It’s hardly worth summarizing today, except to note that the days with the highest expectations – a couple of days ago, this seemed as if it would be the best Plains chase day of the first half of May – often don’t meet those expectations. Were there storms? Yes. But despite some tornadoes early in the day in an area deemed not worth chasing, overall, this was not a big tornado day, despite a strong upper trough and other good dynamics. In the morning, clouds and rain covered much of the area, but the grunge moved out, allowing for heating and therefore energy for storms. But the dewpoints stayed depressed, and the clustered storms in northeast Colorado/northwest Kansas didn’t quite get their act together to produce tornadoes. I made a conscious choice to go after an isolated cell in my target area instead, around Dodge City and north, but it fizzled, and I ended up seeing little worth noting. I did drive in a lot of big circles, though.
There’s nothing like eating your continental hotel breakfast of generic fruit loops and hard-boiled egg while hearing the morning “crapvection” spitting rain all over your hopes for the day. Not that I am entirely without hope, or I’d be at home, given that essentially all storm-chasing is about gambling time and gas money against a few moments of reward. But this morning, what it comes down to is that this big shield of clouds and rain is going to have to get out of the way in order for sunshine – and thus heat and destabilization – to occur to fuel severe storms later. How all that will play out is up to Mother Nature. In addition, there are multiple potential target areas. Northern Kansas? Oklahoma-Kansas border? Mars? Rather than rush out to chase the rain, I’ll do a little more analysis before I give up my wi-fi.
This is the quick version, since it’s 2 a.m. central time, and I’m beat. South Dakota hills are beautiful; chasers always seem to end up in the same spot; the storms didn’t have quite what they needed where we wanted them; but a tornado-warned storm at dark managed to produce a great lightning show for me, and that was enough.
[Added later from the old SkyDiary archive…] I started the day in O’Neill, Nebraska, and initially thought I would target the Wyoming-South Dakota border west of Rapid City. But after a pleasant photographic detour, I ended up in a chaser convergence in Murdo, S.D., where it appeared the juicy southeast winds might help kick things off. Instead, the line that formed on the Wyoming-S.D. border was about the only game in town. I headed down to the southernmost storm and got there just as it was getting really dark – and as the tornado-warned storm was spitting out huge amounts of lightning.
9 MAY 2011 – South Dakota has so many picturesque, abandoned houses. Photo by Chris Kridler, chriskridler.com

