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April 17, 2004 – Chase to Northwest Iowa

April…Warmer temperatures, green grass, birds chirping, and of course the beloved severe thunderstorms. Since there hasn’t been many chasing opportunities this year, I was very anxious to get out there on a so-called ‘real’ chase. I can honestly say there has not been a chase yet that I’ve looked at so many forecast models and weather data as this one. From the Day 10 GFS to the morning ETA/RUC models, I think I scoured everything I could dig up on this trying to find some answers. The best area to me looked to be somewhere in northwest-west central Iowa. The models were throwing up some crazy values that were almost too good to be true. CAPE values over 2500, LI’s -8 to -10, dew points in the mid 60s, and wind shear wasn’t too shabby either. All the talk around the chasing community was regarding the overstatement of the moisture return from the gulf by the models. The other issue was the beloved cap was expected to rear its ugly head over the target area. Blah!

Being a weekend chase opportunity, I decided to disregard these ‘minor’ details and give it a go and see what happened. If I expected to go that far, I figured I’d better get my transportation in optimal operating condition. On Friday, I took my car in for its very first oil change. (yummy synthetic too!) I figured it would help maintain the engine as well as yield better gas mileage. Anywho, after taking care of that I took one more glance at the models late Friday night. I decided to pick the Des Moines area to initially stop and get data, then go from there. I conveyed my thoughts to my EMT chaser pal Mike Cox who said he would meet me and go from there. So after fueling/bathing my car and grabbing a quick bite to eat, I departed Champaign around 8:30 AM on Saturday morning. I headed west on I-74 and made my journey across Illinois, anxiously awaiting my first chase to the state of Iowa. Around Davenport, I hopped on I-80 to make my trek to the west.

As I got closer to Des Moines, Mike called informing me where to meet him. I was only about 10-15 miles away at this point, so I switched over to the ham rig and made contact with him there. I met up with him at 1:30 PM and after checking data we decided to head north towards Fort Dodge. (this must be where my old van went to after I sold it!) As we approached Fort Dodge, Mike decided we’d head a bit further west which sounded good to me. We finally ended up in the little town of Rockwell City, about 25 miles west of Fort Dodge. We were getting fairly hungry, so we stopped at a Subway for some grub. After topping off the gas tanks, we drove down the street to the local park to check on weather data. Satellite was showing some scattered cumulus clouds trying to form over the area, but the cap was having its way with them. As we were sitting there, the SPC issued a mesoscale discussion for northern Iowa and southern Missouri regarding severe weather potential. (about time!)

While awaiting convective initiation, Mike and I got online and started instant messaging each other which we found quite amusing. 🙂 Since we were sitting in a park, we really couldn’t see much due to the foliage around us so we decided to head outside of town to get a better view. We could see the full effects of the cap, nothing could get fired up. While we were sitting there, I decided to try out my new anemometer. The winds were averaging around 15-20mph, with one gust of 27.5mph. We made a return trip back into town for a bathroom break then went back to the area where we just were to continue observing. To our north I noticed a tower starting to go up way out there. Radar was also starting to show some initiation, but it was way up by the IA/MN border. At 7:45 PM, the first severe thunderstorm warning was issued for Kossuth and Winnebago counties. Not too long after that the SPC issued the severe thunderstorm watch which did not include our location. Argh!

While we were pulling our hair out on what to do, a local cop decided to pay us a visit. He had seen us in town earlier and was curious what we were doing. The first thing he said asked was “are you guys storm spotters?” He was super friendly and we even showed him radar of the lovely cells to our north. Shortly after he left, some locals showed up asking us if we were chasers. Then they asked us if we’d ‘been’ in any tornadoes. While part of me wanted to pull out the Twister DVD, I just rambled on about my 2 intercepts in 2003. They finally left and we were back to enjoying the lovely cap. We contemplated whether or not to leave the current position and head north, but we both kept repeating to each other ‘never leave the target area!!!’ We sat there watching these cells grow on radar and could visually see part of them as well, but nothing was firing any closer to us. We watched the nice sunset and wondered if that would be the end of it.

