Monday, May
31
We departed
Milwaukee just before midnight on Sunday with a general target area of Kansas
for Memorial Day. We ran through the remnants of a decaying MCS near
Kansas City and eventually stopped for data while in Topeka. The
decision was made to head south and west to at least the Wichita area.
While in Wichita, we watched building Ac and ACCAS pop to our north around 5pm
and eventually punched west to near Greensburg, KS to get closer to the real
action. We documented the beginnings of an MCS explosion to our SW
(courtesy of the Sitka, KS supercell) and also a lone supercell near Russel,
KS well to our north. This supercell near Russel developed just before
7pm and collapsed shortly after midnight. It had a classic structure
when viewed from a distance, though we have yet to see any other chaser
documentation of this supercell since everyone was in SW KS or OK! (In
hindsight, it seemed to have developed along a stationary front and an old
outflow boundary from the previous night.) We called it a night in
Greensburg and began preparing for Tuesday.
Tuesday, June
1
The
developing lee cyclone and associated cold front had become more pronounced
today and by late morning was passing us by. We shot SE to Enid, OK for
data and decided to head further east to get ahead of the sfc wind convergence
axis. As luck would have it, the rest of the chase would be done
visually! From TCu to Cbs, we made the right calls to see a developing
meso east of Tulsa w/wall cloud evolutions culminating with the Muskogee
tornado. Unfortunately, we missed the initial stages thanks to a wet RFD
obscuring the view, but we eventually navigated around the precip and viewed
the final minutes of the rope stage. Widespread damage did occur
including damage to the OG&E power plant, but after 8pm the supercell had
lost its characteristics despite having some TVSs occur. We spent the
night in McAlester, OK.
Wednesday, June
2
Upon our
morning weather overview, we made the call to head west to the TX Panhandle
for a potentially active dryline which was progged to encounter a quick return
flow behind Monday's dryline/cold front. By late afternoon east of
Amarillo, we just happened to come alongside chase Kinney Adams from
Milwaukee! We pulled over and discussed the situation. An HP
supercell was already in progress near Vega, TX producing baseball size hail,
but we noticed a distant updraft base to our southwest. It turned out to
be a nice Tail-end Charlie south of Tulia, TX that featured excellent
structure (e.g. striations, numerous inflow bands, wall clouds). After
this supercell, various cells fired up in the wake of this beast around 8pm
closer to the dryline that was now stalling. An interesting tornado
lookalike was documented by us out of one of these to our west. Though
it appears to have been simply a deliniation of sunshine between two precip
cores...neat nontheless! Other cells were documented and we had to avoid
several hailshafts full of golball size and larger. The NSSL team
(sub-vortex) came by while collecting data regarding dryline behavior and
supercell environs. Caught a motel in Amarillo.
Thursday, June
3
This may have
been our most disappointing day of the week. Our data collection this
morning showed two areas of interest for chasing: TX Panhandle again or
western KS. We dismissed KS based on the Sc deck as seen on the morning
visible imagery and somehow justified that it wouldn't erode in time for
convection (aaarrgghh!). Out of the dozen chasers that we ran into at
the Amarillo NWSFO that afternoon, half decided to make a long and fast haul
up to KS for a chase while the rest of us stuck in out in the Panhandle.
Well, KS and NE produced big this day. We on the other hand made the
best out of turkey towers and a heavily sheared Cb that eventually
collapsed. We finished the afternoon carefully watching Cbs fire up
along the Caprock to our south, though they never organized much. If we
only could have witnessed that amazing tornadic supercell at Almena!
Drove north to Liberal, KS for the night.