9 MAY 2011 – The storm cell had a nice structure, illuminated by the lightning. Photo by Chris Kridler, chriskridler.com

9 MAY 2011 – Use your imagination – the storm looks as if it has its arms up for a fight! Photo by Chris Kridler, chriskridler.com
I started Sunday’s storm chase – let’s just say chase – with enough optimism to make me get up before 5 a.m. to get to Nebraska from Oklahoma. I was thinking I might have to play the northern extremes of the state, which is a seriously long drive. On the way, I stopped to get a few sunrise photos, and I talked with Steve Sponsler about his analysis of the day, and then I did my own forecast when I stopped at the dirtiest Starbucks I’d ever seen in York, Nebraska. (I can rough it, but goodness, this is Starbucks, home of the $5 cup of coffee. Clean the tables once in a while.)
It looked to me as if I didn’t need to go that much farther – perhaps north a bit, near the warm front. I went north of Columbus but south of Norfolk (which the weather radio voice around here calls “Norfork,” apparently the computer version of the native pronunciation), then did a circle, then decided as the computer models became more pessimistic to get farther north, near the warm front. And then, it became clear, the cap was going to win. That’s the warm temperatures above the surface that prevent a storm from breaking through. I got a few photos of one towering cumulus that gave it a valiant try. It was kinda pretty. But that was it.
I finished the day in O’Neill, Nebraska, after running into the Cloud 9 and Extreme tours folks, along with a few of the “Storm Chasers” folks, in a mass convergence at Pizza Hut. So today, I’ve been to the Swede capital of Nebraska (Stromsburg) and the Irish capital of Nebraska (O’Neill). The hotel has a live shamrock on the counter. Just how many of these capitals are there? Is there a tornado capital? Hoping for better chasing on Monday, but my expectations have been officially lowered on the first storm-chasing day of my 15th season of chasing.
I am disturbed and amazed at the wave of tornado onslaughts … and now flooding, too … all in the same area. People keep asking me why I’m not there. Many chasers are seeking and finding the storms, but many tornadoes are occurring in what is referred to as “the jungle,” because of the hills and trees. In other words, visibilty is low, making it extra hard to track the storms. And of course, the people who live there can’t see them coming, either. If you are in the danger zone, leave your weather radio on. It will give you the best and fastest warning.
Much wiser storm chasers than I have said, “Live by the models, die by the models.” But one must live a little by the computer models in order to figure out when to make the (ideally) two-day drive out to Tornado Alley. I’d much prefer chasing storms in the lovely, flat, empty expanses of the Alley than in the trees and hills and populated areas where tornadoes have been wreaking havoc for the past few days. When I live as far away as I do, it becomes somewhat of an expedition to get all the gear ready, load up the car, and get the heck outta Dodge. Or to Dodge – I’ve passed through Dodge City, Kansas, almost every year of chasing, it seems. It smells like cows.
That said, I’ve ordered a rental cell modem so I can get data while mobile. It’s a long way from the days when I had to plug into a phone jack at a truck stop and sign on to the Internet that way to get data – and that was awesome. Granted, you can’t get mobile data everywhere, but it’s amazing where you can get it.
Anyway, I’m starting to get everything ready. I’m working my last few days as a full-time newspaper reporter this week, as I begin a freelance career. And I’m trying to find a missing camera battery. You haven’t seen it, have you?

A turkey tower (ambitious cloud) even sports a few mammatus as it moves east with a boundary in Rockledge, Florida, on April 12, 2011. Photo by Chris Kridler, ChrisKridler.com
I drove slightly out of my way this evening to get about 10 raindrops on my windshield as a front pushed through the area. I was hoping for a little more excitement, especially after I saw some, you know, clouds. I talked with my friend Steve Sponsler, who writes a great forecasting blog that focuses on Florida. He feels his forecast verified, because, after all, there was rain.
This time of year, it’s easy for storm chasers to obsess about the weather. I haven’t been, because I’ve been busy trying to finish up things at my job so I can start working for myself. But the obsession is about to begin, since storm chasing is just a few weeks away. I have a lot to do in terms of getting gear in order, and just getting in the mode of daily forecasting, too.
Well, tonight’s “chase” was rewarded at home, when this ambitious little turkey tower, complete with a few mammatus, pushed east overhead at sunset. It wasn’t powerful, but it was pretty.

A multivortex tornado chases the chasers down the highway in northern Oklahoma on May 10, 2010. Photo by Chris Kridler, ChrisKridler.com
I have extensive archives from my early storm chasing years. I chronicled almost every day on the road, even bust days, at the old SkyDiary site, with lots of photos. In the interest of collecting everything in one place, I’m moving the highlights of the older chases – or quirky moments worth remembering – over to ChrisKridler.com. With that in mind, this post collects just a few of the posts from 2010 and a few photos to accompany them.
Jan. 6-10, 2010: Several nights of freezing temperatures shocked central Florida and its plants at the start of January. I caught a few photos of sleet and ice – a very strange thing to see in Brevard County.

On Jan. 6, 2010, our fountain froze, as it did many days during the cold snap.

I have to thank the neighbors and their gratuitous use of a garden hose for this ice sculpture Jan. 10, 2010, in Rockledge, Florida.

A shifting branch during the melt meant crooked icicles Jan. 10.

Another look at the neighbors’ ice fantasy – when hose meets tree meets freezing temperatures on Jan. 10, 2010.
Feb. 11-12, 2010: Right after one of New York’s Snowmageddons this winter, I got some snowy shots in and around Central Park.

