Storm Chase 2011 Summaries

2011 Storm Chase Summaries

Monday, November 7: Rare Late-Year Cyclic Tornadic Supercell in SW Oklahoma

Short version: I chased the Frederick, OK tornadic supercell from northeast of Tipton northeast into the Wichita Mountains and observed at least three tornadoes. On at least two occasions there were twin simultaneous tornadoes (lacking full condensation) and from reviewing my video the first instance involved an anticyclonic tornado! The most significant tornado I documented crossed the Wichita mountains where bona fide *violent* rotation was witnessed a few hundred feet off the deck. I then let this monster go after the tornado wrapped in rain and darted well away from my ideal road network. This worked out for the best as I needed to return to Lubbock this night. On the drive back, I intercepted one last supercell in Duke, OK after sundown.

Long version: Having ever only chased once before in November (see my pathetic 10 Nov 2008 account), I was more pessimistic than usual about this day's potential during the preceding days. This pessimism did wane a tad Monday morning when the typically parched airmass of Lubbock was filled with a sweet aroma of Gulf moisture! I thought leaving Lubbock at 1130 am would afford me a leisurely drive to my target of Hollis, OK, but this was anything but the case as streets of TCu and spotty Cbs dotted the horizon to my east a mere hour later as I neared Floydada! I expected the deep ascent to hold off a bit longer, but for the next six hours I would be in pursuit mode. In hindsight, my "late" departure was a blessing as I would have easily been suckered into following a promising supercell that developed near Childress before later becoming TOR warned as it encountered the stationary front farther northeast. I was at least 30 min behind this supercell and quickly realized there was no chance I'd get in position. Visually, the storm was exceptional from afar (see below), but I was getting frustrated and thought I had just missed the storm of the day. Not willing to throw the towel in so soon, I opted to check out additional SVR cells west of Altus, OK. One storm rapidly developed into a supercell northwest of Altus as it encountered the stationary boundary and developed a prominent wall cloud. I was too far away to see rotation, but opted not to chase this supercell as it appeared it would eventually cross too far into the cool air and trend elevated. Supercells have a penchant for tornadogenesis just as they cross the baroclinic zone, but if they can't anchor to the boundary the tornadic threat will be short lived. So, I forged east for additional storms while cautiously checking back to my northwest every few minutes to see if the lowered base of this second supercell would look any better. In short, I snapped a couple long telephoto zoom shots of a low wall cloud that emerged, though my efforts were already dedicated to a TOR-warned supercell southwest of Frederick that was smack dab in the middle of the instability axis. I was surprised to see the reports of a confirmed tornado so early on this storm's life southwest of Frederick especially considering the absence of surface boundaries, but the environmental shear was more than sufficient for low-level rotation. I pressed east on HWY 62 out of Altus and met up with the FFD of this classic tornadic cell west of Snyder. I did have an intense white-knuckled moment in the rain and hail as I approached the lip of a bridge covered in a few inches of water. I couldn't slow down in time to avoid this, so upon impact my left front tire hydroplaned and torqued my vehicle 30 degrees CCW at 55 mph! I somehow managed to counter steer, but overcorrected, and repeated this all once more before finally straightening out on the bridge. Had I not successfully corrected the fishtail, I would not have made it the final mile up the road to catch a glimpse of an elephant trunk tornado about four miles to my south! This was extremely fortuitous as I exited the FFD and found an elevated exit to stop and document this incredible tornado as it transitioned into a pseudo-stovepipe before the outer condensation sheath removed to reveal an inner vortex with multiple vortices rotating about it! Continuing east, I watched the next mesocyclone become tornadic with occasional multiple vortices at ground level south of HWY 62 and then immediately north of the highway. Almost as interesting was an anticyclonic (AC) wall cloud to its south that produced similar spurts of contorted condensation filaments at ground level from time to time. The dominant meso exhibited *STRONG* rotation (some might say violent, but I'll save that description for the next wall cloud) and one of the series of multiple vortices just happened to destroy a structure 1/8 mile north of HWY 62 causing a cloud of debris to fill the air. I can only hope no one was in there at the time. In fact, some of this debris rained down very close to HWY 54 a few minutes later. The intermittent AC tornado was still visible at this point while the larger circulation could still only muster periodic shallow vortices near the ground (NOTE: these weren't recorded on the preliminary storm survey map). After turning east on 49 west of the Wichita Mountains, this larger meso finally planted a fully condensed tornado with an attendant, albeit brief, satellite vortex immediately nearby. I'm unsure how the following events transpired, but at the time it appeared to me that this tornado quickly resumed an unorganized state (if not dissipated completely) and was replaced or absorbed by a more definitive meso immediately downstream. Regardless, the next tornado eventually assumed a large cone structure while entering the Wichita Mountains before wrapping in rain and growing into a wedge with obvious *violent* rotation a few hundred feet above ground level up to the wall cloud. Given the longevity of this supercell's first tornado earlier west of Frederick, it's very possible the Wichita Mountain tornado developed all the way back near Snyder! Visually however, the meso occlusion cycles would suggest this latter tornado was unique from the earlier event(s). Aw heck, look at me getting caught up in these trivial details! This cyclic tornadic storm was incredible...period! I opted not to follow the supercell northeast to Ft Cobb as I was already 5+ hours from home, so I swung down to Lawton to HWY 62 westbound. One last supercell in Duke after sundown caught my attention for a bit, but it was clearly elevated and only spitting out occasional quarter-size stones in town. 566 miles roundtrip.

