March 2 2012 Chase Log

March 2, 2012 Chase Log

James Gustina

Summary: March 2nd ended up being my second chase of the season and the first chase I had with a tornado. Storm speeds were ridiculous (70 mph) and with the storms being HP coupled with the hilly terrain in and around the Ohio River in Kentucky made this day extremely difficult to chase. Lucked out on the second supercell and caught a brief rope as it condensed on the other side of the road and did some low-end EF2 damage down the road.

March 2^nd stood out very early on the GFS runs in the last week of February. The accuracy of the runs leading up to March 2^nd were astounding. The GFS had a significant storm system affecting the Ohio Valley sometime between March 2^nd-March 3^rd. Excellent moisture return, with dewpoints in the lower 60s as far north as Indianapolis along with an extremely sheared environment made this day worth looking at in its own right. But the biggest shock was the projected instability values. The NAM was showing MLCAPE in excess of 2000 j/kg. The SPC ended up going with a moderate risk at 6Z with a significant tornado threat (15% hatched) over most of Kentucky, extreme southern Indiana and Ohio, as well as central Tennessee. They would later upgrade it to a high risk with a 30% hatched tornado risk over all of Kentucky and southern Ohio.

I made arrangements to go out right after school and ended up rolling out of Cincinnati around 3:00 as two supercells were moving across southern Indiana, the lead cell producing the Henryville tornado.

The storms were moving exceptionally fast so we made the choice to hop on I-71S. That was perhaps the biggest mistake of the chase. We were about two miles outside of Glencoe, Kentucky with the lead supercell above crossing the river headed directly for our stretch of interstate. Traffic had slowed to a crawl due to an overturned semi in the median ahead. With the lead supercell crossing the river we finally made it through the bottleneck and exited at Glencoe. We drove south for about a mile and tried to get a view of the base but the hills ended up blocking our view. We were forced to drop that cell since there were no viable road options at the time. We continued to drop south on US 127 as the second supercell came across the river. We got our view of the base about 5 miles south of Glencoe and stopped. We had come into the notch from the north so we had a pretty good view of the rain-wrap around the backside. We waited and let the gust front pass over.

After the gust front passed Ryan noted rapid motion right down the road. A nubby funnel poked out of the wall cloud and we observed a dust cloud under it. Within about 15 seconds the tornado almost fully condensed and rapidly moved off to the east. The RFD hit us within a minute with ping-pong ball sized hail and roughly 60 mph winds.

We got blasted with rain and hail for about two more minutes before we finally continued south. There had been a power flash down the road but we hadn't noticed any debris at the time. Unfortunately the tornado hit a stable, ripping the roof off and collapsing some of the walls, as well as a house which lost a part of its roof.

Thankfully no one was badly injured. 

We stayed for about 30 minutes after the tornado waiting for the local police and fire show up. At that point we were unsure of continuing the chase due to the time of day (darkness was only about an hour and a half away at this point) and how far away all the remaining storms were. We moved out and continued south to Frankfort before calling the chase. We came back through the area that had been hit earlier and the police had completely blocked it off. I haven't heard anything about rebuilding but hopefully the owners were able to rebuild. The National Weather Service in Wilmington rated the tornado as a low-end EF2. It stayed on the ground for about 5 miles with a maximum width of 150 yards.

Chase Stats
Miles Driven: 174
Chase costs: $80
Tornadoes: 1 (EF2)
Max Hail Size: ping pong

Another Chase Season Gone

Its finally that time of year. The last day of the year is ere and looking back on the 2012 season I can honestly say it was not that bad. Comparatively speaking, 2012 was one of the worst seasons for tornadoes and supercells in recent history. After setting the second highest number of tornadoes recorded in a year in 2011, we went to the fewest recorded in recent years in 2012. The two biggest outbreaks of the season: March 2nd and April 14th, proved to be extremely difficult to chase if you didn't make every decision perfectly. I was lucky enough to be in a good spot for viewing a tornado on March 2nd, that I think only Adam Lucio and co. saw as well. Following that, as my graduation gift I got five days during the final week of May out on the Great Plains. Although the first chase of that trip (May 24th) proved to be an enormous bust and something which nearly cost us good positioning for the next day, May 25th made up for it completely. What started out as a sleeper "See Text" day turned into a typical late spring setup in Central Kansas. I saw my first Kansas tornadoes and some of the best storm structure I have ever witnessed. After a day's rest in Omaha the next day, we went on to York, Nebraska and ended up catching some of the high-based stuff that came out of northern Kansas. Overall it was a great experience and something I won't soon forget considering it was my first time on the Plains. Between May and October not much happened. It was the quietest June I have ever seen and besides a bust on June 29th (the day of the mega derecho), not much was going on chase-wise. The season looked to be over early but thankfully a day popped up on the GFS in late September, progged for sometime between October 11-13. So on October 12, I was able to, thanks to the huge kindness of Stephen Jones, go out to the Texas Panhandle and see my first Texas/October tornadoes. The season wrapped up for me on November 10th after a fun bust in south-central Kansas with Zach Elliot, Andrew Lyons and CJ Sayre as well as a whole group of other awesome people at a bar in Pratt (which I would not recommend if you want fast service). I can't complain about one of the best seasons I've had in five years of chasing, especially with all the new people I was able to meet and hang out with. So goodbye to 2012, its been great.

