2002

CHASE DAYS INDEX
May 16
 Arrive in DFW / Borges Storm
May 17
 Meet up with Weathervine
May 18
 Carlsbad Caverns, NM
May 19
 Clayton Lake, NM
May 20
 New Mexico to Wyoming
May 21
 Wyoming and Nebraska
May 22
 Out of Gas in Natoma
May 23
 Lipscomb and Spearman Tornadoes
May 24
 Storms around the Red River
May 25
 The Big Texan
May 26
 One Last Storm
May 27
 Flight back to Maryland

STATISTICS
Total trip days: 12

Miles Driven:

Tornadoes seen: 3+/-

States Covered:
  - Texas
  - Oklahoma
  - Kansas
  - New Mexico
  - Colorado
  - Wyoming
  - Nebraska

LOGS AND CHARTS
2002 Mileage/Travel Log

2002 Gas Log

2002 Costs Log

2002 Chase Map with routes

click on image to see full size
EXPEDITION 2002
Who:
 Weathervine (Jeff Gammons, Chris Collura and Myself)
When:
 May 16th - May 27th, 2002
Where:
 Central Plains - Tornado Alley
Vehicle:
 Rental S-10 Blazer (and Dodge Intrepid on Day 1 and 2 only)
MAY 16, 2002

 Depart Maryland and fly to Dallas-Fort Worth.
Day1 - Departure from Maryland was very exciting.  I had not been chasing back in the Plains since 1998.  This time I would be joining up with the Weathervine crew of Jeff Gammons (founder) and Chris Collura. 

After arriving in DFW, and picking up a temporary rental car, I headed to Amarillo, where Jeff and gang were already chasing severe weather.

I made it in time for initiation, as I was sitting at the Amarillo office of the NWS, I began to see the storms form and shortly there after the warning tones sounded.

I headed east along I-40 until I made a turn north to intercept the storm.  Jeff and crew were not too far away.

I came across this hail-bow (rainbow formed in the hail shaft rather than by the rain).  This alone would have made for a great first day.

There was great vertical convection and rotation was also very stong.  However, this was near an oil refinery, and boy did it smell extremely bad!

Some pictures of the meso to the northeast.  This was likely the meso that Jeff and Chris were on that produced a tornado earlier in the Guymon area of the Oklahoma panhandle.  You can see pictures of that on Chris's Website

Another picture of the meso a few minutes later.  You can also see (as with the picture above) tornado damage to the trees in the foreground from a previous (unknown) tornado.

This pictures was taken while I was driving to intercept a tornado.  It is just off frame to the right.  I couldn't get the camera around the door pillar of the car.  The tornado was very difficult to see, and may only have been a funnel when I witnessed it.
MAY 17, 2002

 After Weathervine drove right past me the night before, I finally met up with them at the Super8 in East Amarillo.  Here's a collection of Storm Chase vehicles.

This is the Weathervine rental vehicle with Chris Collura's WeatherLab prototype (version 1).  This vehicle took a lot of abuse this year.

The obligatory sunset shot on a non-chase day.  There are many other sunset pictures from this and other chase seasons.

After driving all the way back to Dallas, and dropping off my Dodge rental car.  We headed west toward NM for a few non-chase day fun.
MAY 18, 2002
A shot of the truck (I took a lot of shots of the truck). Here we just arrive at Carlsbad Caverns ready to take the tour.
It's a great feeling to be down in the caves with temperatures around 55-60 degrees while outside it more like 90.  You can barely see Jeff in this photograph.  It's really hard to take pictures in the cave without a tripod and a tiime exposure shot.
This was my favorite view, looking straight up at the stalagtites (or whatever they're called). 

Back out of the caves and enjoying the view, here I'm taking a picture of myself.
Two shots of the canyons and the vegitation within them.  This area of New Mexico always makes for great photographs

Of course another picture of the truck.

And yet another.....did I mention I took a lot of pictures of the truck.

And yet another sunset shot.  It's hard not to get these on film, since these are so much prettier than on the east coast (and far more often).

Here's a posed shot, looking like we're in the middle of a chase.  We try to get these pictures since during an actual chase we rarely have the time, or the coordination to get it in the middle of all the fast action.
MAY 19, 2002

 Landscape shot of the very flat terrain, and in the distance is one of the many extinct volcanoes.

OK, yet another picture of the truck, this time with Scott Blair's Core Intercept Vehicle (edition 1).  We stopped here for some shots like the one above.  Lots of neat extinct ancient volcanoes here.

