Thank yous - -

Just a quick note to say thanks to some really nice folks who helped out this past week.

Thanks to Brian Stertz, Fred Plowman and Eric Flescher for offering to take a stranded chaser in.

Thanks to Don Harmon & Channel 4 in KC for carrying us from our ditch in central Kansas to a comfy motel in Osborne. Sorry about your rear window - that was just weird.

Thanks to Dennis Sherrod for going out of his way to take us back to our car on Friday morning ... and thanks for then getting stuck alongside us, because it made us feel better about ourselves.

Thanks to the DOW and Discovery Channel crew for pulling up in the nick of time and pulling us out of the ditch. You guys get a bum rap. You're actually nice people, it turns out.

And my biggest thanks to my chase partner Scott Currens this week for putting up with me and offering to let me come along. You are cool.

I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting. So thanks to you too -

5/29/08 Kansas Tornado Video

To see the video in HD, be sure to click the link below this window, rather than on the window itself. Enjoy -


5/29/08 Kansas Tornadoes from Michael Peregrine on Vimeo.

5/29/08 Tornadoes

After a long afternoon in Nebraska, we (Scott Currens and I) decided to book south to position in front of developing storms in Kansas. Came south on 281 out of Hastings, originally hoping to intercept a good couplet on a cell heading closer to highway 36, but then decided to core those in favor of a much better looking cell to the southwest. Went east on a road to the north of Osborne, Kansas and then south out of Cawker City. We saw the first tornado to our west, between our position and Osborne. We had time to achieve an ideal location just north of the tornado as it went on to produce multiple vortices over an extended period of time. My video is 30 minutes of vortex after vortex. We were right about 1/4 mile north of the tornado, which put us in a great high contrast location as it tore through trees and produced an audible roar. At one point as a vortex is spinning through a grove of trees, I zoomed up on the ground contact just as a bolt of lightning strikes right in front of the camera, beading up and producing the loudest crack. We laughed our butts off because we must have jumped a foot. At this point the TIVs caught up to us to try to move into position, we decided to move north with the tornado near Elder (can't quite remember the name of that little town). The tornado was a large and dusty wedge at this point, though it didn't appear particularly strong or intense. Really hard to judge. Suddenly an anticyclonic vortex spun up over the road in front of us and we literally drove through the thing. Slammed the car pretty good and gave us another jolt. Laughed through the situation and made it up north of town, trying to dodge damage, which wasn't easy. Moved north of town, where we barely missed some downed polls, only to pull off on a side road and slide in a muddy ditch. Stuck in Osborne tonight in a motel, waiting for rescue tomorrow.

We don't mind. It was worth it. The motions in the video are easily the most impressive either of us have seen in recent years. Big thanks to Scott Currens, Amos Magliocco and others for terrific navigation, decision-making and for not giving up ... and also thanks to channel 4 out of KC for carrying our sorry butts to a motel. Appreciate it, Don -

Photos up as soon as we are out of the mud and able to do it - - -

5/23/08 and 5/24/08 Chases

North of Ness City, Kansas 5/23/08:

Starving Cu on 5/24/08 (below):

East of Ness City, Kansas on 5/23/08 (below)

Ness City meso ... very rapid, pronounced rotation in the photo below. This is the one chasers ran from as it was gusting out ... if you followed this east, then you missed what was coming up north just a few minutes later:

Mammatus near Ness City: Horseshoe structure north of Ness City (near time of tornado - the video is zoomed in closer to the tornado, but I still need to freeze a vidcap or two - the tornado actually formed on the north side of the horseshoe, where you see the low hanging white structure in the distance):

5/23/08 Log

Arrived in western Kansas late, but still managed to catch a brief show near Ness City. When we arrived, there was some sort of funky stuff going on with the cell next door and those things couldn't exactly get together and decide who was going to rotate. This is the second time in less than two weeks that a great storm has been screwed with from neighboring convection as it's getting really interesting. Not able to upload pics right now, but just west of Ness City in the "Chasecar City" that sprung up instantly there was one of the best mesos ever. Rotation almost on the scale of the Hallam storm. Getting away from that thing was like a rat race through Ness. The stream of chasers became more fun to watch than the storm at that point, believe it or not.

As we followed it north we ended up on a gravel road south of this horseshoe from hades that was one of the coolest storm structures I've seen in a long time. It was perfect. Wish we could have been just a smidge closer to the tornado, though. Was a show no matter how you were looking at it.

