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These were are very first two storm chases! We are new at this stuff, so you have to cut us some breaks. The first chase happened on April 8, 2001. The chase began by us heading south out of Ames past Des Moines to around Osceola, IA. Once there we realized that we had moved to far south of the warm front in the warm sector. We could tell because the clouds would get blown over before they could build up. Just as we realized we were too far south, thunderstorms began developing around Des Moines. We headed north on interstate 35 to the area. We found a towering cloud deck and decided to pursue it just to the south of Des Moines on highway 5. This is where we ran into KCCI. They were out chasing as well that day, thus we decided to join up with them, being our first chase and all. We headed east on highway 5 continuing to pursue the tower of clouds, but alas it was moving too fast. However, we heard more storms were developing back to the west, so we went west back to interstate 35 and went west on interstate 80. We stopped around Adair, Ia and saw an awesome lightning display, plus a monsterous wall cloud. We did see a funnel, and we called it in to the NWS. After this storm moved east, we decided to go back east as well. The same storm we had just seen the wall cloud now had moved over to Polk county and prompted a tornado warning there. At this point we decided to stop chasing due to the hail threat and nighttime. Not good to chase in the dark. This was a pretty successful chase.
Our second chase happened just a few weeks later towards the end of April 2001. This time we went northwest out of Ames towards Fort Dodge. We saw lots of building clouds, but unfortunately nothing developed. Well, at least we were 1 out of 2 at this point for successful chases. We did get some cool pictures though. Enjoy all the pictures from our first two chases!
Just some cool clouds
View of a rainbow from the back of our house in Bluegrass
This is Ryan and Stephen accompanying me on my first storm chase. We are in Osceola, IA using a computer at the local library to get weather data.
This is Stephen and Ryan again doing a skit for Cy's Eyes on th Sky (Our TV show). I'm taking the picture. Notice how cloudy it is and here we are chasing storms, not likely if you know anything about storm chasing. Safe to say we weren't successful, but this was just my first time.
This is a picture of Mitch, Penny, and Stephen (myself not pictured) just outside of Osceola at a rest area waiting for the storms to fire.
Hey, finally here's a storm! Long wait has finally paid off. This storm produced a tornado and was the cause of many warnings just to the south of Des Moines. It moved to the northeast from here.
Here's another picture of the same clouds as above.
And yet here's another one, can you tell I was impressed by this storm!
This is a rainbow in the base of the same cloud, it's so COOL!
Here's another one, different camara position.
...and another.
...and another.
... and here's the last one!
This is what storm chasing is all about, enjoying the beauty of nature!
Look at that, it's stormchaser 8. They stopped along side us to watch the storms brewing in the area. We followed them the rest of the evening. It was our most successful chase!
Doesn't it look so peaceful. I don't expect to see tornadoes when I go out and chase. I do it becuase it's relaxing and we get to see awesome sites such as this one. What more could anyone hope for!!
Can you see the rainbow at the base of this developing thunderstorm?
Would have been a good shot of a thunderstorm, but those phone lines got in the way.
This was the area where we came close to seeing a wall cloud, we at least noticed a lowering of the clouds.
This picture is just cool.
This picture is also very cool. Aren't clouds wonderful!
What a car! This was the car that we did some of our storm chasing in. Notice the light on top of the car, it actually worked, but we never had a chance to use it this day.
This picture was taken underneath the bridge in Fort Dodge Iowa. We were filming some stuff for our TV show again.
This is the location where we saw some lowering of clouds, we thought it was a wall cloud at the time.
Our second chase happened just a few weeks later towards the end of April 2001. This time we went northwest out of Ames towards Fort Dodge. We saw lots of building clouds, but unfortunately nothing developed. Well, at least we were 1 out of 2 at this point for successful chases. We did get some cool pictures though. Enjoy all the pictures from our first two chases!
Just some cool clouds
View of a rainbow from the back of our house in Bluegrass
This is Ryan and Stephen accompanying me on my first storm chase. We are in Osceola, IA using a computer at the local library to get weather data.
This is Stephen and Ryan again doing a skit for Cy's Eyes on th Sky (Our TV show). I'm taking the picture. Notice how cloudy it is and here we are chasing storms, not likely if you know anything about storm chasing. Safe to say we weren't successful, but this was just my first time.
This is a picture of Mitch, Penny, and Stephen (myself not pictured) just outside of Osceola at a rest area waiting for the storms to fire.
Hey, finally here's a storm! Long wait has finally paid off. This storm produced a tornado and was the cause of many warnings just to the south of Des Moines. It moved to the northeast from here.
Here's another picture of the same clouds as above.
And yet here's another one, can you tell I was impressed by this storm!
This is a rainbow in the base of the same cloud, it's so COOL!
Here's another one, different camara position.
...and another.
...and another.
... and here's the last one!
This is what storm chasing is all about, enjoying the beauty of nature!
Look at that, it's stormchaser 8. They stopped along side us to watch the storms brewing in the area. We followed them the rest of the evening. It was our most successful chase!
Doesn't it look so peaceful. I don't expect to see tornadoes when I go out and chase. I do it becuase it's relaxing and we get to see awesome sites such as this one. What more could anyone hope for!!
Can you see the rainbow at the base of this developing thunderstorm?
Would have been a good shot of a thunderstorm, but those phone lines got in the way.
This was the area where we came close to seeing a wall cloud, we at least noticed a lowering of the clouds.
This picture is just cool.
This picture is also very cool. Aren't clouds wonderful!
What a car! This was the car that we did some of our storm chasing in. Notice the light on top of the car, it actually worked, but we never had a chance to use it this day.
This picture was taken underneath the bridge in Fort Dodge Iowa. We were filming some stuff for our TV show again.
This is the location where we saw some lowering of clouds, we thought it was a wall cloud at the time.