First big chase day of the year? (Wishcasting at its best)

Before I get into the system the GFS has coming through in the first few days of April, I'm gonna deal the finishing blow on this March 5 gustnado.  I took a grab from a video I took when the circulation was on the ground:

I tried to circle the area of what I thought was rotation in the cloud base, but because it's not a very clear grab I can't even tell for sure if it was even an area of rotation although at the time it was pretty convincing.  I guess I'm counting it as a gustnado/downburst even though part of me is screaming it's a landspout.  Another interesting point is it's a blurry image but notice how there are a few other apparent circulations on the radar.  Right before this there was a more pronounced one but I guess I didn't get a picture of that.  Oh well, it was a good first chase.

Ok now for that too-good-to-be-true system the GFS is putting out around April 1-3.  I've been watching the models for this time period for a while now and although it seems to have some pretty good consistency, I'm still a little wary.  It seems like every other run the GFS pushes an arctic air mass down along the front range and into kansas which pretty much kills all severe potential all the way down until southern Texas, which is way out of range for me.  Assuming the recent runs hold true and this arctic air doesn't push that far south, then there is a high probablity that I will be chasing this system.  It looks as if it's trying to put a tornadic set up along southern kansas which would most likely be my limit distance-wise.  My only concern is it's only putting around 500-1000 CAPE in that area but massive amounts of CIN, but I'm guessing the CAPE values will go up substantially in the next few runs.  Other than that, everything is lining up.  It looks like there will be some juicy S/SE flow in that area supporting high 60 dewpoints (which will probably drop), some amazing wind shear, and temps around 80.  So for now it's a yes but that might change.   Another factor that might go into my decision is I'm getting back from vacation on April 1st so I wouldn't get much down time before I would have to head out again.

I guess I'll mention the massive amounts of CAPE (2000-3000) the GFS has been putting in central/southern Texas but because there's no way I'm going to be willing to drive that far, I don't want to drool over something that I can't chase.

When the GFS gets within 10 days of this system then I'll start posting some screens but for now I'm leaving it at that.  Even If I end up not chasing this set up it's still a good sign that the season is finally starting to heat up!

Here's some pictures from the sunset from the March 5 chase, definately something I don't get to see here in Colorado.

Lookin' ahead

To start out I'd like to defend myself and say that I've been trying to upload video of last week's chase but Youtube hasn't been cooperating. I'll probably try and post some pictures some time in the upcoming week.

So lately I've been trying to look ahead at the middle/late season possible chases instead of letting my SDS draw me toward these crappy early season setups. Speaking of which there's a decent system going through the Southern plains this Friday so that could be kind of interesting. Anyways, I've been making goals for this season and trying to make a chase zone area to put limits on how far I'm willing to drive. So far I've come up with something like this:


View Chasing Zone in a larger map

That is just a basic outline of my "zone". Ideally, I'd like to be able to push out a little bit past Salina, KS and a little bit more into northwestern Oklahoma/Texas, so that is what will likely happen. The darker area is where I will be doing most of my after-school chases (during late may) unless the system is big enough I take a day off of school.

Now on to my goals for how many tornadoes I want to see etc. Seeing how it's my first season chasing I don't have too high of hopes for seeing tornadoes, but I always like to push the envelope so I'm setting my goal at 3-5 (depending on how far east these early set-ups end up getting). I figure if I set the bar high then I won't feel like I can take a break. I also want to have 15+ successful chases. This means either a quality supercell/tornado, or simply a very photogenic storm. Keep in mind these numbers include my SLT tour that I am going on from June 13-18.

So yea, basically just another boring post until I can figure out this whole blogging thing and can actually get some quality chases done! I guess I'll tack on a list of my chasing gear and what I still need before the big season starts up.

What I already have/already have funding for:

Car: Subaru impreza either 2008/2010 depending on early/late season chases
Camera: Canon Digital Rebel XT
Camcorder: Sony Handycam DCR-SR47
Radar data: GRlevel3, Baron Mobile Threat Net
Internet card: Sprint 3G

What I still need to do/buy:
-Rain-X (Rain proofing my windows)
-Work a deal with a streaming company to let me stream even though I'm under 18
-Chase partners - this is a toughy...will probably have to roll solo this season
-Anemometer - this is a definate maybe, this is not a priority for this season but if something comes up then I'll grab one


That's my basic set-up I have going for this year. Even though it's been off to a slow start, I have faith that mother nature is just throwing us a curve ball for the early season and it will pick up soon.

Chase #1, gustnado/possible landspout

For anybody that is even going to read my blog, sorry for the long delay inbetween posts.

I decided to chase the marginal set-up in Northwest Kansas yesterday, and although no severe weather (other than a possible landspout) occured, it was a good chase overall. I got out of school at 11 oclock and headed out towards Goodland, Kansas. The initial plan was to head a little north from there to get to my target area for storm initiation, but for some reason storms decided to fire around 50 miles to the southeast of this point and head NNE. I tried to bolt down there and get on the best of the line, but numerous radar indicated hail cores were blocking my path to what seemed to be rotation on the back side of the line. This confused me pretty badly because it was on the outflow side of the line but there was some pretty well pronounced radar indicated rotation back there so I went for it.
Anyways, after having to do some back tracking after missing my exit off of I-70 (which ended up putting me on a terrible dirt road), I finally found myself heading east on a decent concrete road which I'm pretty sure was Highway 24. I haven't ever done a core punch, or even done a real storm chase before, so as you can probably imagine this was extremely stressful. Most of the time, the only thing that kept me on the road was following the fellow chaser in front of me. After almost being pushed off the road by a strong gust of wind (probably a downburst) and a few drainage ditches, I was pretty much having a panic attack.
Skipping a few more mistakes, about 15 minutes later I found myself on the other side of the core with some nickel (estimated? maybe bigger) sized hail pounding my car. After getting away from the hail I decided to stop and take some pictures and this is when I found myself staring at a circulation on the ground. It was a definate circulation, but after the panic of the core punch I wasn't thinking straight so I didnt get any decent video/pictures of this. After studying the pictures I have decided it was maybe a small landspout, maybe a small gustnado, but probably a downburst that just confused the crap out of me. You decide for yourself:
(Click in images for bigger version)


This is what it looked like from where I was standing



Same as first picture but contrast increased so you can see the tube



Normal, but zoomed in



Same picture as pic #3, just did some contrast/brightness changes to bring out the shape

So, I have pretty much decided it was a landspout tornado but I am not counting it under my tornadoes because I didn't realize this at the time and just though it was a mere downburst. Oh well.

After the landspout, nothing much exciting happened other than an interesting conversation with some farmers whos tractor was destroyed in the Hill City tornado a few years back.

At first, I was pretty upset last night because of my lack of concern for safety on my first ever chase in the driver's seat, but looking back on it I am giving myself some credit for having enough luck to see the possible landspout.

Thanks for reading my first blog post and I promise next time I'll try and make it shorter.

Oh yea, I'll be posting my forecasts from now on.