The ultimate tornado chase adventure
Note: This story is excerpted from our book Under the Whirlwind, available from us at the Skyart Store. No portion of this text may be copied, reproduced or reposted without our written permission. Story written by Arjen Verkaik and Jerrine Verkaik. ©2001, all rights reserved.
Since the first edition of our book Under the Whirlwind, much has changed in the way people relate to severe storms and tornadoes. Twister initiated a frenzy of interest in storms and storm chasing which has been both a blessing and a curse.
Insofar as people have become more engaged with the sky and weather it has been an exciting change. We love to see more and more people open their eyes to the glory of our atmosphere. It’s bound to enlarge their vision of life and make them more alert to the dangers the weather may present. But we worry that too many people are looking for a quick fix, a momentary thrill to divert them from an otherwise humdrum existence.
The sky has the potential to engage you fully, giving your thoughts and imagination room to roam, room to rediscover what you value most in life. If you reduce your interest in it to a few dramatic moments near a tornado, you are missing out on its greatest gifts. You are grasping for a one night stand (and chances are you won’t even get that lucky!), whereas you could be building an enduring and enriching relationship which will challenge your imagination and capacity for wonder until the day you die.
Storm chasing should never be approached as an extreme sport. It must be motivated by curiosity and fascination with the mysteries weather presents, and carried out with responsibility and concern for the people who happen to be in the path of storms or chasers. Otherwise it descends into a reckless pursuit that may endanger lives and hamper the efforts of those chasers and researchers who are trying to make positive contributions to understanding and warning people about severe weather threats.
Serious chasers have been dismayed by the increase in “chaser convergence” over the past few years. Many of these new enthusiasts are fully and productively engaged with the weather, but some put themselves and others at risk, with little understanding of what they are doing or how close to catastrophe they are venturing.
We can only hope that they will soon be discouraged by the frustrations, hard work and single-minded dedication required of a true storm chaser. As the following story demonstrates, a successful storm chase doesn’t come easy– even to chasers who have been at it for decades!
Catching the big one
After the snowiest winter in recent memory here at home, we yearned for a taste of summer. The spring of 2001 had teased us with several fast-moving weather systems that had swept severe storms across the Midwest. By late May, we were itchy to feel the warm winds and hear the thunder of a good storm chase.
With plenty of work still calling, we decided to chance a short trip– only four chase days– in hopes of seeing a few good storms and relieving some of that “itchy” anxiety. It was a big gamble. An uncertain weather pattern, a very long drive from Ontario, and high expectations (our usual unrealistic optimism) all suggested that this effort was just a crazy impulse likely to fail!
A long hard two-day drive landed us in Liberal, KS early on the 27th of May. We soon realized the town was full of chasers– some old friends, a few others we knew, and many more we didn’t. It was like a big party, with everyone waiting for the guest-of-honour to appear in the sky nearby.
By mid-afternoon, storms developed rapidly and we drove out to meet what became a raging squall line. Winds up to 100mph blasted us with a wall of dust as the line passed. We tried to outrun the storm but it was no use. A few brief photos and a wild windstorm left us in awe of Nature’s power and hungry for more. Not too bad for our first day out!
The next morning we took our time, enjoying a quiet breakfast, looking at data on the internet, and watching the Weather Channel. Today’s target was less clear, but most of the other chasers headed south to wait for action in Texas. We left later, heading mainly west. We wanted to stay north of a large cloud deck which was refusing to clear farther south. We thought it was better to see something than wait for a long-shot storm in a boring overcast.
We drove into northeast New Mexico (beautiful countryside!), then spotted a storm anvil far to the northwest. A quick check revealed that Colorado was now under a tornado watch. “What!?”, we thought, “Way up there? All the storms were supposed to be in the other direction!” But, ... it was ok because we’d have an excuse to see the mountains and that crystal-clear sky, even on this short chase.
A few hours later we arrived in Trinidad, Colorado, where a line of persistent storms drifted off the mountains to the west. Each storm looked better than the last, until one became larger and began showing supercell features. Its base lowered and became nearly circular before a gusty wind undercut the inflow and slowly choked it off. Close call, but not quite enough! There was one more, but it looked weaker.