Off-Season

As I sit here typing this out, we're currently stuck in what I consider the second worst part of the off-season barring February. The pattern, while becoming more active recently as opposed to the stagnant zonal flow we were stuck in for much of late November/early December, is still depressing as hell. A rather deep trough brought an arctic blast with it about a week ago and we've just begun to thaw out a bit in Oklahoma. Heading into a month long break from school with about 76 days left to go in the off-season, I can only imagine how bad the doldrums will get. This winter so far has served as quite the conundrum. Bursts of extremely cold air mixed with almost spring-like temperatures haven't made it very reassuring for what's to come next season. Although no amount of climate prediction/black magic voodoo can predict what the upcoming tornado season will be like, I am not particularly impressed so far with what the pattern looks like in the foreseeable future. Periods of zonal/split flow followed by extremely amplified longwave patterns over the mid-section of the country make this out to be a wonky winter. I pray this doesn't lead to another 2009-type season, with the best setups scattered all over creation. But it's still extremely early and making predictions/assumptions right now is beyond stupid. So here's hoping for a quick end to the off-season so we can finally see what 2013 will hold.

Breaking the Misconceptions: What Storm Chasing is Really Like

Storm chasing is perhaps unlike any other hobby in the United States. No other hobby requires such intricate knowledge of not only severe thunderstorms, but the forecast processes behind them, photography, and navigation. Since more light was shed on the hobby in the mid-late 90 there have been more and more folks entering the hobby with preconceived notions. This post is simply to expose three of the misconceptions people have coming in to help them determine if they really want to make the financial and physical commitment to chasing storms.


1. Storm chasing is a thrilling, action packed adventure. This is probably the biggest fallacy people come in hearing. About 85% of storm chasing is driving to get to a target for storms. An average chase will usually only have about 1-2 hours of excitement on a storm (note that's an average). Compare this with the 5-10 hours of driving both ways just to get there and you sometimes have a very dull experience, especially when the setup ends up busting and you're sitting in Great Bend, Kansas with 90/65 spread looking at clear blue skies. This is why having chase partners who you get along well with and who you can have fun with even on busts is extremely important. Storms are only part of the equation to having fun on a chase.

2. I will see lots of tornadoes my first season. Coming in with this mindset will most likely lead you to serious frustration in your inaugural season. Very few chasers see even one tornado their first season, let alone a lot of them. For example, it took me four seasons to see my first tornado. When most people start out, they tend not to have a wide enough knowledge base in forecasting and storm evolution to bag a tornado. This is why coming in with lower expectations and just learning from your first season is so critical. Even if you don't see a tornado, there's a good chance for learning important things that will aid you in later seasons.

3. Being a meteorology major gives me an edge. I hate to say it, but I see a lot of this at OU. Some of the freshman seem to suffer from the delusion that being OU meteorology students gives them some special status. This ties in directly to the second point: No matter how much you think you know, there will be vast amounts you still need to learn. Other chasers don't care if you're a meteorology student so don't wear it on your arm.

A Brief Look at Instability on Soundings

So recently I've noticed people have been having problems understanding how to "see" instability/buoyancy on an observed sounding so I though I'd shed a little light on the subject. The amount of instability (CAPE) on a sounding can be eyeballed by looking at the parcel path relative to the temperature line. The parcel path of a sounding is the theoretical path any given parcel (imagine a box) of air would take in the environment. The temperature line is simply displaying the temperature on an X/Y axis throughout the atmosphere (millibars on the Y-axis and temperature values on the X-axis). Below is an example of a sounding with very high ML/SBCAPE values from June 29, 2012, a day that would produce a derecho that caused extensive damage from Ohio to Maryland:

The parcel path is represented with the dashed brown line and the temperature line is the red line. There is a large area in between the two indicating an extremely unstable environment and positively buoyant parcels (tendency to rise). The larger the area in between the parcel path and temperature line indicates high instability. Be wary though, there was also a thermal inversion at 850 mb which can put a damper on rising parcels due to the parcels not being warmer than the surrounding air at 850 mb (i.e. not having positive buoyancy).

While the thermodynamics for this sounding are very favorable for severe thunderstorms, the shear environment isn't favorable for discrete severe thunderstorms i.e. supercells. This sounding however does show a favorable environment for linear thunderstorms, especially organized bows/derechos.

So when looking at soundings in the future, you can always eyeball it if the nice CAPE values below aren't available!

Official End of the Season

Well after a series of false posts, I can now say that the 2012 chase season is over. After a fun bust in south-central Kanas yesterday it looks like the pattern should go zonal with the gulf closing for the foreseeable future. Had a great season with roughly 5100 miles, 6 tornadoes and a lot of new friends. Looking forward to chase season 2013, roughly 108 days left until March 1st!

2012 Stats Update

Well folks I experienced a bit of Panhandle magic yesterday and ended up coming back to Norman with three tornadoes and an extra 1000 miles under my belt. I updated the chase stats on the post below and needless to say, I feel awesome. None of the tornadoes were long-lived or fully condensed but they still showed up rather nicely in some of my photos. I'll have a full account up in a few days. Night!