Friday, June
4
Categorically, today would be upgraded to a HIGH risk by SPC to help
us recover from our quasi-bust yesterday! Though widespread tornadic
activity did not occur, the supercells that were tornadic were very well
organized. We left Liberal early on for the trek to our target of North
Platte, NE. Upon arrival, Tds did not feel that great and in
reality they were only in the upper 50s! We stuck it out and viewed TCu
to our SW that eventually developed into an LP storm (rather picturesque) west
of Ogalala, NE. It's demise was exactly similar to that of an LP
supercell (narrowing updraft w/time). We pressed on and chased a monster
supercell to the northeast of this decaying cell. Unfortunately our road
navigation fell apart and we lost precious time while on dirt roads. We
saw the boiling updraft and circular, striated base of the supercell before
sunset just before tornadogenesis occurred. We eventually got back to
the main road and documented the spectacular lightning show to the east.
Drove south back to North Platte for a motel and ate dinner past midnight at a
Perkins packed full of other chasers!
Saturday, June
5
For our last
day of chasing we would need to get closer back to WI, so we decided to chase
western IA. Aside from a long drive from North Platte, the rest of the
day worked out in our favor. We were directly underneath TCu by 4pm and
had a couple Cbs erupt just to our WNW near Sioux City, IA. We drove to
near Storm Lake, IA and viewed the consolidation of a couple individual cells
during which we noted an impressive wall cloud (not rotating). Several
TORs were issued for our storm, but the confirmed tornadoes were wrapped in
the wet RFDs...thankfully well away from us. We then had the beginnings
of a monster MCS (possible MCC?) bearing down on us for the entire ride back
home that night. It was in LaCrosse, WI that we finally got ahead of the
line and made a dash back to Milwaukee. For James and Phil, this had
eery similarities to the last day of their UWM chase the year before in which
they came back late at night with a derecho on their tail!...120mph wind
gust south of Beaver Dam, WI.
Monday, May
29
Mainly a
positioning day, we didn't leave Milwaukee until 9am. Storms were forecast to
develop in Nebraska and shift east as a line by nightfall. We managed to catch
the northern end of the storms well east of Valentine, NE around sunset. Got
some lightning video and called it a night in Valentine.
Tuesday, May
30
A
frustrating day at first...drizzle and fog at Valentine with temperatures. in
the 50's combined with strong CAA in SE Wyoming/NE Colorado with a persistent
stratus deck. The only ray of light was in Iowa where a moderate risk was
zoned along a stationary front. We chose to head east around noon after
seeing the latest sfc obs and it paid off. Other chasers we ran into either
hoped for the upslope to materialize or simply called it a day. We were
up for the drive and eventually caught a supercell north of Des Moines just
past 8:30 which had numerous funnel and wall cloud reports. A brief tornado
was also reported. More SVR cells backbuilt behind the initial cell which we
observed quite successfully. Our viewing was hampered due to fading sunlight,
but we were in a perfect position for night spotting. We remained safely west
of the updraft base and were aware of the surroundings at all times. Our
highlights were: 4 or 5 power flashes from CG's, two persistent wall clouds,
clearly defined RFD entrainment, several TORs and numerous bugs! We caught a
motel in Des Moines and ate a late dinner at Perkins.
Wednesday, May
31
The morning
and afternoon outlook indicated that we were already in a decent position for
the afternoon and evening convection to develop. Crossing a well defined
outflow boundary to our north had me convinced that storms would originate
along it, but the only convection of the day was near the Fort Dodge, IA area
(still to our north). We did manage to catch a severe storm only to find out
that it was entirely obscured in a low, depressing stratus shield!
Fortunately, we caught a few seconds worth of an impressive backsheared anvil
directly overhead near the end, but altogether this day did not turn out the
way any of us had hoped it would. Stayed in Algona, IA.
Thursday, June
1
Our outlook
and judgments said that eastern IA would be favorable for storm development by
mid-afternoon. The best helicities would be in southern WI, though we weren't
so keen on chasing that far out. We headed east across the Mississippi
after catching a radar image and were disappointed to find our storms becoming
linear (squall line). It was then that we heard of a supercell that treked
from near La Crosse, WI to Horicon, WI producing 4" hail and later an F2
tornado. We persisted with our storms near Richland Center, WI hoping to at
the very least see strong winds, but we decided that the day was over and
headed to Davenport, IA for the next day's chase. On the way there, we were
treated with some vivid lightning to our east.