With dusk setting in we decided to park with a view to the west and shoot lightning. We waited as the light faded and distant lightning bolts became more prominent. Meanwhile, our last storm had slipped by us and was followed by a rush of air and a brightening sky. I should have been thinking about this, but I was preoccupied with shooting into the distance. I began to wonder, though, and I glanced back to the north and saw something whitish hanging in the air. Was it a chunk of low cloud, or...?
In my usual joking manner I turned to Jerrine and said, “Hey, check out that tornado.” (I do this with every pointy piece of cloud.) But the joke was on me! While we had our backs to the storm, it had tightened up and formed a ragged wall cloud and then a long ghostly funnel. It was hard to tell if it had actually touched down as a tornado, but it was obvious that we had been much too careless and presumptuous about that storm. We wheeled around and got a better view for one photo before the funnel vanished.
I was in shock, and depression gnawed at my feelings. We had done everything right, except at the very end when it counted. Never turn your back on a wall cloud! The bitter lesson of missing an opportunity so close at hand accompanied me to bed, but faded the next morning as we learned that there had been no storms elsewhere. And, besides, an even bigger storm day was taking shape.
We had decided to stay in Trinidad because the next day might be good in Colorado. After reviewing morning forecasts, a pronounced severe weather “bullseye” was staring at us from the Texas Panhandle. We left mid-morning under sunny skies. A pleasant drive brought us to Clayton, New Mexico, where we dropped in on a few other chasers at a motel in town. The lobby was filled with bustling chasers and an air of nervous anticipation. After exchanging a few excited words we all left for Texas, each of us with slightly different ideas and interpretations about where to be. The chase was now on, but where to?
I had originally thought of heading south, to stay near a dryline coming out of New Mexico. But an attempt at a data update along the route failed, so we decided to head east to Dumas instead. There, the local library could offer us one last look at conditions around the region. We normally don’t worry too much about data on the road, but this day was cloudy (hard to see distant) and the stakes were high. It was one of those serendipitous decisions you later recognize as crucial to the day’s outcome.
In Dumas the clouds began to bubble into taller towers here and there. We got a brief update (which didn’t help much) and headed south toward Amarillo. I was carefully watching the wind direction. It had been southeast but was now south– not good. That meant that the area behind us (north) had better convergence. I was already a bit nervous because the one thing the data stop did suggest was likely severe weather in southeast Colorado. But we were now committed to our Texas target and the only thing we needed to do was find a storm. Once formed, they would quickly go severe.
As lower cumulus cleared out en route, we spotted long thin anvils shooting up from the southwest like cloud spears. Wow! The first storms had fired and were racing toward us! We rushed into Amarillo for gas and headed east to the edge of town for a better look. Those anvils were zooming overhead on 100mph winds but the bases were still small back to our west. The extreme growth rate was obvious from the thunder– constant cloud-to-cloud rumbles even in the thinnest parts. A bit of rain and the storm was past us. But another came up behind it. This one had a larger inflow base and a darker rain curtain. “They’re pulling together rapidly.” I thought.
We went east and north a little to get into position for the approaching storm. But after a short while we noticed it remained well to our west. It was now “backbuilding”, such that new growth on its south end was so rapid that the storm’s strongest updraft remained in almost the same place. We searched for a road going west to get closer, and found one. After a few miles, it turned north then ended abruptly as a red mud dirt path. Oh no, a dead end just when we needed to get closer!
We decided to stay there to watch and photograph the evolving storm. Its base lowered and widened, then a brief wall cloud appeared silhouetted against the bright sky underneath the base. Our longest zoom lens caught that on film, but just. “What if that thing puts one down now!?” I agonized. We thought of leaving– of driving back east (away from it), going back south, back through the city and up the freeway. Tempting, for short-term gain– but what if the storm then passed us? With no road options on the map, we were trapped where we were. It was down to waiting until the storm got closer, and hoping nothing important popped out before then!
Our storm approached, becoming larger, with dark sky passing to our north and continuous high thunder above. In the meantime, other storms had fired farther south. (We later found out that most chasers that day were down there.) One of these southern cells sent a shower over us, and for a short time we could no longer see cloud detail around us.