Wednesday, October 5: Late-Season Supercell on the TX South Plains

Had I not been at work earlier this day and discovered this day's hidden chase potential, I would have completely missed out on a rare Fall chase opportunity as many of the favorable mesoscale ingredients were not evident on this morning's model runs. By 2 PM, a well-defined NW-SE convergence boundary complete with congested Cu was in place west of Lubbock with some degree of background forcing evident in far eastern NM. CAPE was minimal, but wind profiles displayed pronounced low-level veering. The end result was a nearly five-hour long supercell that developed southwest of Springlake late in the afternoon before dying near Quitaque well after sunset. I managed to observe this supercell while it was west of Edmonson before following it east with Bruce H. and Jason J. to around Finney. We eventually left the supercell after sunset while southeast of Claytonville when the lack of lightning wouldn't afford much in the way of nocturnal structure shots. But this was not a disappointment after the structurefest we were witness to during the previous two hours. Low-level rotation was probably most defined earlier on west of Edmonson, but even this could only muster a few weakly-rotating wall clouds at best. Only two of these wall clouds were suspicious enough for constant observation: the first was about 12 miles to my WNW and was exceptionally broad and low whereas the second was more compact, truncated, but more shallow in nature. Both of these were observed while stopped about eight miles south of Edmonson. In the excitement of this short notice chase I forgot to pack my GPS, so exact locations are not available. The rest of the photos speak for themselves as this once classic supercell acquired a textbook HP structure. Of note, the blatent orange and red colors in the second to last photo are fully authentic and are not post-processed at all. The low light angle and downlighting made for a short window of warm colors both in the sky and in the foreground. This was my first successful October chase to date and was made easier by unusually slow Fall storm motions, cooperative roads and of course limited chasers!

Monday, June 20: Tornadofest in North-Central KS and Southern NE!

An incredible finish to spring as today's pattern resembled something more typical of April or early May, especially since a strong triple point was poised in Kansas of all places! In short, I chased an absolutely fantastic cyclic tornadic supercell from south of Lenora, KS northeast to north of Stamford, NE. While not one to get obsessed with numbers, I observed at the very least 10 tornadoes from this storm...several of which were in progress simultaneously (three vortices on two occasions). It's worth noting that this supercell produced tornadoes earlier on closer to I-70, so this one storm certainly pulled off an incredible feat with a dozen or more tornadoes to its name. The most significant tornado I observed occurred southeast of Lenora and grew from a classic truncated vortex into a barrel and then a wedge before wrapping in rain and hail at very close range. During this tornado's developmental stage, two much weaker tornadoes were in progress to its NNE. After the main tornado maxed out, storm structure for the next 20 minutes or so was greatly hampered by blowing dust from the RFD. Thereafter, visibility slowly improved allowing me to watch a series of generally weak and mostly dust-filled tornadoes; however at least three of these did have adequate condensation improving their presence. At one point while south of Stamford, I watched as a partially rain-wrapped meso to my SSW revealed another wedge in progress all the while the new tornadic circulation to its NNE was intensifying. These circulations later coalesced in identical fashion to the earlier cycles before the supercell quickly croaked north of Stamford, but not before producing one final tornado a couple hundred yards to my west in a corn field! It was something to see such an intense tornadic storm be reduced to an orphan anvil in less than half an hour. Surprisingly, it wasn't even 4 pm and I had just witnessed my most tornadoes ever from a single storm!