This is one of my favorite locations in the entire Central Plains.  This is a very neat place to camp, or just hang out for a while like we did in 2002.

Myself sitting on the cliff at the side of the Lake

Chris Collura posing for a shot at the cliff edge

Here, I captured Scott Blair climbing on the rocks after chasing a fox nearby.
MAY 20, 2002

Now we're heading north along I-25 through Denver area and here arriving at the Wyoming border with Colorado.  We decided to head up to chase along the front range and some cold core stuff.

This is the front of Scott Blairs chase vehicle, which you can see the many hail dents.  This is by no accident, as Scott pushed the limits of core punching

Here Chris Collura (left) and myself are updating our websites, and forecasting for the next day's chase.  I was not familiar with Cold-core set-ups and was trying to find what it was we were going to chase.
MAY 21, 2002

 Driving north from our hotel in Cheyenne, WY; the drive north was great looking at the front range of the mountains, with the pale green meadows in the foreground.  I think this is the area not far from were they shot some Star Wars background scenes

Eric holds up this comical toy proclaiming, "We got cows".  Sometimes chaser's like to guff off while waiting for the real action to start.

This and the next shot was about all we got for the day.  Here a distinct "bow" in the clouds is a good indication of strong winds.  This also appears on radar in much of the same shape.

Here, the unique element is the "hole" that appeared toward the middle of this picture.  It was rotating slightly, but was obviously not anything but a neat affect.  One of those times, just being there was good enough.

Continuing into Nebraska, we unfortunately came across this brief spin-up.  We noticed it, commented, and I managed this very quick shot, and within seconds it collided with our vehicles send us (Chris, Jeff, and I) as well as Eric Nguyen, and Scott Blair all over the road, trying to maintain control of the vehicles.

After that gustnado, or whatever, we stopped by this river in Nebraska.  Here you can see the late Eric Nguyen enjoying a brisk wind that was outflowing from our system behind us.

Again we stop to monitor if the system wants to do anything, but not so.  Scott doesn't easily give up, and as you can see in this picture, he monitors the conditions carefully.

Overall thought the day looked much like this no matter where we went.  But that's chasing. 
MAY 22, 2002


A good way to start the day.  A few clouds, with lots of sun to heat up the atmosphere.  With winds out of the Southeast I think today is going to work out well.

Work out well as long as we don't get stopped by any road construction. "Dooh!  What the...!  STOP, no we can't stop, there's a Supercell brewing over there."

Our first (and pityful) wall cloud forms, it does get better later thank god.

Other chaser join the carvan.  We hang back, try to get a slightly different angle.

OK, slowly the wall clouds look better and better.

Geez, can you tell there's inflow here.  Sometimes the flash on the camera grabs the rain streeks just right.

What a view to have out the front window.  I think we're chasing now!

Jeff Gammons is driving and as you can see he has a good grip on the wheel, is sitting upright and attentive to the conditions of the chase.  Being a good driver is critical to successful chasing.

A new supercell appears to the south, I bet we can catch this one before dark.

And we did, and got this wall cloud with possible tornado.  The video is much more impressive.
MAY 23, 2002

 Starting the day in Hays, Kansas, we stopped for gas, and just by luck, this "other" Taurus pulled up next to Scott's.  What a chaser won't do to his vehicle.

A little cloudy to start the day, but we were quite hopeful that this layer would burn off (as well ad driver into better areas).  On the road is Amos Magliocco in front of us, one of the few days he ventured out in 2002.  He had quite a bad flu or severe cold during our time on the plains.
To the left is the view out the windsheild, but to the right is the view out to the side window.  I love taking in the vehicle shots (like on the left), to give a perspective as if you the view is there on the chase with us.

Chris Collura often walks a little further from the vehicle to get the "clear" shot.  He's good about keeping telephone wires, and such out of his images.  Me, I pretty much take the document shots, to show what I saw, and were I was, telephone poles and all.

The storm begins to enlarge to a good supercell size and the darkness is a good indication that this storm is growing verticle enought to block out quite a bit of sunlight.  A little bit before this we intercepted our first tornado of the day, at Lipscomb.

And here the turbulance on the cloud deck is obvious, but sometime you get the little "notches" that allow some light in, here just perfectly on the Weather Lab a top the vehicle.

Our first wall cloud of the afternoon begins to form.

