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CHAOTIC CHRONICLES
Are you a nerd?
Created by Christophe Asselin
"INSTABILITIES"
We found a quiet road.
In front of us, a Congestus turned into a Cumulonimbus.
The first precipitations appeared.
First rumbling thunder too... maybe this was going to be the right one.
It was still early and this was the only cell at that time.
It's getting denser at the center.
We were all excited and confident.
It strengthened and rumbled more and more
If we could be at the supercell initiation...
that'd be great!
It's starting to look good.
Yea, it's nice! The base is expanding.
We decided not to leave from it
but we moved just a bit to the south to avoid the rain.
However, we were quickly disillusioned because the storm weakened.
The base started to break down...
The storm lacked inflow and moisture.
There is a rain shaft there
but the base is completely gone.
It looks like there is a funnel
but this is isn't true.
We were all skeptical
and were wondering if this cell would be able to strengthen again.
Honestly, I don't know what to do.
I think that even if it's losing its...
There's no base anymore!
The Cumulus towers were having a hard time growing up
so we decided to take our time and look closely at the situation.
I think this is the best choice.
Look at that backing winds!
Drive to Haskell then.
By the time we get there, we'll reassess the situation.
Look at the convergence.
A moisture convergence is taking shape here.
We suddenly realized that 100 miles to the east
several storms fired up.
They grew very fast
and looked good on the radar.
We're on this road to Haskell, here.
In relation to the radar image...
Yea but I don't think the radar can help us for now.
Only the satellite can help us.
This is odd though, that nothing is forming in this area
although the requirements are met.
I must admit the congestus clouds are weak...
It was double or nothing.
Maybe we could go to the east and get the cells at their maturity
but if it failed there and finally developed here, it would have been a huge disappointment.
We were full of doubts.
This was a the kind of difficult day
with two meaningful areas for storms
but quite distant from each other.
We thought that maybe we had better stay here.
Maybe it would fire up later.
But in the meantime, it went crazy to the east
with already three tornado warned cells.
On our side, it didn't look pretty
Every congestus collapsed very fast after one or two thunder clap.
We felt the bad day coming...
We thought that maybe we had made a big mistake and completely missed our chase.
Now we knew it wouldn't work out in this area
so we took off toward east a bit ashamed
without any convictions
even if a nice Congestus was heading to an interesting zone.
We decided to catch it up and follow it
to see if it would take advantage of this better area.
Vincent pushed us to go after this storm
He was behind the wheel anyway
so he decided to keep going east because he believed in it
and he was right to do so because the base became more and more organized.
The base got really interesting
It was quite wide and a lot of fractus were sucked in it.
Vincent was driving faster now
to get rid of some annoying trees.
What a wall cloud!
It's spinning!
We're gonna have a tornado!
It's lowering!
The meso was very well organized while the sun was setting.
The wall cloud had a great rotation.
A tornado could form at anytime.
This is the american dream.
The thing coming from nowhere when you less expect it.
Look at that nice flanking line!
It is still spinning at the center!
Unfortunately, the rotation eventually slowed down
and the meso lost its dynamics.
But we didn't regret at all going all the way.
We thank Vincent for that.
We decided to have some fun by going under the meso.
Let's have a look here, it could be fun.
We're under this supercell
and we're gonna aim at this one
which is more to the south-west
so it has more chance to regain power
unlike this one which is becoming surrounded.
and might lose strength rapidly.
It's often better to be on the southern storm.
Vincent is driving us into deep forest.
It's really creepy!
On the radar we saw that the storms become widespread.
It was now a big cluster of convective rain falls
Still very active but no tornado chances anymore.
We ended up enjoying lightning
with nice atmospheres.
We made up for the day
but we always have in mind to find a tornado
and today was a failure.
But we put things into perspective...
we know it's difficult to be on the right storm at the right time.
We had a nice show this day anyway and we'll do better the next day.
We left Texas with bitterness and will for revenge
because we missed the situation the day before.
We had seen a lot of pictures of what we could have experienced
if we hadn't been too far away from the action.
May 17th, we drove to Nebraska.
We targeted the city of Valentine, located in northern Nebraska, near the South Dakota border.
I realized that Nebraska had rolling landscapes.
A lot of hills and farms.
I thought that it would't be that easy to chase in this state.
While driving towards our target
cumulus congestus already grew over our heads.
If we look on the left, this is north-west.
Mission is more to the north
No, this is the same spot.
- This one can become quite nice. - Yes, given its location.
We take an interest in this cell
which comes to a high moisture area here.
It might begin to be...
full of beans!
Oh, great lightning!
It's on!
It's unleashed!
We kept an eye on the radar
because there was a large convective system to the south-west
looking almost like a bow echo
and coming right at us.
We were worried it could power down the cells we were looking at.
As we expected, it formed a squall line
that annihilated the tornado threat.
But we thought we could have an arcus cloud
because we knew that at the end of the afternoon
these storms would draw a fast moving line.
While driving east, we noticed the edge of the forming shelf cloud.
A beautiful beast was coming towards us.
We seized the moment.
As a structure enthusiast, I wasn't disappointed.
We struggled against the wind, feeling how angry was the sky
and this is what we came for after all.
Light was amazing, as were the turbulences above us.
We knew that the potential for the next few days would be further south
so we decided to turn around once the arcus was gone.
We let it go away and headed back south.
I think episode 2 is off to a good start!
Yep! I even think it's over!
We ended up getting to bed late one more time
but we saw a lot of nice things this day.
It allowed us to gain power along our trip,
to experience different phenomena
and we were still full of hope about seing our first tornado soon.
NEXT EPISODE
Today is gonna be dangerous!
Too many storm chasers!
Go Chris! Pass him! Pass him!
Developing tornado guys!
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