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Click here for more on the Virginia Tech Storm Chase 2009 from the Hokie Storm Chasers page

VERNON, Texas -- The storm chasers finally chased storms today.

Two pretty good storms, at that. Both exhibited some supercell characteristics at times, but upper-level winds were insufficient to maintain the storms for more than about an hour or two.

The first storm formed less than 20 miles from our target, Childress, Texas. We enjoyed Memorial Day afternoon at a lakeside park in Childress, waiting on the storms to begin. A few popped here and there, but the closest one just north of the park quickly developed into a strong storm with a rain-free base and a slight lowering. We pursued it northward and watched it slowly unwind near the Texas-Oklahoma border.

The second storm was over western Oklahoma, north of where we expected the biggest stuff to fire. It took us more than an hour to get close to see it, but there were some supercell-like characteristics, like a pronounced wall cloud in a forward part of the southeast-moving storm where rotation was briefly observed on radar a time or two. But this storm also fizzled over the Oklahoma prairies, leaving a pleasant evening rainbow.

Throughout the afternoon, we zigzagged in and out with the VORTEX2 procession of more than 100   about 40 vehicles, (CORRECTED: More than 100 scientists in about 40 vehicles) engaged in a massive experiment to surround a tornadic thunderstorm and measure data over five weeks. The same weather pattern that has limited our chase opportunities has restricted the opportunities for VORTEX2 to collect data on storms.

On Tuesday, we'll aim to catch something more intense and longer lasting as the best setup of the trip occurs in north Texas ... though it, too, may have some screws loose.

Click here for more on Virginia Tech storm chase 2009, including blog entries, photos, video and a locator map.

LIBERAL, Kan. -- As we made a stop in our planned drive to Scottsbluff, Nebraska, this morning, new data came in pointing to the potential for greater instability and greater wind dynamics over western Texas on Monday. So the Virginia Tech storm chase team faced a decision: Keep going to the possible marginally severe storms expected to develop over eastern Wyoming and western Nebraska, or divert immediately south so we could get to Texas by Monday afternoon.

Decisions like this are NOT made by the leaders, Dave Carroll and me, but by the student chasers. We presented the cases for and against each option, and then left the dozen student chasers to discuss, debate and deliberate on their own without our input. In the end, the jury returned a verdict, though not unanimously: Go to Texas.

So we dropped today's chase in the middle and headed south, reaching Liberal, Kansas, late this evening. The day's storm reports did not reveal much we had left behind in the Northern Plains. We'll head several hours south through the Texas Panhandle on Monday in hopes of a coming up with a Memorial Day supercell catch.

Click here for the "Hokie Storm Chasers" home page, including current tracking, blog and Twitter reports, and multimedia

OGALLALA, Neb. -- We targeted North Platte, Neb., for possible severe weather today.

This afternoon, a tornado touched down 15 miles east of North Platte, very close to Interstate 80.

But we weren't there.

We made a decision to sink south into better instability as showers and weak storms began to fire along a diffuse boundary between warm and cool air. It would prove not to be a good decision.

It was doubtful we would have been well placed to view the brief tornado even if we had headed west. But the only severe storms -- marginal as they  were -- in the region occurred in Southwest Nebraska.  We were not there, even though our initial forecasting was very good on where the best chance of severe storms would be in this extremely severe-challenged weather pattern.

Lesson learned: Don't venture too far away from the frontal boundary in this environment of limited shear and limited instability. Storms can't survive without the help that boundary provides.

We'll likely try again Sunday, probably somewhere in western Nebraska, eastern Wyoming or southern South Dakota, as the boundary lifts back to the north. Conditions for severe weather look slightly greater, but still marginal.

Click here for the "Hokie Storm Chasers" home page, including current tracking, blog and Twitter reports, and multimedia

BEATRICE, Neb. -- The piece of metal seemed to be floating in the air like a bird. But it wasn't. It was falling.

A kabooming explosion startled us. About 75 yards ahead of us, leading the 3-vehicle Virginia Tech chaser procession today, the back tire of a tanker truck exploded into shards across the multi-lane Interstate 70 in the urban tangle of St. Louis. A huge piece of crumpled metal from the truck was dropped in our lane.

And a piece of metal about the size of a car window was ejected upward, about 50 feet off the ground. Geography professor Bob Oliver, driving the small car not far behind me, likened it to watching a pop-up in baseball. But I didn't want to catch it. I aimed to miss it.

The metal crashed into the lane to my left, safely missing the van I was driving. All three of our chase vehicles were able to safely dodge metal and tire shards in the road, as the tanker veered to the right shoulder of the highway.

We had already endured two traffic tie-ups in St. Louis and would experience yet another. When the third tie-up occurred in St. Louis' western suburbs, a car in the lane to my left ended up careening into the median to avoid rear-ending the car in front of it. For a second, it appeared that car would come back out of the median, bump into a vehicle on my left, which might then bump us. Blessedly, thankfully, that didn't happen.

