Finally, my first storm chase! Tagging along in the Michael Carlson Photography mobile was Eric Carlson, Eric Haave, and I. This ended up being THE storm of the day, since every other setup was a bust (a lot of chasers were waiting out in Oklahoma).
Starting out, I couldn't tell what was so exciting about the sky. It just seemed like a typical cloudy day. However, just as Michael and Eric had forecasted, it gradually transformed.
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| Meeting other chasers on the road, and discussing that somehow interesting sky above |
As far as stormchasing goes, it was relatively close to home. We went from Denver to Ordway (meandering through the plains), then caught and followed the supercell storm from Ordway to Cheyenne Wells, then back to Denver through Limon. But it was still almost continuous driving for 12 hours.
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| The 'dome cam' on the roof, for live video streaming |
The supercell was incredible. The experienced chasers were all amazed at how strong the inflow winds were. This magnificent, breathing cloud was pulling air in so strongly, that it was pelting us with massive amounts of tumbleweeds!
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| A panorama of the full supercell - note the bend of the grass, its alive! |
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| Tumbleweeds gather by the car |
Michael got top live video streamer of the day! (www.tornadovideos.net > live video). Also while on this storm, they recognized someone from the weather channel, and a stormchasing tour vehicle from Texas.
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| A stormchasing tour van unloads its collection of eager photographers into a field |
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| Another stop and view |
So technically, I did see a tornado! But I didn't know it at the time. It was a little, short-lived "gustnado" pretty far away. Having never been on a chase before, I thought it was going to develop at least a little more before they would declared it a tornado!
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| A portion of the supercell - gustnado in the middle of the orange area |
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| Yup, that is the 'gustnado,' a type of tornado |
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| The last wall cloud falls apart, time to head for home |
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