23.05.2007 - MDT RISK!

Kot omenjeno so vceraj za Tx/Ok Panhandle izdali MDT RISK. Startali smo iz Russell,Ks in se odpeljali proti Dodge City,Ks, v Liberal,Ks, preko Ok Panhandle v Perryton,Tx. J od nas so zacele pokati celice in takoj smo jo mahnili na J. Odsli smo proti prvi celici, ki je bila "tornado warned" in ko smo se prebili skozi dez in toco, smo na levi strani opazili rotirajoc wallcloud. Tornada celica takrat ni spustila, tako da smo jo picili v Wolf Creek Park, a se obrnili (celice so se prozile vedno na isti tocki in kasneje preko noci je padlo ogromno dezja - od 4 do 6 inc -, tako da je bilo obmocje poplavljeno - porocali so o preko "6 feet" visokih vodah). Hitro smo se odpravili nazaj na V ter ponovno prestregli celico. Kasneje smo spet bezali iz njene toce in dezja in jo kasneje ponovno prestregli blizu mesteca Follet,Tx. Nagrajeni smo bili s prelepo strukturo in neverjetnimi barvami, ki so vzele dih vsakemu izmed nas. Chase smo koncali ob enih zjutraj v mestecu Shattuck,Ok, totalno izmuceni.

In to je to, kar se nevihtnega vremena tice. Za jutri smo se odlocili pogledati Greensburg,Ks "tornado damage" iz dne 04.05.2007, upamo da nam bo nekako uspalo priti v mesto.

22.05.2007 - Tornado!!!

Wooohooo! Danes sem koncno videl pravi tornado, za povrhu se celoten zivljenski cikel od zacetka do konca. Strukture obeh celic so bile fenomenalne, a je tornado spustila samo druga. Clovek kar ne more dojeti, da se lahko tako ogromna zadeva celotna vrti ob tem pa uprizori neverjetno strukturo - adijo pamet! Rotacijo nevihte je lahko vsak opazil s prostim ocesom - ne rabi timelapsea. NORO!!! Koncno smo bili poplacani po dveh tednih sranja. Jutri pa jovo na novo - za Tx/Ok Panhandle je izdan MDT RISK! :)

Kot zanimivost, pdobno kot lansko leto, smo tudi letos obstali v blatu. Po prvem tornadu smo se hoteli premakniti na V, a so bile opcije omejene na "dirt road". Vedeli smo, da bo tezka in smo pac tvegali. Po nekaj minutah voznje po zelo slabi blatni cesti, je Brad izgubil nadzor nad avtom in koncali smo ob robu od koder se nismo mogli spravit. Po dolgih minutah (cca. 30) smo se totalno premoceni in blatni koncno prebili na krizisce z boljso cesto, ki je bilo slabih 300m od tam, kjer smo obticali. Pika na i je bila toca, ki nas je zadnjih nekaj minut tolkla, medtem ko smo porivali avto iz blata. Ko smo prisli na plano smo se spravili v avto in chase se je nadaljeval dalje v noc. :)

That's chasing! ;)

21.05.2007 - Positioning

Today we had to move from Wyoming to the Kansas were the action is expected tomorrow. The long drive was quite fun, as we were driving S under the edge of the squall line for very long time. We also took breaks for photography.

But the best event of the day happened at the dinner. We were very hungry and were waiting for the food, when the manager comes in to the dinning room and tells everyone has to go to the hall, because tornado waning took effect. Of course, we immediately jumped out and grabbed our stuff. We saw nothing and we did not believe there even was a tornado.

To the squall line...

20.05.2007 - Sky boobies! :)

We went towards SE to Belfield,ND, where we spotted some cells in the W, so we went towards Sundance and later to the Gillette,Wy. We caught two cells there and for the southern one there was a report about possible tornado 19mi S of Gillette. We did not see any, if it was at all, but we got a beautiful portion of very nice mammtus clouds. For better images we went to the W side, out of the city. The view on "sky boobies" was amazing - images are quite ok. Nice finish for this day.

The images over there --> here. :)

19.05.2007 - Chasing in Montana

Yesterday we were in Montana, where we hoped for severe weather. The chances were slim, so our hopes we not high.

We started in Buffalo,Wy and moved north towards Billings,Mt. We waited there for hours and in the mean time we were lowering the amount of body fats. :) I was careful this time around and used a whole lot of sunscreen. Later in the afternoon we went after some cells north of the town, but it weakened before we got there. In the evening squall line was formed, which offered slight chances of success for lightning photography. We caught some, but the bolts were way to distant and weak.

Gallery is over here

18.05.2007 - Day To Die For

Today I lived the best day ever on this side of Atlantic ocean. I am speechless, it was totally mind blowing day! At least I can still write. :) No, we did not see any tornado, we did not even chase! Guess what, I got to see Devil's Tower! I can just say, I've never seen anything so beautiful and mesmerizing. I always wanted to see the DT (I guess I was a bit pushy in the last 2 days as I wanted to see DT and we were soooo close all the time :D ) but I did not expect it to be such an emotional visit, not even in my wildest dreams. I think none of the guys regrets the visit, even though some were already there.

