2012 Storm Chase Info Meeting!

When:  Monday, Jan. 30, 7:00pm

Where:  136 McBryde Hall, VT Campus

This is a mandatory informational meeting for everyone applying for a position on the 2012 trip (those interested in future trips are welcome to attend as well).  We will cover trip logistics, crew member expectations, and equipment used in the field.   If you are interested in a spot on the trip but have not submitted an application, you may bring it to the meeting.  This meeting will be the final opportunity to join the 2012 trip.  If you have time, we will also meet for a quick dinner (6:00 pm at Souvlaki on College Ave. in downtown Blacksburg) before the meeting.  Past and present chase crew members are welcome!  I’m looking forward to meeting everyone and preparing for our time in the plains this spring!   -Dave

We are now accepting applications for the 2012 Storm Chase!

Most of the initial planning is now complete for the 2012 storm chase, and we are ready to accept applications for the trip.  You will find the updated application and trip information in the attachment below.  If you are considering applying for a position with the 2012 chase crew, please keep these things in mind:

a) This trip is NOT for everyone…only those with a true passion for severe thunderstorms and tornadoes should apply.  It is a long and arduous journey, and if you are not committed to the study of severe storms, then you may well feel as if YOU should be “committed” by trip’s end!

b) Keep in mind the nature of the trip:  it is an academic exercise…not a vacation.  Every crew member will serve various duties on the trip, and full cooperation is not only desirable, it is mandatory.  When entering a severe weather set-up, everyone must be “dialed in” for efficiency as well as for the safety of the entire crew.

c) Expect some “down time” between storms.  It is impossible to forecast what type of pattern we may see any given year, but most years we do experience a lull in the action which may last for a day or two…or maybe a week.  Patience is a prerequisite for this trip.

d) If you fear storms, please do not apply, and don’t undertake this trip for therapeutic reasons!  On most chase trips we typically experience “intense” moments to some degree, and you need to be prepared for this potential scenario should it unfold.

So, if  you are certain the storm chase is for you, fill out the application form and either drop it by 101 Major Williams, or send it via e-mail to carrolld@vt.edu.

The actual selection of the 2011 chase crew will be made as soon as the students enrolled in the second semester Severe Weather course are notified (by the end of January).  Applicants will be selected based upon their response to the application question (why do you want to join the chase?), and background coursework in meteorology.  If you lack the background courses, those interested are still encouraged to apply, as the primary prerequisite is a driving passion for severe weather and everyone is given full consideration.

NOTE:  AN INITIAL INFORMATIONAL MEETING WILL TAKE PLACE IN A FEW WEEKS.  THIS WILL BE ANNOUNCED HERE AND ALSO E-MAILED TO ANYONE SUBMITTING AN APPLICATION.  A FINAL MEETING WILL BE SCHEDULED AT THE BEGINNING OF THE SECOND SEMESTER.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me carrolld@vt.edu,  or stop by 101 Major Williams,  or call 231-5469.  I look forward to meeting this year’s edition of the VT Storm Chasers!

VT Storm Chase Application

-Dave Carroll

A return to WaKeeney, Kansas

After going all the way to North Dakota for a “cap bust” — when warm air aloft prevents updrafts from rising enough to create storms — and briefly contemplating an eastward jaunt toward Wisconsin and Illinois for severe threats on what would have been the start of an early trip home, we headed south and west for Kansas instead. We actually caught up to some late-day convection near the Kansas-Nebraska border that provided a spectacular sunset and lightning show as we headed south to our lodging in WaKeeney, Kansas. Outflow winds hurled some tumbleweeds at us as we made our way south — it wouldn’t be a trip on U.S. 283 without a little of that.

WaKeeney holds so much history for the Hokie Storm Chasers. We were here in 2007, waiting in the parking lot of this very Super 8, before a 5-hour long storm chase that yielded mouth-dropping, mothership supercell structures and a couple of tornadoes in the country north and west. And then there was 2008, when we stayed here 2 nights and witnessed as many as 10 tornadoes close by — one at extremely close range a few miles south of here. We returned from that nerve-wracking storm intercept to find the door of the hotel lobby blown in, the store across the road heavily damaged, a van with windows blown out, and bleeding students from another chase team in the lobby. That trip provided those students a view into the full intensity of Plains severe weather.

But today — much to the relief of many folks here asking us about why we’re here — we’re only passing through WaKeeney, headed west to catch whatever supercells can develop along the terrain features of eastern Colorado and then slide eastward over the open Plains. This is likely to be our last stand for storms on a June 2011 trip that has faced a challenging weather pattern but yielded a few intense intercepts and lots of truly gorgeous scenes amid many hours on the road as a violent spring yields to a hot summer.