Friday, June
2
The nearest
chaseable storms would be in southern Indiana, so we called the day off. We
decided to prepare for Saturday's forecast and kill some time along the scenic
Mississippi. Aside from a parking ticket (my fault!), the day was quite
uneventful. Eventually drove further west to Sioux City, IA and again ate at
Perkins!
Saturday, June
3
We grabbed
our data at the Sioux City Library and decided we needed to head west for what
could be a decent setup involving a dryline and weak short wave combination
over western NE. Also, warm frontogenesis was forecast to occur in
northcentral NE later in the afternoon. We stopped in Valentine, NE (again!)
to get more data and figured that we should continue heading west. By the time
we got to Merriman, NE (northwest NE) we saw towers to our west and
southwest...but they were not well developed so we opted that the dryline
might not cooperate and decided to head north into SD for late evening storms.
We took 18 east to scout out any development in SD and amazingly noticed some
nice towers approximately 90 miles in front of us (these were actually the
tops of developing Cbs!). We continued east and eventually saw a few anvils
take shape throughout a broken line of convection and the updrafts appeared
well developed Cquite persistent. As we neared to within 20 miles, tA)
organized even further.By about 8pm, we were in northeast NE viewing a nice
rain-free base with a somewhat unorganized wall cloud (earlier on we were
fighting trees to catch a glimpse of a very stout, compact lowering in this
same region). Tornado warnings were in place for a cell further south of us,
but we continued to observe our storm explode with a flanking line along with
new storms developing just to our north and east. The storm motion was to the
southeast, so we remained to the WSW of the main updraft as a route to the
south was not available. The storms had been severe for about an hour so as we
continued east, we passed the damage path of large hail. The road was
completely littered with leaves and branches from the 2.5" hailstones that
pounded the area. As the evening wore on, we caught awesome video of a cell to
our north as well as intense lightning from the severe storm to our ESE which
still exhibited a dramatic flanking line, wall cloud and hailshaft...still
visible at 9:20pm! We called an end to the day due to nightfall and headed
back to Sioux City, IA to stay at the same motel. The ride back was filled
with more Tornado Warnings (Antelope County) and vivid lightning at every
level of the storm. Ultimately, the dryline did cause a brief SVR storm in
western NE, but we made the correct decision to head north/east and play the
warm front which paid off quite well.
Sunday, June
4
A tornado in
southern IA around 7:30am was the only action of the day as a shortwave trough
exited to the east. We headed home after a rather decent show for the
week.
Wednesday,
May 23
The deep moisture was still lacking throughout the
Plains today, but we made the most out of what we had in place and it paid off!
The setup involved a secondary surface trough/pseudo-cold front behind the
initial surge that occurred on Mon/Tues. Good lapse rates and dynamics (similar
to yesterday) would allow a chance for convection to develop with daytime
heating and surface convergence in place. Again, large dewpoint depressions and
low WBZ heights would imply that we would be dealing with wind and hail events,
respectively. We were already in good postioning for the day, so we found the
local library in Sprindale, AR and hung out at the park nearby waiting for
developments while feeding some hungry geese. Our optimism was reinforced when
SPC upgraded eastern OK and western AR to slight by the afternoon. Watching
mini-turkey towers all afternoon slowly build larger with time kept our hopes
alive, but we decided that the convection may not cooperate and headed west to
the border for dinner at Pizza Hut. After our meal, we noticed low, fuzzy anvils
just to our west and north. We headed west for them and to our surprise a SVR
was in place for various counties in eastern OK. Again, the convection was
high based but this time low topped due to strong upper winds and a
lowered tropopause. We noted the linear nature of the updraft base and rear
flank erosion. The only noteworthy highlights after this was a Tail-end Charlie
that emerged to our southwest with tikme. It eventually produced two wall
clouds, though no rotation was evident. Nevertheless, we got some nice
pictures of this low topped, severe convection. Even the radar image was
nothing to get excited about! A flanking line resulted with time but the
sun was setting and we would have to abort it due to its fast motion and poor
lighting. We stayed south of McAlester, OK for the night.
