Stormchasing June 6 & 7 (Anticyclonic Tornado!)

June 6th we headed up North, stopping briefly to chat at a large chaser convergence near Fort Morgan. Waiting up in New Raymer, the clouds really weren't in a hurry to do much, though it still must've been the most interesting thing in the country since we kept running into the Dominator. As the clouds kept back building, a decent storm eventually developed over Parker around sunset.

Chaser convergence!

Super low "scud bomb" in Parker

There was a ton of amazing scud (low scraggly cloud) all over, there were several bunches slowly rotating and passing by nearly on the ground! We didn't see the short-lived tornado since we were on the other side of the rain, but the storm itself and lightning were interesting enough anyway.

Tornado was on the other side of this

Low rotating clouds passing in front of us

Driving back through Parker the hail drifts and flooding was impressive, and we even had a late-night severe-warned storm pass right over the house after we got back. There was also a surprise 1:30 am hailstorm that woke the whole neighborhood!

Mammatus clouds before our lightning show after dark

The next day was a substantially better chase. On June 7 we started out waiting in Bennett, Colorado.  Since we were there early we found a few geocaches to pass the time.  Before anything in Colorado started, there was already a large storm and tornado up in southeast Wyoming.  It was tempting to bail and run up there, but we hung tight to our target and eventually storms began to build right over us.

Watching storms build with a decked-out news truck

 We ended up on a promising storm near Deer Trail.  However there was something very unusual about this storm: it was moving southwest instead of northeast!  It's not often a supercell does that, but this storm held its direction as it continued to intensify.  Driving closer to it, we discovered this storm packed a ton of large hail.  Under a large downpour of 1 to 1-1/2 inch hail (don't worry, Verne's car is Rhino-lined)  we discovered a few baseball-sized chunks and got a crack in the windshield.  We were probably just on the edge of the large hail, and saw many other chasers with much worse windshield damage.
Once we got out ahead of the storm again we stopped to photograph it.  After just a few minutes the hail caught up with us suddenly and started dropping more 1+ inch hail.  We bolted back to the car with no major injuries.

In front of the supercell - before hail chased us back to the car!

The rotation on this storm had become extraordinarily intense, and several small funnel clouds had already tried but failed to form a tornado.  Apparently south moving storms tend to have a very hard time forming tornadoes, since they're moving against some of the important winds and elements they need.

Approaching Ramah and Calhan

The storm

The most intense area of rotation became hidden in rain, so we could only assume if there was a tornado, it was hail and rain-wrapped.   The damage later indicated that there was a large EF1 tornado in there, as it moved farm equipment and destroyed several small buildings.

A rain-wrapped tornado was somewhere back there

With no visibility back there, we instead turned our focus to a different area of rotation on the storm.  Sure enough, a white funnel began to descend.  We could see it briefly reach the ground and lift again as we were racing to get close to it.  Once we stopped to get out of the car and take photos, Eric noticed something unusual: the funnel was rotating clockwise.  In the northern hemisphere, tornadoes rotate counterclockwise, and the opposite only tends to occur in the southern hemisphere.  That made this tornado "anti-cyclonic," a very rare occurrence and one that even Verne had never seen!

Anti-cyclonic tornado!

Eric's video of the tornado:


NOAA report on the storm: http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=pub&storyid=83984&source=0 (my photo is featured at the end)

Heading back

We got back in the car and moved closer as it continued to lift.  Unfortunately it didn't drop again, and the sun was already on the horizon.   Heading west to the freeway, we drove through another small storm dropping 1 inch hail, while being treated to an amazing display of clouds at sunset.

One more hail-dropping storm on our way home

Sunset in Colorado Springs

Stormchasing May 25

The promising weather models on the morning of May 25 were a great surprise. We hadn't planned for any chasing that day, but Verne called us early so Eric and I met up with him on I-70 and headed to Kansas. We waited in Russell for a few hours, then headed out a few miles to watch the storms build.