– Kevin Myatt

June 1 Rewind

Today the Hokies chased a few cells that separated from a larger cluster and became marginally discrete. The most promising cell died off as the sun began to set, but the crew at least got to see a beaver cloud, a few shelf clouds, and a spectacular sunset over the Nebraskan horizon. The Hokies will lodge in Broken Bow, NE tonight to position themselves for a promising chase day tomorrow in South and North Dakota!

June 1, 2011- Nebraska/Kansas Area

Right now the Hokie Storm Chasers are headed South from North Platte, NE towards the Nebraska-Kansas border in an attempt to catch some discrete cells. Morning discussions were a bit ambiguous so there will be a lot of  in-car analysis and discussion during the next few hours as they try to locate the warm front associated with the current low-pressure system, along with areas of unstable air and adequately strong low-level and deep layer winds. More updates later!

Intense chase day in Nebraska

Monday provided a sampler of what storm chasing in the Plains is about. We encountered downdraft winds of about 60 mph twice, saw gustnadoes (low to the ground spinups of dust or debris on the front edge of an outflow), saw wall clouds (escaped south just ahead of one once) and witnessed rotation in storm clouds as sirens wailed through the north-central Nebraska town of O’Neill. In an effort to avoid big hail farther south along the storms as they congealed into a line, we picked out a relatively weak point and “core-punched” the line to get west of the precipitation for the evening. On the back side of the storm, we were  treated to a goregous display of mammatus clouds — hanging lobes of clouds caused by sinking air motions out of the storm — as the late day sunset provided a golden touch. There was one thing we didn’t see, though there were reports in the area — a tornado. For a time, the storm we were on was the only tornado-warned storm in the United States — a forecasting and positioning success. Trees, hills and the sparse road network in the region frustrated some of our attempts to be where we wanted to be, so we were evading storms a lot.

Today (Wednesday) is a calm weather day — clear, cool and windy, compared to the searing heat back home in Virginia — and we’ll enjoy it by taking a driving tour through the Sand Hills. Severe weather is expected to pick up again on Wednesday — once again, in central Nebraska — so we won’t have far to go.

– Kevin Myatt

ON a TORNADO WARNED STORM IN NE!

We are currently chasing in Nebraska right now…we are on a tornado warned storm in the northern central portion of the state(Holt County…towns of Atkinson and O’Neill).  This storm is beginning to look like an HP supercell…wish us luck in catching it!

May 29, 2011: 2nd Storm Chase of the Season

The Hokie stormchasers are on their way to just outside of Iowa City tonight and then off to South Dakota to investigate the 45% Hatched Moderate Risk! Wish us luck and a lack of road construction:)

Storms of May

As the second day of a very active weather pattern progresses after our return, I find myself reviewing photos and video of the storms we intercepted in an attempt to soften the blow from missing the best late-spring severe weather set-up of the year (perfectly timed between our two trips).  I’m posting a few picts of the storms from Pratt, KS, and near York, NE.

Ending the day with a low-end supercell near Pratt Kansas.  We were the only ones on this country road, and took the time to soak in the incredible beauty of a stormy  Great Plains sunset.

The rotating wall cloud north of York Nebraska.  If low-level winds were a click or two stronger this day, this storm would probably have produced a couple of tornadoes as we tracked it eastward.

Similar to a storm we intercepted in Yuma County Colorado in 2005, the wall cloud took the shape of a donut with a funnel cloud in the center.  The next cycle of the storm produced a significantly more organized wall cloud, and became tornado-warned at that time.

With a quarter used for scale (1.00″), the hailstones ranged in size from 1.5″ to nearly 2.5″ in diameter.  I spoke to a local man who drove through the core of the storm, and had the dents in his new truck to prove it.  He fared better than his wife, who had lost her windshield in the hail.

The storm is tornado-warned at this point, with a possible funnel descending from the wall cloud.  The wall cloud became rain-wrapped shortly after this photo was taken by Chris.  Soft, muddy road kept us on the pavement, and the storm moved over roadless areas for the next ten miles.  This was a very nice storm from a very modest set-up.   -Dave

Tornado!

A very hectic (and at times…frustrating) chase day that essentially BEGAN with a tornado intercept in east-central Iowa.  Another very accurate forecasting day by the crew put us only a short distance from the initiation point for storms firing along the cold front.  We traveled west to intercept a strengthening storm near Victor IA where we watched the rain-free base develop a wall cloud.  Moving east to keep up with the storm (and as a move to get ahead of another storm to the south), Amanda noticed therotating wall cloud rapidly tightening and becoming lower, so we turned north to a viewpoint where the tornado developed in view.  Tornado sirens spun upward as the tornado crossed to the northwest of our location.  After this intercept, a road closure prevented easy eastward travel to get ahead of the storms, and we spent much of the rest of the day attempting to find a way through the storms to the east.  Storm motions were extremely fast, and it was difficult to maneuver around them safely.  A still frame from the video of the tornado is below.    -Dave