It all underscores a point we've often made. Tornadoes are never our biggest safety concern on the annual storm chase trip -- not even close, ranking under more common storm dangers like lightning, hail, heavy rain and high winds. But all of those rank well below our number one risk: Road travel, often in dry, beautiful weather. The greatest risk of a storm chase trip varies little from that of a cross-country family vacation or any long-distance road trip.

We are in southeast Nebraska tonight after a drive under cumulus-dotted skies that signal an increase of moisture and instability. We're still not expecting any huge outbreaks or, really, much in the way of organized severe weather. The upper air dynamics remain very weak, and show no signs of changing on a large scale for the foreseeable future.

But thunderstorms are expected to occur almost every day this week in the Rockies and the High Plains region that parallels them to the east. We're looking for the little pockets that could spin up severe weather in localized areas.

It's a difficult way to chase storms. But it's what we have.

Click here for more on the trip from the Virginia Tech "Hokie Storm Chasers" site

DALE, Ind. -- "Every hand's a winner, and every hand's a loser," sang Kenny Rogers in his 1980s hit song "The Gambler."

In storm chasing, we know that every hand can be a loser. Even in the most potent tornado outbreaks, veteran chasers are sometimes left behind without much to show for the day because of bad positioning, sudden changes in the weather pattern, or just bad luck.

This year's hand dealt by the weather pattern is full of junk (for storm chasers ... residents in Tornado Alley are pleased!). Almost every conceivable factor that could be working against large-scale severe weather in the central U.S. has been in play. But can that hand prove to be a winner for the Virginia Tech Storm Chase team? We've managed to pull off spectacular supercells every year despite being dealt some very poor cards.

We see a few clues that could lead to a little bit of heightened interest in the High Plains, all the way from Dakotas to northeast New Mexico. But pinpointing an area that might have at least an outside shot at severe, preferably rotating, storms is extremely difficult. It's a big gamble. Tomorrow, we will try to set ourselves up to move toward an area that might have a better chance of severe weather come Saturday and Sunday.

Tonight, we're in Dale, Ind. We ate a good home-style, Midwestern meal at Windell's Cafe in Dale. We met tonight and looked over some weather parameters, and will again in the morning before deciding on where to roll the dice. Tomorrow will be a travel day, and, hopefully, if we gamble correctly, we will be chasing something thunderous on Saturday.

After 4 days in self-imposed dry dock, Virginia Tech Storm Chase 2009 finally leaves from Blacksburg on Thursday morning. Unlike mariners soothed by calm seas, we will be searching for the violent thunderstorms in the wide spaces of the central U.S., primarily the Great Plains region that parallels the Rockies hundreds of miles to the east from Canada to Mexico.

This looks to be an especially challenging trip. Strong winds aloft, typically dipping and diving across the nation, have retreated to Canada, more like late June or even July rather than late May. The rich Gulf of Mexico moisture that typically moves unhindered northward over the prairies has been stymied, first by a chilly Canadian air mass sinking southward and now by a persisent low pressure system whirling counterclockwise, pushing north winds into the Gulf.

Thunderstorms will probably be widespread this weekend over much of the central and northern Plains as weak disturbances tap moisture primarily of Pacific origin, having surged northeastward in a "monsoon" like fashion across the Desert Southwest, a phenomenon also more typical of mid to late summer. The challenge for us will be finding regions where rotating severe storm structures will be possible. The best chance of that now appears to be in the northern High Plains of western Nebraska, eastern Wyoming, southwestern South Dakota and perhaps eastern Colorado, where east winds blowing uphill may be able to pool enough moisture for convection under moderately strong winds aloft that can give some storms a spin.

Throughout next week, there is little hint of any large-scale weather pattern change, but additional cold fronts from the northwest and disturbances from the west ... plus at least a modest return of Gulf moisture ... might be able to trigger a few severe storms here and there. No outbreaks appear in the offing, but we're not really looking for one: Just one special supercell.

For more on Storm Chase 2009, please also visit the Virginia Tech Storm Chase blog linked here.

