Some Pictures

I managed to get around to uploading some pictures to Picasa and Facebook. Most of my footage is video, so these are a collection of some of James photos, and the odd one I took via the Camcorder. Here you go:

http://tiny.cc/Vih09
http://tiny.cc/8iCze

I'll put together a video when I can.

Blogs take too much time.....

Well, we're back in England!

No tornados to report but we saw everything but. I think we're going to do it again but not for a few years, it wasn't the cheapest of trips, close to 3.5k each all in!

A brief summary then, I'll blog when I have uploaded pics and edited a video...

We punched the core of a supercell in the final few days and were subjected to golf ball size hail. This was immense, the sound was so loud, we were on a freeway and all the cars were stopping or trying to get in the underpass to save their cars, we just punched on not worrying about the dents - there's already enough on the vans.

We stood right under a rotating funnel cloud essentially watching the formation of a tornado - but it was too weak to build up enough to touch down but was still really eery. I have some good video footage of this.

We saw massive lightning shows, and a supercell that was that nice looking it was like you were looking at a painting.

We travelled over four and a half thousand miles, covering the following states (might have missed some, i'm waiting for the gps bookmarked file from Stuart):

Oklahoma
Kansas
Nebraska
Colorado
Wyoming
Texas
New Mexico - and crossed the border into actual swine flu Mexico for a brief period.

We made some great friends and all in all had a great time, just saw no bloody tornados! :o)

Apologies for not updating the blog near the end, we had some really long chase days, one was 800 miles in a day, so by the end of a day I had just enough energy to have a few drinks then go to sleep not finding the time to blog. Although I'm sure I would have updated had I saw a tornado!

Mark -done!

Day 5 update - Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrr

Had you fooled, bet you thought from the title we caught a tornado, no of course we didn't, that would mean having some luck for once! We did however have a Pirate themed day as Stu (number one hurricane chaser and TV legend in the UK) and Rich (another crazy driver) decided to talk like a pirate for the day. Doesn't sound that amuzing, but as all the four cars are hooked up by radio, it got quite funny when all the conversations were in pirate speak. Some people dressed up with what we could find in the truck stop.

Today was worse than yesterday, we chased one storm, thought we almost saw a landspout tornado which turned out to be rain shear, then chased another storm which had a really great wall cloud.

Tomorrow we're leaving Denver (finally) and heading down to Texas where we should finally get some severe weather as the required hot winds are coming in from Mexico. Get some!

Off to the bar now, it's Bill's birthday, you know Bill, he's the one that wrote the music score to Starship Troopers 2. He'll like that plug :o)

Day 4 update

Mileage for the day only 120 miles as we stayed in and around Denver, near Roger's house

was a good day, no tornados though - surprise surprise

we saw loads of lightning. two funnel clouds - the precursor to tornados, some hail, and some really nice looking clouds.

Bar was nice too :o)

God damn Florida ruining the weather!

We've got some really good photographers with us, so I should be armed with plenty of pictures when we get back. Brian took the picture of the lightning, not a chance that I could get a picture like that!

Day 3 update

Yesterday (day 3) was a driving day to get us down to Denver, Colarado

The road was awful all the way here so you were jumping out of your seat for about 4 hours as it was one long road.

Colarado is awesome though, we all went out to a restaurant complete with 20oz steak, line dancing and randomly a huge slide in the middle of the bar????

Another night of drinking, as the hotel has a nice bar. All the drivers on the tour were able to have a drink as well as they didn't have to drive us anywhere so it was nice to talk and drink with them.

The weather is starting to get better (worser), typical that the weather has turned out like it has on the tour James and I have chosen but that's the gamble you take when you come. It's the same for all other chasers out there. Especially the 40 vehicle strong Vortex crew (google it) so we can't complain. Roger thinks that we may have a good chance of seeing a Landspout tornado in the Denver area today or tomorrow because he knows the area (this is where he lives) and because of the Rocky mountains it has the highest outbreak of landspout tornados in America - don't ask me to explain how.

Well that's it for now. I will update again when I have some more photos to upload and have seen something to blog about.

Have a good day now pardners!

Day Two - Nebraska Supercells

Total Mileage for the day - 611 miles

Marble Sized Hail, Torrential Downpours, Two Supercells - and all this on the day we didn't think we'd see anything because of the Florida situation!