We ended up on this dam on a lake up there south of I-70. I'll have to go back later to see where we were exactly. But there was a brand new meso off to the west that we had been watching for a while, trying to decide if it was worth anything or not - the storm began to hook pretty good at this point on radar. As we're coming across this big dam that felt like a thousand feet off the water, I saw some little vortex spinning below us on the water's surface (gust related), and told my passengers that it would not be cool to get smacked with high wind up there and get flipped off this thing. We ended up below the dam, hunkered down and taking cover as a hefty little shear marker spun over our heads. The wind went up over hurricane strength pretty fast ... I'm thinking it may have been shooting down out of the back of the storm and maybe hitting the dam and getting funneled through our safe spot - because it hit like a ton of bricks. Stuff was hitting the car, flying through the air. I was trying to stay cool for my first-time passengers (geesh, what a night for a first chase). Then got out of the car with Fred Plowman to realize the trees beside us had snapped off - one pretty good size one was uprooted (pics coming). Had to then maneuver through the debris on I-70 in the form of several flipped rigs. Looked like one person on the westbound side was also being carried away in a stretcher ... not good.

Here's a link to the video posted by fellow chaser Andrew Prichard who was in the car just behind me during the RFD event. You can see my silver VW pull just ahead of him in the shot. I have video as well, but think Andrew's turned out better.

Kansas Tornado Outbreak 5/22/08 - 5/23/08

Today will be a continuation of yesterday's high tornadic activity. Kansas is primed for day two of a true outbreak scenario, in which all ingredients for tornadoes will become maximized.

I will be chasing central Kansas today, likely south of I-70. Feel free to tune in later this afternoon and check out the video stream at http://www.severestreaming.com .

It's going to be a bumpy ride!

Mike Scantlin

Sometimes we hear a story that makes us feel good about people again. When I first talked to chaser Mike Scantlin online, I didn't give him enough credit. Now I can't give him enough. Nice job, Mike. That was a good thing you did. Keep up the nice work -

Active Pattern Taking Shape

A vigorous weather pattern is taking shape over the coming week, with the start being a closed low system moving in off the Rockies during Memorial Day weekend. Starting Thursday night and extending through possibly Sunday, this deep low should spin off several strands of energy across Kansas and Nebraska that will be enough to ignite severe thunderstorms in a well-fueled environment. I will be chasing on Friday afternoon/evening, likely in the Hays to Hill City area somewhere. The only real concern on the board for me is how well these storms will be ventilated, so there are questions as to whether the mode will tend toward HP rather than classic. We will see.

Next week another strong impulse forms off the West Coast and rides the jetstream into the plains by Wednesday. It should be a pattern consisting of multiple shortwaves riding the jet, so the chances will remain strong through the central plains. Stay tuned for updates!

Missouri in the Spring

5/10/08 Oswego-Hallowell, Kansas Tornado Video

I've uploaded a brief clip from the chase Saturday night. It's not my best, but the nature of the situation did not allow for much in the way of excellent video skills.

(Note: to see the video in HD [recommended], click on the Vimeo link below this embedded video instead of the video window.)


5-10-08 Brief tornado near Oswego-Hallowell, Kansas from Michael Peregrine on Vimeo.

Storm Spotter Tyler Casey

21 year old Tyler Casey lost his life while performing his duties for the Seneca, Missouri fire district during the tornado in SW Missouri on Saturday. He passed away as a result of injuries sustained in the event on May 12, 2008.

He was doing what he could to warn people of the oncoming storm, helping at least three people get to safety before the storm overtook him. I can understand this, as the storm was moving frightfully fast and its motions were not typical of most supercells. Tyler unselfishly extended himself to help others, and I would have enjoyed meeting him.

His guestbook is located at http://www.safpd.org/ .

Here is a remarkable news story about his actions this night.

Fenceline

Taken north of Mt. Vernon, Missouri near sunset.

After the Storm

Mt. Vernon, Missouri last evening after the storms had passed.

5-10-08 Chase Map and Screen Caps

As I was moving east out of Oswego, I took my HV20 camcorder and pointed it out the driver's side window ... at the time, I was still trying to catch up to a road option that would let me jog south and intercept the bear of a cell moving over Picher, OK ... so I wasn't paying attention to this storm to the northeast of Oswego. It became tornado-warned as well, and went on to produce damage in Carthage, Missouri. But evidently, in the 30 seconds I happened to be taking video, the storm produced a tornado without my knowledge. I think this is probably the same tornado caught by Ben Prusia, and he was actually behind me a ways (not vice versa as I initially assumed).

EDIT - This verified tornado will have to be chalked up to the yearly Mike's Weird Intercept list. This time, it will be classified as an intercept I didn't even know I made until the next day. Thanks Ben! Once I hooked the HD version of this video up to an HD tv, the tornado became clear.

This is a grab of part of the backside of the Neosho storm as I was getting on I-44.



Initial post on 5-11:

More photos and screenshots will be forthcoming as soon as I get some rest and have the time to edit, including a pretty curious storm base screenshot that I think may be the same as Ben Prusia's tornado, or at least in the same vicinity. Here is my chase map from last night in the meantime. As you can see, I was forced to stay on the north side of this horrible, killer supercell throughout the majority of its lifespan. As I got closer to Mt. Vernon on this map, I was trailing behind it more than I was to the north of it. I arrived in Mt. Vernon at about 6:35 pm.

