Our remarkable close encounter with Kirksville, MO tornado 5/13/2009.

What a remarkable day and stormchase. Here is the account. I will post a link to the video soon. But for now here is the account and the screens snaps and photos. More may be added and updated soon . ? let me know
Chase Title: The Amazing Ever Changing Monster
(Pictures etc © Eric Flescher. All Rights Reserved.
http://stormsatori-kcstormguy.blogspot.com/ )
Date(s):05/13/09
Risk LMH and area: Medium KS, OK, TX, NE, MO, IO
Highest Risk : MO
Watch/Warning area: East of line and watch of Columbia to Kirksville, MO
Target:Macon north to possibly Kirsville, MO
Partners with: Eric Flescher, James Seitz, Uday Verma
Today's Chase States/ Counties: KS, MO
Day/Time Started (from Olathe) : 7:30 am
Day/Time Return to Olathe, KS:5/13/09 11:30 PM
Miles of Chase: 470
Equipment: Panasonic 329 CCD chip camcorder; Rebel XT camera; wide angle, telephoto 28-200mm, 50 mm ;


and Jim's devices
Results Today : Tornado Wallcloud Supercell Structures
Tornado(es) today: 1 (at least)
2009 tornado count: 1
2009 Chase count: 3?

Full Account :

(1) I met James and Uday in Kansas City at 8:30am near I-70 so we could get out early and beat any traffic. A few anvils over Kansas City We went with our initial target after looking over forecasts etc. I am getting better at reading the forecasting tools. This NAM graphic showed a good bulls eye to still

shoot for in NE Missouri =purple).
After stopping in a McDonald's in Blue Springs off of I-70 we waited from 8:23 - 9:30 am.

(2) We headed further North from Columbia and decided to go even further North after stopping in Macon for pit stop and assess where we should go. North was now our target .

(3)We has lost a little time getting to Kirksville. We were in the McDonald's in Kirksville admiring some of the towers
that were dissipating and wondering whether we were late and whether anything would now happen.






(4) We were inside the tornado watch area box.We saw some signs of promise but nothing outstanding as we waited. Tornado warning near Green City, MO at 5:17 Pm pm.

(5) Around 5:25, a trained spotter had seen a funnel near Novinger, MO near Highway 6 heading NE.


(6) We headed down the Highway 6 West towards Novinger.




(7) We could see that this "funnel" was now a tornado as we peered through the road view between the trees as we headed West on HWy 6.

(8) It possibly just crossed the Highway but was now North of Highway 6.

(9) The cone shaped tornado was headed East (towards us ) and moving quickly.Many chasers have remarked about the difficult terrain in MO in terms of chasing. It was pretty level until we were going to intercept the tornado on Hwy 6. We quickly found the road had trees on each side and
made for obscure viewing as we bounded West on Hwy 6. Never been in this area before, let alone chasing in these parts but just tried to find a good open viewable area was difficult .

(10) We were in Adair County . Now at the top of a small ridge on Highway 6, I suggested that it might be the best to turn North as we could view on this ridge somewhere.

(11) We turned on to Road 165A and went down about 0.2 miles North of Hwy 6. We lost a little extra time making sure that we turned around so that we were ready to make our escape East on Highway 6 at a moments notice because the tornado was bearing down on us.

(12) This was a better vantage point above the trees and viewing the twister immediately to the West. The Tornado was about 2.5 miles away from us when we first camped out. It was traveling East at 34 mph. The tornado was heading straight for us and made for photogenic and videographic capture before we had to leave.
(Doing the math later I calculated we only 36 seconds or so before we had to make our escape).






(13) The view was our ringside seat. Now it was easier to see the debris field snaking up from the ground even though we could not see the whole funnel extending to the ground.

(14) The constantly streaming (upward) tornado changed shape every second .






(15) First it was more slender then slowly widened is base considerably. Then it appeared more like a wedge, growing to 1/4 to 1/2 mile wide. It was not veering from us at all. It was still coming toward us.






(16) These screen snaps show the tornado morphing into its different shapes and also showed it’s delicate structure.

(17) The video shows the delicate structure changing every second. There was no rain or hail at that point

(18) I did not have enough time to get out my camera or tripod. I did not want to lose any moment of the detail for the video.


