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Normally I don’t go around quoting myself, but I couldn’t help but think of a line from my novel Tornado Pinball when I saw the rotating updraft spinning above our heads during a storm chase May 24: “The rotation above the road drew him in, a swirling gateway to infinity, all the circles of nature, a tunnel to the past.”

I chased today with Greg Stephens, Dayna Vettese and Brad Rousseau. We started the day in Liberal, Kansas, and targeted northeast Colorado and the dryline as a trigger for storms. It took a while for them to get going, but we saw some extraordinary motion and lightning.

This storm, which we chased from northeast Colorado into Nebraska, was filled with high-based rotation, shear funnels and lightning and eventually was severe- and tornado-warned. But the “cinnamon bun” swirl above our heads was its most beautiful and entrancing moment. The video includes time-lapses of it. 

Roll over a photo to see its caption, and click on any of the pictures to start a slide show of larger images.

 

I chased storms on May 20 with Dave Lewison, Scott McPartland, Dayna Vettese and Brad Rousseau, Greg Stephens, and Mark Robinson and his Weather Network crewmate Jaclyn Whittal. We started the day in Norman, Oklahoma, and chose southern Oklahoma as our target, not realizing that a devastating tornado would strike so near to our starting point later in the day.

We saw a tornado, too, but there was no joy in storm chasing this day when we heard the news about Moore being struck.

The May 20 Duncan, Oklahoma, tornado was small, and the condensation funnel didn’t extend all the way to the ground, but we had confirmation that the circulation did indeed contact the ground. After we saw it, we saw the radar from the Moore, Oklahoma, tornado and knew we had missed a large and devastating tornado. A lot of the storm chasers (and there are so many these days) were in our target area and missed it, too.

Note: Post updated with images transferred from the old Sky Diary site.

Roll over a photo to see its caption, and click on any of the pictures to start a slide show of larger images.

Sometimes social obligations make it hard to chase storms, but a nasty severe storm came to me on Sunday, May 11, 2013, in Rockledge, Florida. This was a wicked line that approached Brevard County, on Florida’s east coast, from the west.

I was at a party and went outside to shoot photos of the approaching storm. The lightning became very intense as it neared, so I retreated from the home’s driveway to the alcove at the front door. Note: This is not a safe shelter from lightning, but I felt less exposed there.

I shot a little video, then switched to stills, just before a lightning bolt hit a tree just on the other side of the home’s garage. The flash and bang were instantaneous – what storm chasers call a “flang” – and it scared me thoroughly. I was lucky it didn’t hit any closer.

Afterward, I got photos of the palm tree that was damaged. There was a hole blasted in its trunk.

The storm became severe-warned and caused a lot of minor wind damage.

Roll over a photo to see its caption, and click on any of the pictures to start a slide show of larger images.

You can tell it’s been a dull storm-chasing season for Tornado Alley, at least so far. Storm chasers on social media are posting a lot of “from the vault” and computer-model-related posts and not much in the way of recent storms.

In the last year – May 2012 to April 2013 – there have been just seven reported tornado-related deaths in the United States, Harold Brooks reports on NOAA’s U.S. Severe Weather Blog. That’s the lowest 12-month number since 1899.

What’s good for the public in terms of gentle weather is pretty dull for weather fanatics – who would prefer to see tornadoes in unpopulated areas – but Italy is picking up the slack. Several tornadoes struck in the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy on May 3, a date that shall go down in infamy in the States as the anniversary of the deadly 1999 outbreak, including the F5 that devastated Moore, Oklahoma.

I’ll be heading out to Tornado Alley soon, I hope. There will likely be interesting storms there this week, but I’m still waiting for a more active period … or I will take my chance on what comes, perhaps as soon as next week.

Chasing tornadoes at night is rarely wise, but the ability to get radar images almost instantly, almost anywhere, has made taking that risk a little bit more palatable.

I decided to chase a decent chance of severe storms in central Florida on April 14, with at least the hope of testing my storm-chasing gear. That still needs work – and the first part of the chase was frustrating. The second was fueled with adrenaline.

Earlier in the day, I gave the Midland USA XTC-300 wearable camera a tryout during the storm-chase in central Florida on Sunday, in preparation for using it in Tornado Alley. In this short video, time-lapsed in editing, it was attached to my car with a suction-cup mount and stood up to highway speeds and rain. Video by Chris Kridler; music licensed from FootageFirm; camera courtesy Midland USA.

 

Sunday night, when a tornado-warned storm approached my neighborhood – with lots of attendant lightning – I decided to take a chance and see what I could get. Mostly, I wanted lightning, but the persistent rain made it hard to get a clear shot. However, I found myself in the path of a tornado-warned storm headed for Rockledge, Florida, and according to the radar, I was really in the path. The “hook echo” was pronounced and on track to collide with me. So I watched and photographed the storm with nervous anticipation.

