I'm in Colorado...

I have loved tornadoes since I was a kid long, long ago and saw the tornado in the Wizard of Oz.

I started chasing storms back in the 80's. I didn't have a ham radio, back then no cell phones or a laptops with radar to help me find storms. I had a 10 channel scanner from radio shack with which I had the NOAA weather channels on. I had a CB I bought there too, thinking that if I was out in the country and there wasn't a phone, if a storm happened I could get a trucker passing by to contact the police. And I had a roll of dimes in case there was a pay phone nearby.

The next year I called the NWS and a friendly worker there told me the name of the guy who was on the Denver chase team and I called him and he graciously gave me frequencies that I could put in my scanner to listen to the chasers on ham radio. It changed my chasing life.

I soon learned to be where they were. I never approached any of them, to this day I haven't. But I learned, I learned to look at what they were looking at. I learned to pay attention to when they were on with NWS and to see in the sky what NWS was seeing on radar. I got books from the library, back then, no computer...I learned about clouds, about shear, convection, meso, lift, dry lines, disturbances, rotation, DBZ's , all the elements that might make a cell a supercell, anvils, wall clouds.

Along the way I learned about BBQ point and why it was called that. I became familiar with Taco Chris, who I swear could make it from Denver to Sterling in what seemed like 15 minutes if he was off after a storm. I learned about the "NET" and the criteria of it. Total respect for the "NET", it could and has saved lives.

I learned to be on the right side of the storm. I have not however learned to be in Strasburg, CO and not get pummeled by hail...ack!

I've taken a dog with me starting with my Old English Sheepdog, Duncan, and then my Great Danes Jake and Eli, and then my most precious Irish Setter, Kineely, who started off with me chasing when he was a puppy, he'd just nap in the back seat. Now it's my English Cocker, Obi, and none of my dogs have ever been afraid of thunder or hail, or a tornado.

Now I still chase with my Radio Shack scanner, and a FM transistor that allows the sound of the scanner to go through my car stereo, so I can hear it when I'm in Strasburg being pummeled by hail. I have an antenna on my car, a flashing yellow light, and my SKYWARN emblems on my car, police let me go fast and get through now. And I have a cell phone with speed dial to the NWS in Boulder to report what I see. And I'm good at the sky, I'm good at reading a storm, I need a better camera though, and a netbook someday.

My idea of a great vacation would be to chase in May when all the chasers are in tornado alley, and I will. This my 29th year of chasing.

So this is my little blog about the storms I do get to see, most days it's waiting and chasing, and nothing, but I've learned to be a little more patient. I don't always follow the chasers cause I'm better at going off after what "I" think might be a storm that does something, and more often then not now, I'm right.

But I still have my chasing heros here, people I see all the time out there, ones I respect greatly and ones from way back when I started, that I never met, but am grateful for their kindness to me when I called, or needed help, among them all, not in any order...

Dave
Rich
Ian
Taco Chris
Verne Carlson
Tony Laubach
Tim Samaras
Roger Hill
Reed Timmer, and countless others...thank you guys!

So I'll post my chase experiences here, put up some pictures, some video here and there, and hope I get better equipment, but mostly better at taking pictures and video.

Welcome to Colorado, and a "beer budget-ers" storm chasing journal.



Thursday, June 10, 2010

June 10,2010...


Thursday, again on the way home from work, I'm driving eastbound on I-70 and notice to my right a gorgeous supercell coming out of Douglas county, I stopped at Airpark exit, and start putting my antenna and light on the roof of the wagon and my SKYWARN emblems ready to go off after this mofo if it lights up.
Sure enough, this cell drops a textbook wall cloud and the chatter on the scanner, they all say it's got to have a tornado in it. All of a sudden all these chasers pull up, including this fabulous SUV with STORM on it and radar and a weather station on the roof. I get back on eastbound I-70 and go after it, trying to get a bit ahead of it. Well, the wall cloud starts falling apart so I get off in Byers thinking I'll stop at the store for some groceries, I look up and it's looking better, so I don't even get out of the car, I sit there with the phone ready to call NWS cause it's not really organized...but it's rotating, slowly, but rotating, then it's gone. So I opt to take off again eastbound towards Deer Trail, CO and here comes the hail, big hail, I know there's an exit between me and Deer Trail, so I go for it figuring I'll wait out the hail under the interstate, well everyone else had thought the same thing, so I barrel over the the abandoned dog track and drive right up under the entry way, another couple, scared...from KS joins me. The storm is moving northeast the hail is just now crossing the highway, I tell the couple to go, that the interstate should drop south from here and away from this storm, I head for Hwy 40 to Deer Trail, again a frightened driver stops me and asks, again going to KS, I tell her the same thing and to keep her AM station tuned to 850 cause they'll sound warnings.
I get to Deer Trail and follow this ROTATING most gorgeous structured cell that I've seen in years, and I have no camera, it let down two tornadoes, and no camera, but luckily the amazing chaser Verne Carlson did.
Wonderful amazing pictures. He's da bomb!
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Saturday, June 5, 2010

June 5, 2010

So it's late again. Sunday around 6pm and the NOAA radio goes off about a storm moving through Elbert county. So I grab my bag, dog, and camera and tell my hubby that I'm driving to the top of the road to see things better.

I got up there and this beautiful supercell was just sitting there east of me waiting to have it's picture taken. Again all the storms were firing up north, but I decided I'd follow this one for a while to see if it would produce anything.

I ended going east on Hwy 36 out of Byers. I drove and drove, and from the north storms were moving backwards....northwest to southeast rather then the typical southwest to northeast, (personally, I think that we get hellacious storms when they come in backwards) and ended up in Lindon, CO, didn't see a tornado, but got I think a funnel in a wall cloud and some nice pics of the farmland of eastern Colorado. I call this album...I'm sitting at Woodlin School and the NOAA radio just came out with a Severe Thunderstorm Warning for Woodlin School with baseball sized hail, so I should get the hell out of here!

Enjoy!

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