It’s better to walk with a friend…

Hard-working horses.

A snowman suns himself.
May 10, 2010: This was one of those absolutely nuts, off-the-hook storm days. The models had suggested it was coming for days, so every chaser and media person you can imagine was out to see the disaster in the making. Then the Storm Prediction Center issued a high risk of severe storms, including strong tornadoes. The big problem for chasing: They were expected to haul butt northeast at highway speeds, meaning you couldn’t really chase the storms very well – you had to put yourself in front of them and hope. I started the day in Norman, Oklahoma, and picked Ponca City as a preliminary target. I ended up meeting up with Scott McPartland, Dave Lewison, Mark Robinson and Mark’s crew of meteorology types in Blackwell, in north-central Oklahoma, and we went after a storm that went up near Woodward. (From home, Steve Sponsler and Cheryl Chang both said it split.) We caught it as it put down a brief but pretty tornado. Churning east, suddenly, instead of northeast, it then put down a multi-vortex tornado. I regret not getting more video or stopping for longer than a few seconds, but it literally chased about a hundred chase cars down Route 11 at about 55 mph. NOT a good situation. As it finally eased north of the road, the radar hook on it indicated a big (if unseen and rain-wrapped) tornado. After that, I did a lot of stair-stepping east of I-35, trying to catch another storm, but it was darn near impossible. I hope my next chase is a slow one. Many, many tornadoes occurred today, costing lives and causing damage. It was a tough day and a sad one.

My new Element was ready to go on its first storm chase.

A tornado touches down briefly southwest of Wakita, Oklahoma (that’s the town destroyed in the movie “Twister”).

When I finally got far enough east, I grabbed a frame of the radar showing the storm’s classic hook, indicating a big tornado. If there, it was wrapped in rain. I’m the dot in the circle.
May 11, 2010: There are more people pictures than sky photos in this summary, because this was a classic storm chase in the sense that we ended up waiting around a lot for the cap to break. Today I took along a friend for her first chase, Tiffany Crumrine. We chased with Scott McPartland, Dave Lewison, Mark Robinson and crew, and met up with various folks along the way before becoming separated from them all (except for hearing them over the radio). What seemed like a significant storm potential and a lot of juice went to waste before sunset with little in the way of storms – except one pretty, tornado-warned corkscrew, below.

Mark and Brad use a knife and a napkin to properly read a hodograph during forecast discussions at the Guest Inn in Norman, Oklahoma.

Further forecast discussion at the Guest Inn. Note the newspaper on the table with headlines about the previous day’s tornadoes.

Here’s a parting shot of the storm, which soon shrunk out of existence.
May 12, 2010: Any hopes for isolated storms today were dashed pretty quickly once the line went up. A few remained discrete for a little while, and we followed one from Alva, Oklahoma, into Kansas, but we missed the rare tornadoes today. I chased with Scott McPartland and Dave Lewison, and Mark Robinson and his crew.

We made a stop at the Twister Museum in Wakita, Oklahoma, on the way to a chase target farther west.

The Twister Museum holds “Dorothy I,” the prop from the movie “Twister.”

Brad, Mark, Scott and Dave snapped into action to change a tire before the line of storms could overtake us.

Our caravan lines up to watch the outflow boundary in motion.
May 16, 2010: I was on my own today. I drove from Carlsbad, New Mexico, to Odessa, Texas, and got an oil change, expecting that I might have a chance to chase whatever popped up later in that area. But by the time I was done, the biggest severe storms were going up in Oklahoma. That was out of reach, and I liked the boundary and bit of moisture convergence in eastern New Mexico, near Clovis. I started heading in that direction when just a few compact storms started to pop. Despite less than ideal conditions, a couple went severe, slowly moved southeast, and made for a fun and photogenic chase.

One can imagine this building’s better days.

The hail shaft had a deceptive, tornado-like appearance.