We went right to the end of the road (there is $10 fee per car, cheap if you ask me) and I immediately took off towards the boulders at the foothills of the DT. The sight of this amazing and enormous vertical tower is just astounding! I "climbed" a bit higher towards the vertical pillars just to try to suck in all the majesty of the tower. There were also climbers in W and E walls of the tower, quite a sight. The pillars on the W side, of which the tower seems to be made of, are enormous, vertical and very smooth, on the E side they are not so smooth. I guess the climbing is way easier on the E side.

While walking back to the car I heard some screaming/singing but I never thought I'd live the day to see that. On the boulder on the foothills of the tower an Indian sang in his native language. I was sitting on the bench, looking at the top of the tower over which the eagles were constantly gliding, listening to the bird chirping and Indian song(s) and drum - I seriously got a feeling that time stopped there! I could sit there forever and not a second would go by! This is something which can not be expressed by words alone. One has to experience such events to truly understand why I was so overwhelmed. The fact that I run out of the memory cards for my digital camera says a lot and I am not trigger happy, but DT was just an exception. UNBELIEVABLE!!!

And for the dessert, for the icing on the cake, when driving back from DT we stopped to try and catch some bolts from not so distant storms. What followed was spectacular show which was totally unexpected. The cell was very electrified and CGs were amazing. I caught some pretty nice bolts and I was really happy for all of us that we got something to bite in after the severe weather drought for almost 2 weeks.

This was a DAY TO DIE FOR! You can see why over here.

17.05.2007 - Another boring ride toward Montana

Yesterday it was decided we should slowly start to climb N towards Montana. Again, there are possibilities for Mt. Rushmore, SD or even Devil's Tower,Wy. I am all for DT as this is something I always wanted to see and hopefully someday I will get there.

We drove through Wyoming which pretty nice country with dynamic scenery and for the first time I saw mountains in my trips in USA. :) Though, trees are still rare and I got a feeling there were more trees in Nebraska. ;) Also, I was at the highest point in USA, on approx. 1900m above sea level. One can't even see that he is ascending all the time, while traveling W towards Rockies.

16.05.2007 - Hunt for the rain drops :)

Plans for Badlands/Mt. Rushmore were changed when we noticed slight possibility for severe weather in the area where we were. We waited for a long time and most of the day we were behind McDonald's fast food near the truck stop. I got sunburned again, this time I was not the only one. :)

Later in the evening we spotted little storm that just passed North Platte, Ne. We tried to catch it, but by the time we got there it died already. We found the motel in McCook, Ne and just as we were unloading stuff we decided to get out of the city to try and catch some lightnings from the new storm which was just passing over the city. After a long time I finally got lucky and caught 2 nice bolts.

You can see the gallery from this day right here.

15.05.2007 - Boring drive to the W side of Nebraska

Today we set out to the W Nebraska and travel for quite some time. We were slowly, but constantly ascending from Lincoln, 500m where we started to Sydney, 1300m. We still don't know where to go tomorrow, we are looking at the models all the time (well, Jimmy and Macca are :) ). If no severe weather is expected then we will probably visit Badlands and/or Mt. Rushmore. Long range models still show some activity right at the end of my trip.

14.05.2007 - It's raining!

After several days of doing nothing and admiring the beautiful sun, we finally had some rain, and hey – even some hail! J But before all that we had a lot of fun with throwing around the ball. I also managed to get sunburns and injure my finger. The day didn't start out that good, thankfully there was some rain to look for, hehe.

In the afternoon towers began to rise to our NW and W. We were observing them for a while and when 2 storms appeared on the radar we moved to the W on I40. Nothing special and nothing organized, they soon lined out. There were lots of down-bursts, gustnadoes and I even managed to take images of 3 tiny funnel clouds. Later we encountered some hail N of I40, but the amount of it wasn't enough for one glass of lemonade.


We wanted to get at least some lightning shots, so we followed the line down to Beatrice, NE but the it was not that electrified and it was also a bit to distant. I managed to miss all the nice looking bolts. Oh well, at least it was cold enough for my sunburns. ;)

Gallery from the 14th May

13.05.2007 - Waiting for the front

With no surprise at all, in the morning noone wanted to travel so far with such conditions in place. We stayed in York, NE for one more day, and we were waiting for the cold front to reach us tomorrow.

I actually forgot what the heck were we doing the whole day, total blackout. I was probably writing this diary. *laughing*

PS: Ahhhh, I got it!!! :) We moved to cheaper and better motel and in the afternoon we were watching storm chasing DVDs. ;)

12.05.2007 - Still moving N ;)

We were expecting some storms, so we had to move to the N, again. J We ended in York, NE and later at the dinner there was a debate about possible chasing in Montana. It would took us approx. 10 to 12 hours of driving. Decision was we should move from the York at something like 5AM. Crazy stuff.