(19) In retrospect, I should have had it ready and draped it around my neck to shoot it but I was too focused on helping us to get the best vantage point.

(20) I had the best camcorder equipment on the team so I felt that it was important to get all of the video to show the every changing nature of a tornado for our future reference and to show as an example at my EOAS class at JCCC in Overland Park that I have coordinated for 15 years. I never thought I was going to get such an opportunity today although I was hoping.


(21) The detail in the tornado was remarkable .

(22) The vortex streaming up from the ground could be seen easily as there was no rain to obscure the view.
(23) Constant streaming upward from the base.
Now it was almost bowl shaped.We could now hear it even while it did not seem to move. It was still heading straight but we wanted to take more footage before making our escape.



(24) Now it was a getting closer. Still no rain or hail around us. Definitely still pretty much straight for us.

(25) It looked more ragged and we could see rain was coming.

(26) This dangerous storm must have been only a few hundred yards away from us as it loomed over the ride. Getting too close, it was time to go real soon.


(27) I zoomed in closer .Now it was more like a classical wedge shaped tornado.

(28) Definitely becoming less defined and we knew we would not have too much time left before we had to leave.
(29) It was getting rain wrapped and more difficult to see.
(30) With closeup , it was now very imposing and closing in towards us.


(31) It continued as a wedge.

(30) We knew we had to make our time to go and make our escape real soon.

(31) I wanted to frame the foreground up to the overlook especially since it was not rainwrapped.







(32) Now it was getty rainwrapped. It remained rain wrapped and was now heading just North of Highway 6 without deviation. The rain and storm were moving on us.










(33) Even more so in a few second. James shouted " Time to go!".










(34) We headed back up the road (South) and then turned and went down HWY 6 East .We stopped further East where there now more chasers off of Highway 6.










(35) The tornado passed us at that pull off. It was rain wrapped and about 1 mile to our north.We took more pics and videos.highway 6 and East towards Kirksville. We took more video and pictures and then took off down East .We did not stay in Kirksville (where there was a lot of

(36) There were many chasers here at this time watching this rain wrapped tornado. Others were East , North and South maybe West.







(37)I took a few poor photos as I was rushing too much.





(38) We tried to catch some other cells. Kirksville was now already closed off to traffic as the car dealship and more were destroyed by the tornado.
(39) We broke off and headed South toward Columbia and back to Kansas City, watching some nice lightning along the way. Wanted to possible chase some cells with large hail but we decided not. Heading back to Kansas City where I left James and Uday.

(40) The next day we learned more :
http://www.kmbc.com/news/19454916/detail.html


My Conclusions about chase:
(1) there were two tornadoes. This one vacillated between F-1 and F-2 but I am surprised as we all thought it would rate stronger.
(2) The main key for this intercept was staying with the target and then going North to Kirksville before the cells really got going. Hearing about the spotter seeing the funnel caught us more time to intercept and make agood position to view it.

(3) We had a great view of the tornado. Right time , right place.
(4) I am glad I found that side street and that we took it far enough for a great vantage point but had full access to leave when we needed.
(5) reports written the next day SPC


What I learned from this intercept and for future reference :
(1) Have videocamera on a tripod or on suction pod ready to do at all times especially when coming up on the location to start shooting.

(2) Have the telephoto lens and the camera all primed and ready to go and have it drapped
around my head (before we jump out of the car after finding the right spot).
(3) Get a rain parker to protect from rain and even cover the camera, lens etc in the future.

5/1/08 driveway irony and mayhem/ mini chase: Olathe/Kansas City

5/1/08 driveway irony/ mayhem and mini chase: Olathe, KS/Kansas City
4:30- 6:34 pm
self
66 miles
using Canon Rebel XT
While watching the impending stormweather on doppler, on 5/1/08, I saw that pre mammatus clouds were boiling into the skies.

I headed out 4:30, pm 151 Street in Olathe, KS at 4:30 and stopped off to take photos of the imposing looming super
cell and anvil (wide angle) with my canon rebel XT.

