6/30 - 9am - Slight Storm Chance

Looks like this northwest flow due to an area of low pressure in the Great Lakes could bring us a very small chance for some storms this afternoon. Most places around the area will not receive rain, so the rain-free week continues for a majority of the area. Another slight chance for storms exists tomorrow, but that will be it until Saturday(July 4th). This northwest flow will really take down temperatures over the next few days, with a possibility of highs dipping into the upper 70's tomorrow. We'll recover back into the mid 80's for the rest of the week, but the northwest flow will take us in to unseasonably cool territory. Our average high for this time of year is 86 degrees.

6/29 - 4pm - Rain-Free for Nearly a Week!

We're getting ready to close out the second wettest June on record in Louisville, but you'd never know it by looking at the forecast. This pattern where we have the ridge to our west is keeping all precipitation to our north, and that should continue until at least Saturday with highs in the mid 80's. By then, a low passing to our south may generate some showers and storms up this way. According to the long-range GFS, it looks like we'll pick up our dry pattern right where we left off by then.

6/28 - 10:30am - Dry and Cooler

This should be the last day in the 90's for a little while and we should remain dry this week. A cold front that moved through this morning, accompanied by no rain, will lower temperatures into the mid 80's this week. Any disturbances will stay just to our north thanks to ridging in the west, so we should see clear skies until at least next weekend.

There may be a stray shower this morning or early afternoon due to this cold front still being in the area, but chances look slim.

6/27 - 3:30pm - New Video Forecast

Today will be a scorcher, but next week looks a bit tamer in terms of temperature. After a few scattered storms on Sunday morning, the rest of the week will see dry weather and temperatures in the mid 80's.



Don't forget to check out my 2009 Storm Chasing Highlights page.

6/26 - 10am - A Temporary Reprieve

A line of storms that went through last night gave us a soaking and a good lightning show. There could be some pop-up scattered storms later this morning and this afternoon, but the main action is well to our south now. Some of these storms could get severe, so the SPC has put us in a SLIGHT Risk for severe weather today:



Dry and clear conditions are expected until Sunday, when we'll have another line of storms come through during the late afternoon or evening. The dry and clear weather will resume after Sunday, but luckily temperatures will dip down into the 80's next week.

6/25 - 1:30pm - Scattered Strong Storms

More heat is on the way with a high somewhere between 92 and 93 today. Looks like we're going to see some scattered strong storms this evening as a cold front comes through. West surface winds and light shear should prevent them from becoming too bad, but there could be a few severe storms with wind and hail.

More showers and storms will roll through tomorrow, but none are expected to be severe. Saturday looks dry and very hot (mid 90's), but scattered showers and storms will make another appearance on Sunday. Once the rain on Sunday is finished, we should stay clear and dry with highs in the mid to upper 80's next week.

6/24 - 3pm - Storms Tomorrow, Maybe Severe?

We've yet to break 90 today, but we're almost there at 88 degrees. Temperatures around the area should top off at around 92 this afternoon. The SPC has issued a SLIGHT Risk (15%) for severe weather tomorrow for us and areas to our north:


Instability will be a little higher than usual tomorrow and there will be ample moisture to support thunderstorm development. I'm not impressed with winds coming off the models right now, so a tornado threat looks unlikely at this time. A bit of the jet stream will be coming down from the north tomorrow, so we'll have to see exactly what this does in the morning. If a line of storms forms and comes through here in the morning, our severe threat will be limited or nonexistent. If not, and we maintain clear skies throughout the morning and afternoon, then the severe threat would be elevated quite a bit. It should become clear by early tomorrow how bad the storms will be.

Friday and Saturday will be steamy again, but at least there won't be any rain. Thunderstorms could return to the area on Sunday, but the rest of next week looks pretty dry!

6/23 - 3:30pm - Hot Weather, Storm Chasing Videos and Photos

92 may not sound too bad, but couple that with humidity and you have quite a scorcher! We'll be in the 90's for the rest of the week, with heat indices soaring above 100 on Wednesday and maybe thereafter. The computer models are now putting rain in here on Thursday afternoon as opposed to Friday and they've gotten rid of the weekend rain completely. We'll see if this holds up on the next few model runs.

I just posted a new page at ryanweather.org with pictures and videos from my storm chasing trip. Click here to view it.

