May 10, 2015
Statistics
Burlington, CO 7:16 AM 5/10/2015
Catoosa, OK 3:57 PM 5/11/2015
Summary
Warm front play over Sioux City. Left Burlington, CO early morning with snow on ground. Ongoing MCS across eastern NE and western IA looked to force a bust, despite early tornadoes over southern SD. Stopped northeast of Sioux Falls for dinner and to watch skies. Called chase and missed Iowa storm initiation and tornadoes. Overnighted in Omaha with TIV crew before dropping Doghouse off in Oklahoma the next day.
Crew and Equipment
Chase partners: Jennifer Brindley Ubl, Phil Bates, Payton Ware. Equipment: Canon 60D, Canon t2i, Canon EFS 10-22, Canon EF 50mm, Sony HDR-xr500v.
Video
Map
Details
May 10 was our last day crewing the Doghouse on this trip. Brindley, Phil Bates, Payton Ware, and I awoke early in Burlington, CO to make a target of Sioux City, IA. A warm front was forecast to lift into southern SD and western IA in a strongly sheared environment. Unfortunately, the cap was wide open so interfering and ongoing convection was a concern. The TIV crew had a head start on us, overnighting in Kansas after a blown tire on the previous chase kept us in Colorado.
Doghouse, spare tire installed, was ready for action and another chase day. I found her covered in snow that morning. The winter side of the system had caught up with us overnight, even creating blizzard conditions toward Denver. We had a frosty, early start, but we were ready to make a long haul for our chase target.
We caught up with Sean Casey and the TIV crew in eastern Nebraska. They were having trouble with an axle and found a local welder in town that could do some on the spot repair work. We were directed to continue on the chase without them, but they were rolling not long afterwards. It was a long slog through the rain on slow two lane highways, stair stepping our way up toward the target area. An ongoing convective system was moving through the warm sector and looked to mess up our target, killing the instability. The situation made us really pessimistic about our chances for later in the day and we were beginning to feel like our long haul was a futile effort. Driving in the rain was stressful and we were exhausted by the time we got up to Sioux City. Morale in the Doghouse was low.
We caught up with Sean Casey and the TIV crew in eastern Nebraska. They were having trouble with an axle and found a local welder in town that could do some on the spot repair work. We were directed to continue on the chase without them, but they were rolling not long afterwards. It was a long slog through the rain on slow two lane highways, stair stepping our way up toward the target area. An ongoing convective system was moving through the warm sector and looked to mess up our target, killing the instability. The situation made us really pessimistic about our chances for later in the day and we were beginning to feel like our long haul was a futile effort. Driving in the rain was stressful and we were exhausted by the time we got up to Sioux City. Morale in the Doghouse was low.
Horses
5:44 PM
We moved northeast into South Dakota to get some shots of convection and see how the day would pan out. Brindley found some friendly horses on the side of the road while Phil shot cloud footage. Meanwhile, TIV crew had called the chase and was heading into to Omaha for the night and was calling us back as well.
We left and started making our way down 29 to Omaha, just as a new line of storms fired in Iowa. We could see the gold convection catching the low evening light. The storms looked gorgeous and we considered going after them, but we were more than 70 miles away from intercepting them by the time we realized we were missing the show, and the storms were moving away from us. We couldn’t catch them with any daylight left. I hung my head watching tornado warnings and reports starting to stream in. We had gotten down on our target, were unmotivated, and weren’t paying attention for recovery and redevelopment, and we missed out. We came into Omaha and met up with the TIV crew later that night, watched our May 9 footage on the TV with everyone while eating some delivery pizza.
The next day we had to take Doghouse back to Tulsa and drop Phil off at the airport. We stopped for a group shot of the crew in our chase vehicle:
Conclusion
Unwillingness to go the last mile and expend that extra effort after a long, hard haul cost us some nice shots. Photogenic tornadoes with nice evening light spun up in western Iowa, but we let our pessimism about the day’s setup and lack of motivation keep us from intercepting them. The tornadoes were “just in time” as the air mass recovered behind the MCS, which we weren’t expecting. It was a lesson learned in what can happen when you don’t give it your all and let your guard down. We still had a great trip overall, however, with a couple of fantastic tornado chases and a ton of adventures and memories. Our crew of four in the Doghouse worked out great too.
Lessons Learned
- Don’t let your down mood and pessimism about the setup keep you from going the distance needed to intercept.
- Watch the target area for “just in time” recovery of the air mass behind an ongoing MCS for later redevelopment.
