Date: 20100627
Miles Driven: 182 Miles
States Visited: MI
SPC Outlooks
Chase Partner(s): Solo
Chasers Encountered:
Weather Conditions Experienced:

• Bust

Chase Map

This Sunday morning chase was ultimately short-lived and doomed from the start. Some storms had blown up early in the day, sometime in the late morning just south of the Warm Front which was situated just north of I-94. I headed out just before noon and headed west towards the cells which were coming into Van Buren County.

The storms really looked like crap on radar, but they were tornado warned around 12:45 pm. I continued through Barry County to meet up with the storm somewhere southwest of Hastings, but the storm crossed the warm front and died off.

So I headed back east to see if I could catch the stuff that had blown up in the southern and southeastern part of the state, but between traffic, road construction and everything else, I never was able to catch back up and gave up once I got to Brighton.

Date: 20100524
Miles Driven: 1,080 Miles
States Visited: SD
SPC Outlooks
Chase Partner(s): Adam Lucio, Danny Neal
Chasers Encountered:
Weather Conditions Experienced:

• Bust
• Non Severe Wind
• Wall Cloud

Chase Map

May 24th was largely a bust in my book, and really shouldn't have been. I woke up around 9am that morning and started looking at things, and wanted to either take US-12 west into North Dakota or at least Highway 20 to Bison, SD.

Adam and Danny had stayed up a bit too late partying the night before, and didn't get up till a little bit later. I told Adam that Bison should be our target, but it took another hour or two before we finally hit the road.

We headed down US12 west to the Bowdle area, and headed back somewhat the way we came up the other day. I wanted to head west on US212 but Danny and Adam ended up wanting to go south towards Pierre and intercept the stuff coming out of Nebraska.

The stuff to our east near Faith was dropping tornadoes and while it would have been questionable that we could have ever caught it, if we had left earlier we could have easily caught it and the other storms that produced that morning.

We ended up south of Murdo and intercepted the cells coming out of Nebraska as they were completely falling apart.

We gave up early and headed east and stopped at Hardee's in Mitchell, SD where we were greeted with Andy Gabrielson's video of the amazing tornadoes we missed.

What a long ride back to Chicago. Adam was mad enough that we drove all night and got back to Chicago around 6-7am. Adam dropped me off at Chicago Midway so I could get my truck out of the parking garage ($89 for parking!) and then head to his house where we could sleep most of the day.

Date: 20100608
Miles Driven: 937 Miles
States Visited: IL
SPC Outlooks
Chase Partner(s): Solo
Chasers Encountered: Brandon Sullivan, Jesse Risley
Weather Conditions Experienced:

• Bust

Chase Map

I wasn't able to get this week off from work, so I was stuck heading home after the major bust on Saturday. I returned home Sunday in time for work on Monday. On Monday my boss told me that one of the other guys was taking Friday off (my normal day off) and that he'd like for me to work on that Friday. I didn't want to work, but agreed if I was able to take Tuesday off to go chase in Illinois.

I went to work for a couple hours then decided to head down as there was a warm front in Illinois, and the calendar says June. If there's a WF in IL in June, you chase. Period.

I headed down to I-55 and then south. I stopped in Dwight for gas and to drive by the damage from Saturday, then headed down I-55 to US 136 which I took west to Havana. A quick stop for Hardees and then headed down towards Rushville. Storms were firing in Missouri and Western IL to my south, but nothing seemed to get real organized.

I sat in Rushville for awhile waiting on things to get organized, but they never did. Eventually I called it a day and headed up to Jesse Risley's house in Colchester before heading back to Chicago for the evening.

All in all a crappy bust.

Date: 20100519
Miles Driven: 1,693 Miles
States Visited: OK
SPC Outlooks
Chase Partner(s): Adam Lucio, Danny Neal
Chasers Encountered:
Weather Conditions Experienced:

• Bust
• Wall Cloud

Chase Map

So after saying all week that I was not chasing on Wednesday, I did everything in my power to go chasing. I called everyone I knew to see if I could get them to trade off driving with me to drive all night to make it to Oklahoma in time for the anticipated Tornado outbreak on Wednesday the 19th. All failed.

Eric Treece suggested I try flying into a bunch of different airports, but nothing really seemed plausible and affordble (less than $1000). I had all but given up, but then realized Adam Lucio and Danny Neal would be in Oklahoma City. I found a fare from Chicago Midway to Oklahoma City for $132 plus tax, so there my journey began.

I got home from work, packed, and went to bed around 8:30 pm. It's a good thing I was tired, and fell right asleep. I was up at 1:45am to take a shower and drive to Chicago Midway for my flight which left at 6:45 am.

The drive to Chicago was pretty uneventful. I parked my truck in the economy parking deck, and caught my flight. The flights went well. My first flight was about an hour from Chicago Midway to Minneapolis/St. Paul Minnesota. The flight took off eastbound and took us right over downtown Chicago.

I caught my connection to Oklahoma City. Again, a pretty uneventful flight. I got a short nap on the Minneapolis to Oklahoma City flight.

Date: 20100501
Miles Driven: 1,257 Miles
States Visited: MO, AR, MS, TN
SPC Outlooks
Chase Partner(s): Mike Holcomb
Chasers Encountered: Jesse Risley, Mike Brady, Andy Gabrielson, Tim Purington, L.B. LaForce
Weather Conditions Experienced:

• Bust
• Wall Cloud

Chase Map

After spending the night in Sikeston, MO from yesterdays bust, I decided to hit I-55 south. I passed Shane Adams and Bridget Geaughan on the way down before stopping for a bit in Blytheville, AR to get some Rain X and gas.

I continued south, stopping off at the Turrell/Arkansas 42 exit for me to snap a picture of the exact location I saw my first tornado, 1 day short of 2 years later (Chase account from May 2, 2008). I was able to stand there and remember it and visualize it happening. A persons first tornado is not a memory they will forget.

Once I got that out of the way, I dropped south to I-40 then west towards Little Rock. I ended up deciding to sit in Stuttgart, AR as that seemed like the best place to be in terms of road networks. I gassed up and grabbed some Subway then headed and sat on the east of town. Jesse Risley and Mike Brady and L.B. LaForce all showed up. Many locals saw us sitting out there, and came by to chat. We probably had 5 or 6 cars of people come up to us and talk to us, a few of them taking pictures. Everyone had a story of the Stuttgart, AR tornado from May 10, 2008.

Eventually storms started firing in Northern Louisiana, and we decided to drop south and intercept the eastern most cell which would put us at an intercept point near Monticello, AR. After navigating us a crazy way, I got us all onto AR35 right in a perfect intercept position.

Date Submitted: Wednesday, May 5, 2010 20:58

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