6/22 - 11pm - Stormy Day!

You're not alone if you were jolted awake by thunder this morning. Storms rolled through the area and put down quite a bit of rain before 10am this morning. Another line of storms nearly hit us this afternoon, but luckily it stayed to our west. Nashville is getting ready to get hit by this, and there are Severe Thunderstorm WARNINGS down there associated with this line.

We should stay dry until Friday, when a shower or two could come through. There could also be some showers around on Sunday morning as well. This week will be characterized by hot (lower 90's) and humid weather, but it won't be a washout like last week.

6/21 - 5pm - It's Humid in Louisville!

It's great to be back in Louisville after an exhilarating two weeks in Tornado Alley. I was washing the family van today and realized how humid it was after sweating it out for 45 minutes. The high amount of moisture in the air will help fuel more showers and thunderstorms this evening coming in from the north. These may or may not miss Louisville, but they are heading in this direction and showing some good development.

We could see a stray shower or storm tomorrow, but we should remain dry until the weekend. Lower 90's will be around this week, but a slight cool down might be on the way by next Sunday.

6/20 - 1am MDT - Time to Go Home, Aurora Aftermath

As we made our way back to Denver today, we were able to stop by Aurora, NE to see the damage caused by the EF2 wedge tornado we saw there on Wednesday. We were shocked by the extent of the damage because we never could really grasp how severe the tornado was while we were chasing it:


We drove by that house you see in the first photo right before the tornado touched down. There was a barn there as well. I'm happy to report that the family living in that house, including four kids, escaped unharmed by staying in their basement. Only the edge of the tornado hit the house, but the barn next to it took the full force of the EF2 winds. Only a small pile of red-painted wood debris was left from the barn, which was less than a year old.

Here's the path of the tornado with our route and stopping points (orange dots):


Notice how one of our stopping points, the first orange dot, was right in the path of the tornado at its highest EF2 intensity. We were about 250 yards away from the tornado at this point and you can see how scary that looked in the video I posted on Wednesday.

For a complete survey report from the National Weather Service, click here.

I'm leaving Denver tomorrow to return to Louisville. It's been a thrilling two weeks with tons of supercells, my video of a supercell in Kiowa County, KS airing on Good Morning America, sightings of VORTEX2 and the Tornado Intercept Vehicle, hail covering I-70 east of Denver, and of course my first four tornado sightings on Wednesday near Aurora, NE.

By the way, I also just uploaded the brand-new website for Storm Chasing Adventure Tours at http://stormchasing.com. Even if you can't book a tour with us next year, be sure to get an official Storm Chasing Adventure Tours t-shirt at our store on the website!

It's sad to be leaving Tornado Alley, but I'm also happy to be coming home after two weeks on the road. It's been great chasing this week with our tornado-proof group:

6/18 - 10:30pm CDT - No Severe Weather in Iowa

We traveled all around Central Iowa today waiting for supercell development. It just didn't happen because winds did not back out of the east and a cloud shield developed to suppress updraft development. Today was our official last day of chasing because there won't be any severe weather in the Plains tomorrow and we have to make our way back to Denver from Iowa. It's been great chasing out here these couple weeks, especially after that mega tornado yesterday near Aurora, NE. I'll be coming home to Louisville on Saturday, but I'm sure going to miss storm chasing out here!

Don't forget to check out my video of the four tornadoes near Aurora, NE yesterday in the blog post below.

6/18 - 4am CDT - Aurora Tornadoes Video and Photos

Here's video I shot of the four tornadoes that touched down west of Aurora, NE, including the wedge on the edge of town. Some of this video was shot only 250 to 300 yards from this violent wedge tornado. (NOTE: No audio for first minute and a half due to background noise issues)


News media: Would you like to air the footage above? Email me at ryan@ryanweather.org

Here are photos from the intercept:

6/18 - 1am CDT - TORNADO VIDEO COMING SOON

I'm hard at work processing the video I shot of three small tornadoes and one very large wedge tornado that a long-lived supercell spawned just west of Aurora, Nebraska. I'll also have pictures as well. We were just a few hundred yards away from this monster quarter-mile wide (may have been more, possibly half or three quarter-mile wide) wedge tornado and were even getting sand-blasted by some of the outlying winds. I still have sand in my hair from this tornado... it was that intense and that close to us. Damage was certainly done to some farm buildings near Aurora, but we were way too close to the wedge to actually see what was going on.

