Atmospheric Science Club at UWM

Storm Chase - 1997

 

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Spectacular Low

Photo by Brian Jalas

This year the 1997 storm chase took place the week of May 11 through May 15. There were three chase teams involved with this years chase involving 14 chasers and 5 forecasters affiliated with the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. Chase team 1&2 will be left on May 11th at about 10:00pm for a target area as determined by our forecasters and NSSL. Chase team 3 departed from Milwaukee on Monday May 12th.

 

Chase Team #1

Chasers: Phil Lawson, Mike Westendorf, Chris Kuk, Brian Jalas and Danielle Gibeault

Day 1

We drove all the way down to north Texas. With no severe weather expected for at least another day we spent the night with team 3 in Paris.

 

Day 2

We split up with team 3 on this morning. We headed west on a hot, sunny day we were a little more hopeful that we could see something on Wednesday.

 

Day 3

At 2 a.m. there was a distant thunderstorm that passed to our north, Mike and Phil left to go to the storm & check it out. Brian, Chris and Danielle watched a nice lightning show as the storms passed to our north. We headed out to the panhandle later that day with a shot at severe storms along the dry line in west Texas. At about 7 p.m. we found a new storm pushing through the cap and forming an anvil near La Mesa. We chased this "textbook" LP supercell for 2 hours.

 

Day 4

We had to drive home since two of our chasers had to be back to work in Milwaukee on Friday morning.

 

 

Chase Team #2

Chasers: Mary Scheel, Robyn Cavanaugh, Chris Rozoff and J.J. Wood
 

 

Chase Team #3

Chasers: Mark Gehring, Roman Berdes, James Frederick, Adam Jones and Ben Huffmam

DAY 1

Our team left Milwaukee around 1pm on May 12, 1997. Our goal was to head south toward regions more favorable for severe weather later in the week. Prior to leaving, we gathered data from the UW-Milwaukee weather map room and viewed noontime weather reports. We noted a little upper air disturbance moving into Iowa. Nothing interesting was expected from this disturbance. We decided to head west prior to heading south to avoid any traffic hassles in St Louis. We headed toward Des Moines. By 4pm, we noted cumulus clouds developing (especially to our west). We then noted lowering cloud bases and virga. Still nothing of concern.... Then as we entered Jasper County, IA, the sky was getting very dark and lightning was noted. It appeared that a line of strong thunderstorms was developing. We turned on the scanner, radio etc... TORNADO WARNING! for Jasper County. This was very exciting considering that we were expecting nothing. We tried to pin point the location of the storm so we could get in a safe viewing position. Reports continued to come in for tornado touchdowns all over the area we were in. We experienced winds of about 45-50mph, heavy rain, tornado sirens but no tornado... at least no visible funnel... It was later determined that these were cold air funnels. These cold air funnels were apparently touching down, according to weather service officials, so tornado warnings were warranted. We experienced numerous storms and beautiful cloud structures just prior to sunset. We continued south into Missouri and got a room in Kirksville.

 

DAY 2

A new disturbance was forecast to affect Missouri later in the day... Maybe more active weather? As of later afternoon in Macon, MO not much was developing... We contacted team 2 to try to meet up with them. We headed south toward Arkansas. Team 2 noted vertical development to the clouds in Arkansas. In central Missouri, we noted some clouds and virga. We continued south, cutting through the edge of the Ozarks and headed toward Tulsa, OK. Since we could not meet up with team 2. After a beautiful sunset we noted lightning to our west and what became a rapidly developing squall line. We tried to observe the squall line but the darkness prevented us from good viewing. We had a very stormy ride to Tulsa. We spent the night in Tulsa, arriving at about 1am.

 

DAY 3

We left Tulsa at 8am. We continued south toward Dallas, TX. It appeared that the severe weather threat was setting up near Dallas. We waited in Dallas for several hours watching numerous clouds developing vertically and then shearing off and dissipating. It was about 80-85 degrees with dewpoints near 70. During the late afternoon the Dallas National weather Service reported that the cold front we were waiting to trigger the severe weather, would pass through dry. This was upsetting. We regrouped and decided to head east and set up for Day 4 since it would be difficult for us to get into Louisiana in time for the severe weather that developed there. Another option would have been to go to far west Texas. We headed east continually watching for any development. We watched a few cumulus develop along the front. By 6pm in Tyler, TX these cumulus popped into severe storms just SE of Tyler. We observed Several of the storms... a lot of vivid lightning, torrential rain, wind but no organized rotation indicative of tornadic development.