Storm warnings indicated possible wallclouds and dangerous storms near Edwardsville, off of I-70 and I-435. Instead of going North on I-435 to be closer to that town I decided to head on to I-35 to get in front of it and anything else that was coming East. Before I got infront it, the network said the storm had subsided. But the sky still had some nice scenes to photograph.
sunrays and the cloud shadows (called corpuscular rays). These shadows were piercing the clouds and the sun going down in the West. But another dangerous storm was moving into Olathe, so I headed back up south on I-35.

There was blinding rain all over. I was amazed to see the sun in the West still showing through the clouds and the blinding rain. I wanted to take a good picture of but I could not drive and take a pic at the same time. I should have instead had the camcorder ready and at least manuver it to get some video to at least take some screen snaps. It seemed an eternity as the traffic was going really slow in this heavy rain. I got off at College Blvd on the west side of I-35 (Olathe) to try to get a good photo of this nice sight. But trying to work off the exit first and then battling the rain, I just missed being able to photograph this sight.Instead I had to settlefor corpuscular ray show again (which was not all that bad). I headed back home.

Monitoring the weather, I had an inkling that another round of storms were moving in later in the morning but we went to sleep anyway. At 1:30am we got another surprise as we could hear hurricane force 1 winds blowing through the area. We stopped to now look out the window. Our fragile Bradford pare tree had, for the 3rd time, snapped and blew down in our driveway. I should have had a cut down after the 2nd time a few years ago.

But this time, a small piece of wood from the tree had hit the bottom of my Green Saturn's (now backed out for the insurance guy) windshield and cracked it. If I had parked in the driveway just about 1 inch away the wind shield would not have cracked as the piece of wood would have missed it. Insurance kicked in but still had to pay $200 for deductible. What was nice is that the company brought a van and the windshield was replaced right in the driveway. I did not have to go for bids, take time out by taking it somewhere etc etc.

It's ironic that instead of stormchasing somewhere , my car gets hit right in our driveway! Forces of nature can occur in your driveway too!

Small hail and shelf cloud, Olathe , KS

It's been 3 in a row of at least slight threatening weather for someplace in Kansas or nearby. Since I teach, I can't run off and have to hope things will wait until later. But the weather is cooperates or not.
On Wed 4/23/2008, school ended and I heard the heavy rain. I went to a window and saw it was hailing. The first hailstones I could see of the 2008 Spring!
I ran out to my car, got my Canon camera and started shooting and examining hail size. Most were very small pea sized but a few were a little bigger. (Later I heard there was bigger sized ones in Independence , MO). The hail pretty much melted away in 10 minutes.
Riding around Olathe and then Overland Park,KS I could see the tops of a shelf cloud (that could be seen by other chasers near Ottawa further west) . But things were pretty much over. Since the weather was not that threatening anymore and subsiding I just went to workout.
Here are some hail shots.

Frutrating search and storm poops out over Olathe, KS

I left teaching in Olathe at around 5:00. While there were possibility of more potential severe weather farther away, my immediate target was a meeting place (that I never found) around Nall Avenue in Overland Park. I heard the reports of severe thunderstorms over the line in some counties in Missouri and some severe thunderstorms were south near Paola. I headed North on I-35.

Frustrated at not finding this Country Club off of Tomhawk ( serves me right for using Mapquest and not using GoogleMaps or Yahoo Maps- no GPS yet sorry), I abandoned my search. Watched the skies and listening to the radio reports at the same time, I headed back to Olathe.

Several vehicles had crashed slightly into each other right ahead of me during the rain downpour. Near Olathe after 6:00, I could see a nice storm to the West, heading towards Olathe and I-35. Getting on to Sante Fe in Olathe (off of I-35), the promising cell pooped out and got quite ragged. I had my camera but I decided it was not worth taking a picture of.

A teacher the next morning said there was a report of small tornado near St. Joseph. I quickly looked up the SPC report and yup, he was right.
Then I found that news report of what happened
http://www.stjoenews.net/news/2008/apr/11/possible-tornado-hits-south-side/

Severe Weather Symposium Lawrence, KS (2/23/08) was great!

The Symposium was well attended and the presentations and the panel were superb.