The urge to leave grew stronger, and when the sky cleared again to the southwest, we saw a magnificent boiling thunderhead down there, brightly sunlit. Should we pass on the grey mess to our north and go for the obvious power and clarity of this churning beauty? Decisions, decisions! This was really tough– one storm clearly visible but farther away versus another, less obvious but closer.
We did the usual see-sawing about whether to go that way, but we agreed to stay with what we had. It’s far too easy to be suckered by “greener pastures syndrome” but we managed to resist. We also remembered one of our rules: “Don’t leave what you’re near unless it is definitely dead!” and laid the temptation to rest with a few photos.
We left our spot and returned to the highway, then headed north. Our original storm was on the move now and was to our north-northwest, just about to cross the road! We raced north, then stopped beside the now large, low wall cloud as it neared the road. We took a few wideangle shots. There were now a number of other chasers parked along here.
The cloud came closer so we backed off to the south a bit. As it crossed the road, a rush of air turned the southeast wind to westerly and the sky immediately brightened. “Hmmm, this reminds me of something ..... oh, yes, last night!!” Another strong RFD (rear-flank downdraft) was plunging down the backside of the wall cloud. This “cascading RFD” not only opened up the sky but also tore away at the back edge, causing the cloud material there to descend like a waterfall. This was a good sign for possible tornado formation because now the storm had its updraft-downdraft couplet in place, ready to tighten up the flow.
The RFD swept forward, pushing the wall cloud well east of the road and quickly away. With low clouds, even a few miles steal your view! We got more photos, but were now nervous that the storm was readying for a touchdown just when it would be out of range. I felt a twinge of panic. The sudden realization that we might be watching our hopes disappear with the storm was enough to get us moving. But that fear also clouded my better judgment, and I opted to go north to the next east road. Bad idea. Within minutes, a fine rain filled the air as a developing “hook” came sweeping around the backside of the mesocyclone.
We wheeled around and headed south again. The next east road was closer than we thought. We went east to Panhandle, all the while eyeing the darkish area in the distance. In that thirty minute period of driving, the storm put down two brief tornadoes, we found out later.
At Panhandle we joined highway 60, a long road through nowhere angling to the eastnortheast. That would put us on a gradual but certain intercept course with the storm. Along the way we saw a few other chasers, but not many. There were several media vehicles though. Later we found out where the real chaser convergence was– down on the second storm to our south. There, hundreds of chasers swarmed another impressive storm but one that only managed a brief dusty tornado. Perhaps Mother Nature was a little shy with all that attention?
The sky changed quickly with every mile, and soon the large wall cloud was plainly visible to our north. As we drove, Jerrine spotted a brief funnel cloud, then another. It, too, disappeared but this was a good sign of things to come. We often see these high, thin funnels come and go before a larger tornadic funnel forms. Then, she noticed a dirt whirl on the ground to her distant left. Touchdown! We seemed to be the first chase vehicle in the vicinity to spot it. Above it was a still small funnel but only seconds later it was already widening up near the cloud base.
She was now on alert for a cutoff to get us across the divided highway for a better view. Of course the north side of the road was littered with wires along a railway line (much too ugly– we needed a pristine view!). She zipped into the left lane and put the pedal to the metal, searching for a crossover to get us past the tracks.
There was our chance! We crossed over the hump of tracks and screeched to a halt just short of a red mud road surface. Whoa! Those red mud roads are deadly when wet, turning to “snot” which gives absolutely no traction! Jerrine lept out with a camera and zoom lens, ran up to the fence line and started clicking. She yelled to me, “tornado on the ground!” as the dust whirl/funnel cloud spun down into a nice cone-shaped tornado.
My moment of truth must now be told. As thorough and organized as I am on all other aspects of chasing, when a tornado forms I’m all thumbs and generally useless to her. The intense excitement seems to occupy every brain cell I have! I’m lucky if I manage a few shots, a few glances, or a change of film when needed. Alas, my secret is out! Luckily our partnership includes someone who is the complete opposite– cool, controlled and efficient in the face of any crisis or danger.
Minutes seemed like years, and yet passed by as if time were being sucked silently from us by the ever-growing vortex. The large tornado was now due north of us and gradually changing appearance, from a greyish backlit cone to a pale white one.
- A large cone tornado a few miles to the north becomes slowly lighter as it reflects the bright western sky.