A storm begins to grow

This storm grew quickly and soon started pulling up waves of dust and debris from all the farm fields under it. Much of the dirt began to spin up into short-lived gustnados. We spotted a few clear ones close by as we were skirting by the edge of the debris cloud.

Large gustnado

Dust storms

Moving northeast, it passed right over Russell but the base got higher in the process. There was still some rotation when it got to the other side of the city, but wasn't close enough to the ground to drop any tornadoes or even spin up any more gustnados.

Storm passes over Russell

Letting this storm go, there were tornado reports on another storm about an hour southwest. While heading that way, we passed by a different one between the two. It looked pretty promising so we circled towards it. Ending up on the rainy side we couldn't see a whole lot, but did catch a brief glimpse of a cone tornado forming.

First view of a tornado through all the rain

Once we fought our way out of the rain, an amazing rope tornado appeared. It spanned half the sky from our view. The only problem was I didn't want to wander too far from the car for photos since the drillbit end seemed so close. It made a turn in our direction, and not waiting to see if it was aiming in front of or behind us, we took off back east. At this point it turned west again and roped out before we could stop for another view.

Rope tornado southwest of Russell

By then the sun had set and visibility was limited to whatever the lightning could show us. Although there were more tornadoes hidden in the dark, we headed for home. Watching the radar on the drive, the next two tornado-producing storms made a beeline straight for Russell, but thankfully only skirted the edge of town at last minute.

Webster Lake, KS

We had another short chase on the 27th. From Denver we headed out through Colby, KS then zig-zagged northeast. While waiting for storms to fire we found some relief from the heat at Webster Lake.  We kept moving north to Holdridge, NE. The only good storms ended up starting much farther north. There were hardly any chasers in position way up there. It was supposed to be a really good hail day rather than tornado day, but we didn't see much hail either. Headed back home on I-80 in defeat, hoping for a better chase another day.

Solar Eclipse 2012

Having just arrived back in town two days earlier, I was unsure rather I wanted to make the full drive down to New Mexico again for the solar eclipse. Denver would still be able to see a partial, but the total would have to be viewed from New Mexico. Thankfully, the weather was in our favor and the day before turned into a stormchasing day, and the plan was we could just stop in New Mexico for the eclipse on the way home.

Eclipsed sun setting behind the windmills

Verne Carlson picked us up at 6am on May 19th. We followed an early morning thunderstorm out east and worked our way down to Kit Carson, where we intercepted a storm with 1 and 1/4 inch hail. I thought this must be some of the largest hail I've ever seen, but Verne and Eric keep saying 'just wait until you see baseball sized hail!'

Falling hail, those poor cars without Rhino lining!

We can safely say this was indeed 1-1/4 inch hail

We didn't see a lot else the rest of the day other than some moderately interesting clouds. When we got down to Oklahoma there was a promising storm (which later produced tornadoes) just North back over Kansas border. Didn't go for it since we thought it wouldn't produce a tornado until it was much farther away, and wanted to stay close to Amarillo for the eclipse, which we all considered to be the more important target. The storms farther South didn't do a lot. Enjoyed a Texas Roadhouse dinner after arriving in Amarillo and helping out with maintenance on the house.

Mammatus clouds in western Oklahoma

Early afternoon on Sunday the 20th we headed from Amarillo to Vaughn, New Mexico. Drove down to the exact center line the eclipse would cross, then headed back North just a bit for a better location. Found a great spot off the road with distant windmills, the only problem was the occasional train that would pass right in front of us! Thankfully there were only a few and they didn't interfere when we really needed to see the sun. Eric and Verne set up a telescope projected onto paper so we could safely watch the progress and stream it live to the web.

Projecting the sun onto paper

Eric enjoys safe viewing

The eclipse started at 6:23 pm, and totality was 7:33 to 7:38. We only had one cloud block our view for a few minutes just as it was starting, and otherwise had perfectly clear skies. I was really surprised by the 3D effect of the moon. The edges of it had light bleeding over the curvature rather than appearing as a flat black disc. We left just as soon as the sun set and got back home around 1:30am.

Total eclipse, I really liked the ring-shaped lens flare!