The line up included



Jennifer Stark (Storm based warning system)
Jon Davies (Greensburg tornado photos and setup of the day)- nice booklet he has authored called Storm Chasers ! on the trail of Twisters - very visual and comprehensive = congrats Jon (see pic with Shawna)
Chris Novy (multifaceted presentation on "careful when you chase" with lots of multimedia)
Mike Umscheid ( great information about Greensburg tornado etc)
Round table (Bryan Busby, rest of people above etc)- see pic

Great visuals, great information, informative, insightful

Tucson area monsoon chasing, hummingbird and good eat

Greetings
After finishing my 5th year of my two week E.O.A.S. Earth-Space Computer course for kids , I left Kansas City, MO airport early morning on 7/23/07 for Tucson. I was armed with my new Canon XT, 28-200 mm tamron telephoto, macro lens, 2 x converter. I was ready for some good eats, Moonsoon chasing, photographing and videotaping hummingbirds, the landscape and more.

Arrives early afternoon after couple hours layover in Las Vegas (still can't believe the airport is right near the strip) , I picked up the Avis rental and scoped out downtown Tucson before rendezvousing at my friends' home in northeast Tucson.

While looking for the great restaurant Poca Cosa (they were again out for vacation like last year and I found it had moved) I got stuck in a a real big monsoon downpour. I ducked into a local Mexican restaurant to eat and to wait out the downpour. There was water everywhere and I was aware not to go through pooling water areas. (pic #1)



http://www.fox11az.com/news/topstori....a5461847.html

( sorry could not found the picture in the newspaper with the woman on the top of her car with raging water turrent around her)

I went to my friends house and stayed at the house that night. What was interesting that on the news that night, a local forecaster showed scud in the sky and told the audience that some people has mistaken the scud for a funnel tornado . He explained with visuals how the scud is airlifted moisture that condenses etc. Nice that they inform the public about misidentification like what I did in my course the week before in Kansas.



Looking over the newspaper that morning, I saw that the monsoon really struck in some area.Took off early on the 24th, heading 1.5 hours south to Sierra Vista. Stopped off at Ramsey Canyon to get my wife a hummingbird shirt and hummingbird coasters (they have a real nice store of all things hummingbirds and nature).

I headed to Hereford, AZ ( a mile wide town next to Sierra Vista) and the Beatty's Ranch where I was last year. This time I would stay two days. I photograph and videotape to my hearts content and could get closer to the hummies to get more closeups with the camera.

Weather was great. I met a teacher from Houston and other people. I went into Sierra Vista and had a spicey chicken lunch in a nice rustic Japanese Place (Tom Sellick the actor had been there and had an autograph on a plate) and a korean place was very good. The Delicos Italian restaurant was once again very good too with their excellent eggplant dish and a chicken dish.

These birds are so funny. I could sit 2-3 feet away from one feeder with other feeders farther away. Some would drink from the feeders evenwhile others buzzed around and tried to chase others away. Some would stay only 10 seconds or less and it was too fast to get the pic.

I identified 10 varieties. Here are some pics.


On the 26th , I headed NW. I took some pics of the scenery as I then headed Southwest toward Patagonia (another hummingbird haven).



Along the way I stopped to photograph huge monsoon storm cells. Storm cells dumped water in the distance.


An hour later, I made it to Patagonia. I had to go through a "dry" road bed to get to the hummingbird place.

As I rounded the street and corner to go over the dry stream bed , this is what I saw.

Gosh knows how long it would be until the water subsided for this stream bed so I headed back to Tucson. I will try next year to see this hummingbird area.

I took my friends out for dinner. We decided to go to one of the best and well known restaurants in Tucson J-Bar. Great prices for the summer. Appetizer of ground lamb was very good. Special entrees included a vegetable dish which the wife liked (she is a former sous chef for the American restuarant . My astronomy friend got the spicey pork. I took the plantain encrusted chicken which was great. Then we all shared the signature desert- chocolate jalapeno parfait. Superb!!!( I found a recipe for these and will have to make them). A great and memorable meal/ dinner.

