Day 140: The Chasing Aftermath

Posted by on 20 May 2010 | 5 comments

Day 140 (a)
Day 140 (b)
Day 140 (c)

I apologize for the late post; this will be short.

The photographs above capture the massive chaser convergence that took place during yesterday’s severe weather. If you got stuck in this long line of cars and a tornado was bearing down on you, your chances of survival would go way down. I will not chase in Oklahoma again, and quite likely almost anywhere else in the plains as a result of these photographs. To be honest, 1 real chase in 5 years indicates I’m not exactly someone who frequently chases, anyways. My real interests are found with the forecasting and evolution of severe thunderstorms, and to do that I’m much more likely to be found in a National Weather Service office or the Hazardous Weather Testbed.

I should also note that in at least one of those photographs, the mast of one of the DOWs can be seen.

I’ll post more on this topic in the coming days.

The photographs above are from J.R. Henly and Chris Novy, both very experienced chasers who are extremely frustrated with this situation.

  • http://streamwisevorticity.blogspot.com erin

    I’m curious to see your take on this, Patrick. Wednesday was indeed a frustrating day for many people. In these photos, I can see only a small handful of vehicles (2 or 3) that appear to be associated with V2, and DOW6, which looks as if it was stopped beside the road to scan the storm (they were pulled off past the shoulder and were passed at some point on the right (ie- in the grass) by another vehicle that also passed at least one other vehicle in the same manner).

    I think there are many things wrong with this situation that I will perhaps elucidate later. You are right, if a tornado had formed in this area, the results would have been awful. I was seriously frustrated that our vehicles were trying to get ahead of the storm (first to collect data and then to escape damage), and we were unable to do so because of traffic. To my knowledge, none of our vehicles made illegal maneuvers to get ahead of or around other vehicles (despite what appears to be the common belief that the TIV and its support vehicles are associated with V2 and/or CSWR, which they are not). Instead, my vehicle and a handful of other V2 vehicles were stuck trying to get away from the storm while it’s circulation was passing over us (starting to drop a funnel cloud, mind you… I was worried something was going to form right to the left of our car), and onlookers were pointing at skud.

    Is it CSWR’s fault? V2′s? The Discovery Channel’s? TornadoVideos.net’s? Everyone’s? No one at all? Can we even say?

  • http://www.patricktmarsh.com pmarsh

    Hi Erin,

    I’ll post more tomorrow. As it stands now, I have to be back at the NWC by 6:30 for my “real” work and have spent the better part of the last 3 hours dealing with the fallout of the youtube video. The best advice I can give you (and please relay this to others) is to let this go and focus on your missions. The last thing we need is someone to have an accident in the aftermath of this. Know that I, and a lot of others, are working very hard (mainly behind the scenes right now) to contain the firestorm with respect to V2.

    (FYI: I’m not paid by VORTEX II; no per diem, stipend, etc. My real job is NSSL Liaison to the HWT – along with being a student. I’m doing the V2 stuff entirely because I’m a nice guy and wanted to help. This is why I chose to put real in scary quotes regarding my work comment above.)

  • http://streamwisevorticity.blogspot.com erin

    Thanks for all of the support, Patrick. It is indeed appreciated.

    (I would also like to note that I find your 6:30am work comment supremely scary.)

  • Dude

    I do want to point out that while these pictures do initiate a strong reaction and a chaser problem does exist, remember the context. The storms as of late have been in and around the OKC metro. This is not an area void of heavy traffic. In addition, the storms have occurred during the 5-6pm rush hour, which cannot be avoided. Some of the cars may have just emerged from the heavy rain shaft seen in the background of the first picture and are driving slowly. Also note the stoplight in another photograph. These factors all contribute to the cluster of vehicles seen above. I am not saying that there is not a problem with suicidal/homicidal storm chasers, but lets use some discretion when making judgment based only on these photos.

  • http://www.patricktmarsh.com pmarsh

    Thanks for the comment. I do want to state that my decision(s) is (are) not based solely on these photographs, nor this single event.