Storm Chasing-How to Chase a Storm without the Hi-tech Gear(Part 2)

Make sure you read part 1 before reading this post. I have seen 11 tornadoes using this technique, so it works if you do this right. Whenever I use the term left or right side of the storm, view the storm as though it were a car driving down the road. In this case for example, the storms right side would be its "passenger side." So if you are traveling east and the thunderstorm is traveling east, you should be on the storm's right side; in other words the storm should be on your left. Just as if you're on the highway, the car passing you should be passing on your left. So this is the side of the storm you want to be on, to its right. Now the next thing is you want to be towards the back part of the storm. Right about where the rear wheel would be on the passenger side of a car. This is where you'll find the updraft in a supercell thunderstorm. In a classic supercell storm it will be a precipitation free zone. Now even though it's called a precip free zone, there could still be light rain or even large hail falling in this zone. So be careful. When you get to this zone, there is a very good chance that a wall cloud will have already formed, and it may spawn the tornado before you ever get close to it. This is where you just hope your timing is right when you have selected your storm to chase. You'll have to base your position on the storm according to what the roads allow you, the direction it's moving, and the speed the storm is moving. Now this is how I like to position up on a storm that is moving due east. I like to be on a road that is a north/south road. The ideal situation is that the storm is going to pass to my north while coming out of the west. So I will head north to the thunderstorm as it's making its way to cross the road I'm traveling on. Hopefully I'm up to the storm when the precip free zone is making it's approach to cross the road. And you hope the tornado doesn't form until you can film it. If the tornado forms early, you'll have to make a decision, do I get out and film it now, or do I try to get closer so I can get a more defined shot of the tornado. The more distance, the more you'll need a tripod, because zooming in on a long distant tornado will produce a shaky video without one. But if you decide to get closer, there is a chance that the tornado will vanish before your eyes and never redevelop. I would suggest if it's your first tornado, find a safe place to pull over and film it. Make sure you are not hindering traffic in any way. You don't want to get clobbered when you're getting your first tornado on film. Remember others will be focused on the tornado and not your car. If you're on a main road, try to get on a side road, it is a whole lot safer. By using the approach I just mentioned on the storm, you never have to go into the thunderstorm, which this spares you from large hail and high winds that can accompany these storms. Large hail is the worse sound to hear when you're in your car. You just know your windshield is going to crack any moment. Now if I'm going south on this same storm it's going to be a bit more crucial on my decicision to intercept it. I don't want to get caught in the large hail core. So if you're going to cut across the path of the supercell, make sure it is well to your west as you try to get south of the oncoming storm. If it's already got your road overtaken, don't attempt to go thru it. You may very well get yourself caught in the "bear's cage." And if it contains that big "bear" you want to see, it might be the last you ever see. If the storm is reported to be 30 mph or faster, do not cross it's path if you've got to go thru the the rain and small hail zone to get to its rightside. The rain will slow down traffic, and you'll be at the mercy of this storm as the large hail and tornadic zone is vastly approaching, especially if a traffic jam occurs. Now if a storm is going away from you, moving due northeast at 45 mph, don't bother with it. To keep up with it you will have to average a speed of 90 mph. That's just to keep up with it. You'll have to go even faster to close in on it. The reason is because the roads in the plains are designed on a grid system. They either go north/south or east/west. If you're on these grid roads you have to double the distance that the storm is traveling because it is on a diagonal path while you have to keep making right angle turns to go northeast. Then that storm will usually increase its speed as it goes. Now some storms will move as slow as 10 mph, these are great when it comes to filming a twister. They are easy to catch even if they are heading away from you. Basically you want to set up on a storm as though you are going to watch a train coming down the tracks, but on the train's right side. Now you wouldn't get on the tracks or even 6 inches from the tracks, because you would still endanger yourself. This in general is how you want to set up on a tornado. If it's five miles away and it's getting closer to you, if you're off its direct path by a mile, then the closest it will get to you is a mile, then it will be increasing its distance again as its going away from you. Spotters are trained to keep a 2 mile buffer zone between themselves and the tornado. Reason being is large tornadoes can be carrying and throwing debris high into the air which then could drift a good distance from the tornado, and also they'll have time to get out of the way should the storm make a turn towards them. So think hard before you decide that you might want to get that "insane tornado" shot that some chasers are getting lately. I don't suggest anyone try that. The guys doing that for the most part are very experienced. Some are blessed to even be alive with the risks they have taken. I like to be close myself, but as I've said before, I have set boundaries for myself on how close I'll get. And those decisions are based on the supercell formation, how the tornado is forming, and what kind of tornado it is and how fast it forms. So watch your distance with these tornadoes. Now other things you'll want to do before you select your location to chase before the storms start firing up in the afternoon is look at weather features on weather maps. You'll need to know such things as "dryline location," outflow boundaries, and the area where the warm front and coldfront meet. Usually you want to be south of the warm front, south and east of the coldfront, and east of the dryline. If you are west of the dryline, you will be in very dry air that's not favorable for tornado and thunderstorm development. The east side of the dryline has higher dewpoints, and if those dewpoints are high, and the moisture is deep, get ready, the storms can explode rapidly if conditions are right. Supercell storms need wind shear to form also. You will also want to check and see where the "risk zones" are before you go out to chase. When you check the map, you will either see "slight," "moderate," or "high risk" zone for a given location. When you're out on your location, listen to your S.A.M.E. all hazards radio, you will be given an update and a possible change to the boundaries and location of the risk zones. Now if they change, you will not have to make a drastic move from your original location. The risk may actually be increased also, which happens quite often. You may go out on a slight risk day and at noon it will be upgraded to a moderate or even a high risk zone. The day of the 1999 May 3 outbreak happened started out as a slight risk day, by 3:00 pm things had really taken a change in the weather conditions. So don't get discouraged if you see slight risk on the morning update, I have seen a tornado on a slight risk day. Now there will be times when it goes the other way. Now if there is a dryline present, and you're close to it, the radio will usually tell you where it is and may at times tell you where they expect it to be at given times of the day. So listen carefully to your S.A.M.E. radio. They will also start telling you when storms are just starting to fire up which is very important, because you may have to drive to them if they're a good distance from you. If you see a storm just starting to form, don't get too close it, because if it picks up speed, it will get away from you before the tornado ever spawns. I had this happen to me up in Nebraska in 2008, it cost me from getting the tornado that hit near Kearney and went all the way to Aurora, 2 miles from where I was originally sitting while waiting for the action to start. Try to stay ahead, especially if development is a little slow. If you have no dryline for the chase, which this does happen, you will want to get info on outflow boundaries. Once you find the boundary, go to where it is, and at times they may update its location especially if it is moving. These can sometimes be a bit harder to deal with, because sometimes the storms happen on the north or west side of the boundary, and other times, to the south and east of the outflow boundary. And there are cases where tornadoes will spawn on the north side of a warm front. I didn't know that until after I started chasing. You have basic weather rules you follow, but sometimes the weather breaks the rules. I remember Kansas was having tornadoes spawning well to the north of a warm front, and I'm just thinking this absolutely makes no sense. When ever weathermen on the news give you that tornado lesson on TV, you will get a very generalized lesson. It's a whole lot more than just a collision of warm moist air and cold dry air. Wind shear is a huge factor, the depth of that warm moist air is also. The ideal dew points are usually in the mid 60's into the 70's. But tornadoes do form in dew points that are lower. I've heard of them forming with dew points in the 50's. You will also hear a term "cold core tornado," which I never heard until I started chasing. But the best thing is learn your basics on setting up on a storm. During the summer, fall, and even winter, if you get that rare day with a thunderstorm, if it's close to your location, make a practice shot with that storm and see if you can drive to its back rightside location. This will give you some experience setting up on a moving storm and help you with your timing-to-distance judment. This is very important in storm chasing. By practicing on storms in N.C., it helped me alot, so when I came to the plains, I caught 2 tornadoes in the first 2 storms I chased. I never had that "Where should I go, or what part of the storm is it in" question as I was making my approach on what would be the Collyer Kansas tornado. And less than an hour later I caught the Wakeeney tornado from a second supercell storm. By practicing, it will train you for the real thing. Another low budget item you can use in your car is one of those $30 Trac Phones. I found out that the weather feature in the phone gives you national radar, regional radar, local radar which shows the counties, and a satellite shot of the nation. I will be using it for now on when I chase, I just wish I knew this before this 2009 chase season ended. I might get a shot in the fall though. But again if you want to chase, and you're on a low budget, it can be done. Remember, the right side of the storm towards the back, Check weather maps(if you go to the top of my blog you will find these maps, just click skywarn and the others and you'll see what I'm talking about) to help you choose your chase location, make sure you at least have an S.A.M.E. radio, you could also get a radio that has the TV channels, some people do that because some of the tornadoes will have a news channel helicopter bringing a live feed on the tornadoes location. Make sure you have studied a lot of videos of tornadoes and the cloud features surrounding them, and if you can, go to a storm spotter and an advance storm spotter training class, they don't cost you anything but the amount of gas that it takes you to get to one. They will actually be able to give you a visual lesson on this very thing I'm trying my best in typing all this. One more note to give, I have chased tornadoes moving due north, northeast, east, southeast, and due south. The average direction is northeast, but you need to remember as with a northbound supercell, the tornado is on the east side of the storm, a southbound storm will have it to the west side. If the storm is going east it will have the tornado on the south side of the storm. Storm going northeast, the tornado is on the southeast side. Storm going southeast, then the tornado will be to southwest side of the storm. These examples are given for a classic supercell storm. Classic supercells can have tornadoes in other locations of the storm, but 99 percent of the time they will be in the portion of the storm I have mentioned in this post. HP(high precip) and LP(low precip) supercells can have tornadoes in various locations of the storm. These storms are more likely to break the "tornado on the right side" rule than a classic supercell would. HP is a very dangerous storm to deal with, the tornado is hidden and the rain goes beyond blinding. The tornado can be so rainwrapped you may not even have a gap between the precipitation and the tornado. So don't go driving in that rain looking for a tornado in a HP supercell storm. LP offers high visibilty and can be some of the most fascinating looking storms. Most tornadoes in these storms are weak, but they can produce a strong tornado. I don't think they have ever been documented to spawn a violent tornado which would be the EF-4 and EF-5 category. But take care when you go out and chase these storms, and if you have any other questions, post them in a comment and I'll answer them the best I can when I read them.