4/1/2006 REPORTS: TX/OK/KS
Posted on March 18th, 2010 by anonym
When we got to the storm, it looked quite high based, and there was massive amts of precip to the west and southwest of the area of weak rotation. The storm was spitting out lots of scud from the FFD, and some of it was being reingested it appeared. The storm did have a very nice green/cyan colored appearance though. Looking at surface obs, I was extremely concerned by the low RH / high dewpoint deficits (see my failure reason below). Regardless, we followed this storm until it was south of Clinton... It had one more run at an RFD occlussion, but that too was very wet. By the time it was into Was$$$a county (6:15ish), it was looking progressively more outflow-dominant, with a shelfy appearance. I did see that SRV imagery indicated some rotation in the forward-flank, and this was confirmed visually. However, there was no doubt that the storm was lining out.
I've chased 3 times in 4 days, and struck out all three times. Thurs and today were HP sups, none of which were really that impressive. The rotation on today's supercell was largely pretty weak, and the structure was far from breath-taking. The storm did take two good runs at producing something, but the RFD was hugely precip-filled and quite cool.
EDIT: I'll move my "failure mode" for todays event over to a 4/1 DISC thread.
EDIT2: LOL The swear-word-filter caught the county name-- Wash-ita... It doesn't like the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th letters together, I guess.
BTW I would put pictures up, but others have already posted the same stuff I got.
Saw a small supercell and small funnel cloud near Fort Supply.
Full Report Here (http://www.tornadostalker.com/2006chases/1april2006.html)
http://www.tornadostalker.com/2006chases/wallcloud_apr1.JPG
http://stormdriven.com/cblog/uploads/0401061954.jpg
http://stormdriven.com/cblog/uploads/0401061956.jpg
You can't beat some of the chase sunsets
http://stormdriven.com/cblog/uploads/0401061952.jpg
So we set off down south of Sayre and caught a decent looking cell and followed it for a while. Produced a not-very-spectacular wall cloud. So then we jumped on another cell that was around the Clinton area. It ended up merging into the ugly squall-line that ended up eating everything and then raining out the state (which is good I guess, for the state). So in the end, we blew about $100, mainly on gas, no tornado on a day when EVERYONE was talking about "Outbreak similar to May 3, 1999" and models that backed that up to a point. But when dynamics don't happen at the right time, and your car is about to explode, and your equipment fails, then you get rained on all the way home, I'm just friggen happy to BE HOME.
Targeted Woodward, OK arrived at about 2:30 and went over data. Basically decided to sit and wait there for somthing to pop since it seemed stupid to move anywhere else really. eventually spotted some towers south of woodward (beginings of comanche, pratt KS supercell) they slowly organized and moved north into kansas where they developed a wall cloud and looked like it might produce a tornado. However that hope was short lived as the storm moved into the red hills southwest of Medicine lodge, KS and there were really no road options at all to pursue it, so basically just went home and found a pleasant surprise as tornado sirens were blowing in town and nickel to quarter size hail was falling from the same storm that I had earlier been chaser southwest of there.
http://www.msnusers.com/6ur50b6vdaoakgumfinciejfi5/Documents/Pictures/IMG_0347.JPG
storms begin to fire south of Woodward, OK.
http://www.msnusers.com/6ur50b6vdaoakgumfinciejfi5/Documents/Pictures/IMG_0348.JPG
storm gets better organized.
http://www.msnusers.com/6ur50b6vdaoakgumfinciejfi5/Documents/Pictures/IMG_0359.JPG
wall cloud develops in southern Comanche county, KS
I sat in Woodward until around 5pm watching CU's form and reform WSW of town. Finally, around 5, a cluster of 2 cells began to strengthen and I headed north of town to watch the southern cell develop into a very defined supercell with an excellent sheared back anvil. The storm eventually teased me with 2 or 3 extremely close attempts at tornadogenesis. Some fairly large hail, golfball sized, was observed along HW34 where the core had passed. Followed the storm as far north as I could but after the KS border no road options existed to go east and I was forced to let the storm fade into the distance.
Overall, I would consider today a success. It was a visually impressive supercell and had some pretty wicked rotation that nearly produced. Observed an excellent lightning display on the drive back to ICT as well.
Met up with David Drummond and Graham Butler in Shamrock, TX and waited for the storms to initiate. We then headed south and then back into OK. The storm cell we were on started out looking fairly decent with good rotation and produced a moderate wall cloud. The storm cycled quite a few time before becoming outflow dominant. Once it joined with the southern cell it was all over but the rain. Not even enough hail to make a bad story out of. With all the news crews out on that storm there should be enough video of what a BUST looks like.
Parted ways with David and Graham west of Lawton and called it a night. With as much as this round of storms was hyped it sure is a shame nothing came from them in OK.
PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TULSA OK
537 PM CDT SUN APR 2 2006
AT 1114 PM CST LAST NIGHT /APRIL 1ST/ A BRIEF TORNADO TOUCHED DOWN
IN TULSA...IMMEDIATELY SOUTHWEST OF THE TULSA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT.[/b]
We were right behind the line as it moved through Tulsa and just heard some wind reports. I didn't even hear anything reported over about 50mph (not sure why 40mph wind was being reported, but you know spotters and their radios). I don't think I measured anything about 30mph when the line passed me. I didn't have any damage from winds around my house at all it seemed (I live about 10 miles from TIA).
We decided to get ahead of the Southern edge of cells and for awhile a cell somewhat ahead of the main blob of storms to the SE began to look fairly impressive and things began to look much more surface based. This cell would pelt us with quarter to occasionally half-dollar size hail North of Paducah and hail even began to cover the road but we were able to get into the clear fairly quickly.
W e headed ito paducah and then jsut NE of the town and watched a poorly organized wall cloud eventually turn into a very outflow dominant mess.
We then headed back home towards Wichita Falls on the Southern edge and enjoyed the incredible amount of rainfall that had occured NE of Paducah where ditched ran full all the way up to the sides of the roadways and small creeks formed in rain starved fields. It was a nice site to see in this rain starved area.
We would follow the tail end of what turned out to be a bowing structure and took some OK lightning pics along the way and some structure shots of the gustfront.
I am wonderingif anyone had trouble getting Wifi at the shell or behind the Kettle in Childress like we did? I usually can get a pretty good connection there but not today. Also at the roadside rest stop on 287 Near Chilicothee we were unable to get their Wifi on the East bound side of the highway. This is another area I can usually access trouble free but not today. I know my Wifi was working because we were able to connect at the Best Western In Vernon.
Ive added a new extra Wifi card with an external antenna but the antenna wont be here until Monday. Hopefully this will greatly improve my signal.
I was also baffeled by why todays setup wasnt producing more tornadic storms even watching them on WX WORX up in Kansas. Reading Jeff Snyders synopsis of the situation brings things into light well however. I do recall a chase friend of mine earlier in the day mentioning he was concerned about the mixing scanrio however. Then again ya just never can tell.
At least ill have some video and pics to play with later today. Ill try to get them on my website this evening but I do have a test I need to study for. We shall see.
http://www.stormchaserco.com/20060401_5_sm.jpg
http://www.stormchaserco.com/20060401_7_sm.jpg
http://www.stormchaserco.com/20060401_10_sm.jpg
http://www.stormchaserco.com/20060401_12_sm.jpg
tornadoes but a shot of hail and a couple of somewhat interesting storm shots.
Hopefully this crazy year will pull a bit back into the southern plains and give me a shot of
chasing in Tx or outside of the hills and trees.
http://www.tornadoxtreme.com/2006_Chases/A.../april_1-6.html (http://www.tornadoxtreme.com/2006_Chases/April_1-6/april_1-6.html)
http://www.tornadoxtreme.com/IMG_1174_filtered.jpg
Original Post Follows:
Headed out with Gene Moore early Saturday with initial target Childress to set up and monitor initiation. We made good time. There in Childress we hooked up with Bill Combes and David Douglas and stopped and grabbed some food. I had the pleasure of finally meeting Tim Marshall, and his friend Sean. I was expecting initiation near 21z and somewhere around that time convection started to our southwest on cue. At this point I'd like to say that pretty much all model products (least that I had looked at) had indicated favorable potential for not only supercells but also tornadoes during the day along the dryline. To keep it short, lets just say that all ingredients appeared to be there on the model products as well as in much of the live data. Note before leaving Childress we had many readings of -13 to -10 lifted indices south of our area per Goes quantitative satellite. We left Childress with Bill and David in tow after providing them with a radio for communications with us. Anyway we shot southwest and intercepted the first building cell on southwest side near Tell. As we approached the lowered base / wallcloud and town we passed some chasers along the way including Jeff Piotrowsky on the side of the road. The setup looked ideal, and we were expecting quick intensification and a tornado to form soon.
Basically that never happened. The cell just started raining and outflowing on the southern end with a bit of lightning in the precip as well were underneath it. We managed to work our way a bit further to the southwest of Tell Here my inverter started going on the blink, but with a little effort managed to get it back on line. However I made a note to replace it and get a better one - which I did yesterday.
