I have extensive archives from my early storm chasing years. I chronicled almost every day on the road, even bust days, at the old SkyDiary site, with lots of photos. In the interest of collecting everything in one place, I’m moving the highlights of the older chases over to ChrisKridler.com. 2006 was one of the worst chasing years in pursuit of storms, thanks to a crashing cold front, but it had a few moments.

8 May 2006

Chase time: Just a quick update. After a 21-hour drive, I’m in Broken Arrow, Okla., and not quite in position to chase today. I’ll need to do my forecast and drive some more to get there, wherever there is, but at least I feel like I’m back in Tornado Alley again. I love what one sees on the road: two billboards next to one another, one warning of fire danger, the other covered with flames advertising a barbecue joint. A sign that says “Watch for long logs” (insert your own joke here). Another for Toad Suck Park in Arkansas. Watermelons galore sold out of the backs of pickup trucks in Mississippi.

Update: I tried but didn’t see much today. Storms didn’t fire where people thought they should, though a big line of them formed in western Kansas, and I got a look. There were some pretty moments and a few good lightning bolts. It’s something and was a good shakedown cruise for gear, including the new ham radio. I’ve now met up with Scott McPartland, Dave Lewison, Pete Ventre and Jim Edds. Given a promised early start in the morning, I anticipate more sleep deprivation in my future. Now we’re at a terrible Days Inn in Great Bend that promised wi-fi, and it’s not working. My ceiling is leaking in the rain. And goodness knows if there really will be a promised hot waffle in the a.m. More later…

 

9 May 2006

The soggy and the sublime: After an unfulfilling chase yesterday, the hotel nightmare (even the advertised “hot waffle” was not the fresh-made thing you get at some hotels; it was a Kellogg’s toaster product), and continuing sleep deprivation, a chase finally was in the offing today. It provided some adrenaline and some pretty pictures, and that’s about all I can ask for.

Our party left Great Bend, Kansas, fairly early and headed south, checking data now and again to help us pick our target. The obvious choice was southeastern Oklahoma and the less obvious choice was north-west-central Texas. Finally, we settled on eastern OK. As half our party broke off north of Ada to say hi to Cloud 9 Tours, Jim Edds and I proceeded south and then east after getting a look at the towers going up in earnest on the boundary. It was imperative to get east, ahead of the line, or else it would be a day of core-punching. Not that we avoided cores entirely.

In McAlester, we waffled (again with the waffles!) about which storm to pick. A tornado warning was given for the storm to the south, but ours still looked good. We were about to give up on it when it became tornado warned, too. Then, on the west side of town, we spotted what appeared to be a rotating wall cloud. For a moment, I was wondering if we were about to have a tornado form over our heads. Then winds picked up like crazy and we thought we’d try to get east of it. Bad idea, or at least a bad road choice, not that there are any good roads out here in the tree-heavy hills. We got caught in serious horizontal winds —  I’d guess about 70mph — with flying debris, driving rain, very low visibility and hail. The core, in other words.

After more storm maneuvering and finding we’d be in the path of another tornado-warned storm, we slipped west back into town and got some very cool lightning shots, Jim with his HD video, me with some video and a lot of stills. This good photo opportunity did a lot to make the day memorable. Now our party is back together, along with Dave Patrick and Kristy Randall, and Mark Robinson and his friend Brian. I’ve spent a lot of time in McAlester today. The problem for tomorrow is that the risk area is in more bad chase territory and way farther east than I prefer to go. Meanwhile, after that, the Plains may be shut down in terms of severe weather. Should I stay or should I go?

11 May 2006

The end already? I’m way behind on updates because of the lack of high-speed Internet and all the driving, which equals no time. We’re in Mississippi, for goodness’ sake. That’s not where we’re supposed to be to chase “Tornado Alley” storms.

We had a good target yesterday but were behind the game all day due to the long distances involved. We got wet and saw some lightning, that’s about it.

I’m actually giving it up for now and hope to come back to the Alley at some later date.

 

Florida skies

 

2 September 2006

A dramatic shelf cloud formed from a line of storms in Brevard County, Florida, on September 2. First, the pileus cap on top of the storm tower glowed in rainbow colors as the sun caught it from behind. Then the shelf appeared. Here’s a stitched-together panorama of several images of the shelf cloud as seen from Rockledge, Florida.

A couple of neighborhood kids were flying kites at the high school ahead of the storm. This is not recommended behavior in a lightning storm, but it was kind of beautiful.