Expect the pictures and video to be here on the blog sometime around 4:00am EDT. Long night ahead, but well worth it!

JUST STOOD YARDS AWAY FROM A HUGE WEDGE TORNADO IN AURORA, NE!!!

6/17 - 12:30am CDT - Awesome Supercell!

We started off in Northern Oklahoma this morning where there were east winds, but the cap (warm layer of air above the surface) was on too tight and was inhibiting convection. After hours of meandering through the area near Woodward, OK, we finally saw some cumulus clouds getting organized just south of Wichita, KS. We hopped on I-35 toward Wichita and caught up with a cell that was just giving birth to a wall cloud as we arrived. We stayed with this supercell for nearly three hours because it was a training storm, meaning it kept reforming and staying in the same location. It had a rotating wall cloud for a good portion of its life, but no funnel or tornado ever manifested. Frequent cloud-to-ground lightning provided a good show for us until another storm cell finally formed and pushed the weakening supercell out of the area.






Looks like our target area tomorrow will be somewhere near Central or Eastern Nebraska, but we'll know for sure tomorrow morning.

Good morning! We're off to Northern Oklahoma for another day of chasing.

6/16 - 1am CDT - We're Back in Kansas!

NOTE: There will not be anymore live streaming video and fewer blog updates for the rest of my trip because our rental vehicle cannot be outfitted with custom mobile broadband and networking equipment. You can still see our current location at http://stormchasertv.com.

The last 36 hours have been very eventful, but we still got to go chasing today! Todd came and picked us up in Wray, CO this afternoon after accompanying the tow truck carrying his deer-stricken SUV to Denver. We went to Western Nebraska and then down to Northwest Kansas after east winds began to develop there. The dryline helped fire off a few supercells and we chased those well into the evening. There were a few small finger-like funnels, but that was about it for the tornadic aspect of these cells. They showed very healthy rotation and dropped some nice wall clouds, but in the end the area was too cluttered with cloud debris and other cells in the region for any tornadoes.

As the sun set, we were able to position to the southwest of a supercell near Colby, KS and watch the beautiful colors reflect off the cloud towers with frequent lightning as well. The lightning show during the evening only lasted a few minutes before this cluster of cells dissipated.

Here's what we saw today:



Our new chase vehicle is a Chrysler Town & Country. We still have wireless broadband web and a laptop, but there's no way to get the custom antennas and networking equipment for the high-speed connection on this van (needed for video and my blog updates) because it's a rental.


Our target area will be somewhere between Eastern Colorado and Western Kansas tomorrow. I'm still able to post on Twitter and Facebook from my cell phone every few hours, so you'll still be able to follow us for the most part.

We're back in business with a rental van, off to West NE! No more live video and less blogging this week due to equipment limitations.

6/14 - 10:30pm MDT - Oh Deer!!!

I just found a weak WiFi connection from the adjacent mom and pop motel. Life's good!

A deer ended our chase for the day:


(the Tazmanian Devil stuffed animal is there for good luck)

As we were traveling to McCook, NE to find dinner and a hotel for the evening, a female deer ran out in the road and we hit it on the passenger side, just inches from where I was sitting. Luckly it did not hit the windshield or cause injury, so it could have been worse. We thought that we could make it to Denver or McCook with our damage, but then we saw red fluid rushing out onto the ground from the engine. That was it for the car!

We hit this deer going 50-60mph (it perished instantly) and we think a passing train to our left scared it into the road. There was absolutely no time to brake because the deer was running extremely fast and we only had a fraction of a second to react. It was one of the scariest things that have happened to me in a car and the sound it made as it hit my side was the worst I've heard. There was no cell service from Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, or T-Mobile where we hit the deer, just inside the Nebraska border near Wray, CO. We were luckily to have a good samaritan named Joe pull over and help us out. He made trips between our mom and pop motel, carting us and our luggage. We thank Joe and wish him well with his pharmacy here in town.

