Tony's Blogbach, Between the Isobars

It was a rather forgettable stretch of chasing that was wiped under the rug as my beloved kitty, Zipperfoot, passed away over the weekend a couple months shy of 19 years old.  After Thursday’s horribly disappointing bust, Ed and I abandoned the chase trip to make an all-night haul back home overnight Friday into Saturday so I could be there with my favorite floof bucket. As you know, I’m a cat dad, and this was my boy, and he waited til I got to him before passing. I am heartbroken, but so glad I was able to get to him and be there with him a final time.  Major thanks to my 20-year chase partner and good friend, Ed. He suggested the drive, leaving Wichita at almost 8pm verses me waiting for the next morning flight and pushed off turning into a pumpkin to get us halfway there. Without his insistence and shaving off a lot of miles, I would’ve been too late to be there. I cannot emphasize how important that was to me, so I owe the man a tornado for every year my cat lived.

It’s hard to remember a time without Zip… he’s been the one constant over the years through so much change, so much joy, so much sorrow… he’s been a part of just about my entire adult life… he was more than a cat, more than a pet. He was truly a soulmate… I’ve been blessed with so many wonderful kitties through my life, and have said goodbye to many… but this one hurts the most… they say you’re not suppose to pick a favorite among your children, but I can’t deny how much my favorite he is.  Thank you, Zip for finding your way to us… I know Dania and I gave you the best life, and it showed by everything you gave us in return… I hope you’ve found your Momma bear and Siggles, and are nuzzling with them in the heavens above… and you best be the first one I see when the time comes for us to be together again… you are my floof…

Opted to play what I guess we can call the secondary target for Friday’s grand finale… despite a higher (possible upgrade) tornado risk across the Midwest, I opted to make the haul to Wichita from Des Moines and set up for the dry line play somewhere near the KS/OK border.  I have a slew of both meteorological and logistical reasons for selecting this target, but given all I have seen thus far, it’ll definitely play as the day’s secondary target.

Two big questions for the southern target include how long storms can remain discrete and IF any storms can fire further south along the dryline.  The crashing cold front, which was a primary factor for choosing a further south run could serve as the bulldozer to undercut storms and sending everything into an outflow dominated linear mess.  There are plenty of signals for storm development across far northern Oklahoma and southern Kansas, so we’ll see exactly how far south along the dryline these storms can form.  Plenty of ingredients to support significant severe weather, including tornadoes, so I don’t think I’ll have a stormless bust down this way.

Further north, primarily north of I-80 into eastern Iowa, northwest Illinois, and Wisconsin, areas in proximity to the low will probably spin down a few significant tornadoes, which is why there is a higher probability set there by SPC.  Again, the big question remains how discrete those storms will be.  I think that tornado threat will be much earlier in the day than anything we see south, but for how long remains a big question.  Lots of forcing yields lots of storms, and they’ll be moving fairly quickly through less-than-favorable terrain.  I think the sweet spot will be eastern Iowa into northwest Illinois; that area and it’s potential is one of the reasons I wonder if I made the right call coming down south.  But, like I said, it wasn’t all meteorology why I came south, so we’ll see.

We’re 24 hours away at least from showtime down here, so my main focus is to rest and recharge a bit after spending most of the last five days on the road.  Fortunately I played yesterday in Iowa well and gave myself a good head start down here, so not only did I make a short drive out of today, but I can take my time getting moving tomorrow unless something urgently calls me from a few more hours away.  That said, one more busy day tomorrow, then things will calm down at least through the middle of next week.

Busy day yesterday in southern Minnesota, which included my first two Minnesota tornadoes since the Wadena event in 2010.  The image above was the second tornado east of Truman, which briefly fully condensed to the ground.  This was the longer-lived of the two, not terribly strong, but certainly a looker.  The first one was from the same parent storms a few minutes prior with a brief, non-fully-condensed touchdown, with several minutes between the two ground contacts.  It’s not entirely out of the question this was one tornado, just had a multi-minute gap between contact, but we’ll see what the surveys say.  I haven’t gone through my video in a ton of detail to accurately determine that myself.  But I was close to both, within a mile, and had a great view the entire time.  I’ll yap a bit about the chaser traffic in a later blog, but I had a social media post get a little attention and I want to talk a bit about how I’ve changed my chasing around these situations.

Today, I wake up in Cedar Falls, Iowa; landed her last night shortly before 11pm and got my first night of uninterrupted sleep in a while.  I’ve been dealing with some physical ailments early on this trip which alleviated a bit yesterday and allowed me to sleep through the night finally.  Still a bit groggy as I sit down to write this, but it’s probably because I could use a couple more nights of that to get me back at 100%.

Fortunately I am closer to my target than I thought I would be last night.  Not because I had the target elsewhere, but because I ended up geographically closer to said target than I thought having not looked at a map.  I don’t get up to this part of Iowa very often.  Trying to even think if I have ever been through Waterloo.  Probably, just not recently.  That said, it’s another boundary play, and that’s really going to determine exactly where I set up.  My hope is that its south of the WI/IL border, although a quick look at Google Maps satellite implies decent terrain to chase across far southwestern Wisconsin.  Just gotta get away from the Mississippi River area where trees are a bit more obvious.  Again, not having chased up here a whole lot, I’m a bit unfamiliar with the area.

