May 10, 2010 tornado intercept in Oklahoma! --------------- Victims of the 2011 and 2012 storm season continue to need our support. Please consider a donation to the American Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity, or other organization that focuses on storm recovery: American Red Cross Habitat for Humanity |
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Reed, Joel and friends from England endure a destructive hail storm!
For the rest of the story, read INTO THE STORM -- Available in the TVN store! |
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Extreme Tornado Tours gets in on the intense November 7 tornadoes!
Chase with TVN at ExtremeTornadoTours.com! |
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Thunder's Curtis McDonald, Matt Chatelain, Daniel Betten and Thomas Spoence document the April 14, 2012 outbreak in northern Oklahoma and southern Kansas!
Tornado Extravaganza 2010 in the TVN store!
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Verne Carlson was on the heels of a multi-vortex wedge tornado during the May 10, 2010 Oklahoma outbreak!
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Storm chaser Bill Doms captures photogenic video of a violent Minnesota tornado on August 7, 2010
MnWxChaser.com |
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Extreme videographer and storm chaser James Reynolds documented an extreme ice event on the shores of Lake Geneva in February, 2012! For more, visit TyphoonFury.com
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Extreme videographer Jim Edds puts his surge cam to the test against Rita, Fabian, Katrina and Isabel!
Check out Jim's website at ExtremeStorms.com |
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Help keep Andy's memory alive. For more information, visit the Andy Gabrielson Memorial Fund Website. |
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For more, check out "Get Out and Film It!"
Available in the TVN store! |
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Extreme Tornado Tours
guide Chad Cowan documents the storm of a lifetime in South Dakota.
For fine art prints, visit ChaseTheStorms.com |
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Photographer and storm chaser Stephen Locke documents an EF-4 tornado across central Kansas on April 14, 2012.
TempestGallery.com |
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Storm chasers Scott Peake, Kevin Rolfs, Colt Forney and Isaac Pato document the November 7, 2011 tornado event in southwest Oklahoma!
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Storm chasers capture this incredibly intense "drillbit" tornado near Cherokee, Oklahoma on April 14, 2012!
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| Written by Heidi Farrar | |||
| Monday, 28 December 2009 15:43 | |||
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Reed says:
"Our first chase day started off with a bang... INSANE down here. The flight Chris and I were on was delayed a few hours, and we arrived at 9 am local time... Whiteneck, Robert, and Bobo were waiting with all the film equipment, and we rented three euro-style chase vehicles, and of course took out full insurance. Dealing with the language barrier was frustrating but hilarious, and we met some local guys here as we were renting our vehicle and they really helped us out. We're telling everyone that we meet "cazador de los tornadoes", and they usually point at us and say 'loco!'.
Our target was WSW of Buenos Aires just east of the Andes, as a strong trough was forecast to slam into Chile at 00z. However, we faced a HUGE hurdle, since I am not the best at driving a stick shift, especially in a busy Latin American city where people drive INSANE! No one adheres to the laws, and people pass in no-pass zones like there is no tomorrow. We stalled out in the middle of the highway several times, and had HUGE difficulty communicating with the toll booth people. Thankfully I had my iPhone i-translator app and was able to translate on the fly, not to mention quickly learning Spanish. Once we got to the main highway west of town, JR fired up the satellite internet in the back of the car, and we noticed on satellite imagery that supercells were already exploding 3-4 hours to our west. ... Eventually we gained visual of our target supercell on the horizon. The pampas are INCREDIBLE -- flatter than even the Texas Panhandle, but with occasional eucalyptus trees and palm trees scattered throughout. Sometimes you forget you're even in Argentina, as it looks like we're cruising after supercells in southwest Kansas. However, the visibility out here puts the U.S. tornado alley to shame, as we could see storms over 100 miles away, and even a tornado from 30-40 miles. The visibility was so superior that it seemed it took forever to get close to our supercell.
... At about 7 pm, we finally intercepted the supercell. Driving up to it, the supercell structure was textbook, but flipped around as a mirror image from Northern Hemisphere supercells. The updraft has striations, inflow bands feeding into the wall cloud from the north -- the Amazon Basin to the north of the Pampas is the moisture/heat source here just like the Gulf of Mexico in the U.S. tornado alley. When we were approaching our storm, we had very limited options except for shady dirt roads, but we had to take the chance to get closer to this storm, so we took a north-south dirt farm road in our rear-wheel drive Euro-style vehicles...and did some Baja off-roading. Now our vehicle is covered in brown mud. As we were punching though the core (from south to north as oppose to north-south like in the U.S.), we gained visual of the rain free base... but then in a matter of 15 minutes our storm completely evaporated! In 15 minutes it went from raging supercell to nothing!
We then meandered on the farm roads and passed through several farming communities. People were riding bikes everywhere and cooking whole pigs on spits, Latin music everywhere. I LOVE this place and am going to establish a TVN headquarters Latin American edition stat.
Our plan is to chase a great setup today, and then return tomorrow to Buenos Aires for a speaking engagement at the Dept of Meteorology."
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Comments
stick-shift, huh ? Ferrari ?
( need a driver who knows stick-shift ?)
HEY, did you notice, the borderline of the province north of Santa Rosa looks just like the TX panhandle, flipped horizontally. Santa Rosa looks like the position of Lubbock would be.
LTA, Uncle Jim
PS... I hope you hook up with that meteorology professor in S. Brazil. Good luck to everyone. Awesome job, so far! DOMINATE!
You guys have fun!
Vaya con dios!
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