We followed this HP blob to the east as it worked it's way up toward Childress and Paducah. From Paducah I believe we went north where there was an intense precipitation core in progress that was very dark and appeared to have some decent wind in it as well. I thought perhaps it was some type of microburst. We waited for that to pass and drove on up into it as it was trailing away where we found some good hail all over the place. Largest stones that we measured were 3" and we took some photos of us holding them. Another cell was coming up to merge from the southwest and it appeared some area to our east had some potential as Threatnet was also showing shear increasing in that area. We thought the merger might be favorable so we cut back south and from Paducah took a road to the northeast that went through Swearingen and on to Quanah. In this area we just drove on into the cores and precipitation was all around with light hail and flooding along the roads, fields, and especially ditches on sides of road. At one point it appeared that Threatnet was all messed up didn't match reality, but it was confusing. We decided to ignore Threatnet and go on what our eyes were telling us as Threatnet also showing rotation directly ahead toward Quanah as it was getting dark. Basically nada. Cut on over to Vernon and stopped at Brahms to eat, and then the long drive home as 1 tornado warning was finally occurring in KS.
So, April Fools I suppose - we got suckered. Not really a bust cause we got the fun of the chase, tested the equipment, met some good people, had good food, and even got 3" hail, but still no tornado - which of course is my main end goal when I go out. I enjoyed it but would have enjoyed it better with some big tubes, and let me just say that I though Saturday appeared to have the potential that apparently Sunday ended up having. Even SPC got suckered, so we were in good company. It was amazing to see all the parameters and indices just somehow miss it.
I think a good post analysis of why there was no tornadic on Saturday is in order. We did note that west of Vernon looking up at the towers they didn't appear to be sheared, and they also didn't appear to be rock hard. Perhaps it was lack of cyclonic curvature on the short wave, perhaps earlier storms had stabilized the area a bit? Perhaps the wave was really late (don't think so). I believe that somehow the storms weren't able to utilize a boundary to increase their effective SRH and go tornadic. That's all I can figure. Other thoughts are welcome.
http://midwestchasers.com/v-web/b2/index.php?p=94&more=1&c=1 for report and pictures.
April 1 South West OK vid clip 14 mb (http://midwestchasers.com/2006/April/1/April_1.wmv)
http://midwestchasers.com/2006/April/1/ok_2.jpg
discrete cells until they coalesced into "The Blob". No tornadoes but watched a
spectacular outflow dominant "mothership" on the front of "The Blob" with a nice
sharktoothed shelf cloud as the it crossed the Red River and devoured
Altus/Snyder OK.
Long - Drove to CDS and decided on a more southerly initiation target cell
firing near Matador around 2120Z. Took US 83 south to FM 94 and met the first
cells 10 miles S of Northfield. The convection was high based and rapidly
produced dense/dark precip cores and FM 94 was paralleling the cells' movements
to the NE. I saw three other vehicles in pursuit or fleeing the storms along FM
94. Cells began forming nearby on the east side of FM 94 and I did not want to
be digested, so I began to follow the storms back along FM 94 and decided that I
would pursue the storms on the eastern flank across the river. I did not want
to drive up US 83 through the cores to reach US 62 and continue flanking the
storms.
Decided to cross on the 1-lane bridge at FM 680 so I might observe if anything
became of the multiple shear markers that MTN was now painting on the FF and
eastern flank of "The Blob". (In for a penny, in for a pound). I manuvered to
the bridge with beaded close bolts striking all aound and saw a relatively
high-based cowcatcher and short inflow band on the FF of storm and was able to
cross the one lane bridge just in time. A car full of teenagers were stopped at
the OK bridge end and when they saw me hurry away from the bridge they also left
in haste.
I zigzagged on the county roads S of Hollis trying to keep the storm in sight
and then made a quick gas stop in Hollis and drove east on US 62. I then took
more county roads back south and zigzagged trying to keep the storm in sight.
Ended up back on US 62 stopped for some pics (in poor lighting due to rain
curtains obscuring the sun) near dusk of the storm as it neared Altus. The front
flank of the storm had a barrel mothership look with a ringed shelf cloud of
near vertical sharkteeth surrounding the central precip core.
Stopped a few more times to watch lightning and finally headed south on US 183
at Snyder and then back to DFW.
A bustola for tornadoes, but a good chase to see what "air and moisture" can
sometimes conjure up with a little insolation added and some much needed rain
for TX/OK.
Craig
The catch of the day was this good sized hail (http://www.ottergoose.com/imgs/2006-04-01-hail.jpg), which was picked up off of KS-1 a few miles north of the OK border. The biggest pieces were nearly 2" across.
Tip of the hat to Eric Whitehill for nowcasting.
Distance/Time: 630 miles in 13 hours.
EDIT: More pictures are now on my website. (http://www.ottergoose.net/News/?viewPost=396)
The road network left me on the wrong side of the storm and a semi truck catching fire on the on-ramp to I-40 left me in the storm's dust for a while. There was a very impressive hail path just south of Sayre and some localized flooding. When I caught up again it was definately very HPish and there wasn't much to see. It was starting to get dark at that point and the southern storms were starting to pinch in on me so I made a run for it. There was an awesome lightening display as the HP mess was approaching Oklahoma City.