Similar to yesterday, where I was going into largely uncharted chase territory, I spent some time in the morning studying routes and river crossings.  It’s actually HOW I navigated across a river crossing south of Amboy, Minnesota yesterday where I got ahead enough of the chaser congo line to avoid being stuck in that traffic for more than a couple minutes.  I knew about the one county road between the two east/west state/US highways that everything funneled into that one road to cross the river.  Fortunately when I hit that point, I was already looking to move on to a different storm, so that was my ONLY traffic issue of note yesterday.  But it would saved me had I been in a more urgent situation.  It’s one of the tips that I think a lot of new chasers don’t realize, particularly in areas you’re unfamiliar with, is to try to know the routes and large scale escapes.  It’s a situational awareness, knowing the towns in the area I was sparked that memory that ‘oh yeah’, I have a river crossing to contend with and I need to make that move a little earlier so I don’t get squeezed. Today, other than the Mississippi River, you’re generally pretty open between US-151 to the north and US-20 to the south.  One note is that Google Maps shows US-20 closed west of Stockton, IL.  There are a couple nearby roads to detour around there, but in the heat of the chase, that could prove gnarly.  Again, just having the Illinois towns of Elizabeth and Woodbine in my head will spark that reminder that the closure is right up the road and I need to account for that in my next moves.

So yeah, my morning thoughts as I pull myself together and get ready for today.  Tomorrow looks like it could be the same general region, although a bit more messy of a setup.  Thursday at the moment, I am treating as a down day ahead of Friday, which will likely be the LAST of this particular trip.  I’ll be westbound for home this weekend.  See my chase planner there on the right for rough plans heading into early next week.  Beyond that, looks like at least one, maybe two systems in the train, the first being late next week and the next one possibly shortly thereafter.  WAAAY to far out to even begin to assess those, but I would imagine with the active pattern in place, after a short break early next week, I will be back at it!

See ya on the road!

The weekend setups became a wash for me, despite Saturday giving some play to pretty every place I targeted at one point or another.  The issue for me was that despite an early alarm that would’ve allowed me to hit any target, including the further east target, I had a low-end kitty cat emergency that I had to tend to, which by the time it wrapped up and I returned the kitty home, it was already after noon, and thus pretty well ended any hope I had to get on anything reasonable.  The good news, the kitty is at home on antibiotics and doing well, so was a good early catch that was well warranted and hopefully saved her from something worse had it been waited on.

Also fortunate, despite an impressive wind event in far eastern Colorado (my Goodland target) and the surprising MCV-driven tornado watch (my eastern target), nothing of major importance was missed.  There was a brief little birdfart nado near the KS/NE line southeast of Hastings, and a good little dust storm along I-70 near Burlington, so not a total miss, but I can exhale a bit as I was a little perturbed when the day I had written off tried to perform.  Regardless, we’re moving right along.

Today is a largely underwhelming day, so it’ll be focused on a drive to the Des Moines area, setting up for what oughta be a very busy week.  Four of the five weekdays ahead look like pretty high-ceiling chase days, with Thursday (a low-end risk) perhaps a down day ahead of Friday.  Monday, and Wednesday look solid, and Tuesday right now looks to be the big day of the bunch.  All days have high ceilings, but plenty of caveats that could fail each setup, so no slam dunks, but it’ll keep us busy none-the-less.

Monday right now, likely a southern Minnesota play based on front position and terrain.  Southeast Minnesota into Wisconsin start to get terrain-tricky, so my hope is that some of the CAMs are correct and give credit to a western play, which would be more favorable for terrain.  Tuesday shifts a bit south, eastern IA into western IL (again).  Wednesday and Friday could be similar areas, although I am not writing off either for something further south, but ideally, we’d remain in the same general vicinity for the week, which would cut down on the day-to-day miles as I am rolling this trip solo.  So that would be helpful to me.

After that, should be a bit of a down stretch, hopefully allowing me the weekend to return home and BE home for some home-projects that are slated for Monday the 20th.  Another system may eject out early next week, but hopefully stays at bay long enough to give me Monday at home haha If ya listening, Ma-Nature 😉

So that’s all I got here this Sunday AM.  Wheels up to Des Moines and we’ll see what the week ahead has in store for us!

Quick evening note; will travel my way out I-70 tomorrow, leaving a bit earlier in the morning than I would for a typical ‘travel day’ just in case a storm can get going in central Kansas in the afternoon; not expecting a ton out of it, but given the Sunday setup, this sets me up well.   Initially thought about cruising into Burlington mid-afternoon to see if the storms in Colorado would be worth anything, and I am just not convinced they’ll amount to enough to dedicate missing any central Kansas potential, nor sacrificing a full day’s drive out east.  Some CAMs are trying to spark a couple storms in central Kansas tomorrow, and it’s a halfway decent environment if a storm can get going.  So that said, an early departure from home to head out east, and maybe we’ll land in Hays for a late lunch and see where things are.