Howdy folks, yeehaw, and all that good ol’ boy stuff. Yuup, the one and only Justin McKee (Vs PBR announcer) stopped by the shop tonight to do some voiceovers and he was kind enough to let me take a goofy picture with him. Normally I would reserve this post to the Vegablog but me in a cowboy hat is front page material. Yeah, I’m just about as un-cowboy as it gets. Anyway, it was really cool meeting Justin tonight and he was super, super nice. Hell he even let me wear his hat for this picture so that should say it all. I even got to contribute a new McKee-ism for him to use on-air if he so choses. It’s so good he even wrote it down! After thinking it up most of my shift at work I’m proud to say when he uses the phrase “That bull kicked him around like a hacky sack at a hippie campfire!” the credit shall go to me. Oh yeah, pure gold. Hahaha, well it was awesome meeting him and I thank him for being a good sport and also to Charlie for letting me sit in on some of the session and for taking the picture. Forget Alberto Contador, I’m the new ‘El Pistolero!” Now where’s my Sasparilla?!
We decided to head out to northeast Colorado today despite the heat where a few ghost town websites advertised a bunch of abandoned towns with photog opportunities galore. Uhh, the websites were wrong and outdated. That’s not to say we didn’t find any abandoned buildings but the information on one particular website was completely false and outdated. The plan was to head to the Ault area E of Ft. Collins which was surrounded by abandoned (supposedly!) towns like Keota, Buckingham, Purcell, Nunn, Grover, and Hereford. Turns out none of these towns are abandoned at all. Yes, there are some abandoned buildings in the towns but none are true ghost towns.
We decided to go by Purcell first since that is Brian’s last name. Not abandoned and in fact it is home to the developing Purcell Estates! We then proceeded E on Highway 14 where we came across the town of Buckingham. This couldn’t fail because I’ve been here on a storm chase once and I had seen at least 1 abandoned building. Well, 1 abandoned building is all there is because the rest of them burned down in a fire a few years ago. Strike 2. We then traveled N to the town of Keota located in the Pawnee National Grasslands. Here we found some abandoned houses, barns and other outbuildings. It wasn’t spectacular but we were happy to finally have something to photo…
Carl and Brian braved going in the first house. It looked like an asbestos, bird shit ridden cesspool so I passed. Plus I’m afraid of birds which had several nests in the house and they were none too pleased to have us poking around in there.
A few other abandoned buildings were down the street but they were pretty locked down. So we loaded back up and continued north toward the town of Grover. On the way there we saw one other abandoned farm so we pulled off to investigate. Other than Carl shocking himself on an electrical fence and having an awkward moment with Brian (hahaha! It was classic!) the farm was a lot like the houses in Keota. Here’s some pic’s anyway…
Rattle snake fear rushed us out of the tall grasses surrounding the other abandoned sheds on the property so we continued on to Grover. Grover was actually a reasonably sized town (again, not a ghost town by any means) so we stopped into the market and got some drinks and snacks. After noticing that a stripper lives there, we also noticed that there was an abandoned mill down the street that didn’t look too locked up so we went and investigated but not before I saw a funny sign and had to immaturely post it. Insert your own joke…
Yes, I need to grow up...
Anyway, here’s the mill
After this we decided to go to our northernmost target of Hereford but there wasn’t anything there worthy of photographing so we decided to start heading back via Nunn (nothing there either) and Pierce. Hunger started to sink in so we decided to look for a local bar & grill type of establishment in Pierce. We saw a place that looked like it would work called the Full Moon Saloon but the ongoing karaoke turned us in another direction. We got back to Ault and settled on a place called the Bison’s Breath. It was pretty awesome! Totally a local dive drinking hole that’ll cook you a burger if you ask nice enough. The bartender was a really nice girl who told us that it was a good thing we hadn’t stopped at the Full Moon because it’s full of drug dealers. Literally the waitresses would bring you a line on a tray with your dinner if you knew the right people. Wow, glad we avoided that place. We had a burger and a beer and came home via I-25. Disappointing photo trip but a fun road trip nonetheless.