Thanks to Brian Emfinger for nowcasting support.
http://shadowoftheanvil.com/200604011.jpg
http://shadowoftheanvil.com/DSCF0038.jpg
http://shadowoftheanvil.com/DSCF0041b.jpg
http://shadowoftheanvil.com/DSCF0055.jpg
http://shadowoftheanvil.com/DSCF0050.jpg
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y230/DickTwister/elkcity2.jpg
An epic chase for a few of us here in Colorado in terms of distance traveled in juts over 24 hours. At 5:30am, Verne Carlson, Jon Van de Grift, and myself embarked on a journey which took us across 4 states, 1500 miles, in a time span of 25 hours and 38 minutes. We left my apartment in Lakewood, Colorado at 5:30am and wondered into Kansas and south through Liberal where we raced south to get out from under a thick cirrus shield. Our target continued to move south as cirrus continued to threaten storm chances from the Oklahoma Panhandle northward. We eventually stopped in Pampa, TX where we met with Amos Magliocco, Eric Nguyen, and Robert Hall and chilled with them for a bit before heading south to I-40 and moving east to get on the cell of the day in this region of the country. We headed 20 miles into Oklahoma on I-40 before jumping south to get in front of the storm on Hwy US Hwy 283 south of Sayre, OK. We followed Hwy 283 south and east til we were a few miles north of Willow where we cut over to OK-34 on a county road which started as groomed gravel and ended up as a very soft sand where I scraped the bottom of my van in the ruts til we happily arrived at OK-34 and headed north to Carter with the storm in front of us. We jumped east again on OK-55 over to OK-6 where we stopped and watched the storm try to get its self together. It was here we made a crutial decision to drop south on OK-6 as opposed to going north to the OK-152 east option we wanted. We followed OK-55 east to Sentinel where we topped off on gas and fired north on OK-44 to OK-152 where we again stair-stepped the storm eastward to Cordell where tornado sirens blasted away as we went thru town. Prior to getting into town, we stopped to drool over the awesome sunset which was illuminating the storm to our west. The storm by this point began to take on a linear mode as darkness began to fall, so we headed north out of Cordell on US Hwy 183 back to I-40 where we blasted throught the line and beat it into Oklahoma City. We headed north out of town to meet with a few chasers at Arby's in Guthrie before cleaning the van and making the 9 hour trip back to Denver. We pulled back into my apartment at 7:08am at 1500.2 miles.
This definately ranks as one of my favorite chases in terms of fun as I enjoyed good times with good friends. We accomplished something none of us had ever done before in terms of miles driven in such a short amount of time. This ranks as #6 in terms of longest distance traveled in a single chase and #1 for distance vs. time. We had a great time and enjoyed a good storm on a trip where we had some good laughs. The van definately earned its stripes yesterday as it got the three of us out and around safely and comfortably. We may have discovered something with this three to my van thing; cheaper and rotating drivers while the other two slept was a huge help in getting us back this morning.
Full log can be found here! (http://www.tornadoeskick.com/log060401.html)
http://www.tornadoeskick.com/images/060401i.jpg
http://www.tornadoeskick.com/images/060401q.jpg
Caught those 2 tornadic cells everyone else was on , ill make this short im very tired...
encountered dime to ping pong ball sized hail, wall cloud , scud i follwed the first cell until i gave up due to the precip surrounding me, i ended up making a big mistake those OK red clay roads or w.e dirt it is flooded like nothing i seriously thought i was going to be stuck, i ended up going in all directions to only find water covering the road, by luck some other chaser's i assume took me to a road, i followed behind and they got me to pavement thanks so much ... sorry i dont know who you 2 are but thanks i appreicate it, anyways after getting out of that mess i headed south where the 2nd tor warned storm was coming up from the west to northeast basically right behind the first cell i was on... it was pretty good with structre just as sun set, the orange glow and lit up structre was quite the sight... i followed that storm all the way east until it lined out, basically merging with other cells which later became a squall line as i was headed home... i was on alot of Hwy's and Roads , too many to list here's a few pics..
.EDITED 4-3-06( Pics and Account now up go to www.stormchaserdan.com and click the photo link to 2006
vid captures and digi pics are there... to bad i didnt get close to the storms..
http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/6537/dsc00001filtered4zk.jpg
http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/672/dsc00002filtered7ia.jpg
http://www.twistersisters.com/images/040106_02.jpg
http://www.twistersisters.com/images/040106_01.jpg
Melanie
#If you have any other info about this subject , Please add it free.# |