I remembered my chase to the plains in 2001 that had a similar initiation after sunset, so I hadn’t given up on this chase just yet. Just after 9:00 PM, we assumed nothing was going to happen here so we were going to go after the stuff way up north. Just as we got on the highway, I swear I saw a lightning flash right behind us. I got on the radio with Mike and asked him about it, but of course he didn’t see it. (darn Iowa mirages) We pulled onto a country road to take another look at this thing and wallah, there was the lightning again! You can imagine how excited we were just at the fact that something fired up in our target area!

We busted out the tripods and starting shooting video of the lightning. It was really starting to crank up and it provided us with a nifty cloud-cloud show. We watched it on radar and it was getting stronger, eventually getting a severe thunderstorm warning issued on it. We headed east and then north trying to intercept it, all the while enjoy one heck of a lightning show. In hindsight, we should have just stopped and taken some pictures/video of this thing because it was the best lightning I’ve ever seen. However, in our quest to intercept it, it fizzled out and left us with nothing. In a last ditch effort to save the chase, we headed north to the main action. We heard several tornado warnings, but we just couldn’t get up there in time. We finally did make it to Mason City around midnight, but everything had died out or moved into Wisconsin when we got there. Since Mike had to be at work several hours later in Des Moines, we decided to end the chase and go our separate ways.

I sat there looking at data wondering what to do next. Should I spend the night and chase the moderate risk in Minnesota or should I just make my way home? I figured most of the action would be late afternoon/evening and that would make it impossible for me to get to work on Monday. My only other question now was do I get a hotel and drive back on Sunday afternoon, or do I make the half awake journey home right now. Not wanting to spend too much money, I decided to forego the hotel and head back to Champaign. I headed east on I-18 and then I-380 south. I kept thinking to myself that I must be insane to drive all the way back with no sleep, yet I continued my return home. I almost caved in once I got to Waterloo, but having to spend like $50 for a couple of hours of sleep just wasn’t worth it to me. I stopped at a couple of rest areas on the way back to refuel on caffeine and snacks.

Once I got into Illinois, I was really feeling fatigued and didn’t feel safe driving. I pulled off in some little town and rested my eyes for a bit, then continued on my way. This helped alot even if it was just for a few minutes. As I continued, I noticed the very nifty sunrise and just couldn’t resist taking any pictures. I pulled off at Galva, IL and finished out the roll of film and video tape. I made one more pit stop in Downs, IL. to get gas and the winds were really howling. (darn isobars) I finally strolled into Champaign at 9:00 AM and wondered why in the heck I drove all the way back. 🙂 After cleaning up and getting some food, I took a much needed afternoon nap and felt much better afterwards.

Final thoughts:
Whew, what a long chase! While the results of the chase weren’t what we expected, it was still a good chase. It was nice to finally meet Mike Cox and chase on his turf. 🙂 For my first Iowa chase, I was pretty impressed with the terrain as it looked much like central IL. I’m still trying to determine why the storms developed so far north, hopefully to improve target areas on future chases. I’m really looking forward to more local chasing during the rest of the season.

Total Chase Time: 25 hours
Total Chase Miles: 1035 miles

Stan Olson 2004, Chase Logs, Weather No Comments

March 28, 2004 – Chase to Northeast IL

Thanks to my dedication to watch my beloved Illini team lose in the sweet 16 to Duke, I passed up an opportunity to chase on Saturday in the plains. It would have been a good run to W. Oklahoma, but there’s always next time right? 🙂 Anyway, the same system that dropped 7 tornadoes in the Kansas/Oklahoma was heading my way on Sunday and that meant there was a slight chance we’d get something to chase here. Granted the system was weakening, but there was still a chance. The early morning SPC Day 1 outlook showed northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin in a slight risk for severe weather with the main threat damaging winds. (a whopping 2% tornado risk too!) I mulled over the forecast models and initially wanted to target somewhere between Peru and Bloomington Illinois. Unfortunately there was a lot of cloud cover from the leftover storms that was hindering our storm chances. (share the wealth people!)