Today I headed up to the mountains with Brian and Carl to do a little photography trip to a few abandoned mines up in Park County. The trip was a pretty good success although I think I’m still trying to dry out! Jeans and rain soaked meadows are not a good combination. No one to blame but myself as I was the one who forecasted some rain showers up there in the first place. Anyway, we met up at my house and took off up 285 reaching Fairplay by about 12:45 or so and stopped at the Brown Burro for lunch. I’ve never eaten there before but have chuckled at the name of the place the few times I’ve driven by. Whoa momma, that place is insane good! Totally homemade mexican food and the best enchilada I’ve ever eaten. I would seriously consider driving back up there just to eat there again.
So the day was off to a good start! We then proceeded further up 285 and then took another road toward Mosquito Pass. On this road is where we reached our first target and first abandoned mine, the London Mine. As we pulled up and started unloading cameras, I noticed some wildlife was already keeping their eyes on us.
Yuup, three moose. Image a little blurry as I had to go to the telephoto lens and didn’t have time to tripod. They bolted as soon as we started making our way closer. So here’s the mine!
Of course, as we got in to the building, it started raining. We took shelter and explored a little more finding another interesting wildlife discovery. A porcupine! Err, well, a dead one that is.
It's just sleeping right mommy?!
With no end in sight for the rain, we decided to walk over to another abandoned house that was about 100 yards or so away where we got a few more photo’s.
And now the nomination for gayest picture taken of the day:
With the rain still coming down we decided to get back to Carl’s Jeep (no the top wasn’t off and no, a gasoline fight didn’t break out) and move on to our next target, the Paris Mill.
The rain finally let up and the sunshine came down which was much needed as I was completely soaked from trogging through the wet brush while wearing the ultra absorbent material of denim jeans. Like I said before, not a smart combination. We loaded up and gave Brian a few mulligans as his navigation skills weren’t quite getting us to where we needed to be. He recovered nicely though and guided us to the town of Alma where a quick jaunt up Buckskin Road brought us right to the Paris Mill. This building was incredible! I couldn’t believe how well in tact it still was. So here’s some photos:
Pardon the last two pictures of me being a loser! Hahaha, anyway that was definitely the highlight of the day for me. We decided to go back to the car and continue up to Kite Lake and it was uhh, well, a lake. Not much to see there. We then rattled our way up a decent 4X4 trail to Windy Pass (I think that’s what it was called?) where the trees up there get blown over by the high winds but still grow somehow or they get rooted differently…I dunno, it was kind of cool though.
After that we decided it was time to head home. We went over Hoosier Pass and found our way into Breckenridge and ate at Rasta Pasta. It was okay but was up against stiff competition compared to the awesomeness we had eaten earlier at the Brown Burro. I couldn’t believe how lame Breckenridge was. Tourist central, yuck. After dinner, we came home on I-70.
Overall it was a pretty fun day. Thanks go out to Brian and Carl for taking me up to see some cool stuff in ‘their world.’ I’m not big on mountain pursuits, or really going to the mountains at all for that matter but today was pretty fun. I look forward to taking them out east where I’d really like to get back to the Buckingham area to check out all of the other abandoned towns out there. Maybe next weekend!
It certainly did feel great to get out on a chase again. Having said that, it was a sloppy HP mess up in the Nebraska Panhandle. My expectations for tornadoes today were low as the shear profiles wouldn’t be anywhere near what would be needed for rotating storms. And as expected, there weren’t any. Or should I say, there weren’t any that I saw (there was a report up near the SD border). Anyway, I stuck to my original plan today and targeted Chugwater, WY and was out my front door at 10:30 heading up I-25. As I got close to the WY border I could see storms were already forming and moving E. I abandoned my target of Goshen County and flew E out of Cheyenne on to I-80. I reached the Kimball exit and went north up to Scottsbluff where I had finally caught up with my first storm. It was high based, but kept showing meso markers (indicative of a rotating storm) on my radar. I got a call from the Cheyenne NWS asking if I could see any rotation, to which my answer was an emphatic ‘no!’ Anyway, it was HP from the get go, so I skirted the southern edge of the storm and let it pass by.