Tempted to call it a day and relish the recent events, I simply couldn't get enough and decided to check out the newest supercell exploding north of Holdredge, NE. Approaching this northward-moving supercell from the south, I was at a disadvantage from the start, but may have caught a glimpse of a large cone or wedge near Elm Creek in between wrapping curtains of precip. Wandering north of town into the hook, I encountered hail large enough to force a halt and admit defeat with this particular storm. Intrigued by the intense velocity fields from the UEX 88D, I drove east to Amherst where I discovered legitimate tornadic damage to structures, trees and utility poles that were blown down in opposing directions. I then called the chase off as supercells were too closely spaced and not oriented favorably for observing tornadoes. So I grabbed a Culver's dinner in Kearney and gave the car a long-overdue wash. But, this was not the end of the day as I encountered yet one more supercell near Indianola, NE late this evening pivoting around the northern edge of the upper low. Outside of two shallow and weak funnels, this supercell managed to show surprisingly good structure for its environment and was moving southwest. Yes, inflow was from the NORTH and a wet RFD was found to the EAST of the mesocyclone! It was very strange to see a supercell in this orientation, but made for a memorable chase day...easily in my top 10 list! I've included several images for now (mostly vid grabs), but will be reviewing a ton of photos and video over the coming weeks to dissect this benchmark supercell! Night in Colby, KS.

Sunday, June 19: Supercell Bonanza in Northeast CO and Southwest NE

Close, but no cigars for me today despite having chased four supercells from south of Sidney, NE southeast to Sterling, CO and all the way over to McCook, NE by late evening. The first supercell tried very hard to produce a tornado south of Sidney early in the afternoon and for the matter of a couple minutes I was convinced one was imminent. But even with great 0-1km shear along the warm front, low LCLs and a rotating wall cloud, this supercell couldn't pull it together and quickly morphed into an ugly HP mess. I aborted it at that point and even the TOR warning couldn't make me change my mind. I'm glad I didn't turn back as that would have cost me additional supercells later in the day. The supercell that passed northeast of Sterling an hour or so later was also a messy HP, so I focused my efforts on blossoming supercells an hour to my southeast in Yuma County east to Benkelman, NE. In hindsight, the NSSL WRF was dead on once again progging the best tornadic threat here; however it was much later with convective initiation than actually occurred and this is what originally steered me away from this target this morning...sigh.

After being distracted by an ominous wall cloud from a marginal supercell near Imperial, I finally arrived on THE supercell of the day near McCook, but even with multiple brief tornado reports during this time, I came away with no confirmed tornadoes. This supercell was nothing short of a mothership and even had some shades of the Glen Elder, KS beast from 29 May 2008! This structure made the day for me, but I was disappointed with how fast low clouds filled in along the inflow essentially blocking a great lightning and structure show from afar after sunset. From near Beaver City, I pushed north to LXN for a motel and a late dinner, but this journey was complicated by golfball size hail in Arapahoe forcing me and several other chasers to find precious overhangs in town of which there were few. I found a tree next to a car dealer which definitely softened the blow from those buggers. I felt safe punching the hook since the supercell's base was very flat and stable in appearance by this time, but that didn't prevent some intense RFD gusts that turned my knuckles a shade of white for a couple seconds! Several very good pics once again, but I only have time to upload a few as Monday proves to be quite busy once again. Night in LXN.

Saturday, June 18: Colorado Upslope Magic

Short account for now. I chased a long-lived supercell from west of Limon, CO to the CO/KS border south of Tribune. Oddly, this chase route was nearly identical to the path I traveled yesterday! Unlike Friday's messy and largely HP supercells, today's supercell maintained a classic structure for much of its life and even pulled off several bona fide funnels and one possible tornado I photographed from northwest of Cheyenne Wells around 1627 MDT. I'll let some of the 200+ photos do the rest of the talking for now as this seven hour straight chase has me wiped out.