The heavy precipitation core, the sunset and a nascent wall cloud.
May 18, 2010: I started the day in Lubbock, Texas. It seemed to me the best conjunction of moisture, wind profiles and other factors pointed to the Oklahoma-Texas border in the northwest Texas panhandle. As I drove into Amarillo, I heard the old crew (Dave Lewison, Scott McPartland, Mark Robinson and friends) on the radio and met up with them and with Bill Hark in Dumas. We went to Dalhart to wait for a likely storm, and a blip on radar near Dumas quickly became an amazing, isolated supercell. Our crew split up, but I met them later. I say I saw “at least one” tornado today because one was obvious. Another sure looked like one, but I’m waiting for confirmation. And who knows how many I filmed in the dense hail/rain core without knowing it. There were a lot of “scud bombs” hanging from the storm that probably prompted reports, too.

Bill Hark, right, flew in from Virginia for the chase. We waited around Dalhart, Texas, until the first blip went up on radar.

At this point, the wall cloud may have been on the ground – that is, a tornado! My video shows strong rotation, and a series of video grabs shows what looks like dust on the ground. I can’t confirm it was, however, because I wasn’t close enough.

If it wasn’t a tornado, it should have been.

Then the storm formed an unquestionable tornado.

A Vortex 2 probe zooms down a ranch road near Stinnett, where a large tornado was reported in the precip core as the sirens blared.

Mark and Brad scan the storm outside Stinnett at dusk as we let it slip by.
May 19, 2010: I started the day with Scott McPartland, Dave Lewison, Bill Hark, Mark Robinson and crew in Shamrock, Texas. We drove to Weatherford, Oklahoma, to wait for storms to fire. A couple did and almost immediately produced tornadoes, but we were nowhere near them – and then, as the storms went more high-precipitation and we caught up with the one near Leedey, it provided awesome structure but not much in the way of tornadoes unless you were in the hail or flying a news helicopter (one got great footage of a tornado near Kingfisher). It was still a fun chase. We split up as we caught up with the storm. I chose to stay south of it and got some nice pictures of the rotating mesocyclone, the hail core and a funnel west of Guthrie, where the tornado sirens were screaming as I drove through. I ended the day with a fantastic sunset in Arcadia, as the storms moved east and my Plains storm chase winds down.

Brad and Dave discuss their options.

We caught up with this storm near Leedey shortly after it produced a tornado. The convection was impressive.

I stopped at Pops in Arcadia, an awesome gas station/restaurant/shrine to soda (with 500 types). Josh Wurman was getting interviewed in front of the giant bottle sculpture.

Our group met up again in Shawnee to share tales of hail, tornadoes, muddy roads, and chaser follies.

Pops on old Route 66 northeast of Oklahoma City on May 19.
September 2, 2010: It’s been an excruciatingly dull summer in terms of weather, but distant Hurricane Earl generated photogenic waves off east-central Florida as it neared the Carolina coast. These shots were taken in Satellite Beach.

A funnel emerges from a lowering June 7. This storm produced a brief tornado in Kansas.
I have extensive archives from my early storm chasing years. I chronicled almost every day on the road, even bust days, at the old SkyDiary site, with lots of photos. In the interest of collecting everything in one place, I’m moving the highlights of the older chases over to ChrisKridler.com. With that in mind, this post collects some of the accounts from 2008 and select photos to accompany them.
1-2 May 2008

Closeup of convection feeding into the May 1 storm.
The day after: The day after the first chase of the year, that is. I am trying to achieve that Zen balance between overwhelming anticipation and extreme pessimism. The results of yesterday, May 1, met me in the middle. I started the day in Muskogee, Oklahoma, and moved west and north to meet the dryline and what I thought was the best potential near the Oklahoma-Kansas border.
I saw a great rotating storm, but I did not see a tornado (a spinup was reported with my storm; perhaps I wasn’t close enough to see it). And actually, because it was so gorgeous, with its crisp anvil, aggressively bubbling flanking line and a short period of flying-saucer-like laminar beauty as it moved with the line of storms, I wasn’t disappointed when I saw the grainy twilight tornado video from Oklahoma on The Weather Channel this morning. I had a good chase.
Now, there will be a lull of at least a couple of days. I guess I’ll set out from my current stop of Independence, Kansas, and dig up a few more Tornado Alley tourist attractions to see. I enjoyed seeing Bartlesville’s oil well in Oklahoma yesterday. But one can gaze upon Cawker City’s big ball of twine just so many times before it becomes too dazzling to bear …
3 May 2008