I had some time to kill before going to the airport. My friends took me hiking with a group at Mt. Lemmons. Things were partly cloudy when we got to the base camp area. But as we traveled the trail, the weather became cloudy, with thunder and pouring rain. I did not have much with me so I was soaked and my camera in my case got a little soaking (I will always from now on bring at least 1 big plastic bag in these situations to put the camera in ). We got down the mountain. I won the wet T shirt contest.

I was so afraid the camera was fried along with the pictures. I took out the battery and wiped the inner battery area and let it rest and prayed. To test the camera before using for a party, I put the battery back in and turned on as I prayed for it to work. IT DID!!!! Wewwwww.

Memorable trip, food, a little 2 Monsoon chases and good hummingbird company. Met some nice people. Beatty's Ranch and people are very nice. Maybe next year Poca Cosa if they are not vacationing.

Meanwhile on August 3 there was a funnel cloud sighted and photographed in the same area that I photographed humminbirds. Must have been on the road I was on apparently .
check out the photos
http://www.kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=6884578

This was the target area for 5/5/07

This was the target area for 5/5/07.
A lot of area from Kansas to Oklahoma with medium threat.
Likely opportunity for tornadoes, hail and wind.
This was the strongest threat I saw this year. Of course there were were already tornadoes that struck Friday already with a devastating punch

'Tornado Alley' hit by worst twister in 10 years

I was not stormchasing Friday when the tornado hit. Here is more news. My other stormchaser friends were "on it" however and some took photos and video and helped out after the tornado hit. Here is more information. (I did chaser Saturday and Sunday in KS and OK and will have more information links later etc)'
'Tornado Alley' hit by worst twister in 10 years


Tornado Alley' hit by worst twister in 10 years12:51 08 May 2007NewScientist.com news serviceCeleste Biever and
Reuters

http://environment.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn11800&feedId=earth_rss20

Chase 4/27/07 (4:45- 6:03pm)"can't be- can it?"

४/२७/२००७ unexpected mini-chase

४/२७/२००७ "can't be- can it?"
unexpected mini-चेस
Well this was a क्रेज्य
endedin Paola, KS। There was rain, a couple of thunder claps but nothing out of the ordinary. Weather kept changing between sunny and light rain. As I headed south to Olathe weather was partly cloudy. I stopped at 135th and Blackbob at the supermarket to get some food and then headed home. Normal chatter on the Oreilly show and then the talk show on KMBZ but nothing else. At home, I began charging my pda. As I opended the back glass door, I thought what I heard was warning sirens but they were not loud. I though "can't be- can it?". Quickly turned on KMBC TV and lo and behold there were alerts for Miami County near Paola where I just came from . It seemed that the radio stations were trying to catch up for the "ball they had dropped." Also storm cells dropping hail and possible funnel to the south

I got in my car as my wife came in her car and said her friend had a lot of hail north of us. I headed down 151st towards I-35. The radio said there was a possible dangerous cell near Garnder- Edgerton off of I-35 but there were also a funnel and heavy hail off of 119th street as well as a funnel near Ottawa. Reports of wall clouds too. This is amazing. There was nothing on the radio a few minutes before.
I headed North towards 119th street after changing my mind andturning around to go south not to check out the storm cell. By the time I got there I did not see anything significant. But there was beautiful raindow arching from the south over the stores. I stopped and took some rainbowpictures .
There was a possibler dangerous cell heading into Missouri from South of Miami county in Kansas. A reported funnel or rotation. I decided to head south and then got off to go home. No way I could catch the storm. However I could see that stormcell with its gleaming cumulus clouds to the SW. I noticed the moon above the cell which would make a nice picture. I snapped a few and the results are below.
This was an unexpected mini-chase close to home. Did not hear anything more about these storms in the newspaper (we were out later that night so I could not check the news).

Storm Satori blog starts for 2007 season

Storm Satori

This will link to my E.O.A.S. blog , Storm Satori stormchasing website and more. This will inlcude

* photos
* video clips
* weather news of tornadoes, storms etc
* links to other stormchasers and what they saw. observerved, photographed and videotaped
* Youtube links
* storm and tornado trivia etc
* and more

If you see interesting video or pics that you have taken let me know and I will link to your sites.
More to come

Dr. Eric Flescher (kcstormguy@aol.com