Friday, June 17: Messy Supercells in Eastern CO

Colorado upslope was yet again best summarized as upslop as all of the supercells that developed today were hard pressed to keep their dense RFDs under control. Of the three supercells I chased from 1500 to 2000 CDT, all of them exhibited surging outflows; however the last supercell west of Cheyenne Wells was able to keep regenerating deep convection on its southeast flank for a while longer than the other storms. The first supercell I chased was a messy HP with elevated rotation which I was forced to abort south of Anton. The second supercell I encountered was near Genoa and while this displayed a more classical structure for some time, it too assumed a stable appearance in its lower bounds...likely due to outflow from the earlier storm. The third supercell was the best play of the day for many as it tracked east for several hours from east of CO Springs to south of Cheyenne Wells. From near Hugo, I could make out a large blocky updraft base that over time elongated and became very linear in response to a strong RFD. I nearly let this disappointing storm go, but as it passed to my east I observed convection blossom along the flanking line indicating a new cycle was well underway. So, I pressed east to Aroya before finally getting ahead of this cycling supercell near Kit Carson. Structure wise, there wasn't a great deal to get excited about other than a murky lowered mass along the cyclonically-sheared end of the RFD shelf cloud. Rotation at cloud base was absent much of this time and the updraft base remained very linear through the rest of the evening. The only interesting wall cloud I saw the entire day came late in the evening from an ancillary storm of all things that fired northwest of Sheridan Lake...in the wake of the supercell! This wall cloud showed some very weak rotation, but wasn't worth reporting since it was in the process of becoming absorbed by a SVR line segment upstream. Night in Burlington, CO.

Thursday, June 16: Cold Windbags and a Haboob in WY and NE

Of the several chase targets available this day, I chose the stationary front and "moist" upslope regime in the far western NE Panhandle due in large part to stronger upper tropospheric flow relative to the other targets. The biggest caveat with this area was the amount of forcing and/or lack of inhibition as storms in southeast WY quickly lined out. For a span of about 10 minutes, one developing Cb northeast of La Grange exhibited promise in the form of a circular base complete with a few modest inflow bands; however, this was a mere teaser as moments later the RFD surged on through and gave rise to one convincing scudnado along its shelf cloud. A large and downright cold gust front then overtook my location ahead of a linear mass approaching La Grange and this grew into a bona fide haboob along HWY 88 with dense blowing dust. Admitting defeat, I dropped down to Kimball for a motel early in the evening but was lured back into chase mode an hour later as the stalling outflow boundary gave rise to some decent hailers nearby.

Wednesday, June 15: A Day in IR, an Anticyclonic Hailer and One Crappy Laptop

For a change, I had a leisurely drive this day filled with a couple photo op stops before finishing it with more SVR convection. After some dabbling with IR photography at a park in LXN, I wandered SW to MCK where a band of ACCAS was dotting the early afternoon sky. While in MCK, I relaxed and visited the city museum and was surprised to see a collection of very interesting WWII German POW paintings (recovered from a nearby prison camp). By 1630 CDT, convection was quickly organizing near GLD with a lone LP cell about 40 miles to my west. The LP cell was just too spindly, so I decided to drop south for a casual intercept of a SVR left mover. Some folks think left movers can't produce wall clouds. Well, this was the second one I've photographed in the past year that exhibited a pretty blatant wall and tail cloud on its downwind flank. I let the northern edge of this rather photogenic and high-based storm overrun me south of Oberlin at which time I was presented with several hard 1.25 stones. Here's where the day took a dive south. My laptop of 5 1/2 years has always been rock solid traveling, but lately the com ports using the split GPS signal have been giving me problems from time to time. Today, this occurred during the height of the chase and led to a chain of expletive-filled events that culminated with me accidentally sending a storm report not for my present location, but Lubbock, Texas instead (which by the way could use any form of precipitation besides dust and bird feces). Yeah, I should have QC'd the location info in SN's report form before hitting submit, but my haste to send the storm report won over. Bottom line, I foresee a new laptop in the near future! Night in LBF.

Tuesday, June 14: North-Central NE SVR Multicells

Not up for a drive to the deep woods of MO, I made the best of a lesser target ahead of the vort max swinging across NE this afternoon. Instability was prime once again even with mid-June max temps of 80 deg, but shear was less than desirable. I ended up chasing multicells with occasionally intense single cells from Bassett to south of O'Neill, but somehow managed to miss the golfball and larger hailstones! Came away with some nice shelf cloud pics later on and a brief rotating base along an inflection point in the gust front before calling it a day. Night in Broken Bow.