What I saw at the time and in my photos was, shall we say, suspicious. Again, chasing at night, it’s very difficult to see and identify significant features such as funnels and tornadoes, when so-call scud clouds can mimic them easily. Yet the persistent feature in this photo (in several photos, actually) sure looked like a funnel.

The National Weather Service says there were likely two tornadoes, including one in Cocoa produced by the storm that spawned what I think was a funnel in my photographs.

Roll over a photo to see its caption, and click on any of the pictures to start a slide show of larger images. Note: Post updated with images from my old Sky Diary site.

 

The chill has lasted longer than usual this winter here in Florida, but at least we’re not experiencing snowstorm after snowstorm. What we did get was a blast of wind in a squall line Sunday, March 24. I drove out to meet it west of Cocoa.

 

It was moving so fast (warned with a motion of 55 mph), I couldn’t reach the area of rotation. I didn’t even have time to set up and get nice photos of the green gust front. But I did get video in my car as it blasted me.

Despite tornado warnings, the National Weather Service found only straight-line wind damage in its survey.

 

It’s not long now until the May chase! Want to see more stormy images? If you’re on Florida’s Space Coast, get a look at my storm photography on exhibit at Titusville’s Downtown Gallery, 335 S. Washington Ave. (321-268-0122), through April 16. There, you can also pick up copies of my Storm Seekers novels, Funnel Vision and Tornado Pinball – or get them online.

I’m also speaking about storm chasing and signing books at Cocoa Beach Library on April 6 at 2 p.m.  The program is free.

Late edit: Just added an event – a book signing the evening of April 6 at Coco’s during Cocoa Village’s gallery walk.

Note: Post updated with images from the old Sky Diary site.

 
I’ve posted a video of mostly time-lapses of some of my favorite storms of 2012. It’s a little moody. 

The video shows tornadoes and timelapses of supercells in Tornado Alley, as well as beautiful Florida shelf clouds.

See the storm chasing reports index for more from 2012 and other years.

I have a busy next few days scheduled and would love to share them with you:

First, come out to the Melbourne Independent Filmmakers’ Festival tonight and Saturday. There’s a full slate of fascinating films and other programming planned, from the comedy show tonight to the Florida Filmmakers Matinee Saturday starting at 9 a.m. That’s when you can see my documentary, “Hourglass,” about sand sculptors battling the weather and the clock to prepare for the Art of Sand festival. Get tickets and see the schedule for the event, at The Oaks Premiere Theaters in Melbourne.

Also, at noon on Monday, you can hear me chatting with Seeta Durjan Begui on “Seeta and Friends” on WMEL-AM radio. You can listen online.

Monday evening at 7 p.m., come to a free storm-chasing presentation at the Eau Gallie Library (sponsored by Friends of the Eau Gallie Library). I’ll be talking about the realities of storm chasing, showing video and photos and my short documentary “Chasing Reality,” and signing copies of my novel “Funnel Vision.” That’s the storm-chasing adventure to which I’m writing a sequel right now!

Learn more about upcoming events in my calendar.

I have a “Highway to Hail” sticker on my car. It’s one of those storm chaser puns, with nothing to do with the AC/DC album but everything to do with those icy, rock-hard missiles from the sky that are always a hazard when chasing tornadoes. I’ve had two car-remodeling encounters with hail. One was May 30, 2001, in the Texas Panhandle, the event known among my friends as “Mile Marker 6.” That’s the sign on I-40 that featured prominently in the video I shot that day.

Even worse was May 12, 2005, near South Plains, Texas, a day that was at least partially redeemed by the really nice tornado that preceded the assault. I’ve remastered my video and produced a new edit that I’ve uploaded to YouTube (below).

All of my hail encounters helped inform the hail barrage that happens during one of the action sequences in my novel Funnel Vision. I once took shelter in a country airport, for instance, though it was in Colorado, not Kansas. And if you turn up the sound in this video, you’ll understand that visceral, chilling feeling of having your car destroyed while you’re still inside it. Enjoy.

Note: For best quality, roll your cursor over the lower right of the video window, click on the gear symbol, and choose 720p HD.

May 29 of this year was an example of a great storm chase that didn’t include catching a tornado. There was a brief tornado with this storm, but from my position, I didn’t see it. Nonetheless, at one point I was incredibly close to a rotating wall cloud – do I get points for proximity? No, I guess not. But the real crown jewel of this chase was a few minutes of incredible structure on this supercell, which I followed with friends, then on my own, from Canton, Oklahoma, toward the Oklahoma City metro. This newly posted video summarizes the day. Check out the May 29 pictures, some of the best from this year’s trip, or see all the 2012 chase reports.