Thursday, May
24
In comparison to the beginning of the week, the convective
outlooks kept getting better for us in terms of rotating storm potential. We
headed south for data in Paris, TX and had a complex decision to make. Do we
head towards southcentral TX for a good threat of supercells or do we head south
and east for the same threat of supercells?!?! Model guidance and our own
analysis hinted towards southeastern TX based on better moisture convergence. We
headed south to Tyler for more data later on and continued south to north of
Houston as turkey towers once again develped. Great shear and instability were
in place, but forcing was not concentrated enough along the cold front. We got a
motel around 7:30 just north of Houston and noticed a wide convective mound
explode ~50 miles to our east. Dangnammit! A blue box was issued and we were now
running short on daylight. We relaxed in the pool for awhile and then had
another surprise when we turned the Wx Channel on...TORNADO WARNING for Edwards and Real
counties in TX! These cells were over 180 miles to our west and it was now close
to sunset. We did good for the day considering the timing factor of convection
was against us. I now speculate whether or not the development of the LLJ (or
enhancement thereof) just before sunset played the final role in the timing of
this convection.
Friday, May
25
The plan was to head west for a similar setup as
Thursday, but this time with outflow boundaries and a stationary front. We made
it to San Antonio around 3pm and got more data and decided to head south as more
turkey towers (they must like us or something!) ensued. The one thing I really
liked about today was the textbook setup we were in: ouflow boundaries
intersecting with a stationary front (good lift), great thermodynamics (T = low
90s, Tds = low 70s), great directional (modest speed) shear aloft,
and some CIN. By 5pm, nothing had developed further as we were now 70 miles from
the Mexico border. We stopped in Hondo, TX for Chinese food (sweet/sour chicken
was great, I just couldn't eat it all!) and when we left we noticed a convective
mound erupting to our east, just north of San Antonio. Again, it was sunset and
now the storms were developing (#@#~!!!). We headed north for Saturday's
setup and stayed in Georgetown, TX for the night as individual SVR cells roamed
the Hill country. NOTE: a supercell developed roughly 80 miles west of Hondo
late in the evening damaging the Del Rio Doppler Radar. Click here for Stormtrack's images of
the damage.
Saturday, May
26
Upon waking up, we saw an MCS in place just west of
Fort Worth racing southwards towards us. I took some video of stratocumulus
racing north after sunrise via the LLJ, but as the forecast predicted the MCS
decayed as the LLJ mixed out with daytime heating. We headed north to Fort Worth
to play the outflow boundary of this complex in daytime heating. We were too far
east to attempt a chase in the Panhandle despite the setup there being more
favorable for supercells, but our location would have all the shear and moisture
in place but with only an outflow boundary as a "trigger". We headed west to
Jacksboro, TX and noticed a crisp tower shoot up ~40 miles to our northwest.
After stopping at the state park nearby, the tower bacame a modest Cb, then just
an orphan anvil. But more convection continued where this initial cell developed
and that was our hope. We watched for about an hour and a half as the other
cells seemed to repeat the performance of the first. Our hopes were high for
these cells as this would likely be our last opportunity to witness anything
significant during daylight hours, but they never materialized much more until
around 7:30pm when one Cb did get its act together for a little bit (overshoot,
minor backshear), but based on radar there was never anything dramatic
occurring. Of interest is that the storms in the Panhandle became a gigantic MCS
(MCC?) and the cirriform shield blew over us by sunset. The satellite loop of
this event is quite stunning! Also, the RUC nailed the isolated convection in
north Texas that we witnessed along the outflow boundary. Drove to Ardmore for
the night to get a head start on a very long drive home to
Milwaukee.