Monday, June 13: North-Central NE Supercell and Large Tornado!

*** UPDATED JUNE 26! *** This was truly a diamond in the rough terrain of Cherry County today as a supercell built S-SW along an apparent outflow boundary from early-morning storms. FWIW, highway 97 southwest of VTN has far worse hills than the rest of Cherry County and even sports many long ridges complete with trees making storm observing frustrating as all heck. Still, I managed to find the few breaks that allowed good, but long distance views of the supercell and later its elephant trunk tornado well to my west that later grew into a near wedge. Two weeks after the fact, I've resurrected contrast from some of my video of this event and I am now confident the tornado did not rope out at 650 pm, but instead had already grown into a significant cone vortex! My photos don't offer much proof of this, so I've attached some video grabs that seem to pretty clearly support this claim. This would also support the reports from the public of a very large tornado. The ropy funnel around 650 pm was apparently a satellite vortex and nothing more. ~~After enhancing my photos, I'm now convinced there was no large/borderline wedge tornado thereafter, but instead a very wet RFD that engulfed the roping tornado.~~ Considering I was over 12 miles away from the tornado at all times and contrast was not ideal, my tornado pics are very crappy. Worse, I didn't have my 300mm lens in hand until much later...so the first pic is a significant crop from a "wide" 40mm focal length. Even though the tornado pics stink, this supercell made for an exhilarating chase and I'm fortunate to have stuck to my unconventional target this day. Note: I'll need to re-upload many of these pics at a later date as I forgot to embed ICC profiles on my laptop.

Sunday, June 12: Southeast MT Supercell

Not impressed with the warm front scenario in eastern KS, I fled southeast CO very early this morning in favor of cooler 700 mb temps in SD and more importantly the presence of upslope forcing. The Black Hills convergence zone (BHCZ, yes it is a real feature) was quite vivid by late morning and this lured me to Sturgis by 2pm at which time I observed a total of five well-developed shear funnels from the bases of deep TCu along the northern Black Hills. For the next hour, orographic ascent alone wasn't doing the trick so I shifted northwest to Alzada, MT in favor of stronger ascent that was supporting a rapidly-intensifying cell farther west near Biddle, MT. I met up with this obvious supercell about 40 min later after the first TOR warning and was dismayed to see my cell signal peter out to one bar...with the amplifier attached! From afar, I observed a low and blocky wall cloud with a very suspicious, tapered dark region trailing it to its southwest, but I was not close enough to ID rotation. Had I had internet connectivity, I might have reported this as a possible tornado just because it fit the bill so well, but in hindsight it may have simply been an old occluded member with a very dense and tapered precip core. The meso remained quite prominent for the next half hour, but none of its wall clouds ever seemed to really wrap up. Frustrated with the swarms of mosquitoes every time I stepped out for photos and the fact the storm motion was deviating less and moving farther north of HWY 212, I let it go in favor of newer SVR cells southeast near the Bentonite Plant in WY. This was a mistake as the supercell wrapped up a bit later in the remote country of eastern Carter County, MT and produced a tornado, but the back roads in those parts give me shivers especially after all the recent heavy rains. Night in Sturgis.

Saturday, June 11: Southeast CO Marginal Supercell

Chose to play the upslope setup this day along a well-defined warm front in far southeast CO. From AMA, I forged NW to Boise City and was presented with the usual HWY 385 drive north to Springfield and then west to Kim, CO, or a more intriguing and scenic drive west of Boise City to a winding dirt road north to Kim. Since it was early, I opted for the latter and at a couple points I really regretted it due mostly to the lack of NWR and mobile internet coverage, but the drive was nothing short of pure wilderness and wildlife. It wasn't long before I could see a Cb well to my northwest in Las Animas County and since I was reduced to primitive chasing, I followed my eyes and continued north to Kim where I met up with a SVR cell sporting cyclical wall clouds. The structure was not photogenic by any means, however given the deviant storm motion and round-ish updraft base I chose to stick with this marginal supercell. While there was a spotter report of a landspout tornado with this supercell, my vantage point from five miles north of Kim did not allow a similar observation. My photos during the time of the LSR show at best an intermittent funnel under a wall cloud, but anything more than that was a stretch. There was indeed video evidence provided of this tornado, so I presume I was just too far away to observe the debris column. This storm cycled a couple times before losing a battle with garbage/multicellular storms farther downstream. Night in Lamar, CO.