I continued to monitor the situation throughout the day and there wasn’t much happening. I didn’t want to leave too early and go on some wild goose chase, yet I didn’t want to wait too long and miss something either. I decided to wait for the 2:00pm (20z) Day 1 outlook to see what the SPC was thinking. They ended up shifting the severe threat to eastern Illinois which kind of surprised me a bit. At this time, I started seeing some very small storms go up north of Bloomington and wondered if this was the beginning of the storms. I was ready to leave but not sure where to head. My initial target was too far west and a southern target didn’t have much instability and energy to work with. The best ingredients were along the NE IL/NW IN border, so I decided to head north to my popular destination of Kankakee. (must be a new theme to chase in the same area as many times as possible this year!)

After loading up the gear and topping off the gas tank, I headed north around 2:30pm. It was mostly cloudy on the way up there though I could see numerous breaks in the clouds. I attempted to download some weather data on the way, but the area I was in didn’t support data connections so I was going totally visual. (old school chasing again!) I decided to go north of Kankakee and get off at Manteno to get a better view of whatever was coming my way. I stopped about 9 miles west of Manteno in NW Kankakee county to watch the sky. I saw a couple of turkey towers, but nothing that looked like it was going to do anything. I finally got online and discovered there were no watches, warnings, or any decent looking storms anywhere in the area. Blah! (what’s that 4 letter word for crappy chase that rhymes with dust?) 🙂

While I was weighing my options of whether to go back home or not, I started seeing a shelf cloud off in the distance. I had about 15 minutes of video left on one of my video tapes, so I decided to shoot some of this nifty thing. As it approached, I noticed alot of motion in the clouds but nothing organized. During the time, I didn’t see any lightning so I continued to stay outside and watch this thing. About the time it got a few miles from me, the temperature and humidity took quite a nosedive in a very short amount of time. It started to rain, so I packed up the tripod/camera and hopped back in the car. I sat there for a little while longer while I got pounded with heavy rain, but never did see or hear any hail.

I took one more peek at the radar and there definitely wasn’t anything to continue chasing after, so I decided to call it a chase and head back home. I was pretty much slammed with heavy rainfall the whole trip back which made the travel a little slower than normal. I arrived back home a little after 7:00pm and it was noticeably cooler than when I had left.

Final thoughts:
Technically the chase was a bust, but at least I got to see a pretty nifty shelf cloud. Hopefully April will bring some better chases to the area.

Total Chase Time: 4.5 hours
Total Chase Miles: 190 miles

Stan Olson 2004, Chase Logs, Weather No Comments

March 20, 2004 – Chase to Southeast Missouri

It seems like this year we’ve had trouble getting our atmospheric ingredients all together. On the Jan 3rd chase, we had decent winds, moisture, but no freaking CAPE or much instability. Today’s setup was the opposite. We had some decent CAPE (1000-1500), instability (LI’s -2 to -6), and moisture (tD’s in the 60s), but very crappy winds aloft. Despite this lack of combined ingredients, I still liked the chances of chasing. My original thought for a target area was Jonesboro, AR., but I would adjust that slightly with data updates throughout the chase. SDS is still kinda bugging me, so I figured what else was there to do other than chase? (well there’s the whole NCAA tourney, but my beloved Illini didn’t play till Sunday)

I got up around 6:00am and got ready to roll. My plan was to leave around 7:00am and head south to my target area of Jonesboro. However, hooking up all the new gear (aka the Chase Live stuff) took a tad longer than I thought, so I didn’t depart until 7:30am. (blasted technology!) I did check some data as I was setting stuff up in the car and noticed ongoing thunderstorms in southern Illinois. (several warnings were issued too) After filling up the gas tank, I headed south on I-57. It seems every time I get around Effingham, I encounter some sort of accident/traffic stopage on the interstate. There was a semi on the shoulder that I didn’t see anything wrong with, yet traffic was completely stopped in both lanes on the highway! Several Illinois State Police units were on scene and I heard them talking on the radio. After a few minutes, traffic started picking back up and I was on my way.