I grows and disappates, in the usual cycle of storm evolution.  But this day didn't yield as much as hoped, but our expectations were quite high despite our forecasts.

The chasers are waiting patiently, hoping.  Wait a minute, what's that. 

The left gives you a context of the great mammatos we saw that day.  To the right is a close up to show the details a little better.  Always a cool thing to see these unique cloud formations.

OK, now were talking, but unfortunately I got only this blurred poor shot of a great wall cloud.  See patience does pay off in the end.

No, actually, this is the color of the sky at this moment, no photoshop alterations or enhancements by the camera.  The is the correct exposure and color.  This is also the spot (and you can almost see it in the picture) of our Spearman tornado, the second of the day.

This shot shows the maximum intensity of the storm and the the when the color was at it's highest contrast.   This color may have an indicator of the massive "Pampa Beast" we encountered after dark.  There's great footage on video and also see Chris Collura's May 23rd Page.
At the end of the evening as we pulled into the hotel we noticed this odd looking piece of equipment.  I don't know if I'd call it a chase vehicle, but the writing on the said something about Los Alamos Labratory and Storm research.  Eric Nguyen tried to get information on it once, but I belive the government disclosed nothing
MAY 24, 2002

 Another good looking start for a chase day.  Once again, Scott Blair's chase vehicle, with some other unfamiliar chasers in the background.

OK, I got bored waiting for things to fire, so I took some lonely cactis flower pictures....chasing is so much about waiting.

The day doesn't seem to want to pan out, but it's still early, but we are driving around a whole lot.

OK, at least we got to trek across this near bridge from Southwestern OK into Texas across the Red River.

The Red River was very muddy and there was very little to flowing water.

OK, storms forming and were chasing.

This cell was forming behind us (to the west), as we drove further east toward a more mature storm.  Myself and Jeff Gammons were not happy about leaving this cell, and we should have stuck to our instincts as this storm did produce a tornado and good imagery, our storm did not.

I always love these high contrast shots with rural context in the frame.  You really know your in farm country.

A nice sky to end the day, here Eric Nguyen's chase vehicle rests road side.  Sometimes you just have to pause, and take it all in.
MAY 25, 2002

 About the only thing for today was having Dinner with many other Chasers at the Big Texan in Amarillo.
(left to right) Myself, Scott Blair, Bill Hark, unknown, Tony Laubach, Kris Kridler, unknown, Chris Collura, and Jeff Gammons.
MAY 26, 2002


The usual start to some good storms.

Wow, I was really hanging out the side of the truck to get this shot.  But it worked, and I got a really neat shot.

If you look closely at the main rain shaft at the center of the image, you can see on the right side a little rain foot beginning of what was likely a weak downdraft.  I should have taken a series of photos, but I also may not have noticed at the time.

Good contrast shot with dark grays and just a little bit of bright white to give this image some interest.

The low (and I mean low) roll cloud was very neat to watch.  It's even cooler to watch on video.  I'll have to see if I filmed it steady and long enough for a time lapse.

Sun starts to go down late in the Spring.  If your travelling in the western areas of the Central Time Zone during May, it can be 10:00pm or later before the sky is dark.  June it's even later.

A double rainbow was just one of the many great images we got this day.

Same storm as the second panoramic shown above.  This is the storm that gave the nice combination of visuals as we headed for Dallas to catch our flights the next day.
Some good Mammatos is always a treat.  We saw quite a wide range of visuals this day.  Not much in the way of traditional supercells or tornadoes, but we did see a lot.
And one last sunset shot for the Chase Expedition 2002.  It was a great ending to a fantastic year.  I was so happy to be chasing out on the plains again.  I'm sure I won't ever be absent from the central states for as long ever again.

One last fun shot.  This is what the inside of our rental truck looked like after 10 days of chasing.  Three guys in an older blazer is about maxed out for space and comfort.  At least we had hotel rooms and beds to sleep in at night.




Links to Other Years
1997
1998
2002
2003
 2004
2006
2008

Chaser Pages
Chase Partners (transfer)
Chase List  (transfer)
Cost Overview (transfer)
Yearly Cost Worksheet          (updated for 2008)
Chase Travel Logs (updated Jan. 2008)
Chase Vehicles (2006)
Chase Maps & Graphs (updated Jan. 2008)
Chase Pictures
Chase Links
Chaser Library
The Chaser's Year Essay
transfer) links means they have been moved to this server but not updated in content.

Links marked (2006) are recently revised and reflect the 2006 chase season or the latest update.