Totality of an annular solar eclipse

A crescent sun just after totality

Eric holds up the sun

Cimmaron, New Mexico

After a two week break from Silverton, the crew met up again to continue working on an episode for Cimmaron, New Mexico. The first day we gathered b-roll of the town and finished with some interviews.  Opted to do the ghost hunting the next night since everyone was too tired the day we arrived.

The 6k sq ft WS Ranch house we stayed in

Cimmaron Jail

Next day was spent at the original Cimmaron jail, and later at the St. James Hotel.  Lots of filming and several full-costume reenactments. The guest of honor we spent a lot of time with was Clay Allison, great nephew of the famed old-west gunfighter Robert Clay Allison.  And of course all three days we were spoiled again with amazing home-cooked meals by Sandy!  The last day we took the scenic drive back through Taos, then up to San Luis and Walsenberg back to I-25.

Clay Allison, Tracey, Erick, and Tammila

Who killed Kevin?

There and back again

Return to Silverton

April 22-29 was our return trip to Silverton, Colorado to finish filming for the history and paranormal episode.  Being National Parks week, we decided to spend the first night on our way down there camping in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.  And since it was a Sunday night in April, Eric and I almost had the entire park and campgrounds to ourselves.  After dusk we went out to painted wall to get some night shots of the stars, and early in the morning we drove the rim and got all the virtual and earth geocaches.

Sunrise at the Black Canyon

We took our time driving the rest of the way to Silverton the next morning, stopping for lunch in Ouray and at every pullout and geocache along Million Dollar Highway (550).  Once we got to Silverton, we met up with a few others from the crew then later took a drive just out of town to see the old ore bins still hanging across the valley.

I never noticed this waterfall until we stopped there to get a cache!

Ironton

Ironton, a ghost town on Million Dollar Highway

Bear tracks!

Geocaching along Million Dollar

Ore bin and tower

The next day we drove south a bit on 550 for more geocaches, and I even spotted a snowshoe hare! The rest of the crew all finally arrived by 2pm, and we got to work investigating and filming.  Wednesday and half of Thursday were spent running around town doing the same.

Geocaching on 550

Filming in the Imperial Hotel

In full costume at an old brothel!

At the archives

Thursday afternoon Sandy generously provided everyone with a big grilled steak lunch to wrap up filming.  Everyone else left town shortly after, but Eric and I stuck around as long as we were allowed so we could enjoy the area and film a bit more around town.  Which meant for the next few nights it was just the two of us staying in an empty, haunted hotel!
Friday was a bit rainy and there was a dusting of snow from the night before, so we spent the day driving the entire San Juan Scenic Skyway.  Even with so little snow in the area just enough prevented us from getting to Alta lakes.  We stopped in Telluride for lunch and got back to Silverton just in time for sunset.

Scenery along the drive

Lizard Head

Alta Lakes road

San Juan scenic Skyway drive

The next day our plan was to make an attempt to get to the abandoned 7-level boarding house perched on the face of Galena Mountain.  Around the third switchback on the 4wd road up there we found a large and impassable pile of snow.  Though only late April, this had been the warmest winter in Silverton in nearly 50 years.  Snow was mostly non-existent already, and all the Jeeps in the area were out making the same attempt we had.

The abandoned 7-level boarding house high on the mountain.  We'll make it one day!

4-wheeling Pike, the Subbie Foz

Eric spotting the rougher patches back down the 4wd roads

A Forester in it's natural habitat

Instead we spent the day climbing to the top of the ruins at Eureka, which were much more steep and difficult to climb than any photo could emphasize.  The ruins were more in-tact and interesting the higher we went!

Making our way up

Eureka ruins!

Top of the ruins!

Farewell, Silverton

The hotel was to open again for guests on the 30th so we left Sunday morning.  Searching for an interesting route we ended up going back through Montrose, Gunnison, Buena Vista, Leadville, and stopping in Breckenridge for a bit, then back along I-70.

Geocaching at an abandoned mine in Breckenridge

Sunset near Frisco