Our leader Todd is on his way to Denver in the tow truck to drop off his SUV at the repair shop. He'll be renting a SUV tomorrow morning and come back to town to pick us up at around lunchtime. Since Todd's SUV is customized with cellular amplifiers and antennas for web access, we won't have that luxury in our rental. We'll still have access, but it will not be as fast and I might not be able to use it for blog and Twitter/Facebook updates. Most of our hotels have WiFi, so I'll still update the blog nightly with pictures and videos like I have been.

As far as chasing goes, we may chase tomorrow if Todd gets back to East Colorado by early afternoon. Our target area would most likely be somewhere near the NE/KS border tomorrow if we go. We didn't miss anything today because our storms east of Denver were all linear and didn't have any tornadic potential. We'll definitely be back on the road by Tuesday and things should go back to normal.

Just hit a deer near Wray, CO with our vehicle, which is damaged. No injuries. No web access here. Will resume chasing Monday or Tuesday.

6/14 - 11am MDT - East Colorado Again!

Today's our first day of active chasing on tour 7, and it looks like we won't have to drive far! Upslope winds will fire up thunderstorms in East Colorado this afternoon, and supercells should be present. CAPE value look pretty good for this elevation and moisture is holding well in place. Looks like we'll end up somewhere east of Pueblo again, so hopefully today's storms are a bit more productive down there.

Like last week, I'll be on Twitter and Facebook with up-to-the-minute updates.

6/13 - 9:30pm MDT - New Tour Group Today

We've said goodbye to Storm Chasing Adventure Tours tour 6 and now tour 7 is in full swing! There are 6 of us now and we're ready to head out tomorrow morning on our first day of chasing. Latest indications are pointing toward a target area in NE Colorado, the Nebraska panhandle, and maybe even West Kansas due to an area of low pressure hovering in Colorado. Since we've had a great deal of success with this setup for the past few days, I'm willing to bet that we'll see some good supercells tomorrow.

Here's some irony for you: there was a supercell just northeast of Denver a few hours ago that produced a photographically confirmed funnel cloud. A similar incident happened last week on Sunday when we left to chase storms in Kansas and a tornado touched down just minutes from our hotel back in Denver. Even though we couldn't chase today's storm just a few counties away because we were changing out tour groups, the upcoming week looks great for at least the first few days.

6/12 - 9:00pm MDT - We're Done for the Day

After chasing a supercell through Southeast Colorado, we're done chasing today. There weren't any funnel clouds or tornadoes, but we saw a well-defined wall cloud. As the sun set, we drove under a gas station and let it pass over us. The storm came quick, which didn't give me and a member of our group named Charley time to get inside the car before the ping-pong ball size hail came. We both ended up squatting behind the chase vehicle because the wind was blowing hail and heavy rain under the overhang of the gas station. Things settled down after a few minutes and we got back in the SUV soaked. It was great fun! We're now heading back to base in Denver.

Tomorrow is the end of tour 6 and the beginning of tour 7 for Storm Chasing Adventure Tours. We'll say goodbye to Stephen, Charley, and Dave and welcome four new guests tomorrow as they arrive. Active storm chasing will resume on Sunday, but until then, we'll be running errands and getting ready for next week.

Here are some pictures:

6/12 - 1pm MDT - LIVE Video Stream and Location

We're back with live video and GPS location updates at http://stormchasertv.com this afternoon from East Colorado, just south of Limon

Storms are beginning to fire, and winds are cooperating by coming from the east now. It's only a matter of time before we start intercepting!

If you're a member of the media interested in airing or republishing any of the pictures or videos posted here on the blog, email me: ryan@ryanweather.org. I'll be glad to help you out!

6/12 - 11am CDT - Marginal Storm Threat

We're heading south from La Junta, CO to intercept some storms that will fire shortly. Shear, instability (don't need much with upslope flow), and moisture look OK, but everything else looks pretty tame this morning. In any case, we'll see what forms and chase what we can today. I'm not really expecting anything impressive, but things can change quickly out here. I'll post later if things improve or if we find a good storm.

If you haven't seen the video and pictures in the post below, I highly suggest you do so. We saw an amazing pair of supercells merge in Eastern Colorado yesterday, but they just stopped short of putting down a tornado. I was able to get up-close video of Sean Casey's TIV II (Tornado Intercept Vehicle II) from Discovery Channel's Storm Chasers and a brief rope funnel as well.

