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Stormchaser Chicken George Thusday 14 June North Dakota


Tom Lynch

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Posted
  • Location: Cumbria UK
  • Weather Preferences: Cloud 9
  • Location: Cumbria UK

After a 615 miles drive I am in Dickinson, North Dakota. Today looks like it is going to be Canada. That will be a first for me.

The weather situation needs to be monitored closely but it seems the best of what we need  may be across the border into Canada.  

So thats as good as it gets folks.  I may be making my first ever chase trip into Cananda. 

 

George

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Posted
  • Location: Cumbria UK
  • Weather Preferences: Cloud 9
  • Location: Cumbria UK

After intercepting a pretty good storm on route we sat on the Canadian border trying to decide which way to go. The potential storms looked like they could go either side of the border.  Border crossings into Canada can be a problem because some close at 6pm in either Mountain time or Central time, so you could get stuck or have to drive 4 hours to the next border station. 

We crossed into Canada at Futura border crossing point. That is the Canadian check point.  Asked a lot of questions I couldnt answe like where,when and how long. The only reason I could answer was why. 

We went to a place called Estavan for dinner and based ourselves there for a while. A pretty looking shelf cloud passed over the town. It looked like the best of the storms might stay south of the border so we set off slowly towards towards the border crossing but keeping one eye of an storm that was developing west of out location.

We went a little bit west to check it out. It didnt dissapoint it was pretty huge and was intensifying as it approached. Lots of movement with the the storm.  It had the green tinge that we well know means large hail. We knew we had to move east and as we did we watched the storm racing towards the east.  We attempted to get in front and hopefully south but it was hauling ass at 60 mph. 

As we turned south it became pretty clear that we were going to get a pasting. We could also see that there was rotation with the storm, which at some point became tornado warned. When hit the the hail it was large and the winds were flipping horrendous. Visiabilty went down to zero it was at this point we incercepted a brief weak tornado. which was embeded with the hail.  

It was a long mile to the border crossing in zero driving conditions being blasted by large hail. Trying to see just something that would indicate where the road should be. We were still in the hail when we arrived at the Noonan Border crossing which id the US side of the border. I forgot that immigration was strict and drove into the station only to get told off.and sent back. 

We then set off and chased a variety of storms having to keep moving before we got hit by the storm. 

Internet was pretty patchy and so i have been taking video which we will upload once we get a decent internet. 

Streaming would have been very hard to do yesterday because once on the Canadian side of the border we had no internet. The only way I could get any internet was whilst in the Mcdonalds in Estavan, which by the way got trashed by 4 inch hail. . 

I will put what ever video and photos that we can once it takes less than 45 mins to upload a 5 minute video. 

 

all in all it was a brilliant day

George 

Edited by Tom Lynch
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Posted
  • Location: Cumbria UK
  • Weather Preferences: Cloud 9
  • Location: Cumbria UK

We had to keep moving and could only stop at each location for minutes at a time.  No time to try and stream so did videos at each stop. 

as you can see the storms were racing towards us with three inch hail  so litlle time could be spent.

 

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Incredible videos!!! That's amazing you actually intercepted a tornado and the hail!

I have two questions if I can ask here (feel free to direct me elsewhere as I don't want to disturb your chase description with unrelated questions).

1) Are you doing tours and is this website https://www.weatherholidays.com/stormchase-usa/book.html where I could book to travel with you (the tour that streams, posts the photos/videos here and is on the GPS tracker)? I know it may be too difficult to say, but what period is statistically best to see tornadoes? Is May better than June? How soon does the best tornado season get booked up?

2) Are you still streaming videos? I thought you weren't chasing for the last week as your GPS is still shown in Spearfish. I was watching the huge supercells on the border on radar yesterday and only just found you were chasing them. I couldn't access your live streaming at any time last week. Is it my computer or is the GPS not working? If not, is there some way like a discussion which may say at what time you may be streaming live?

Sorry if I'm sending too many questions in the wrong place, wish you guys good luck and fingers crossed that you still get some good tornadoes if you are still chasing.

Lucas

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Posted
  • Location: Cumbria UK
  • Weather Preferences: Cloud 9
  • Location: Cumbria UK
15 minutes ago, Lucas said:

Incredible videos!!! That's amazing you actually intercepted a tornado and the hail!

I have two questions if I can ask here (feel free to direct me elsewhere as I don't want to disturb your chase description with unrelated questions).

1) Are you doing tours and is this website https://www.weatherholidays.com/stormchase-usa/book.html where I could book to travel with you (the tour that streams, posts the photos/videos here and is on the GPS tracker)? I know it may be too difficult to say, but what period is statistically best to see tornadoes? Is May better than June? How soon does the best tornado season get booked up?

2) Are you still streaming videos? I thought you weren't chasing for the last week as your GPS is still shown in Spearfish. I was watching the huge supercells on the border on radar yesterday and only just found you were chasing them. I couldn't access your live streaming at any time last week. Is it my computer or is the GPS not working? If not, is there some way like a discussion which may say at what time you may be streaming live?

Sorry if I'm sending too many questions in the wrong place, wish you guys good luck and fingers crossed that you still get some good tornadoes if you are still chasing.

Lucas

Hi Lucas 

We are still chasing and if we can get the stream back on line we will do. 

Here is a link to the tours for next year

 https://www.weatherholidays.com/

Hard to answer the milion dollar question but all tours see a lot of storms but some tours are fully booked up.  If there are tornadoes around we will find them. 

I have been keeping people up to speed with where we are most days.  The GPS is attached to the streaming. We will if we can get it back up and running. 

George 

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Posted
  • Location: Macclesfield, Cheshire
  • Weather Preferences: Thunderstorms, Lightning, Tornado, Hurricane, Heatwave
  • Location: Macclesfield, Cheshire

Here is my footage from the same event - see what you think, but that was a pretty rough ride, so I am convinced of a weak tornado. WARNING: Unedited, may contain swearing.

 

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Thanks very much for all your answers! Would be great to see your live stream if you get it back up and running.

Just wonder, if a chaser wanted to escape a tornado and the only escape route was to cross the border, could they get into trouble by just running through the border (if that's possible) and explaining why later on? Or would they be in serious trouble even if e.g. EF5 was there and the only option to get out of the way was crossing the border quick?

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Posted
  • Location: Cumbria UK
  • Weather Preferences: Cloud 9
  • Location: Cumbria UK
13 hours ago, Lucas said:

Thanks very much for all your answers! Would be great to see your live stream if you get it back up and running.

Just wonder, if a chaser wanted to escape a tornado and the only escape route was to cross the border, could they get into trouble by just running through the border (if that's possible) and explaining why later on? Or would they be in serious trouble even if e.g. EF5 was there and the only option to get out of the way was crossing the border quick?

Hi Lucas.  I have been told that tours 1 & 2 may already be fully booked so only 3 & 4 are available.. Hard to advise on which ones are best. I have seen tornadoes on all tours. 

In honesty I wouldnt like to say what the border crossing team would do in such a situation but it wouldnt surprise me if they had a tornado shelter for such occassions should they arise. 

George

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