Date: April 7, 2013
Time: 5:30 - 8:30 PM CDT
Place: Wakeeney, Hays, Russell, Kansas
Distance: 883 mi (746 positioning, 82 chasing, 55 to hotel)
Camera: T3i, GoPro, Lumix
Warnings: SVR
Rating: S3

Intro

As a new plains storm season nears (my second to officially partake in), I've been antsy for weather models to show any sign of the first big spring severe weather outbreak. March was unusually cold in the eastern US, with a persistent northwest flow that perpetually scoured out gulf moisture. Towards the end of March however, models started hinting at a change in the air. A Pacific trough was forecast to swing through the Rockies and finally draw up some warmth and moisture. It definitely looked like the first chase opportunity of the season.

For the 2013 storm season, I've added two pieces of camera equipment that I'm extremely excited about. The first is a GoPro 3 for wide angle timelapse. Though a relatively modest addition, it enables me to finally capture timelapse en route to storms. The second new item is a 1-meter Konova camera slider with belt-driven stepper motor. I've been incredibly impressed by the explosion of motion timelapse tools over the past year. These smooth, cinematic camera moves are something you don't see in a lot of storm chase footage, and it's a niche I'm extremely excited to fill.

Forecast and Setup

Today forecast had a "day-before-the-day" look. The upper-level winds from the Pacific trough were still back to the west, and a strong cap southward along the dryline in Oklahoma made storm initiation seem pretty questionable there (I'm always scared of wasting a valuable chase day on a blue-sky bust). The cap was weaker in Kansas, but with the tradeoff of less moisture and shear. All things considered, I thought Dodge City, Kansas struck a nice balance and looked like a decent initial target, given that we were starting the day in Denver (having seen an amazing Sigur Ros concert there the night before). But without an extremely compelling storm forecast, Toni and I decided to first have a leisurely brunch in Denver with my cousin Sarah, who we definitely don't get to see often enough.

Around noon, we headed out east on I-70 with plans to drop south once we got to Kansas. In Limon, CO we stopped to get gas and I learned my first field lesson on operating the Konova slider. I found that mounting the stepper motor and belt to the slide rail is a very tricky task when working from the trunk of the Sentra (just too many little screws that can get lost forever). We ended up wasting about 20 minutes as I fiddled with the motor. Lesson: always assemble the slider in the hotel room.

The Chase

I still wasn't sure we'd actually see storms today, but upon entering western Kansas we noticed some nice cumulus towers building ahead around the Wakeeney area. These towers weren't flattening out into anvils on top, but they still had a solid, cauliflower appearance. While gassing up in Wakeeney, a cell just a couple miles to the south got SVR warned. The 2013 season was officially on! We dropped south of Wakeeney several miles as the storm slid past us to the east. This let us deploy the camera slider from behind the storm (no pressure for a first-time setup). Toni spotted a picturesque grove of dead trees and we had a great time filming the sharp cumulus updrafts as they progressed away to the east. Here I learned my second slider lesson: belt-slippage can easily occur on vertical camera slides if you haven't mounted everything tightly enough. This really messes up a motion timelapse shot.

On radar, I noticed two storms that were starting to take on better appearance. One was about 35 miles southeast nearing Lacrosse; the other was 35 miles to the northeast near Stockton. Both were getting away from us heading due east. I decided to stay between them and catch up along I-70, then choose either north of south depending on which one looked nicer. Passing through Hays, we entered a small cell with a nice nickel hail core (got some cool GoPro timelapse as we caught this storm). At Russell, it was clear that the southern cell was dominating (it had much cleaner inflow), so we dropped south off the interstate in pursuit. However, after 20 minutes it became obvious that we'd never catch up before sunset. So we found another nice little spot and broke out the slider again for some sunset shots of the distant storm. Those quite moments in the middle of nowhere are really what make chasing such a treat. We closed out the first 2013 chase by heading back to Hays for some Applebees.

Recap, Filmmaking Notes, and Lessons Learned