I wasn’t getting any cell reception in the Scottsbluff valley, thus I wasn’t getting any radar updates. The last scan I had showed this storm was weakening so I decided to head back to Scottsbluff to refuel and grab some lunch. As I quickly got back into cell range, my radar updated showing me that storm had not died, but had re-strengthened and was looking impressive. Another reason why next year I will be getting a proper data card! After my 30 second freak out and swearing out loud session ended I blasted E trying to catch back up to it. Minotare Lake got in the way of that unfortunately. But no worries, another cell to my S and E near Bridgeport was going nuts, so I decided to head toward that area. As I got into a completely flooded Bridgeport the cell responsible for all the water promptly died in front of my eyes. I then decided to refuel, grab some dinner (never got a chance for lunch!) and give a new storm just to my S a chance to do something before I called it a day. I drove E and S out of Bridgeport where I was able to get a good look at the new storm moving toward me. Just like all the other storms today, this one was high precip too.
Seeing as this could possibly have been my last ever chase in my Pathfinder I decided to take a hero shot for her! Hahaha…
This storm continued to look like a monster rain maker, so I decided to head back home. I got tricked once as a tornado warning went out on the cell so I turned around and headed back. The tornado warning lasted about 3 minutes haha! Fool me once, shame on me…I got back to Sidney and found a pull off for a few last shots.
I also passed through my new favorite town name:
I got off I-80 and started my way back to Sterling via Peetz when I came across one hell of a dust storm! Check it:
Lastly as I got closer to Denver via I-76, one last image revealed itself to me. Not bad shots for taking them while driving 80mph down the highway!
Woke up this morning and was none too pleased to see the atomic cap that was going to be parked over eastern CO all day so I was pretty convinced we wouldn’t be heading out. A few models like the NAM, and 4km WRF did show storms breaking out later in the day but the GFS, HRRR, and RUC kept a lid on things. After Dann and I mulled it over we decided to keep our eyes on the cap and if it looked like it was eroding, we would venture out on a local chase. Sure enough as the afternoon progressed, the cap started to fade and a few other models finally broke out precip around 22z. We were on the road by 3:00 and met up with Ryan Kushner at the rendezvous point. We went E down I-70 and got off at the Airpark road exit where we had a good vantage point to see if any storms were going to fire. Ehh, not so much. We noticed a few specks on radar forming up around I-76 near Prospect Valley so we went up that way. After sitting in Hudson for awhile a few cells started to go up to the N of us. We got ahead of them on 76 and got off at Ft. Morgan and then proceeded north and west through New Raymer eventually settling on Buckingham to take some photo’s. This ended up being the highlight of the day as the storms we got ahead of never really took off. It was a good photo op though. So here are my favorites!
So anyway, I was pleased with the photo’s. We then tailed this storm E toward Sterling hoping to get some lightning photo’s but it wasn’t in the cards. So we got into Sterling and enjoyed our favorite chase fast food being burgers and tots from Sonic. And that’s all she wrote!
I hadn’t really mentioned this on the page because a few details were still being worked out but now that everything is in order, I am super, super proud to announce a partnership with ABC affiliate KRDO in the Springs!
I was contacted a few weeks ago by their chief Meteorologist Matt Meister regarding use of my live stream and exclusive local rights to my video. After an exchange of emails and a few phone conversations, the rest is history. What really pleases me about this is Matt and KRDO’s commitment to being on the cutting edge technology wise. I’ve always fancied myself a techno geek as well, so this just really seemed to fit. I know Tim Stoecklein of the Springs and Mike Phelps are also on board so I am honored to be their ‘team mates’ if you will. I’ve met Tim in person and he’s a great chaser and really nice guy. I’ve yet to meet Mike but I am very familiar with his successes over the season as well.
Anyway, I did just want to mention that and I am truly grateful for the chance to contribute what I can to KRDO. Hopefully this will be a long and successful partnership!
Less than a week since my last disappointing chase on the Palmer I am ready to forgive and forget as she didn’t let us down today! Great local chase with my friend Carl Wells which yielded a quick, brief tornado just W of Limon and some intense moments near Genoa later in the day.