Other than that, we had nice and sunny weather, with no visible clouds. It would actually be pretty amazing, if we were let say on some Hawaii beach and the beer in hand. :D We didn't come to Tornado Alley for that though. *grin*

3 images!!! :)

Just look at that pose! (Chris in action)

11.05.2007 - Going N

Finally on the road again! We moved to Blackwell, OK, to some shitty motel - the stench was horrible, reception was especially disturbing - YUCK.

There is some minor action on the horizon in the coming days, so tomorrow we will move further NE to the Kansas/Iowa border. I was really hoping to see something, this ridge is killing us all.

On the other hand, while traveling N we stopped at the new National Weather Center. We got impressive tour of the building by Mr. Kevin Manross (Thank You). We saw offices, library, "classrooms", DOWs and lots of other interesting things.

At last there was something positive in recent days.

Some shots from this day right here.

10.05.2007 - Bad buffet day :)

Weather action calmed down and we were starting to get bored. Well, at least I was, Jimmy and Brad were actually quite busy going through the recordings from the 4th May chase. Evening shots of the Greensburg supercell were amazing, as were the captures of the (possible) Greensburg night time tornado.

There were some storms in the evening but they were weak and to distant to get any decent lightning photo.

On the next day (10th May) we were joined by 2 aussies: Chris and Andrew (Macca), nice chaps and they also brought rugby ball - time to play some ball (and get sunburned)! :)

Oh yeah, why such title you ask? Because it's true, we went to some Corral Buffet or something like that and it was miserable - I doubt they ever heard of word hygiene.

08.05.2007 - Chasing W of Gainsville, TX

Today we were chasing the cells on the W! We went through Bowie, TX and Archer City, TX almost all the way to the Seymour, TX (which was hit by a wedge this year). We got some shots of the Bowie windmills again, twice (when we went W and when we were running from the squall line back to the motel in Gainsville)! :)

Anyway, we got to the tornado warned cell and shot some nice images but it was quickly overrun from the W by fast moving squall line. Then we were running out of the rain for quite some time and when we finally got out, we had to take some shots of the shelf cloud! :)


Even if the conditions were not so good this two days, we always got to chase tornado warned cells, all thanks go to Jimmy Deguara! Thanks mate. ;

Link to the gallery

07.05.2007 - HP in NE Texas

We met with Marko and the rest of the group and we had a debate about the previous days. We also talked about that day's and future chase possibilities. Of course, there was news about "death ridge". Why not, it's time for it, because we arrived, just as the last year! Go for it!! :(

Anyway, we moved to Gainsville, Tx and later in the day we were on HP cell which developed somewhere N of Dallas, Tx. Or better said IN it, because we made a mistake at one intersection and instead of driving out of it to it's SE side, we were driving inside of it - for the most of the time (poor road network). The rain was pouring down like hell and it was quite fun. Especially the part when a lightning stroke the power pole approx. 100 meters from us - sparks flying all around! :) And the guys got that on tape, yay! :)

No pictures of the HP sadly, it was mostly night time chase: 7th May Gallery

06.05.2007 - Jimmy & Brad

The night was short and I was really waiting to finally meet with Brad & Jimmy again. I was up at 6 AM already and had quite nervous waiting time - sorry guys about the mails, I really didn't know you came to Dallas so late. :)

In the mean time we were watching TV and trying to get as much information about the 4th and 5th May as possible. The Greensburg movies were quite scary, poor people. And they were almost hit again on the next day (5th May).

Well, well, we had to move from our room and after a while I saw 2 familiar faces - YES! This is it! Hehe, we got in to the car and immediately moved towards OKC. Then we moved to Elk City, Ok and later decided to head S towards Altus, Ok. Nothing was going on so we had our dinner and after that shot a few sunset pictures. We went back to I40 and Clinton, Ok. There was quite a lightning show, I even caught some. :)

You won't believe it - but I met Marko and the Italian team in Clinton. We were in the same motel, lol. Who would've thought that we would meet on the first day over there in the same motel, nuts! :D

Link to the gallery: 6th May Gallery

05.05.2007 - Arrival to Dallas, Tx

Finally! THE day is here, I was waiting for it for a long time. My first flight was delayed for approx. 15 minutes and I was a bit worried about the transfer flight in Zurich. Anyway, all went smooth and I somehow survived the long flight from Zurich to Dallas (solving Sudoku in highest difficulty helps a lot :) ).

After the landing I caught up with Esa and we were on our way through the customs. At that time he told me about Jimmy's message and I was totaly unaware about the weather situtation. After the customs we stopped for a break to decide what to do next and then we saw the footage from Greensburg, Ks on the news. Oh my goodness, I was a bit shocked when I found out the town was obliterated, but finally understood why we had to wait 1 day for the pick up (HIGH RISK day, yay!). Anyway, we took a cab to the motel where we slept last year when we arrived and to my surprise I remembered a lot about the Dallas! I even recognized the place we ate on the 27. april 2006. :) Brings back lots of nice memories...