I made my first pit-data stop at my favorite rest area just outside of Salem, IL. A mesoscale discussion had just been issued, but it was for W.KY/W.TN/S.IN/S.IL which was further east than I was thinking it would be. I just assumed at that time that it was for the current storms and not for afternoon stuff, which in hindsight was probably a bad thing. (once again, I failed to stay at the Holiday Inn Express last night!) Despite this SPC outlook, I decided to continue SSW to my new hotspot of Sikeston, MO. As I was approaching town, I got a text message of a severe thunderstorm watch for AR/MO/TN. I was quite excited at the time since I was in Missouri, but didn’t realize how little of the state it actually covered until I saw the watch box graphic. All the storms were south and east of me, and nothing was forming behind the main line. *yet* Part of me wanted to go after the severe stuff in TN, but the other part wanted to head closer to my target area in AR. I figured whichever way I went I would have to head south, so I hopped on I-55 and went south.

On my journey south, I encountered very heavy rainfall and some occasional lightning. I kept hearing warnings for W.KY/W.TN and saw a nice line going over there, but was still not wanting to drive all over timbuktu to hunt them down. Around 2:15pm, I stopped at a rest area just a few miles north of the Arkansas border to get a weather update. I noticed a line of storms now forming behind the main line to my north in which several warnings had been issued. While I was sitting there, I saw a few mammatus clouds overhead which were kinda nifty! Tired of playing hide and go seek with the main line, I decided to head back north and try to intercept the 2nd line of storms.

Having not eaten anything but a bag of potato skins, I decided I’d better make a brief pit stop for food and data. I made a stop in Portageville, MO at the local McD’s and checked some data. The food was fine until I encountered a few fries that tasted/smelled like garbage. Had I not been chasing, I probably would have gone back in there to yell at someone. 😉 Anywho, while I was checking data, I heard the weather radio go off. I figured it was just another warning for the first line of storms, but then realized it was for Stoddard county, which was the county north of me! I got on I-55 again and headed north to Sikeston, MO yet again.

As I was passing through town, I smelled a slightly burning odor, heard something pop, and then noticed I lost power to everything plugged in to the accessory outlet. This obviously was a terrible time for this to happen, but since I was right where the action was it was time to go visual. (old school chasing!) I went northwest of town and then the flood gates opened up. Apparently Missouri has no budget for road signs because they really could of used some that stated “Flood Area Ahead”. I followed the storm into New Madrid county to the town of Morehouse. Visibility was almost nothing because of the heavy rains and I encountered several heavily ponded roadways. I pulled into an empty parking lot across from a school and waited out the storm. The lightning was getting pretty intense at this point, so I unplugged a few antennas just in case.

As the storm passed, I noticed my cell phone and laptop batteries getting really low. I decided to investigate the whole loss of power thing to see if I could fix it. I went to check the fuse on the power splitter and when I pulled it out, the top half remained lodged inside the outlet. (oh joy!) I managed to get that out finally and plugged in the power inverter for the laptop, but no go. I figured at this point it had to be a fuse in the car itself. I found which fuse it was supposed to be and sure enough, she was blown. I stuck the reserve fuse in there and wallah, we were back in business. Whew!

At this point everything was well south of me and nothing else was forming to my north, so it was time to call it a chase. I headed back to Sikeston and then got back on I-57 to head home. I made a stop in Mt. Vernon to visit some friends of mine and watch some of the NCAA tournament. I left there around 11:00pm and finally got home around 2:15am, yawn!

Final thoughts:
Whew, what a long chase. It was a crap shoot from the start, but it wasn’t a complete bust. The ingredients just weren’t there for a decent severe weather event, but for March it did the trick. This was also the first chase that ‘Chase Live’ was implemented, so there’s still some quirks to work out with it. Not a bad way to start off the first day of spring! Hopefully next time we’ll get all the ingredients together instead of some of them.

