July 23rd 2010 - HP supercell near Portogruaro, Italy

Nice LVL2 outlook was ahead of us. Friend and I decided to chase in Italy, FVG region. The only region that made sense to chase. We got off the highway before Portogruaro for Varmo and Cordoiso. The outlook was bad, no initiation, was afraid that it will result in a bust. Nothing interesting was happening but then suddenly ... a storm! Crazy driving to get ahead of it to intercept but we were too late. Got some photos but the storm was too fast. It ran us over very quickly, especially with the bad roads. Wet microburst with winds over 100 km/h, fortunately no hail. This storm dropped a rain-wrapped tornado somewhere along the way so were kinda lucky. Once the wind was strong and with strong rain there is nothing you can do. Especially with people driving 20 km/h. Obviously there were not in a hurry to get out of there. Before the storm caught us we got a look at a nice wall cloud which was rotating nicely. The storm made quite a bit of damage, there was a lot of broken trees on the roads.

June 17th 2010 - High end LVL1 event in Slovenia

Wasn't expecting much from this day but it went really well. My first sight of the supercell was near Trebnje. It took awile to get on the highway ... Missed the first supercell but bagged the next one, crazy driving saved me! :) These storms dropped large hail near Grosuplje and made a lot of damage.

From Trebnje.

Still very unorganized but very active. I was right under all the action. Crazy lift and inflow. A lot of CGs also, was kinda scared to stand outside of the car! Was dropping hail already.

Crazy inflow. Mesocyclone occlusion began here already with rain on the levt. I was moving practially all the time. It was fast.

A few kilometers ahead. Nice wall cloud. RFD really close, wall cloud already a bit in the rain. Not showing the structure very well.

On the road back along Trebnje. RFD on the left, not looking very good.

I still got one more look on the meso once I got ahead of the storm. Really crappy roads here, impossible to track anything here for long period of time.

On the road back at Krško.