5-10-08 Storms in SE Kansas and SW Missouri

I ended up chasing the extreme southeast corner of Kansas and SW corner of Missouri this afternoon, following the cell that killed at least 19 people and did a lot of damage. The storm was moving fast over rough terrain, and looking at it on radar, I didn't feel like I wanted to punch the core, so I was in the unfortunate position of remaining north and west of the worst part of the storm for several hours, never able to catch up. Sad night for the folks down there. I got video of the updraft on the storm, but not much in the way of stills, since I was spending all of my time driving. After I gave up on that storm, I did take my time coming home to stop along the Missouri countryside and get some photos. I'll post more in the next few days.

This rainbow was in the northern half of the core on the killer supercell. It was fantastically bright. After checking later, I discovered from the metadata that I snapped these photos at 5:39 pm, at precisely the moment the reports of a tornado in Picher, Oklahoma were coming in to the National Weather Service. It is a complete contradiction between the peaceful view one has on this side of the storm ... while it was wreaking havoc and changing lives forever less than five miles to my south. It's just disturbing.

More 5/1 Storm Views

In my work to remove noise, this one lost some detail. Also, for the composition here, it would have been good to move in closer to that tiny little oil pump you can see on the horizon up there so the pump was more prominent with the storm behind it. Chases are hectic ... since I'm usually on my own, I'm doing several jobs at once. It's easy to forget to take some time to try some different things with photos. I don't really know why I'm converting these to B&W ... On this one, I burned below the horizon line to make it totally black. Colors were really muted on this storm anyway, because of all the grunge and moisture.

KMBC Channel 9's helicopter was flying over my head when I took this, by the way. I didn't know which station it belonged to until going back later and trying to watch Smallville on my DVR. What I thought would be S-ville turned out to be Brian Busby's live report for the storms that night. Anyway, it was cool to see this scene from several hundred feet higher than my position here. He kept showing sweeps of the ground and I was thinking how weird it was that I was probably in that shot somewhere.

Been working with layers and masks in PS to learn how to increase the tonal range on a RAW image. The first version of this was HDR (below). This one was a single RAW image where the foreground is masked and levels adjusted. A gradient was added.

My Turn

It was my turn this week to have my camera set on 800 ISO during a chase. It takes like two or three chases before I remember to check those settings before leaving the house. So anyway, this was desaturated with PS and then de-noised with Neat Image. Inflow on a cell just to the north of the storm over Ottawa.

Kansas City Megastorms

Last night ended up being an atmospheric adventure for just about all of the two million people in Kansas City.

I left work at 4:00 pm, initially targeting the area between Topeka and Emporia. I thought I would have some time to decide where would be the best spot, but as I (slowly) made my way through I-35 traffic, I realized that storms were already building just to the west of the metro. I picked a cell that was building over Ottawa. It ended up being two cells that kept competing with each other and interfering with rotation. So I sat in quarter size hail in Ottawa, as the original storm in Douglas/Wyandotte county became tornado-warned (and looked incredible on radar). Another storm east of St. Joe also had a reported tornado at this time. I followed the storm through hills and trees up into Olathe, where I gave up because of city traffic and darkness. My storm finally did produce a tornado near Grandview/Belton. But this (as you know) is not the big story ... we'll get to that in a second. Here are just a couple pics from my storm:

So now let's talk about the big story. At 1:45 a.m. I (as with many of you) was awoken from a deep sleep by a loud roar and my house shaking. It ended up being a tremendous bow echo (a line of storms bowing out that produce harsh straight line winds). The wind was hurricane force, and the apex of the bow moved over downtown KC. It actually stretched all the way from St. Joe down to Butler. But the city took the worst hit from this amazing storm. As you can see from the radar grab I took below, there was rotation embedded along the line as it moved over Gladstone (the little red twirling arrows). These were later confirmed by the NWS as tornadoes embedded along the gustfront. Gladstone took the worst damage from this one, with parts of town closed. I was too tired to go back out, so you'll have to settle for my radar picture. :)

Here is the EAX NWS assessment on last night's event.

May 1, 2008 Forecast

Looks like possible severe is still in the forecast today. I have narrowed my targets to either STJ into NW Missouri or EMP and eastern Kansas. I like several things about NW Missouri, including the lack of inhibition, and a stronger push from the surface low in this area. What I don't like up there is lack of cell signal. Unlike most chasers, I don't mind the hills and trees up there as much just because I know the area well. Emporia keeps breaking out with precip on the models, even earlier than NW Missouri. Plus, Emporia has great EVDo coverage, which makes this attractive to me. I'll decide by late morning.

STREAMING VIDEO - I will be test streaming this chase through severestreaming.com today. You can click on the chaser feed link on the top right of the page and then look for my name to check in on what I'm up to from time to time.