Have You Seen Our Tornadoes?

This has got to stop! (Bonus points if you get that reference.) Vortex2's stint of wait and miss continues. Our most recent blunder occurred on Monday, May 31. Yes folks, Memorial Day. While much of America was probably grilling out and getting corn on the cob stuck between their front teeth, Vortex2 was in North Platte, Nebraska, waiting for the call to either go chase or ferry to the next hotel. Chances of (good) convection seemed small and rather far away that day (much further than poor ol' DOW 5 could ever dream of going with the blown out tire and transmission it recently acquired), so we were directed to head to the next hotel early in the evening.

A gruesome sight awaited us at our destination hotel. Upon entering one Holiday Inn in Kearney, Nebraska (which was a very nice hotel, by the way), much of Vortex2 was forced to view a horrific scene playing on the Weather Channel in the hotel lobby... the day's tornado, streaming live onto a 42+ inch LCD television, taking place in southeastern Colorado (the far away place where a slight chance of convection was predicted). The shock. The horror. The meteorologists aghast and dismayed. Tears were shed (on the inside) and outcries were made (not so much on the inside). The disappointment had to be put to rest. We had to move on.

When morning came, a decision was made by the PIs (ie big important people in charge) that we ought to take more advantage of these slight chances of storms that we have (ie sleep will become less or a priority in the remaining days of this project). The PIs made good on this decision today, and had us chasing (or waiting in a gas station parking lot) for the better part of the daylight hours. Unfortunately, the weather refused to cooperate, and instead of making lovely little discrete supercells for our enjoyment and research pleasure, it produced storms that quickly combined and became a big blob of weather nastiness. These rainy monsters can give us RCCs (Really Cool Clouds), but rarely the kind of tornadoes we want (because they're too rainy!). Tomorrow is a new day, perhaps the weather will be more kind (I hope it will be, because I am not horribly keen on having my bags packed and ready to go by 8:30am).

SASSI turtle says "Cheer up, it's not so bad." Hah. What do you know, SASSI turtle?


Probe 12, drives by a classic RCC. Congratulations on not breaking down today, 12! We're so proud of you.


ZOMG tornado!! We did see some tornadoes today! Well, sort of. This spinny dusty thing is probably a gustnado, which forms on a storm's gust front (ie the place where a storm's outflow meets the warmer environmental air). If the winds are right, and the storm's outflow is strong enough, the wind shear across the gust front can create these little gustnado vorticies. Since they're in contact with the ground and are underneath a cumuliform cloud, they're technically considered tornadoes, but since they're not the kind of tornadoes capable of transporting Dorothy to Oz, they're not really what we're looking for right now...