We headed out of Denver right around 11AM and grabbed a bite to eat in Bennett. We sat there for awhile and after some quick meso analysis we could clearly see that the more unstable air with better low level shear was making it’s way closer to the Limon area, so that’s where we went. Limon was chaser central today as the entire Vortex 2 armada was there along with 5 or 6 tour companies and about 15-20 other cars of chasers staging for the afternoon. We waited there for about an hour or so and were really tempted to make a play on the cell that moved through Denver and was heading up I-76. That cell looked like a beast but I knew it only had a brief window to produce a tornado as it was moving N into a less than stellar atmosphere. Sure enough, it sputtered out but not before littering the metro area with some gorilla hail.
Proud that I had resisted that temptation, patience finally paid off as a cell started to fire just N of Colorado Springs. This was going to be the storm, I just knew it. So we blasted out of Limon and headed back W to the Deer Trail exit where we were going to sit and wait for it. At this point though, my patience was all worn out, so we went W out of Deer Trail and negotiated some dirt roads that took us S toward the storm. At this point it had just gone severe warned. After I saw this:
Jaggedy wall cloud...
Scuddy-ish...
I knew we had made a good decision about staying with this cell! We got spit out of the dirt road network onto highway 86 in the Matheson area where the cell which was now tornado warned, had right turned and was on top of us. We raced E on 86 beating the core of the storm back to I-70 where we decided to head back to Limon. We got through town and headed out highway 24 where visibility of the storm which now had a hook echo on it, would be a little better. This is where I believe we witnessed our quick touch down.
It was hard to be sure with the wrapping RFD...
Precip was wrapping around the whole thing, so visibility wasn’t the greatest. We continued on about a half mile more where the visibility was better…
We could see dust being kicked up under the base for about 30 seconds!
As it quickly lifted, you could still see some ground circulation.
Shortly after this, a few other chasers had made a report of a brief tornado so I’m inclined to believe my eyes weren’t deceiving me. Anyway, merely seconds after this, the storm had caught back up to us so we U-turned and got back through Limon and jumped back on I-70 heading E. We finally got out of precip and since the storm had gone back to it’s northeast movement, we were able to get off at the Genoa exit to have another look. Typical of tornadic supercells, this one also had moments where it weakened only to retighten and look good again. We went N of Genoa where their tornado sirens were blaring and found a good pull off to take some structure photo’s. At one point we had 2 separate meso’s both with insane rotation very close to our position. I had successfully scared Carl to death! Hahaha…
Low hanging meso #1 to our left...
Mean, dark looking meso #2 to our right...
The Timmermobile flew by us on their way to intercept and that’s when we knew it might be time to reposition to a better place. Seconds after we loaded up the tripods, the sky turned olive green and we got pounded by hail and some insane wrapping winds that reminded me a lot of my last drive near Scott City, KS back in April! We got back S out of the circulation to I-70 where we were forced to refuel. After the fill up, radar showed the cell had gone back into a weakening stage so we let our appetites guide us back to Limon where we eventually called it a day. Not too shabby! I do have some video of both meso’s near Genoa that I will review later and post if they are spectacular or something…
Chase Stats:
Mileage – 292 miles
Total 2010 Mileage – 10,260 (I eclipsed the 10k mark!)
Tornadoes – 1 (It wasn’t glorious or very long lived, but I’ll chalk it up anyway)
Headed out this day with Dann targeting the Palmer Divide where some isolated storms were forecasted to pop up. We weren’t expecting much except maybe a few hailers and possibly some land spouts. Well, it was pretty much a bust-ola. We did manage to catch up with Mr. Tony Laubach not too far from Larkspur since he had a few down days from Twistex. So we sat there for a few hours looking for any signs of storms popping up on radar but to no avail. Cameron Redwine, who was now done with his duties for Vortex 2 showed up and so did Justin King who usually chases up north and was nice to finally meet. So in the middle of nowhere on a dirt road we all kind of hung out and shared war stories from the season so far praying for the cap to break. It didn’t.
