Bij deze nog een chase log om aan te geven hoe gevaarlijk deze hobby soms KAN zijn. Mensen die er aan zitten te denken om ook eens een chase avontuur (in de VS) te ontplooien, lees onderstaand verhaal als voorbeeld van hoe het kan gaan en denk dan nog eens drie keer na of dit wel iets is wat je voor lief zou willen nemen.
Bron: Shane Adams
JR Hehnly, Mickey Ptak, Chad Lawson, Jo and myself convoyed to the TX panhandle today. Ended up south of Silverton on our first cell which had been producing tornadoes but failed to once we got on the inflow side....watched this one get undercut and then picked up the next cell down the line, about 20 miles west of us. This cell too was being undercut time and again for many attempts, but eventually it got its act together. We watched it produce a weak, landspouty tornado that lasted a few minutes, then it became undercut again. Eventually it regained its inflow and spun up very nicely. Tornado #2 was an incredible truncated cone, less than a mile west of us. We stropped and shot video as it danced towards us, moving ENE. The mesocyclone caught it after a minute or so and spun it around to the south and southeast, in a fashion I would imagine looked similar to May 29 in Harper/Sumner Cos KS last year, seen from a distance. This tornado grew quickly into a large dusty barrel, and displayed significant/borderline violent motions as it churned just west of TX207. It crossed the road maybe a half mile south of us, and we slowly moved towards it as it began to rope (after moving east of the road). It looked very much like the Wizard of Oz tornado as it roped, while the new meso formed and rapidly tightened just to its east. The old tornado had barely dissipated before the new one was in progress, about a half mile ESE of us, south of our east road. Inflow jets were converging from four different directions all around us, as several chasers drove underneath the circulation/developing tornado. I didn't like the look of the rapid circulation just in front of us so I opted to stop and let it move east (lest we become tornado debris). BAD MISTAKE. We'd gotten so far into the hook that we were between the tornado and the rain/hail wrap. Because I stopped, the circulation/tornado continued east along with the rain/hail core, which swallowed us from the NW and began slamming us with baseballs. We dodged bullets for maybe a minute or two, then CRASH - the back windshield exploded into bits as a stone crashed through, completely destroying it and showering Jo and I with shards of glass. We managed to react in time and covered our faces, and, since the back glass was already gone, I kept us faced towards the hail with the back glass area exposed (IMO baseballs hitting you is better than baseballs and glass hitting you). We were very fortunate in that neither of us took a direct hit from any stones, although the same couldn't be said for the front windshield, which took a major hit resulting in a huge spiderweb just left of center. I threw it in reverse and slowly backed out of there back to TX207, as the hail finally, mercifully began to shrink in size. We'd gotten seperated from JR and Mickey/Chad, but they came back from the east (they'd been among the chasers who chose to drive through the developing tornado to escape the hail - opposite of us). Both had all windows intact when we saw them. We all pulled into a driveway but then decided to try and bail north. JR took off, followed by Chad & Mickey, then Jo & I third. We made it a few hundred yards when the baseballs started again, and we took another hard hit on the front windshield, sending a huge crack all the way across from the spiderweb to the right edge. We couldn't take another one. So, we bailed out back to the south and back to the driveway we'd been in. We never saw the others again - but a later phone call would reveal that both their vehicles suffered major window damage in the hail barrage we'd turned south to avoid.
Ok, the stats:
2 Supercells
3 Tornadoes
1 shattered windshield (front)
1 disinigrated windshield (back - there's none of it left)
BIG THUMBS UP TO THE COMMUNITY/CITIZENS OF FLOYDADA, TX
The two nice ladies at a local convenience store offered their broom/dustpan to assist with our glass clean-up, and during this a man and his son/grandson walked up and gave us a dollar's worth of quarters for the vacuum at the car wash (we had no cash on us). These two acts of kindness saved our butts, as we tried driving at highway speeds before the clean-up and glass would fly all through the car. Without these folks we'd have been marrooned with little money.
Bron: Shane Adams
JR Hehnly, Mickey Ptak, Chad Lawson, Jo and myself convoyed to the TX panhandle today. Ended up south of Silverton on our first cell which had been producing tornadoes but failed to once we got on the inflow side....watched this one get undercut and then picked up the next cell down the line, about 20 miles west of us. This cell too was being undercut time and again for many attempts, but eventually it got its act together. We watched it produce a weak, landspouty tornado that lasted a few minutes, then it became undercut again. Eventually it regained its inflow and spun up very nicely. Tornado #2 was an incredible truncated cone, less than a mile west of us. We stropped and shot video as it danced towards us, moving ENE. The mesocyclone caught it after a minute or so and spun it around to the south and southeast, in a fashion I would imagine looked similar to May 29 in Harper/Sumner Cos KS last year, seen from a distance. This tornado grew quickly into a large dusty barrel, and displayed significant/borderline violent motions as it churned just west of TX207. It crossed the road maybe a half mile south of us, and we slowly moved towards it as it began to rope (after moving east of the road). It looked very much like the Wizard of Oz tornado as it roped, while the new meso formed and rapidly tightened just to its east. The old tornado had barely dissipated before the new one was in progress, about a half mile ESE of us, south of our east road. Inflow jets were converging from four different directions all around us, as several chasers drove underneath the circulation/developing tornado. I didn't like the look of the rapid circulation just in front of us so I opted to stop and let it move east (lest we become tornado debris). BAD MISTAKE. We'd gotten so far into the hook that we were between the tornado and the rain/hail wrap. Because I stopped, the circulation/tornado continued east along with the rain/hail core, which swallowed us from the NW and began slamming us with baseballs. We dodged bullets for maybe a minute or two, then CRASH - the back windshield exploded into bits as a stone crashed through, completely destroying it and showering Jo and I with shards of glass. We managed to react in time and covered our faces, and, since the back glass was already gone, I kept us faced towards the hail with the back glass area exposed (IMO baseballs hitting you is better than baseballs and glass hitting you). We were very fortunate in that neither of us took a direct hit from any stones, although the same couldn't be said for the front windshield, which took a major hit resulting in a huge spiderweb just left of center. I threw it in reverse and slowly backed out of there back to TX207, as the hail finally, mercifully began to shrink in size. We'd gotten seperated from JR and Mickey/Chad, but they came back from the east (they'd been among the chasers who chose to drive through the developing tornado to escape the hail - opposite of us). Both had all windows intact when we saw them. We all pulled into a driveway but then decided to try and bail north. JR took off, followed by Chad & Mickey, then Jo & I third. We made it a few hundred yards when the baseballs started again, and we took another hard hit on the front windshield, sending a huge crack all the way across from the spiderweb to the right edge. We couldn't take another one. So, we bailed out back to the south and back to the driveway we'd been in. We never saw the others again - but a later phone call would reveal that both their vehicles suffered major window damage in the hail barrage we'd turned south to avoid.
Ok, the stats:
2 Supercells
3 Tornadoes
1 shattered windshield (front)
1 disinigrated windshield (back - there's none of it left)
BIG THUMBS UP TO THE COMMUNITY/CITIZENS OF FLOYDADA, TX
The two nice ladies at a local convenience store offered their broom/dustpan to assist with our glass clean-up, and during this a man and his son/grandson walked up and gave us a dollar's worth of quarters for the vacuum at the car wash (we had no cash on us). These two acts of kindness saved our butts, as we tried driving at highway speeds before the clean-up and glass would fly all through the car. Without these folks we'd have been marrooned with little money.
