2011 Storm Season

Anyone else antsy for the start of the storm season? Today was really bad for me, knowing there was tornadic activity in Kansas/Oklahoma, and just recently a tornado was reported on the ground near Indianapolis. I followed today's events on chasers on tornadovideos.net website. Made me wish all our snow was gone and storm season was upon us.

Same here - I'm going nuts. I had my many monitors tracking every bit of it, and it reminded me just how badly I want to get out there and chase. Of course, all this pre-season early crap isn't much to waste your time or money on... best to wait until the season is in full swing and dropping the good stuff!

I have to agree... I had a call Saturday AM asking if I wanted to ride along on Sunday but I turned the offer down and it's a good thing because he ended up calling it off Sunday AM anyways so yeah... It's just hard to committ this early in the year. Hopefully in the next couple weeks I can make a KS-TX run...

Yeah I wouldn't bother on anything for a couple more months.

I hate being caught off guard but last night it happened! When I went to bed, all they were talking about was some strong storms, but no mention of tornadoes. Then I get woke up at 2:15 to tornado sirens and my fire dept pager going off. (Apparently when I was gone in the Navy they installed some new sirens around here, cause you used to have to stand outside to barely hear the 11AM siren test on fridays. Now its as loud as my alarm clock!) It was first dispatched to us as doppler indicated, then confirmed by a county deputy but by the time I could get dressed and out the door it was too far away to chase. Sad thing is that it was initially reported less than 3 miles from my house. I can't believe I missed one that was practically delivered to my front door! I am not a fan of chasing at night, but one that close will spark my interest. I did drive out in the area today, but due to being mostly rural farmland, there was relatively minimal damage, mostly limited to trees down. On a different note, about half way through the storm I remembered to put my rain gauge back outside, and in just over an hour and a half we ended up with 2 inches of rain. I would guess the storm total was betewwn 4 to 5 inches. Thank god I live on a hill cause that little stream at the bottom of the hill was small enough to jump across yesterday. Today it looks like the Mississippi River is flowing through my back yard.

Yeah I'm a little but hurt from yesterday. I totally ignored the KS OK potential. I dismissed it listing to other noise. Just made me more focused moving forward. I just have to keep telling myself it's still early

Due to financial constraints, I only chase from about Jamestown, ND east to Wadena area, from Canadian border to just about Aberdeen. I would so love to go south one late spring and actually chase down in Oklahoma and that, but would probably have to go with someone who kinda knew the area, because the furthest south I've been is Aberdeen, SD! And if the roads down there are as bad as they are in Western Minnesota, I'd really get lost!!! (We just added another partner in mine and Mike's team because he grew up int he backwoods of Minnesota and knows the road system really well where we normally chase)

OK what is up with this storm season? Deadly tornado outbreaks and now when its only in the low 50s here, there was a tornado touchdown in Barnes County, North Dakota and where I live is under a tornado warning for a severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado. It's only like 53 degrees here!

Update: A tornado warning was just issued for East Central Barnes and West Central Cass. Doppler indicated tornadic cell located east of Valley City heading east, pretty much following I-94. Looks like I don't gotta go anywhere to chase!

Get R done Jenn

Eh, the storm fell apart before it reached me. Got some good strong winds and some great pictures of a shelf cloud though. Monday is looking to be an awesome day it sounds like to finally get out in the field with SPC having us in a hatched area for severe storms from mid-ND all the way through to Nebraska, pretty much along the I-29 corridor.