Well after 7,174 miles and 122 hours in the car, my tornado chase with Rutgers University has come to an end. All in all, the chase was a success and culminated in spotting a tornado! Let's cover two of the biggest highlights from the trip.
June 3rd was certainly the first "big" day with respect to chasing. We began near Grand Island, NE as storms started to brew. By the late afternoon, we were closing in on a tornado warned storm near Ord, NE that was moving east. Although we were approximately 10 miles away from the tornado warned storm at one point near Central City, NE, our data went down and we had to bail out for our safety. As we bolted for the cars, a few members from our group thought they glimpsed a funnel. Just as we were pulling away, a local sheriff was driving towards the storm. Meanwhile, a storm report slightly later from "local law enforcement" indicated that the tornado crossed 4 miles away from our location! We were able to catch this strong rotation before we bailed to a safter location:
We have touchdown! On June 6th, our forecast called for the best risk of isolated supercells and tornadoes in eastern New Mexico. Our first stop was Clayton, NM, to re-assess the situation during the early afternoon. Like clockwork, storms began firing around 2:00 PM MDT and we began our chase. With multiple storms building nearby, we set up in Abbott, NM. As we waited for the storms to enter Abbott, out of sheer luck I caught this amazing bolt of lightning with blue sky in the background. This is a perfect example that even though you may be under fair weather, if thunder roars, go indoors! A thunderstorm does not need to be on top of you for lightning to strike nearby:
As the storms continued to develop and close into our location, one thunderstorm's inflow was being fed by another storm's outflow, which led to winds of 47 mph! Finally, near 4:30 PM MDT, somebody in our caravan screamed "funnel!". After we nearly dismissed the sighting to crying wolf, the funnel clearly showed up behind a ridge, about 15 miles away to our northwest. I called it into the National Weather Service in Albuquerque, NM describing the brief funnel cloud, before it slowly lifted back up behind the ridge. Another storm chaser who was on the other side of the ridge called it in as well, and confirmed it completely lowered and touched the ground. Our elusive tornado was finally found! Below is the official storm report from the Storm Prediction Center and the National Weather Service in Albuquerque, NM.
2239 20 N ABBOTT COLFAX NM 3660 10426 TRAINED SPOTTER SPOTTED BRIEF TORNADO TOUCHDOWN. (ABQ)