The yellow brick sidewalk in Sedan, Kansas.
Chasing choices: People who don’t chase storms sometimes wonder how I can’t see a tornado when there are dozens reported on a particular day. It looks easy when you see all those red triangles on The Weather Channel or Storm Prediction Center maps. But what the maps don’t tell you is (1) a lot occur at night; (2) if they are in certain parts of the country, like the South, they may hide amid trees and hills; (3) some are wrapped in rain, even if it is daylight; (4) not all reports are valid; and (5) even if they are visible, you have to be in the right place at the right time.
Sometimes a chaser decides it’s just not worthwhile. I wasn’t the only chaser to choose not to try to chase the squall line in Arkansas and environs today. Even though there have been several tornado reports, I would have been dealing with the aforementioned trees and hills. Not only that, but I would have had to drive many hours on little sleep, through a squall line going only slightly slower than myself, meaning I would have been driving in horrible rain etc. for a long time; and after all that driving and marginal chasing, I would have had to return back west to be in position for what I hope will be a better (and more visible) chase in a couple of days. And there are the gas prices.
So after Thursday’s chase and late night and not quite enough sleep, I decided to take it easy and amble from Kansas down to Norman, Oklahoma, on Friday. I always seem to come back to Norman at some point while chasing. On the way, I stopped in Sedan, Kansas. It’s a cute town with wonderful old buildings on the main street and a great art deco theater, among other things. Hollywood location scouts should give it a look. It also claims to have the longest yellow brick road – as in “The Wizard of Oz” – but I must admit that the “road” was a disappointment. It was a sidewalk along a city block, populated by bricks with donors’ names on them. It was a valiant effort, but it would not be an efficient way to reach the Emerald City. I don’t think Dorothy and her friends could link arm and arm and still fit as they skipped toward their destiny.
I’ve added a couple of photos to the roadside attraction pictures after wandering aimlessly today into eastern New Mexico and around the Texas panhandle. I saw lots of antelope and ended up at The Big Texan in Amarillo, where the Cloud 9 Tours group was also enjoying some steak.
5 May 2008
Hail avoidance: The Cinco de Mayo chase involved no Mexican food, tons of driving, little sleep and a monster supercell. I got on it a bit later than I would have liked, in Roswell, New Mexico, where it had a pretty laminar look that I only caught the tail end of. I attempted to follow it northeast and saw the disaster it left in its wake – lots of disabled vehicles and lots of big hailstones by the side of the road.
I watched the storm just behind it for a bit as it spun an interesting wall cloud – next to a stunning curtain of white hail – and as soon as the first hailstones started falling around me, I bailed. I decided it just wasn’t worth it. I’ve had my car destroyed before, and I didn’t want to go into the belly of the beast on a road in the middle of nowhere that would soon be in darkness. Instead I went straight east out of Roswell, and got a nice phone update on the beast from Bill Hark, who was looking at the amazing radar images. The storm cluster was so huge that I got a neat look at its south side even on that road, and got some cool after-dark time exposures. But eventually I headed to Lubbock to stay ahead of what was becoming a line. I’ll post more photos later; I’m pretty tired. There’s no point in putting out a Don’t Disturb sign at the Motel 6 because many of the screaming guests have the motto “Disturb All the Time.” Today looks like an interesting chase, too, and I have to summon up a few brain cells to do a forecast.
6 May 2008
Redemption: Let’s just say, for all the perceived tornado potential – with the seeming right combination of upper-level winds, moisture, etc. – May 6 sure was a cluster day. Clusters of storms, or clustersomething. But the lightning I saw as I drove east of Lubbock was tremendous and redeemed my day. The best stuff was when I was still driving and it was happening all around me, the kinds of close bolts that cause a concussion like a cannonball. B-BOOM! Impressive. I got several good shots. Looks like one more chase day, anyway… but there’s no guarantee of its quality given all the current storms steamrolling through the area.