I'll be on Twitter and Facebook as usual today.

6/12 - 7am MDT - Supercell in Colorado Yesterday

Things started pretty quickly once we got out to Eastern Colorado yesterday. Cells fired due to upslope flow, but they started sticking together and could not produce tornadoes at that point:


We watched these storms form just east of Denver and then we let one pass over us so that we could get south of it. Marble-sized hail fell brutally upon our vehicle, but nothing was big enough to cause damage. What did cause some problems was the amount of hail that stayed on the ground minutes after the storm passed:


I-70 east of Denver was covered with hail and we lost traction at least twice while braking. The air temperature also dropped to a frigid 39 degrees as the hail fell, down from around 65 just minutes earlier. We went to the tail-end of this now conjoined storm system to see if anything would intensify, but nothing was happening.

That's when a little cell near Pueblo, CO started making itself known on radar. It was unknown how this cell would develop, but after a few minutes of radar observation it became clear that this cell was going to be a good one. We made the drive down to the Pueblo area and found an intense supercell that was dropping a wall cloud. A second one formed just to the south of the first after a few minutes and then both started to fluctuate and join. This joined supercell was absolutely enormous and gave chasers (including VORTEX2, the TIV, and The Weather Channel) a few hours of absolute action. We even found the TIV (Tornado Intercept Vehicle) and took some very close-up pictures! Unfortunately it did not put down a tornado, but we did see a brief rope funnel (2:34 in video below). Here's a video of the cell from its early stages to sunset:



Here are some pictures:

6/11 - 12:15pm MDT - LIVE Video and Location Active

We're out here near Strasburg, CO right now waiting for storms to fire. Streaming video and GPS location are now active at http://stormchasertv.com

Once storms develop we'll start moving around, but for now we're waiting next to some picturesque wheat fields. Hopefully we can get some good supercells going in the next hour or so!

6/11 - 9:30am MDT - NE Colorado

After a marginal chase yesterday, things are looking up here in West Kansas. Our target area is Northeast Colorado and maybe even East Wyoming or West Nebraska. Thunderstorms that form in those upslope areas will be a bit more isolated than yesterday and hefty helicity values should help with rotation. Winds are already out of the east this morning in Goodland, KS, so storms may fire earlier than usual this afternoon.

As far as the big elephant in the room, the tornado threat, I feel pretty good about it today. Over the past three days, Colorado has consistently had tornadoes from these upslope storms. With a few more ingredients added to the mix today, like helicity and good winds due to low pressure, things look fairly favorable for supercells. Conditions can always take a downward turn and not follow what is forecast, so things will have to be monitored closely.

I'll be on Twitter and Facebook today and I'll be sure to update when we're streaming live, which may be earlier than usual.

6/11 - 2am CDT - Exciting Escape

Choosing a target area today was hard, really hard. A cloud shield from Texas was prohibiting clean formation of supercells in SE Kansas, Texas itself couldn't support individual cells, and the Oklahoma panhandle turned out to be a letdown. We thought SE Kansas would be the target area if that cloud shield could hold off, but it didn't at all. So we turned around and headed toward SW Kansas and Oklahoma because of clearing skies and increasing cumulus clouds. While individual cells fired nicely at first with the interaction of the dryline, they eventually clumped together and didn't strengthen as expected.

The exciting escape part came as we wanted to go north to see if these cells would strengthen a bit. A mesoscale discussion from the SPC suddenly came out saying that rapid strengthening would occur as the storms hit an area of high instability. Sure enough, CAPE values were over 1000 J/KG near Liberal, KS and these cells turned into a single wind-driven monster in less than 20 minutes. We were looking for the updraft base when this happened, so we became trapped when this storm accelerated eastward towards us. Hail parameters on radar were reading over three inches, which made for a tense escape situation. The road network near Liberal, KS wasn't that great, making the search for an exit route very difficult. We were able to outrun the storm system long enough for it to weaken to a safe point. Taking shelter under a gas station in Meade, KS, we let the dying storm pass over. Only pea-sized hail and heavy rain happened in our area, so we did pretty well!

There was an unconfirmed report of a tornado inside this storm, but that may have been caused by one of the scary-looking fingers of scud cloud underneath the storm. This storm had intense straight-line winds and no rotation at this point, so it's unlikely a tornado was present.