Total Chase Time: 15 hours
Total Chase Miles: 700 miles

Stan Olson 2004, Chase Logs, Weather No Comments

March 1, 2004 – Chase to Northeast IL

Finally, a slight risk somewhere in Illinois! I had been watching this day on the models for the past week. While it would have been nice for this to happen on Sunday, I figured I’d do my best to get a chase in anyway. The Day 1 outlook had northern and central IL in a slight risk with the main threat being large hail and damaging winds. (better than 4-8″ of snow right?!) Unlike my Jan 3rd bust to Missouri, we actually had some CAPE forecasted! (about freaking time!) There wasn’t the nice pool of mid-60 degree dew points to work with, but with the strong low pressure I figured it might still fire something. Unfortunately I couldn’t allocate the entire day to chasing as I had to work, so I had to do what I could with the time after work. Luckily I was able to work through lunch and leave an hour early.

As soon as the clock struck 3:00pm, I bolted out the door and headed home to get the gear. As I was setting up the laptop/GPS, I plugged in the wifi card to get a last minute weather update before heading out. There wasn’t too much on radar other than stuff way up in northern IL and southern WI, which was a tad out of my range for this chase day. I continued to focus on my target area of Kankakee and see what would happen. I finally departed Champaign at 3:30pm and made the trek north on I-57. On the way up, I noticed lots of junk trying to go up but nothing that made me want to stop. As I approached the Kankakee area, I finally encountered some decent amounts of rainfall. For about 5 seconds, I had some small hail pelting the car that got me all excited again. 🙂 I headed north of Kankakee to get out into the country and observed a really spiffy sunlit cloud structure which begged to have its picture taken!

I finally found a flat area of land outside of town and began shooting numerous stills and a few minutes of video. (N 3000E/ E 6000N roads – they have really weird country road identification!) While I was waiting, I got online and checked radar to see what else was going on in the region. The cell I was on wasn’t too shabby, but the best cells close to me were NE of me into NW Indiana. About this time, the weather radio went off with a severe thunderstorm warning for Porter and Lake County in Indiana. (exactly what I was seeing on radar) I studied Street Atlas to find a route to get me in that direction, then made my way east. As I proceeded, I noticed the cell directly to my northeast was really starting to fire up with cloud-to-ground lightning. I finally zigzagged on RT 17 south and then east on RT 114 / RT 10 into Indiana.

I continued east for quite awhile until I reached Roselawn, IN., where I made another data stop. I noticed the cell just to my WNW was a whopping 61-62dbz on the radar, yet no warning was ever issued for the little fella. At this point it was pretty much dark and I didn’t see any reason to continue trying to chase given the conditions. I plotted the course back home and concluded the chase. I arrived back home in Champaign around 8:30pm and proceeded to intercept some food. 🙂

Final thoughts:
Well it could have been better, but at least I saw some convection this time! Decent cloud structure, rain-obscured rainbow, lightning, and a few seconds of hail made this chase pretty nifty! This was a nice little test run to work out any equipment issues for future chases. Spring is right around the corner!

Total Chase Time: 5.5 hours
Total Chase Miles: 230 miles

Stan Olson 2004, Chase Logs, Weather No Comments

January 3, 2004 – Chase to Southeast Missouri

No this isn’t a typo, I really did chase in January! After looking at the models for days regarding this day, I really wanted to chase. Some ingredients were in place, but like the last chase of 2003 we were missing the beloved CAPE. (must be those darn budget cuts!) Anyway, dew points looked to push into the 60s and temps were pushing mid-upper 60s. (mmm, moisture return!) Luckily this is the weekend I wasn’t scheduled to work, so I was free to chase. The SPC was also watching this area, but wouldn’t go as far as issuing a slight risk. However, they did put a small area of southern Missouri and northern Arkansas in a 2% tornado threat. It doesn’t sound like much, but when SDS is in full bloom you’ll take any positive news you can get! After mulling over the weather data, I decided to initially target the little town of Sikeston in southeast Missouri. I was anxious to see what exactly Missouri would ‘show-me’. 😉