Lightning flashes east of Lubbock, Texas, on May 6, 2008. Photo by Chris Kridler, SkyDiary.com, chriskridler.com
Click on any image to start a slide show of images.
8 May 2008

Supercell near Garden City, Kansas, May 8.

A beautiful shelf cloud developed.
The spin: The spin is the thing, and finally, I saw some real rotation and the classic signs of tornado formation in a storm in western Kansas, south of Dighton and northwest of Dodge City, as my Plains chase winds down. No tornado, but there might have been one in the rain and hail; several power poles were snapped in the area. And the whole thing evolved into a beautiful laminar shelf cloud that raced south.
19 May 2008

Fire in Grant, Florida, on May 13, 2008.
Fire and rain: The post-chase melancholy has set in, especially since it looks like there will be major severe weather in the Plains later this week, and I won’t be there. We finally had a little rain here in central Florida this weekend after the conflagration of the previous week. A lot of people’s lives went up in smoke.
I got to witness first-hand the drama of watching a farm in the path of the flames. There was something terrible and inexorable about the fire, especially when, on that quiet dirt road, the crackle of the flames was so audible and then their bright orange tongues shot through the trees. The long grass was so crunchy underfoot, it seemed it would take little for all of it to burn. Fortunately, a helicopter, some trucks and some good people stopped the advance.

23 MAY 2008 – Lightning flashes over Rockledge, Florida.
23 May 2008
Love that lightning: It doesn’t compare to the freakin’ tornado wedgefest in the Plains this week, which work commitments kept me from chasing, but at least there was some nice lightning here in Florida on May 23. At first, Cheryl Chang and I checked out the storms. Then I stuck around a parking lot while the last one came through close to midnight, and I snapped lightning photos in Rockledge. Hope we get lots more picturesque storms this summer.
June 2008: Tornado quest fulfilled

A storm near Claremore, Oklahoma, on June 6.
Whirlwind trip: I couldn’t resist one more chance to chase tornadoes in the Plains, so after some frustrating flight cancellations, I managed to get out there the morning of June 5, when the Storm Prediction Center was issuing a high risk and anticipating a possible tornado outbreak. I’d also anticipated a day like that, which is why I came out in the first place, but the outbreak didn’t materialize. Even local newspapers had headlines that said the “dire forecast” didn’t come about.
I drove from Kansas City into Nebraska and back to Kansas anyway and caught a beautiful shelf cloud.

Sunset lit up the storms.
The trip was worth it. I saw some wonderful storms anyway, especially the following two days, while chasing with Dave Lewison and Scott McPartland.
On June 7, west of Beatrice, Nebraska, we checked out the distant anvils from a line of storms forming to the west. A line was undesirable, but we hoped one cell would break out and dominate. We checked out multiple storms, finally aiming for a cell in Kansas near Osborne. It had a beautiful curvature indicating rotation, funnels, and eventually, a slender tornado. Here are the photos from this mini chase. Click on any one to start a slide show with captions.
More pretty pictures
Once I got home to Florida, I caught several lightning storms and even helped cover Tropical Storm Fay for my newspaper. Below are a few more photos from these events. Click on any one to start a slide show with captions.

Rainbow in Rockledge, Feb. 13, 2007.
I have extensive archives from my early storm chasing years and am consolidating them and moving them over to ChrisKridler.com from the old SkyDiary. In this instance, while there were some very nice Florida chases in 2007, I’m putting them into this one post with the highlights in a gallery.
Click on any photo to start a slide show of larger images with captions.