2009 chase team members:
Anthony Phillips, junior, Snowville, Va., geography (student trainer, returnee from 2005 trip)
Andrew Smith, senior, Mechanicsville, Va., civil engineering (student trainer, returnee from 2008 trip)
Erik Ferryman, senior, Chesterfield, Va., geography
Nathan Horne, junior, Spencer, Va., geography
Samantha Huddleston, sophomore, Roanoke, Va., engineering
Jiyoung Jeon, senior, Seoul, South Korea, geography
Phillip Long, junior, Newport, Va., geography
Andrew Martus, junior, Fredericksburg, Va., geography 
Ashley Shim, junior, Berryville, Va., biology
Kevin Shutta, freshman, Waltersville, Md., business 
Brian Smith, senior, Salisbury, Md., aerospace engineering
Byron Wiedeman, senior, Vienna, Va., physics
David Carroll, Virginia Tech meteorology instructor, trip leader
Kevin Myatt, Roanoke Times/roanoke.com weather columnist
Bob Oliver, visiting assistant professor, geography, Sarnia, Canada
Jim Stroup, Tech photographer

Each of the last four years on the annual storm chase trip, we have had some period of time that resembles the current weather pattern: strong western/central U.S. high pressure, deep dip in the jet stream to the east, cold front entering or crossing the Gulf of Mexico. Such a pattern shuts down the typical spring thunderstorm pattern in the central U.S., as moisture flow from the Gulf is cut off and storm systems from the west that could trigger severe weather are largely blocked by high pressure.

Last year, we sat out a 7-day mid-trip lull similar to this pattern. Dead periods lasting 3 to 5 days occurred in the 2005, 2006 and 2007 trips.

But this year, Virginia Tech meteorology instructor Dave Carroll and I, after days of watching forecast models converge on a solution that would almost inevitably lead to several days of quiet weather, made the unprecedented decision to delay the trip four days, leaving on Thursday and remaining out as much as four days later than scheduled on the back end. We expect to return on or before June 3.

Part of the decision to delay was simply because we could, due to the scheduling flexibility of everyone  on board. The biggest reason is that this pattern looks especially negative for severe storm development, essentially anywhere east of the Rockies. An added factor is the potential for a strong low to develop in the Gulf of Mexico later this week, which threatens to further cut off moisture return flow to the Plains that would otherwise be expected to develop.

There was no point spending four days worth of gas and lodging, with the chances of significant storms appearing to be just about nil, when we could save that for four more days at the end of the trip, when the pattern might be different. There is no guarantee of that, and the forecast models are offering very mixed signals, none of which, as of now, portend any kind of classic severe weather outbreaks.

But, as Dave likes to say, we don't need an outbreak, just one supercell.

Prospects for storms in the open Plains do begin to increase by late this week into the weekend, though in some atypical ways that do not scream "severe" at us. That's when we'll go and roll the dice. Storm chasing is always a gamble based on our best guesses at uncertain factors. We learn from the hits and misses.

Click here for more on how the storm chase trip is advancing Virginia Tech toward a possible meteorology degree program

Click here to read about a Blacksburg High graduate who is a part of the VORTEX2 project

You may have seen, heard or read something about VORTEX2, the large-scale tornado research project that got under way Sunday in the Great Plains, continuing through mid-June. Every year, there are scores of professional, government and university research teams criss-crossing the central United States in search of severe storms and tornadoes. This year, 20 of those entities have joined forces for an enormous research project aimed at encircling a single tornado-producing thunderstorm with about 40 vehicles -- including 10 mobile Doppler radar trucks, called DOWs, Doppler on wheels -- and an even larger number of unmanned probes (including, in some areas, a remote-controlled aircraft). The purpose is to collect data that will help scientists understand better how a tornado and its parent thunderstorm function.

The first VORTEX operated in 1994 and 1995 and finally achieved its goal of surrounding a tornadic storm in the Texas Panhandle in June 1995, near the end of the project. The logistics are daunting in first identifying a likely tornadic storm, positioning scores of vehicles and probes around it, and then seeing whether or not the storm actually produces a tornado. Like the first VORTEX, this project is scheduled to return for a second year in 2010.

Beginning Sunday (possibly a day or two later, depending on our best estimation of the upcoming weather pattern), I will be returning to the Plains as a volunteer co-leader for the Virginia Tech storm chase team. Our goal will be to forecast, track and observe severe storms and potentially tornadoes over a 2-week period. It's quite possible that we will be in the same area as VORTEX2 on occasion. Between university groups like ours, commercial tour groups, various researchers and professionals, and hundreds of hobbyists and amateurs, a Plains tornado outbreak can be quite a crowded place sometimes.

In the meantime, here's some additional information on VORTEX2: http://www.vortex2.org/home/

It will take months to analyze the video and photos and digest all the experiences from Storm Chase 2008. But for the most part in this blog, I'm ending the discussion of it today. Compared to previous storm chases, this was certainly the most prolific of the four I've been a part of in terms of tornado production, and also in terms of truly powerful supercell thunderstorms. I think many of the storms we caught in 2007 were structurally more photogenic, but these were definitely more beast-like in sheer power.

So far, in regard to tornadoes, I've only posted photos of our major tornado intercept late on May 22. If you haven't already, click here to see video and an account of that day. I am also writing about that encounter in Friday's "Weather Journal" column for print. I don't have photos of all of our tornado sightings, which we conservatively count as nine over May 22-23, all in the same general area of west-central Kansas from WaKeeney and Quinter south to Ness City and Dighton.