Eventually a few cells started to show a faint beating of their hearts back near Bennett on I-70, so off we went. By the time we got to them, they weren’t anything to write home about. So Dann and I decided to get some chow at Wendy’s near the rendezvous point and while we were eating, a cell finally did go up near the dirt road we sat at all day! And isn’t that storm chasing for ya? It was a bit too far away for us to intercept, but we did find a good pull off to take some structure photo’s at the least…
Here’s a few I got from the Wendy’s parking lot believe it or not:
And then here’s a few decent sunset shots. The colors were actually quite good at the time!
Later that night as I got back home, there was a ton of lightning happening in the Denver area. I briefly debated heading to my lightning spot on top of the DU Light Rail parking garage but I passed out on my couch 5 minutes after I walked in the door. I was exhausted from not much sleep the night before. Anyway, not a horrible day by any means.
The day started with pretty good optimism, not about what we ended up seeing, but more because we thought we would get some decent storms with the great landscapes that are down in southern Colorado. I picked Dann up at 10AM and after briefly debating about chasing a sleeper target further N near Goodland, KS, we settled on the southern target, particularly Springfield, CO. The NAM, WRF, and now RUC models were all showing a cell down in that area initiating at 21z. Shortly after hitting I-70, we could already see CU towers starting to go up. And they were right in the area we had forecasted, granted a little earlier than we thought. The back building of this cell was amazing. Just when you thought it was fizzling out, stronger convection would build behind it, reshaping the storm which kept it at a standstill. As we drove through Hugo and on to Kit Carson, the NWS issued a severe thunderstorm watch for our target area and down into the OK panhandle. We reached Lamar and that’s when the first tornado warning went out on the cell which at the time was pretty much stalled over Springfield. We continued south into Springfield where we found a road W that took us right toward the cell. We could see a funnel in the murk and a minute or two later realized that this funnel was on the ground! We couldn’t see it very well through the precip and wrapping RFD but it was on the ground. Already pleasantly surprised, we decided to get back to highway 287 and continue south so that we could get a better look at the storm. We went about 5 miles south and found a dirt road that took us W giving us an unobstructed view of the cell, and it looked good! This storm was moving so slowly that we were able to sit in its path for what seemed like hours and the thing never really got close to us. Finally we started to see some really good rotation, and a lowering that was really starting to get its act together.
Building...
How this wasn't on the ground is beyond me!
"I'm meeelllltttiiiinnnngggg!"
After that close called fizzled, we repositioned south and a little bit further west to see if the storm could recycle and try again. We had actually just crossed into OK by a quarter of a mile or so, when all of a sudden we noticed a wall cloud with this storm had really tightened up with some rapid rotation. And then it happened.
As you can see in the last 2 photo’s a rainbow started to emerge right in the foreground of the tornado! We waited a few more minutes where this scene revealed itself to us…
Wow! After we had lost sight of the tornado and the rainbow showed up, Dann kiddingly said “Wow, what kind of a shot would that be if we could see the tornado again?” Sure enough, it happened. What a day…
We then lost visual on the tornado so we continued our way back Highway 287 where it had crossed the road giving some other chasers quite the up close and personal treatment. We were now behind the storm and had completely lost visual on the tornado as it had finally lifted near Boise City, OK. We decided to call it a day and started heading home. Not bad!
A huge thanks goes out to Tony Laubach and Doug Kiesling who were able to help Dann sell video to Good Morning America! Also a big thanks to Matt and Marty at KRDO Colorado Springs for getting my video some love as well!