Then, out of nowhere, some idiot (oops!) videographer wheeled in beside us and set up his tripod just as Jerrine’s camera jammed (probably that dust storm in Kansas!). Well, if that wasn’t Murphy’s law! She ran back to the car to get another camera from me, but in the heat of that moment I handed her the 1600 ASA film one because I wasn’t sure if our slower films could take in the dark sky. (Too bad! 1600 ASA film is bound to be grainy– but it’s better than nothing. I knew I should have loaded the spare camera!!)) On the way back out, Jerrine excused herself to the crouched guy beside our car, but thought, “Sorry,... but hell, I was there first!”
Moments later, he whisked up his tripod and drove off. Jerrine took a few more shots as the tornado developed a beautiful black skirt of debris at its base. The tornado glided across the green landscape. There was some wind, but no other sound. It was too quiet, too strange to see a thing of beauty and destruction move so gracefully– so effortlessly– before our eyes! It was now quite clearly visible, and impressive!
Meanwhile, I managed to locate our fastest lens (a 50mm, which makes the tornado look unreasonably small) and took a few test photos. They were fine, but we were beginning to run out of time. Another “hook” of fine rain was sweeping in from the back of the storm and quickly obscuring our ghostly marauder. It was time to move forward, hoping to retrieve a clear view.
We were very excited and tense as we gunned it east on the highway. I knew our chances of another view were slim: once wrapped in rain, tornadoes rarely reappear. Within a minute we began passing various chasers parked along the road. We kept going, looking for an open stretch and a glimpse of our shrouded marvel. The only thing on Jerrine’s mind was, “I’ve got to get past the rain so I can see that tornado!” I was trying to assess our position and the risks we might face.
In the desire to get another view, we didn’t pay too much attention to the fact that all the other chase vehicles (mainly news crews) were dropping by the wayside. Obsessed by getting a view, we were not thinking that we were on a collision course with the tornado. With low cloud bases it’s easy to overestimate distance, so I thought we had room to spare as we drove.
Suddenly ... it was as if the curtain had lifted on an epic drama. There it was– right, I mean right beside us– a humungous wall of tornado!
- A gigantic wedge tornado emerges from wind-driven rain less than a mile to our left!
We screeched to a halt, and Jerrine reached for the camera (100 ASA this time). I was not sure what she saw, but it didn’t matter. My attention was transfixed by the very strong, increasing wind outside! The rain had eased, and Jerrine’s excited remarks did not temper my fears. Outside, the wind howled, but inside the car it was very quiet. I said, “I think we’re too close” in a very quiet voice. My abnormal tone shifted her attention onto me and away, briefly, from the massive tornado to her left. She thought, “I’ve never known you to speak so quietly and plainly during a tornado– its usually more like ‘Holy shit!!!’ ” We were definitely too close. I thought, “How did I get myself into this mess?”
Jerrine sensed my extreme apprehension and started to back up. There was no one in sight behind us, but we couldn’t see far that way because the wind was wrapping rain in at 80-90mph at our backside. We didn’t get more than 20-30 ft back before she realized the tornado would pass in front of us. (But when we initially stopped she thought we might end up in the middle of it.)
She stopped, but at an angle to the road so she could shoot out her window. It would have been impossible to get out of the car– the winds were too strong to stand up against them. We had stumbled into the inner edge of the hook echo region (which is the outer edge of the tornadic circulation) and were experiencing the intense stream of air which led straight into that vortex now less than a mile from us!
My worries eased as she began shooting but I don’t recall what I was doing during the first minute. Probably more of that “ all thumbs” business! The silence was punctured by each camera click and framed against the ever-present howl outside. Neither one of us said a word until she stopped shooting about five minutes later.
Hurricane-force winds with rain were blowing against the back of Jerrine’s head as she leaned out the window to shoot. First she used the 24mm leans– but this tornado was too close and too huge to get a good shot with that wideangle lens. So she switched to– believe it or not– our widest lens, a 15mm (110 degree) to shoot a tornado!
“I still can’t believe we needed practically a fisheye to take in a tornado! Were we really that close?! Were we really that foolhardy? ... thank God we were!” It wasn’t a decision I would have made on purpose, but I, too, was glad for the results afterward. We were pretty reckless driving right up to a monster wedge tornado. But then, sometimes it takes a mistake to expose the opportunity of a lifetime!