Friday, June 10: TX South Plains' Supercell, Hybrid Vortex and Haboob

Had this been any other year than 2011 in West TX, there wouldn't have been this much attention given to today's anemic ingredients for severe convection. A sharp cold front stalled in a SW-ENE fashion over the South Plains by late afternoon with dewpoints largely in the low 50s on both sides. Pre-frontal T-Td spreads however were significant ranging between 40 and 50 deg!. Directional shear was sufficient for organized SVR modes including some supercells, so by 1500 CDT I drifted east of Lubbock to where enhanced Cu were mounding along and just north of the now stationary front. In short, I chased a high-based supercell that developed near Idalou (where it shed an impressive left mover) and then proceeded to turn due east while seemingly anchoring itself to the front. Besides watching a modest dust plume in the RFD grow into a full-fledged haboob, a shallow wall cloud presented itself over time south of Crosbyton shortly before a stationary, 3-minute hybrid vortex wrapped up along the outflow/inflow interface not far from the developing wall cloud and later stretched several hundred feet vertically! This is now the second time I've observed these shear zone vortices that behave nothing like gustnadoes. This one was located along the northern end of the RFD gust front where one would expect enhanced cyclonic shear, so this leads me to believe that an attempt at tornadogenesis was underway, but since the rotation fell short of the high cloud base base I am in no mood to label this as a legit tornado. I was finally able to pull a video grab of this suspicious vortex and included it below. Thereafter, my road options quickly narrowed and I was forced to drop south into a surging haboob before arriving at my east road. By the time I cleared the dense blowing dust (vis reduced to 20 yards at worst), the supercell was diminishing in girth and was becoming contaminated by multicellular garbage to its south and east. Night in Amarillo to get in position for Saturday's upslope (upslop?) potential.

Wednesday, June 1: Northeast NM Supercell

Respectable moisture backed into NM the night prior and set the stage for the first decent upslope chase in these parts all season. The trade off was diminished flow aloft west of a building ridge, so I opted to play as far north as possible and take advantage of slightly higher 500mb winds. During a quick stop for lunch in Tucumcari, convective initiation was already in progress about 70 miles to my west along the southern end of the Sangre de Cristos. I quickly topped off the tank and began a daunting journey northwest on the desolate stretch of HWY 104 past Conchas Dam. Even with my amplified wireless modem, internet connectivity in these parts was nonexistent. Even worse, there is NO NWR coverage out here...just like parts west of Dalhart. At this point the chase became as primitive as one could ask for-no data, no nowcaster back home, only your eyes and knowledge were available. By pure coincidence, the storm I was observing on the horizon slowly displayed supercellular characteristics over the course of the next hour. It was quite high based, but rotating nonetheless. From just west of Trementina, I was witness to a dense, aqua-marine FFD, a circular base, beaver's tail and near constant thunder aloft. Oddly, I counted more anvil CGs than anywhere else from this storm. The real treat came at 1639 MDT when a rotating wall cloud developed 2-3 miles to my west. Unable to phone or call it in, I figured the odds of tornadogenesis were low anyways. Mere minutes later, this wall cloud simply bombed out into a MONSTER lowering that extended over half the distance from cloud base to the ground! This feat was made possible by a sharp topographic range nearby and was simply amazing to see unfold, but rotation was no more. Then as if someone turned a switch off, the supercell's base narrowed significantly and was becoming rained out by linear convection to its south.

I followed what was now a mess of storms northeast to Mosquero occasionally stopping for photos, but aside from some decent gustnadoes and occasional insane positive CGs from the downwind anvil and subsequent wildfires, there was little fun to be had. My lightning trigger saw some use, but will need modification beyond using an IR filter to reduce the ridiculous number of discharges it captures. On the topic of gustnadoes, why were some chasers reporting gustnadoes as tornadoes in Spotternetwork this past Monday in Nebraska? Yes, there were some legitimate bottom-up tornadogenesis processes reported, but there were at least three separate chasers (one a NWS employee I'm sad to report) who observed other vortices, described them as gustnadoes, but still categorized these as tornadoes in their reports! Shades of 23 May 2006 in South Dakota? Perhaps.