Chase Stats:
Mileage for the day – 630
Tornadoes – 4
Album of the Day – ‘Antics’ by Interpol
Total 2010 Mileage – 9764
Total 2010 Tornadoes - 13
***EDIT***After reviewing some more video footage, we were able to determine that another brief tornado occurred that we witnessed. At the time it was happening, we were unsure because we couldn’t see very well with the wrapping precip. Upon reviewing the video carefully though, you can see a definite ground circulation, albeit brief. Stats have been adjusted to reflect this revelation! Pic below, not sure if Youtube video would be hi-res enough to see circulation…
After getting a good night’s sleep and recharging, I was ready to go again. This time the action looked to be in E/SE Colorado. I checked the models that morning and decided that my target would be Kit Carson, CO with a probable drop to the S or E. I got out the door around 11AM and made my way down to Kit Carson. Dann was helping out with some nowcasting which was a huge help, so thanks man! He told me a CU field was developing down south near Springfield. Knowing that storms would be initiating further N closer to where I was later in the day, I thought I had at least another hour or so before I would start seeing some action. A severe thunderstorm watch was issued for my area and storms took off right on the CO/KS border. Like yesterday, they were moving almost directly N but at a very manageable 10-20mph. One cell had fired just N of Holly and quickly became tornado warned. I went E out of Kit Carson toward Cheyenne Wells and encountered to Vortex 2 crew for the third straight day. I continued E into Sharon Springs, KS where there were now 2 tornado warned cells. I was well ahead of both, so I decided to head south out of Sharon Springs toward Tribune. The northernmost tornado warned cell became very outflow dominant and shortly the warning on it was dropped. After I got past it, the southern tornado warned cell had a very pronounced lowering on it so I found a dirt road that went W and found a good hill to see all the action. I witnessed (granted it was from a distance) what looked to be 2 tornadoes on the ground at the same time while the cell was near the Sheridan Lake/Towner area. A very large, possible wedge was on the ground with a land spout tornado next to it. After both lifted, what appeared to be a large tail cloud scraped the ground for at least a few minutes. I’d never seen anything like that! Video below:
This cell was creeping along at about 10mph, so I figured I had time to get back further W to get a closer look. That wasn’t a good idea because the dirt roads I was on had just previously been rained on by the first cell that went through. After damn near sliding off the road into a ditch a few times, I crawled back to the pavement at about 7mph. I was never so happy to see a paved road! It did however, make the timing perfect. While I was crawling along at a snails pace, the storm had moved it’s way into KS and I had a pristine vantage point where I witnessed 2 more quick tornadoes.
The cell kept getting closer to my location, so I decided to head just a little further S toward the town of Tribune. I noticed a wall cloud on the storm again which at the moment appeared to be only a few hundred yards away. Knowing the storm was moving away from me, I figured I was safe to pull over and film. I’m pretty bad at guesstimating distances but this quick tornado formed in the field right next to me! Easily the closest I’ve ever been…
After the adrenaline wore off, I went E to stay with the storm to see if it would produce again but my gas warning light told me that I should probably get back to Tribune to refuel. After refueling, a look on radar showed the cell was losing strength and that my day was over. I went back N to Goodland and made my way home on I70. My first time out all year going solo and was one of my best chases ever. I clocked in with an impressive 5 tornadoes on the day. Not too bad!
May 26, 2010 – Lochbuie, CO Tornadic Supercell
It’s always weird chasing supercells in a major metropolitan area especially when you consider that metro area your home. The day started with a completely blown forecast on my part which had me situated in Ft. Morgan as a cell rapidly intensified just N of Denver. The dryline stalled out over the foothills and didn’t move east the way I thought it would. Whoops. I flew back toward Denver on I-76 muttering every bad word known to man and finally caught a view of the storm’s base near Prospect Valley.
I continued E on some dirt roads and noticed a wall cloud had formed. It started sucking stuff up like a Dust Buster and came very, very close to being a tornado.
This cell was very slow moving at one point maxing out at a whopping 10mph! I continued to track to the cells E and S staying out of the baseball sized hail that obliterated Commerce City. Just W of Prospect Valley, it tried to tornado again but just never had enough in it to get it done.
I was able to track along with this cell all the way to near Ft. Morgan where it had gone LP and had some insane structure. It reminded me a little bit of the mother ship cell Dann and I had captured near Pueblo a few weeks ago except this time there was no where near the precip, nor the lightning. Beautiful nonetheless!
After taking some structure photo’s I noticed a cell down south was starting to intensify and had a tornado warning on it. With no easy way down there, I navigated some pretty tricky and less than stellar dirt roads that finally lead me to Highway 71 toward Last Chance. The Delorme saved me on that one! I flew W on highway 36 only to watch the storm die a quick death right in front of my eyes. After that, I called it a day and made my way home down I-70. A very entertaining day for sure.
Scott Hammel: Semi-successful storm chaser from Englewood, Colorado. Chasing since 2006.