Jerrine clicked away, with only the sound of the wind and the feel of the horizontal rain driving into the back of her head. But it was no problem keeping the camera steady because the wind was completely constant– absolutely no gusts. It was not until a couple of days later that she realized the reason that her neck was sore was that she had braced her head against the wind as she shot the tornado.
As she shot, she thought, “I can see the fine, almost delicate texture of the horizontal rain sheets and the darker dust skirt wrapping around the huge trunk of a tornado– beside, then in front of me. There is no large debris here because there are no structures nearby.” (It was fortunate that there was nothing along the road that could become airborne, or we could easily have been injured.) You hear people talk about “elephant trunk” tornadoes. But what we were looking at was the “elephant’s leg”– so close that we could see all the wrinkles in the skin!
- The tornado may not look very close here but it filled the sky in this 110° view.
As the tornado moved toward the road, and started crossing it ahead of us, a couple of cars came up and passed us from behind. I stepped out for a couple of final shots. What a wind! The tornado faded from view as rain obscured it again. We took off, leap-frogging other chase vehicles as it plowed ahead, veiled in rain.
We stopped with a few other cars where the tornado had crossed the road because there were heavy duty wires down across it, but within a minute or so we spotted emergency flashers coming up behind us and we and the other cars drove over the wires slowly, knowing that help was right there if things got dicey. Power poles lay along the highway like slain giants with their arms outstretched. Pieces of debris lay here and there, strewn along the road for almost three miles.
I thought about this and speculated that the tornado might have circled the mesocyclone’s outer edge– first to the south and east as we stopped the last time (that may explain why it seemed to be nearer than expected), and then curving more east-northeast along the highway. We didn’t have a chance to survey the results in more detail because a heavy deluge of rain, hail, and increasing wind enveloped our route. Later analysis suggested this was another dangerous moment. The increasing wind occurred as the tornado briefly became stationary just to our southeast. A storm’s rebuilding phase can sometimes cause a tornado to back up before resuming its regular course. We were trapped on the highway by bouts of heavy hail and rain, and near-zero visibility.
We never saw the tornado again– it was rain-obscured. We made our way down the next highway to the interstate and headed east to Shamrock before dark. That town has become a favourite hangout for chasers because it has a gas station with data access and Weather Channel on. Maybe we’d run into some chaser-friends there, we thought. After all, how can you live though such an adventure without telling someone? Sure enough, Jerrine walked in and spotted old friend and veteran chaser Dave Hoadley surveying the drink cooler at the back of the store.
They exchanged a few excited words and breathless (with awe) stories. He had filmed it too, but from further back. Jerrine sent him out to me and we shared a few minutes of laughter as we teased each other and shared the joys of our fantastic catch. By the time she came back out to the car he’d already bid me farewell.
Seeing Hoadley was a fitting way to end the day. We’d run into him before Trinidad too, so it was like touching home base. We had caught the “big one” for sure! It was the largest, closest, most awesome tornado we had ever encountered, and the memories of this day would inspire our dreams and chasing fantasies for a long time.
The next day, we toyed with a nice storm in Texas for awhile before breaking off for home. Behind us, as we sailed east through Oklahoma, we watched the sky sparkle with lightning. The light show lasted hours, bidding us farewell and teasing us to return again someday soon.
Our short chase was a fantastic success– and not just because of the tornado. The whole experience was time-out-of-time, a wild ride on Nature’s coat-tails, the perfect remedy for a chaser’s itch.
The sky is always there
We will always be skywatchers first and storm chasers second. Even if we were motivated mainly by a desire to get under the wall cloud, cheek to jowl with a tornado, we would not have much success if we were not willing to stay engaged with the sky even in its quieter moments. Once you know it intimately, as we do, you, too, will want to delight in its infinite and varied beauty whenever and wherever you can.
And although you will probably never have to take cover from a tornado, you are now free to start enjoying the magnificence of the stormy sky. Now, you know enough to respond with exhilaration, not terror, to the many manifestations of wind, water and electricity that paint glory in the heavens. Happy skywatching. Perhaps we’ll see you out there, eyes to the sky!