Tuesday, May 24: Two Significant Tornadic Supercells in West-Central OK

Short summary: Chased two significant tornadic supercells this day after hooking up with Bruce H. First supercell was intercepted near Mountain View, OK and followed northeast to Lookeba. While southwest of Lookeba, we observed a fast-moving, low-contrast, large cone tornado about a mile or less to our north complete with three power flashes. This tornado outpaced us and we soon found ourselves far removed from the ideal viewing quadrant. We then focused our efforts south on a string of supercells moving northeast at more manageable speeds. One such cell near Elgin quickly acquired strong low-level rotation and while about 3 miles east of Chickasha, we watched what was initially a tapered funnel transform into an elephant trunk tornado. Vortex breakdown occurred about the time this tornado crossed HWY 62/277 and the tornado quickly grew into a stout cone before maxing out into a wedge northwest of Tabler. We paralleled this tornado northeast to just west of Blanchard where we made one final stop to view it before it entered the metro area. This latter tornado was one my most vivid encounters in some time. Based on google maps, we were a little over 1/2 a mile away during its maxing stage and after enduring numerous intense RFD gusts while outside our vehicles, a distinct roar was clearly audible from this tornado once the local winds subsided. There are far more details and scary road encounters I'm omitting for now, but I must give thanks to NWS-OUN for breaking in with live broadcasting at times during the height of the event. Lastly, cell phone tower saturation was an issue periodically this afternoon, but surprisingly I had data more often than not and this certainly benefited us.

Monday, May 23: Northwest Texas LP Supercell

This was one of the few times I passed on the more obvious chase target such as a surface low, triple point, or outflow boundary and instead rolled the dice well south on the dryline. Not that I don't mind chase crowds, but this day northwest OK appeared to have too much lift (i.e. too many storms) along the surface boundaries and not enough CIN to compensate. I originally planned on targeting this area, but chose instead to play well south on the dryline where surface winds would be backing SSE during the afternoon. After being lured north to Altus to get a closer view of modest Cbs lining up along the dryline, I dropped back south to Vernon, TX for a lone, explosive Cb. It took this storm some time before it developed a persistent core aloft, but visually it had supercell traits even during its lack of SVR warnings. Eventually this classic/LP supercell turned SE forcing me to drop SW to Dundee, TX for some timelapse footage of its liberty bell and tall barber pole-esque updraft. Inflow wind gusts cranked up to at least 45 mph and at one point knocked over my video tripod! Apparently a CG from this supercell's anvil sparked a decent wildfire earlier on to its southeast. About 40 min or so later after the storm turned hard right, the storm eventually extinguished this fire with its own FFD! Later on, the structure became textbook complete with a broad visual vault east of a high contrast and flared updraft base. Cloud-base rotation was quite prominent during one occlusion cycle just northwest of Dundee, but the high LCL greatly limited anything else. Once the core diminished a bit later, I felt safe that the baseballs reported earlier were done with, so I punched the FFD to find isolated, rock-hard quarters to golfballs increase in frequency 1.5 miles northeast of Dundee. I believe I photographed a slender, high-base funnel much later on along the northwest end of the updraft complex (old occluded member most likely). Finally a great chase setup on a day off of work! I'll try my luck again tomorrow before the fun ends Wednesday.

Saturday, April 9: Late Day Dryline Storms in Southwest KS

Today was one of the few times I targeted the dryline instead of the statistically more reliable warm front for supercell storms. Much of this was out of necessity considering work requirements two days later, but also because I was not up for a seven-hour drive to northeast NE! I suppose had there been nil chance for storms along the dryline this day, I would have strongly reconsidered this option. However, this wasn't the case today as the environment in northwest OK and southern KS would easily support supercells.