The first tornado we caught didn't even have a full condensation funnel, but just a slight cone above and a swirl of dust in a field below.

This is a photo near the time of our second tornado, though maybe not exactly when it was on the ground. You can see the rounded, lowered structure from which it sprang ahead of us.

Tornado develops west of Quinter, Kansas

Tornado No. 3 developed on a storm in between the first one we were chasing and the second we were planning to intercept. We had seen the lowerings and considered it to have potential, but considered it harder to reach between two other storms. Before heading south to the next storm, we watched a tornado develop west of Quinter, Kan., near a town called Grainfield. We were at some distance, but saw a cone dip down and eventually turn into more of a rope-like structure.

Two tornadoes developed in the storm we headed south to intercept southwest of WaKeeney. Tornado No. 4 was a white cone against a dark background. It doesn't look to be on the ground in the linked photo, but video shows a debris cloud at the surface, confirming touchdown.

Dark funnel forms May 22 southwest of WaKeeney, Kansas.

Tornado No. 5 was a dark funnel against a dark background, a little hard to make out, but menacing. Here is another look at the same tornado a few minutes earlier. We encountered screaming east winds blowing into this storm as these tornadoes were going on. Both No. 4 and No. 5 were on the ground at the same time for a little while.

I don't have photos of the sixth and seventh tornadoes that formed in the same storm as it moved north of Interstate 70. We were on the move, and they were hard to see on a poor contrast background. We'll be looking at video and some of the other chasers' photos for these. The count could go up or down based on what we see in video.

Tornado as seen from chase van south of WaKeeney, Kansas. Courtesy of Jordan Rollins.

Tornado No. 8 was the big intercept for us. The entry on my blog after that day and my Weather Journal column for May 30 best recount that, but here is one additional photo by Jordan Rollins showing the tornado out our front windshield. That's me taking a photo on the left.

Tornado No. 9 the next day was very large the next day, moving northeast near Ransom, Kan., on its way toward Ellis, but also very far away and very late. We still haven't found a great shot of it, but this video still frame showing part of it on the left gives you an idea of its size. We'll keep looking. (ADDED ON 6/2: Click here for a small video still from the wedge tornado ... and here's a second shot of the same wedge as well, which may even be multivortex with a couple of side funnels.)

In all we chased and caught supercell storms on 5 days: May 13 near Jacksboro in northern Texas; May 14 near Big Spring in western Texas (with additional video linked here); May 21 near Flagler in eastern Colorado (the prettiest storm, in my opinion); and of course May 22 and May 23 in and around WaKeeney, Kan.

Thanks to the wonderful group of chasers that joined us this year, shown here in a group photo at Palo Duro Canyon near Amarillo, Texas, during one of our many slow days between chases. From left to right, they are (bottom row) Jessica Burchard, Virginia Tech student; Sandy LaCorte, recent North Carolina-Asheville graduate (meteorologist!); Taylor White, Tech student; Marielle Taft, Walt Whitman High School student in Maryland; Morgan Weeks of Floyd, North Carolina-Asheville student; Jennifer Henderson, Tech instructor researching a book on tornadoes; (top row) Dave Carroll, Pulaski County High School meteorology teacher and trip leader; Joel Willis, Pulaski County High School student; Andrew Smith, Tech student; Trevor Owen, Tech student; me; and Jordan "J-Roll" Rollins, Tech student and National Guardsman.

For a little bit different perspective on our trip, check out the blogs kept by Taylor White and Sandy LaCorte.

America is in good hands with young people like these ... and with the many wonderful people who treated us so friendly in our travels. We were greeted everywhere we went, and many people, ranging from farmers to police to travelers to firemen, came to us seeking information about storms. God bless all of you.

Now ... let's turn back to local weather ... and there is actually a potential severe weather threat cropping up for Virginia come Saturday ... more on that as it develops ...

Re-trace Kevin's progress on this map.

For more on Storm Chase 2008, click here.

The storm chase team arrived back in Blacksburg at about 4 p.m. today. After a round of hugs and goodbyes, we scattered to our respective homes. I'm very happy to be back with my wife and in my home after more than two weeks away, but the first day or two back always feels a little strange with no target zone to drive to and no chase team meetings. I have no doubt I'll miss the members of this very special team that experienced so much together.

There is still much video and photos to go through as we analyze the storms we saw during this trip.

And I'll be getting back to examining Southwest Virginia weather, too. It was sticky when I got home today, which is unlike the last couple of weeks that had some cool days.

Follow Kevin's progress on this map.

The most recent video from Storm Chase 2008 was posted May 23. It shows a tornado near WaKeeney, Kansas.

For more on Storm Chase 2008, click here.