 

DAY 4

We left Tyler and headed west (the area with the best chance of supercell thunderstorms. While driving through Dallas we encountered more severe weather (mainly flooding rains). We headed west toward Ablilene, TX and watched for any signs of convective development. Eventually we noted some cumulus towers to our west and some cumulonimbus (cb's) in the distant southern sky. These distant storms resulted in several tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings. We pursued some of these storms from behind but eventually got into some very heavy rain. Some flooding was noted in fields and ditches to the northeast of Brownwood, TX and also while driving on highway 6 between 5 and 6:30pm. We got out of this area of storms and traveled northeast. While we were driving at 65 mph a turkey flew at us out of a ditch and caused severe windshield damage. Needless to say our windshield needed repairs. The recommended repair shops were all closed so we strategically headed for Oklahoma City, OK. We got a motel room in Oklahoma City.

 

Day 5

Day 5 started with windshield repairs and then a trip to Kansas and a decent threat of severe weather. There was some concern that there may not be enough moisture and shear for supercells. By 3:15 pm near Pratt, KS we started noting some convection to our northwest. At 3:45pm a severe thunderstorm watch was issued for the region we were in. The main threats being winds up to 80mph and 1" diameter hail. At 4:15 pm we were detoured around Hoisington, KS due to a shooting in progress. We set up just north of Hoisington and observed several cells. We experienced some wind, heavy rain and marble sized hail but no tornadic development. A lot of turbulence was noted in the developing clouds but no clear rotation. We then headed east on interstate 70 and watched numerous storms from the northern through southeastern sky... huge cb's. We encountered heavy rain, and some hail west of Topeka. We spent the night in Topeka, KS.

 

DAY 6

Our weather guidance pointed us toward a moderate risk of severe weather in SD, IA & NE. One concern was the lack of moisture in this region. Moisture was expected to advect northward into this region. We headed toward Sioux City, IA and then north into SD. We observed a dust devil in a field just to our west. Our forecasters at UWM informed us that storms firing up in KS may rob us of the moisture we were expecting to move north. Some cells try to pop up near Scotland, SD. These storms appeared to be pretty wimpy. We decided to head east toward home, not believing that the storms would reach severe limits. Just as we headed east on I-90, entering Minnesota, a tornado watch was issued for our region (eastern SD, southwest MN) and possible tornadic systems were forming north of Watertown, SD too far for us to intercept. We stopped in Worthington, MN at a gas station that has radar and satellite data to see what was firing up. We tried to follow a severe storm in southwest, MN but it really didn't do much... We headed back toward Milwaukee and arrived home around 4am. We still weren't chased out yet!!

 

DAY 7

This turned out to be our last day of chasing. At noon we met in the UWM weather map room to discuss the developing weather situation for today. A moderate risk of severe weather, including tornadoes, was predicted for Northern Illinois. We gathered our equipment and headed for Rockford and then South. A tornado watch was issued for northwest IL, southwest WI and northeast IA for the possibility of 80+ mph winds, 1-2" diameter hail and tornadoes from 2:30-9:30pm CDT. We started heading west into Iowa. Storms start popping to our west by a couple of counties. Two inch diameter hail and numerous other severe weather reports near Iowa City, IA. Temperatures in eastern IA were approaching 90 degrees with dew points near 70. At 4:15 pm CDT Benton and Linn counties have Tornado warnings. Spotter and radar indicated tornado moving east at 35mph... almost directly to our west. More supercells developed in this region throughout the evening. It was challenging trying to get into safe viewing positions due to the fact that there were so many storms.

We noted inflow condensing up into the updraft of one of the storms... impressive. A huge cell was upon us (again) so we had to move for safer viewing. We noted several rotating wall clouds and possible funnel clouds!! We experienced "Storm Chaser Convergence" as we met up unexpectedly with a whole team of chasers. More cells are forming to our west we head west southwest to view theses storms with the other team of chasers. Storms hit Iowa City and then head toward Davenport, IA. At 7:30 pm CDT, we watch several of these impressive storms. Gusty winds hit as we get into the outflow of some of these storms. We view the storms till dark and then head back home as it gets too dark to safely chase anymore.

 

 

Forecast Team

Forecasters:

Dr. Paul Roebber (UWM Atmo Professor)
Skip Voros (Milwaukee Area Skywarn)
Darrel Johnson (UWM Graduate Student)
Michael Thomas (Atmo Masters Graduate)
Jim Brusda (UWM Undergraduate Student)
Ron Ingram (Former Atmo Member)
 

 

RESULTS

This year was a highly successful year for the Atmospheric Science club. All 3 teams had the opportunity to see some significant weather. As in past chases we all learned a good deal and came back with more questions than we came down with. The following pictures are from our three storm chases.

 

 

PICTURES

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These are just some of the many pictures we took on our storm chase this year. They are split up into two teams to give a visual account of what we saw. Please check out our gallery on the main page for more of our pictures.

Team 1

These pictures taken by chasers Chris Kuk and Mike Westendorf

 

 

Team 3

Page Content Created by Mike Westendorf

 

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