in Missouri near Oregon city. Great structure on the supercell that would hook like crazy. The upper level shear was great for this storm and rotation just as good, however it never seemed to have the lower level winds getting pulled into the storm to drop a tornado while we were watching. Traveling through the small town of Oregon City there was server damage by large large hail! We got to the town about a half hour after the hail had fallen and it was still the size of baseballs.

Despite the mass chaser convergence that was unbelievable, getting our keys locked in the van while it was running (thanks Roger for having a spare) and just not quite putting down a tornado...all in all was a good day.

Tomorrow it looks like we will be back in Colorado toward the Palmer Divide...

Suaave

Gone Chasin'

2009-06-06T20:52:00.000-06:00

I have been looking forward to this day for a long while now. Tomorrow I leave town for a week long chase in the great plains with Silver Lining Tours. Our first target area is far east Nebraska into Iwoa with what looks to be a favorable set. Finally the Omega block has moved out. Stay tuned for pictures and videos as we look to intercept storms all across the great plains!!

Suaave

June 1st, 2009 Chase

2009-06-02T23:24:00.000-06:00

Storm Chase One

Season 2009

Chase Partner - Leader Michael Carlson

Welcome to the good life it says as one enters into the state of Nebraska…they do not lie. I partially feel this way because the majority of my family is from Nebraska and I am a huge Cornhusker fan! On the other hand June 1^st proved to be the good life in Nebraska for none of those reasons. I have loved weather all my life and love what Mother Nature can show us, with its devastating power and wrapped up in shear beauty. This was only my second chase I had been a part of and I had a great tour guide to go with, Michael Carlson. We were chasing a marginal set up off of boundaries that were coming off of a cold front that was pushing though. Our target zone was McCook Nebraska, in south west portion of the state. We sat and waited in McCook and watched Cu building to our North and our South anxiously waiting for the CAP to clear our and convection to take place and soon the decision came on witch to embark upon. Our main goal for the day was to get on storms with large hail as the set up showed favorable for with high dew points and minimal shear in the upper atmosphere. We decided to travel north toward rapidly shooting towers near North Platte. Our first intercept was a cell indicating a small couplet and hail indices of 2.00”. Driving North on I-80 was a joke cars everywhere as we drove though the down poor and hail to get in an angle to see this beast and we were in for a treat. Once we got through the entire HP we saw a beautifully structured Meso. The curvature of the inflow bands and the wall cloud were a site for me to see as I have only seen pictures from other chasers with this being only my second chase. Sadly as fast as we flew to get to the storm she rained herself out just as fast.

Our next target was to drop a little south east and intercept a core for large hail. The hail indictor was 2.00”. We sat and waited when soon it came. The largest hail that we got was about an inch in diameter with a few being up to a 1.25”. The size was not the impressive part of this storm it was the longevity of the hail. Michael and I sat there for a good 15 minutes getting pounded by hail and as we left the storm the was run off of hail and water coming towards us with roads glassy from marble size hail all over it and hail drifts an inch deep.

We noticed later that down south into Kansas just south of McCook was 3000J/Kg of CAPE!! Driving down there was another beautiful to the West that we stopped as all it wanted to do was model for us behind the setting sun. The structure was gorgeous with a teared wedding cake look to it and it sat there as we snapped photo after photo and Michael got a great time lapse of it in its glory. While this Meso was modeling for us the A-Bomb that was going off in 3000 Joules of CAPE just behind us did not want to be out done. We would turn around to shoot the Meso and turn around to look at the bomb at it would seem to have doubled in size. We quickly jumped on this massive storm as the core on radar was unreal and soon chaos would ensue.

A storm just to the south of us would become tornado warned with a dopplar indicated tornado. Needles to say we hauled down to catch it and as we arrived the tornado warning was lifted and TVS (Tornado Vortex Signature) had just posted on the previous bomb that we had been watching. We cruised back to that one in a lightning show, whose beauty could not be explained in words. As we got to the storm the warning was once again lifted, but from the lighting of the Weather Gods we could see once again marvelous structure of yet another Meso. This one looked to be vertically stacked almost two Mesocyclones one on top of the other. We could see a wall cloud on the Meso, but we did not see any funnels or tornadoes from where we were from even though there was a tornado reported on this beast. Soon we would get hit with the bow echo of these storms with numerous TVS reported on them, we flirted with the notion of checking them out up close, but figured the night time elements were to risqué and our day of epic chasing fulfilled our needs and more for the day so we headed back to I-70 to head home. We traveled stretches of I-76, I-80 and I-70 nearly doing an entire loop and over seven hundred miles of roads covered and 15 hours on the road I believe well paid off. Core punching a couple different storms seeing a-may-za-zing structure on three different Mesos, at times possible funnels and shear funnels 1.00” and a little bigger hail and amazing lightning. I have Michael’s great forecasting and driving skills to thank for getting us into position for these storms and for making my second chase and first of 2009 a very memorable one.