We made it into the middle of Nebraska after 5 hours solid driving with a few pitstops. Straight away we were faced with a thunderstorm which grew into a supercell. We got out and took some footage of the storm growing, but then had to get back into the van after the downdraft caught us and it started hailing - hard! The hail became about marble sized and caused one hell of a racket, like someone was firing tennis balls at the van.

We also, clocked the Tiv team, twice in fact, apologies for the crap photo :o)

We then followed another promising supercell around for a while, but it moved into a colder area so lost it's power so we gave up on it in the end.

Finally we drove back down to North Platt, Nebraska to the hotel we're staying in tonight watching amazing lightning the whole way down. We also ran over a rabbit on the way, does that count as good luck?

All in all a really good day and this is nothing compared to what we expect on the weekend where we should be staying down in Denver, Colarado for a few days where major storms are expected. It's a goodnight from me and a goodnight from James. Bed is calling, 12 hours driving tires you out!

Day One - Twisters Bar

Didn't get a chance to post yesterday as we had no Internet in the hotel and was a wee bit drunk anyway so doubt I would have been able to write a decent post. Yesterday was a driving day to get us close to Nebraska, but we couldn't get close enough to do any chasing. After arriving around 8:15pm we checked in, then all met back about 15minutes later to go to the Twisters Bar. Had an ace burger and chips, played some pool and had a few drinks which were only $1.25 a drink which is c-h-e-a-p! After the meal the rest of the group got back in the vans and went back to the hotel..... me and James had other ideas :o) Well come on, at that price wouldn't you stay? We stayed there till two in the morning drinking copius amounts of beer and shots with two new found allies, an off duty cop and a humungous barman. Somehow we managed to get home via the aid of a taxi, apparantly the only one in the area, fortunately owned by the bar. Good Times!

Update

we've been talking to some of the more experienced chasers here, and it looks like it will be difficult to see a tornado within the next 10days, apparantly the weather that's going on down in Florida (they've had a foot of rain in the past few days, when they normally only get 70cm in a year) is messing everything up.

Fortunately, we're still going to see some interesting weather and tornado's are still a definate possibility, but we'll probably be farther North that we thought staying in and around Nebraska and Colarado area but the chase is most definately on, and if there is a storm, we'll damn well see it!

Even without a tornado, we'll still see some amazing weather, massive hail, lightning shows, huge supercell clouds.

Now packed and ready to go, the bags are soon going into the van, and we'll be setting off soon. Will blog when I can, with pictures once I actually get out of the hotel :o)

Made it in one piece

We've arrived in Oklahoma!

It's now 9:05 in the morning, yesterday has taken it's toll. We got here about 3pm local time yesterday which was really 9pm UK time and after unpacking went for a few beers.

I highly recommend the Sports Bar in Oklahoma if you ever get the chance on Merideon Street. Unsure of the beer sizes, James was offered the choice of a small or large Guinness, thinking it would be a half pint, he said yes, and was rewarded with a two pint jug of guinness. Check out the picture

Suitably refreshed, we attended the orientation meeting at 7pm to meet Roger and the rest of the crew. There are over 20 people on the tour split between 4 vans which we'll keep rotating so everybody sits in each van and get's to know everyone. We then went out for a chinese buffet, had a few more drinks at the sports bar, then fell into bed, very very tired.

I'm just about to pack up, then go for breakfast. As the weather outlook isn't that good (bad) for the next few days we're using today to travel up towards Nebraska for some bad weather that should be up there.

Expect some pictures of actual places in the next post. Oh, and apparantly saying 'Cheers' is really cute in America, or so the bar girls in the sports bar kept saying.

Well 'cute' is better than nothing! :o)

Twas the day before Friday

Got a new job today. That is all, thankyou please :o)

First Ever Blog Post

Having never written a blog, I wouldn't expect a literary treat, just a lot of photos. You know they say a picture is worth a thousand words :)

I've created this mainly to upload a few pictures and document some of the places I go on my upcoming Tornado Chasing Tour which I fly out for on the 18th May, just under a week away from now.

NOW, just because I want to test uploading a picture, I proudly present the automatic beast of a car I rode for the day yesterday whilst I had Becky's car serviced for her. Having never driven an automatic before, what were they thinking giving me the keys to this! Anyway, it was easy to drive in the end, and here it is....somewhere with this blog....