Here are a few pictures:


We're most likely going to end up in Eastern Colorado tomorrow to catch some early-firing upslope storms.

I understand that there is some rough weather back home in Louisville tonight... stay safe out there!

We're done with the video stream for today, not much going on down here in Oklahoma.

6/10 - 4pm MDT - Video and Location Active

We're now streaming live video and GPS location: http://stormchasertv.com

Storms are beginning to fire to our west and more are expected to our south. The cells in WY, NE, and Northern CO have weakened considerably and energy will shift to storm development near our location. Let's hope for the best!

6/10 - 3:30pm CDT - Change in Plans!

After seeing a deepening low pressure area in Colorado and clouds beginning to obscure SE Kansas, we did a U-turn and started heading toward Eastern Colorado. Over the last few minutes storms have been firing in that area, with confirmed tornadoes on the ground to the north in Wyoming and Nebraska. Needless to say, we're getting there as fast as we can! We may be too late, but we'll see what happens.

By the way, we saw a couple of vans from VORTEX2 in Dodge City, KS when we stopped for lunch. Looks like they're going to the same place! That's just one of many parallels today has already drawn in comparison to yesterday. Let's hope the lack of a tornado isn't the next.

We're not quite ready for live video streaming yet, but I'll let you know when that starts.

6/10 - 11:30am CDT - SE Kansas

Today's setup is quite complex, so the decision for our target area was not an easy one. An area of storms in the Texas Panhandle could send a cloud shield into SE Kansas this afternoon, so we looked into other areas. Colorado will have some up slope thunderstorms today, but winds are not strong enough for rotating storms. Going south of the area of storms in Texas was another option, but that doesn't look too good and traveling that far would put us far away from tomorrow's target area.

So SE Kansas it is. We think we may be able to sneak down to the KS/OK border and catch cells that fire before the cloud shield from Texas reaches them. As of right now, the area looks good with clear skies, decent shear, and pretty good instability. As long as we can keep the clouds away, we're in good shape!

Will anything exciting happen today like yesterday? I really hope so because I like being able to post good video on YouTube in the evenings, especially when Good Morning America picks it up!

As always, Twitter and Facebook will be active today. I noticed a few of you had issues with the live video stream yesterday and that was because we lost our internet connection a couple of times. I'll post on here when the video feed is active, and if it doesn't work give it ten minutes and try again in case we lose our connection. When we're finished streaming for the day, I'll put out an update on Twitter and Facebook.

6/10 - 8:15am CDT - My Video on Good Morning America!

After I posted my video in the blog post below on YouTube last night, I received an email from a producer at ABC's Good Morning America requesting permission to air a clip from it. It aired this morning during the first segment:



Today's target area looks like it'll be in Kansas or Oklahoma again, but possibly a bit further east. I'll be sure to update you when I find out.

6/10 - 12:30am CDT - Impressive Supercell!

This morning's target area of somewhere south of Wichita, KS quickly changed to west of Wichita once storms fired this afternoon. All storms to the south and east of Wichita became conjoined and had problems getting too severe because there was no east wind to fuel much rotation. Then there was a cell near Dodge City, KS that managed to keep itself separated and started moving to the right (that's a good thing!). As we approached Greensburg, KS, which was destroyed during a tornado in May 2007, it took on a classic flat updraft base and dropped a downright scary wall cloud.

The area just west of Greensburg was crawling with VORTEX2 vehicles, The Weather Channel, and other media trucks. We saw a bit of a dust cloud swirling on the ground under the storm, but we assumed it was a bit of inflow. It turns out that this could have been a tornado without the condensation funnel according to VORTEX2 reports. We chased the cell through its phases until it dissipated. This cell was very close to spawning a tornado, but we think cold outflow air from storms to the east contaminated the updraft base before it could do so. Here's a video of the cell from when we intercepted it to when it dissipated:



Here are a few photos:



A DOW (Doppler On Wheels) from VORTEX2.



The Weather Channel was broadcasting live during this storm and we saw some post-storm broadcasting going on next to this MSNBC SUV (NBC now owns The Weather Channel).

Tomorrow's target area will be in Kansas like today, so we really don't have to drive far! Time for some much needed sleep...