STORM TRACK: September 30, 1983 (Volume 6 Issue 6)

(*Artwork for this article was not based on any photographic/portrait record.)

A July day in Wyoming -- the year 1975. The day before, a cold front had passed through the state and stalled overnight far to the southeast. Dawn found southeastern Wyoming in upslope flow at the surface with southwesterly flow aloft: the ideal breeding ground for high-country tornadoes.

I had been chasing for nearly two years at the time and, although I'd only seen four tornadoes by then, I had chased many "near-miss" storms and felt like a veteran. Face it. In 1975, there weren't that many veteran chasers who'd seen that many storms (the few notable exceptions include Dave Hoadley -- editor of this newsletter). Much about visual storm structure was only then becoming 'obvious'. What's more, I was doing my hitch as a grad student at the University of Wyoming, where such idiocy was very rare.

The circumstances which led me into what was to become my closest tornadic approach began innocently enough. I decided early in the day that conditions warranted a chase, and since the prime spot seemed to be near Cheyenne (about 60 miles away), I knew I could even wait 'till mid-afternoon before leaving -- a true "gentleman" chase. I raced home at lunch to inform my wife that we were in luck. A storm chase was in the works for that afternoon. Freda had chased with me several times and performed excellent backup with maps and cameras. However, she was somewhat less than thrilled at the prospect and suggested that she might be a much more amiable wife, were I to find someone else to go along (can you imagine anyone not enjoying the excitement of racing around in a hot automobile all afternoon -- trying to get pelted by hail, blown by winds and caked with sweaty dust?)

Not to be dissuaded, I called a friend and fellow student, Vic Garret, who expressed the desire to see a tornado at least once before he graduated. Vic was inexperienced, but eager, and quickly accepted the offer.

At 1:30, we took a final look at the maps and were off -- Cheyenne bound. With much animated chatter, we drove toward the action. Vic asked questions, and I tried to formulate answers -but as we got closer to Cheyenne, the answers became tougher. Thunderstorms were forming all up and down the foothills, and cloud features were becoming obliterated by intervening low clouds. Worse, the southeasterly winds were picking up, and the air was becoming filled with blowing dust. By the time we reached Cheyenne, visibility had been reduced to about a mile or so and was decreasing. Undaunted, I decided on a tactic. We would get onto the north-south road, which ran between Cheyenne and Torrington, WY. There, we would race up and down, looking for inflow structures (not a great deal of finesse, but effective, I felt).

Forty miles north of Cheyenne, with visibility less than a quarter mile in blowing dust, I thought I spotted an organized lowering to the west through occasional let-ups in the wind. We stopped the car. After two or three minutes of observation, waiting patiently for breaks in the dust, we both spotted the wall cloud (perhaps three miles west) and noted a diffusely rotating column of dust going into the base. The dust column broke up after about a minute or so. We raced to the car, calculating quickly. The storm should be moving from the south-southwest at 35-40 knots. We could intercept the wall cloud by driving north to a town called Hawk Springs, let it pass, then follow it to Torrington at a safe distance. This became the plan, and off we went.

By the time we reached Hawk Springs, the blowing dust had increased. Visibility was then consistently at one quarter mile, and there were extended intervals when everything further than an eighth mile disappeared. I was beginning to get a little spooky. We hadn't seen the wall cloud since leaving our previous location, and the noise of the wind was masking all other sound. We decided to pull over immediately to see if we could catch a glimpse of cloud base. I found an east-west road, drove a quarter mile west, turned the car around and left the engine running. I then told Vic to hop out for an observation and told him to let me know as soon as he could see base. He stepped out, I slipped the car into first, rode the clutch, and waited for the report.

Suddenly, the passenger door was thrown open. "Get out of here quick!" I heard Vic shout above the din, as he scrambled in.

I don't know why, but I looked into the rear view mirror. And there...not twenty feet away...was a black cloud of dust and debris rising into the air. My leg, which was holding in the clutch, began to shake slightly but uncontrollably. I grabbed the steering wheel and tried to decide on the best action. There was none. Then it hit. Dust, dirt chunks, small stones and branches began to pelt the passenger side of the car -- straight on. The car began to rock back and forth. Looking out the windows, visibility was less than a foot. The engine died.

I heard Vic shouting something about whether we should evacuate the car in favor of a ditch. I shouted back a negative. The wind had veered and was then hitting the back of the car. All coherent thought seemed suddenly to suspend itself, and I went from near total panic to almost calm. I remember wondering if I'd kissed my wife before leaving,

Then, it was over. The wind stopped and the air cleared. My foot released the clutch, and I peeled cramped fingers from the steering wheel. My first words to Vic were, "You said you wanted to see a tornado." His to me were, "Shut up you son-of-a ____."

It took us several minutes to recover. While we did so, we heard on the radio that a tornado had been reported, on the ground, south of Torrington. I then turned to Vic and asked what he wanted to do. And in the true spirit of storm chasers everywhere, his answer came back immediately, "We came to chase ...let's chase." And so, we drove on. Unfortunately, we were unable to catch the storm and since my car was misbehaving (dust in the carb), we shortly broke-off and limped home.

Now, if there's a message here, I don't know what, it is, except that what I did then seems to look incredibly foolish now. Perhaps this narration can be offered as a caution, concerning chasing, when conditions are that bad. I don't know what your readers may think, but I know that one of my thoughts during our close encounter was how little pushing nature that far was actually worth.