Normally I would never consider a chase like this mainly due to my vehicle issues. However, thanks to the off-season acquisition of a brand new vehicle (courtesy of my chase pal/car salesman Darin Kaiser!), I was able to easily consider chasing today. I got up around 6:00 AM to check data and things still looked promising. (however the SPC still didn’t give me my slight risk!) I loaded up the chase gear and headed out around 7:30 AM. I headed south on I-57 for quite awhile until I hit the rest area south of Salem, IL. After a quick break, I decided to try out my cell phone data connection. I checked radar and satellite and I was still seeing clearing skies in southern Missouri, so that was very good news. I left the rest area and continued my journey on I-57, noting the constant overcast skies with a hint of clearing to my south. I arrived in Sikeston, MO a little after 12:00 PM and decided to stay there for a bit. I grabbed a bite to eat at McD’s (not to be confused with the non-existent mesoscale discussion!) and then utilized my unlimited weekend minutes via my data connection to assess the situation.

The latest satellite map was showing some clearing and what appeared to be destabilization in the southern half of Missouri. However, radar maps from both Springfield and St. Louis weren’t showing anything as of yet. I checked surface conditions throughout Missouri and you could definitely tell where the front was. In Sikeston it was a balmy 67 degrees with a 62 degree dew point at 1:00 PM, while just up the road in Columbia it was 41 degrees with a dew point of 31. After reviewing all the data, I decided that I may be a bit too far south and east. I headed north on US 61 and as soon as I left Sikeston the sun came out. (yipeeee!) As I was putting along, I noticed I was getting kinda low on gas. I entered the small town of Kelso and found their gas station. After filling up at a $1.56/gal, I continued north on 61 and then hopped on I-55 for a bit.

My new target area was Marble Hill, MO which was proving to be harder to get to by the minute. Route 74 turned into Route 25 which turned into ‘don’t drive on this road if you get car sick’ Route 51. I headed north of Marble Hill and found a spot to pull off on the side of the road. I checked the latest Day 1 outlook and it still had no slight risk. It also mentioned that the atmosphere was capped (in January?!) which wasn’t much of a positive to me. As I was sitting there for awhile getting data, this older guy in a big pickup pulls up and asks me if I’m looking for him. I tell him no and he proceeds to pull his truck onto the passenger side of my car and gets out of his truck. It really wasn’t much of a conversation, I just listened to him ramble on and on about pointless things. He finally told me that he owned all this land, but didn’t seem to care if I was sitting there or not. I guess he wanted to make sure I wasn’t having car problems or anything like that. He finally went on his merry way and soon after that, I decided I’d find a different spot to visit. 😉

I proceed north on Route 51 and quickly remember why I’m not fond of chasing in this part of Missouri. Trees, hills, curves, it never seemed to end. As soon as I thought I saw daylight at the end of the tunnel, there were more surprises waiting for me. I decided at this point to call the chase off and make my way back to Illinois. I finally made it to I-55 where I headed north to St. Louis. I got to St. Louis around 8:00 PM and was amazed at all the lights of the city. I wanted to snap some pictures, but never found a spot to shoot from so I abandoned that idea. I headed east on I-64 towards Mt. Vernon in hopes of hooking up with some friends of mine, but I was unable to get ahold of them. Once I got to Mt. Vernon, I hopped on I-57 and made the journey back home. Once again I was getting low on fuel, so I decided to stop in Edgewood, IL. Unfortunately they only had the cheap gas and there was no pay at the pump option (yes I’m lazy!), so I continued north on I-57. As I exited the interstate at Effingham, my low fuel light came on. I found a BP Amoco and filled her up with premium. (mmm, 93 octane!)

As I got closer to home, I encountered some copious amounts of rain. At one point I had to slow down because water was starting to really pond on the highway. It was interesting because it was the most excitement I’d had all day! 🙂 I finally arrived home at 10:30 PM and boy was I tired. (and cold, BRRR!)

Final thoughts:
Well despite the lack of storms, it was great to get out there and chase so early in the year. I can’t wait for the heart of storm season so I can really get out there and intercept some good ones. The car gets a lot better gas mileage than my old minivan used to get, so that will help on those longer chase trips. Bring on spring! 🙂

Total Chase Time: 15 hours
Total Chase Miles: 678 miles

Stan Olson 2004, Chase Logs, Weather No Comments