I hung out in Blackwell, OK all morning into the early afternoon uncertain of what area along the dryline (still well to my west) would be most favored for CI. Fears began mounting by midday as the upper 60 dewpoints observed earlier in the day over central OK had quickly mixed out into the 50s! Of note, a ribbon of higher moisture resided immediately ahead of the dryline, so by 2pm I forged WNW in anticipation of a dryline bulge near Woodward. Observed post-dryline wind gusts were consistently higher in the NERN TX PH, so the dryline bulge seemed plausible. By 6 pm, I was in Pratt, KS monitoring a distant line of TCu and a Cb or two roughly from near Greensburg, KS south to Buffalo, OK. After nearly an hour of waiting for a dominant cell to emerge, I drove west to near Wellsford where I observed a high based and visually lackluster cell slowly grow upscale complete with shallow inverted Cu and a more defined updraft base. Outside of a shallow wall cloud and dry RFD cut while southwest of St. John, this storm failed to show much in the way of additional structure despite a pretty classic radar signature from DDC. Once the updraft base narrowed at dusk, I bid this meager rotating storm farewell and dropped back south to Pratt for the night.

Friday, April 8: Supercells in Northern OK

I managed to chase two supercells this day along a slowly-advancing warm front in northern OK. After leaving Lubbock this morning, I arrived in Clinton, OK in time for a proper lunch at Montana Mikes and perused the latest observed and model data. I was keen on the area from Woodward east to Enid for initiation not too far from the dryline and warm front intersection, but during my drive north from Clinton I began growing skeptical of this forecast due in large part to an expanding plume of cirrus. Worse, I was without data in this part of northwest OK. Well that's not entirely true as I could get data but only if I agreed to pay a premium roaming charge up to $20.50 per MB! I should have shot east to Enid at this point, but instead my stubbornness took me north of the warm front to Medicine Lodge, KS where all the data said I should have gone to Enid! Frantically, I pressed east and south during which time a bona fide supercell was erupting near Enid! This supercell looked pristine from my vantage point near Caldwell, KS complete with a backsheared anvil and an upright, crisp updraft. I eventually intercepted this supercell near Billings, OK along I-35 and was treated to sporadic golfballs (mostly soft) before crossing south of the FFD. Structure-wise, I was disappointed to see a high base updraft, at times linear, with poor contrast and limited lightning. VNX's radar still showed a steady core aloft, so I followed this supercell a bit longer before the storm croaked hard south of Ponca City. Amazingly, it still managed to drop quarters at that point, but it was trending down in a hurry.

New convection was clustering near Medford as dusk drew near, but I was more concerned about getting a motel after this already long day of driving. As has happened at least four times on previous chases, after checking into the motel and unpacking my gear from the car, a TOR-warned supercell began approaching my location! Scarfing down my Braums burger while monitoring my laptop of an obvious supercell in southern Grant County, I hurried the camera gear back to the car and plunged south on I-35 hoping for some nocturnal structure shots. I can't confirm or deny the reports of a cone tornado at this time as my view was a bit too distant, but I was witness to a well-defined wall cloud later on just east of Eddy that culminated with a tapered lowering before becoming obscured by a wet RFD. Upon reviewing some of my photos, I feel confident this was at least a funnel at some point (see the last photo below). In addition to abundant striations and arcing inflow bands, lightning was nearly continuous and seemed heavily dominated by anvil zits. After the meso crossed the interstate, I drifted back north to Blackwell just as the tornado sirens were sounding. OUN had dropped the TORs by this point and low-level rotation from VNX's radar was anything but impressive. So I waited in the car until the torrents of rain and small hail in the RFD subsided. The respite from rain and hail was brief as backbuilding convection just to my west quickly became supercellular before tracking over Blackwell with hail at least to golfball size. I was in the motel by this point, but aside from a few new dents to my already riddled car, no further damage was done.

Thursday, March 24: High Shear, Low CAPE Supercell Near Snyder, TX

Nothing stellar for my first chase of 2011 aside from a distant supercell around Snyder that I observed from Justiceburg. Moisture return was the issue today despite stiff SE gradient winds of 25-30 knots much of the afternoon near a warm front. The northern edge of the quality moisture failed to make it into Lubbock by late afternoon, so I dropped southeast to Post in favor of distant Cbs between Lamesa and Snyder. Long story short, the best storm this day passed close to Snyder and per radar it was a supercell, but visually one would be hard pressed to call it that. From my vantage point about 20 miles to its WNW as it moved into the road void of northeast Scurry County, I was put off by this storm's high-based structure and lack of features, so I turned around to get a couple hours of rest before a midnight shift that night.

Back to Chase Logs