First, a brief synopsis of yesterday. Yesterday we waited around North Platte then jetted up to Hyannis, NE in hopes of getting a nice storm to go. Storms exploded at roughly 21z (4 pm) just north of Hyannis. Contrary to what normally occurs, the storms were moving northwest, as that was the direction of the prevailing wind. Shear was not great yesterday, as was evident with the storm mode. We ended up "chasing" a massive high precipitation blob, full of monster hail and flooding rain up into Cherry County, Nebraska. For those of you not familiar with Cherry County, it is roughly the size of Rhode Island...and has one road. You read that right. One road. We sampled the storm a bit, but knowing that all it was gonna do was blast us with baseball hail, we decided to get outta dodge before that one road was overtaken by the storm. We ended up going back to the same hotel in North Platte for the night.
One big gripe from yesterday though. It is totally clear that there are some people out there who are willing to do anything for the almighty dollar...even put other innocent people in danger. I'm talking about you Tony Laubach. Tony is a fairly well respected chaser based outta Denver who is a main chaser on the discovery channel's "Storm Chasers". Up until yesterday I had no reason to have anything other than the utmost respect for the guy. In fact, two posts ago I posted a link to his video from last Tuesday. Well, I can no longer say that.
While trying to approach the storm, which was cozily nestled in the scenic sand hills of Nebraska, we found ourselves on a highway with a speed limit of 55. Now this is important as being that it was in the sand hills, the highway was full of very sudden twists and turns. We felt that a fairly safe speed on this highway was 60 to 65 miles per hour. While doing a speed somewhere in that range, Tony and his three car/van caravan decided it best to tailgate us until we were doing almost 80, at which point they got sick of being behind us, and decided to pass us, scowls on their faces. Fine. Whatever.
So we finally get on the storm, where in order to assure ourselves of not only a nice view, but a decent escape route as well, we pull onto some kind of driveway that lead up to a real nice house on top of a hill. We stop their briefly to watch the storm get closer. Upon noticing the monster hail core beginning to come down the road in front of us, we decide it best to turn around and make our escape. Upon turning around we were pleasantly surprised to see Tony and all of his cameramen standing in the middle of the road, blocking our exit. They finally decided to allow us to go through, and we were able to get out just in time. Fine. Whatever.
It was this last straw though that finally broke the camels back. As if it was not enough that they had almost had an accident with us getting to the storm, and then almost forcing us to get stuck in a violent hail core, Tony and his "twistex" group decided to once again tailgate us through the sand hills...AWAY FROM THE DAMN STORM! At this point, we were no longer even chasing. We were merely heading back for the night. But apparently that didn't matter to Tony and his crew. No, they needed to make sure they got back to where ever they had to go faster than the speed of sound. At one point, we found ourselves going 87 miles per hour with three cars trying to pass us! Finally they did pass us...at which point they probably did close to 100 miles per hour back into the small town of Mullen, NE, where they were finally forced to slow down. I can tell you this. After seeing what the people on that show are like in real life (I already hated Reed Timmer, who is the big guy on the show), I don't think I'll be watching anymore, something that given how much I enjoyed the show, truly upsets me to write.
So I guess I'm done ranting...for now...
So today was strictly a travel day. Woke up this morning in North Platte after the cold front went through to mid 60's temps and a brisk north-northwest wind. Not exactly conducive to severe weather to say the least. Not seeing much tomorrow (although I wouldn't be surprised see a couple of storms real late in the Texas panhandle tomorrow), we decided to head to Adam's house (big thanks to him and his family for having me) in Lee's Summit, MO (near Kansas City) for a couple of days. The rest of our chase looks like it's gonna be further east than where we've been, so it puts us in good position for what could be a couple of good days to end the chase. Tuesday and Wednesday appear to have great potential, but could go the other way real quick. We'd obviously love to squeeze another good day in before the end, but having seen three, maybe more tornadoes, as well as about five supercells, I really can not complain about the trip. I really like what the GFS does with the wind profiles on Tuesday, so hopefully that can come to fruition. One person on a storm chase board that I am on likened the set-up Tuesday to May 22, 2004, when a 2.5 mile wide tornado touched down in Hallam, NE. That wouldn't suck.
Before I go, its time for one more rant.
I have to say though over the last couple of days I have learned not to trust anything supposed severe weather expert Dr. Greg Forbes says. Dr. Forbes is the "severe weather expert" for the weather channel, and is fairly well respected in the meteorological community. The reason I am so upset with Dr. Forbes is this. Every day for the past week or so, on his Facebook, Dr. Forbes has talked about possible tornadoes in a large number of states, including some in places where the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center outlines as areas where storms would not even occur. Moreover, Dr. Forbes has for two days now talked about a possible tornado outbreak on Wednesday in this area, and then ever more interestingly, in NEW JERSEY on Thursday. That is just not going to happen. NONE of the models show anything conducive to a tornado outbreak for either of those days. What's more, very few of the NWS hazardous weather outlooks for those areas even talk about severe thunderstorms.
Now Dr. Forbes is in a position where it is his responsibility to give a good forecast without causing any kind of unnecessary nervousness. What he does on these facebook updates is incredibly irresponsible. He broad-brushes multiple areas where tornadoes will be possible, rarely with tornadoes actually occurring. To insinuate that a tornado outbreak is even possible, in an area where all it will do is cause people to become scared is not fair to his viewers and followers. People on Facebook are already starting to become nervous about an outbreak in their area.
There will be no tornado outbreak on Wednesday nor on Thursday. If we see even ONE tornado in NJ on Thursday I will be INCREDIBLY surprised.
As a chaser, god knows I hope he is correct in his saying that tornadoes will occur on those days, but as someone who can make a forecast, even at my level of ability, I know he is incorrect. Dr. Forbes may have once been great...but now he is clearly burnt out. Time for good ol' Doc Forbes to hang em up.
FINALLY...one last important thing. PH count is up to 15. Only seen one buffet though :(
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