Monday, May
20:
We spent the day driving west to get near our
general target spot of western NE for tomorrow. The omega block would
finally be breaking down and the models looked decent for the week in terms of
convection.
Tuesday, May
21
We began this day in York, NE and the drive westward
featured typical drought conditions with numerous windblown tumbleweed and dust
storms which eventually knocked off three of our antennas! After crossing
the WY/NE border, we noticed persistent, faint TCu to our west that had modest
vertical depth to them. After a library data stop in Cheyenne, we decided
to hang out north of town and observe the cycling turkey towers for any
potential development. While watching the towers we encountered several
non-convective wind gusts well in excess of 50mph out of the southeast.
The data that we had checked revealed linear convection farther to our west that
was non-SVR, so we decided to be patient and watch the skies for awhile.
After little change in over an hour, we went back for a satellite update and
decided to head west for what would prove to be the only chaseworthy stuff for
the evening. The T/Td spread was substantial, thus the
convective bases were high and rather boring...although we encountered an
awesome gust front with wind gusts near 50mph once we pulled over to observe the
situation. The cold pool was quite strong with a temperature drop of at
least 25°F. Aside from these convective gusts, our only other action of
the day occurred unannounced while traveling east to North Platte for a motel
later that evening. Near Dix, NE (panhandle of NE) at mile marker 29 on
I-80 around 10pm MDT we encountered .75" to 1" hailstones falling from a rather
electrified cluster of storms. We continued driving eastbound at
50mph...almost as fast as the storm's motion. The storm motion was NNE, so
the hailcore must have been rather broad in size. Of more interest is that
this convection had no warnings with it and no severe reports were filed until
we got in touch with NWS-Cheyenne days later. That night we checked a
radar history and saved some images of this event. Either way, the hail
was a nice way to top off the day.
Wednesday,
May 22
Our analysis for today was complex for awhile.
Some team members were looking at northwest IA for development while others were
hoping for southeast NE. We drove east that morning and afternoon from
North Platte all the way to Omaha where we got the decision-making data around
1pm. The fly in the ointment at this time was an evil, mid-level overcast
deck across eastern NE and western IA that kept the temperatures in the low 70s
all afternoon! We persisted at the library in Omaha until we noticed an
interesting feature on the Hastings, NE radar. A well defined boundary
(dryline upon analysis) oriented northeast to southwest was nearly stationary,
yet later produced a rope like line of large TCu! Yee haw! We headed
south and west with time and got some quick data in Beatrice, NE. We shot
straight west from there and witnessed laminar stratocu bands unfold ahead of
the deep convection (possible transverse rolls?). Our first cell became
SVR (locations of cells will be listed in coming weeks) and developed a few
non-rotating wall clouds over the course of 45 minutes, but the updraft was
eroding quite hard. What was neat is that this cell had one heck of an
inflow band off to its southeast (stretched for at least 20+ miles!). We
aborted this storm for a cell to the south on the KS/NE border that quickly
featured supercellular characteristics (laminar updraft, persistent
rotation...i.e. successive TORs). We got to this supercell a little late,
although caught a nice RFD meso occlusion with frequent CGs. We continued
south and west with time to play successive Tail-end Charlies which culminated
near Osbourne, KS around 9:30pm CDT. After hearing of the hail potential
with this cell near Osbourne, we pulled over in Osbourne under a gas station
awning and waited for the storm. At best, we had some hailstones at .75",
though the areas just south of town had possible golfball sized stones. We
drove south to Russel, KS for the night and forecasted Thursday's SVR
potential. Special note: the 12Z ETA/KF nailed the SVR convection in
southern NE and northern KS today. This episode is among a long list that
the model has handled very well this year so far...very
eery!
Thursday, May
23
The data that we got in the morning revealed
strengthening ascent and moisture thoughout much of southern KS and northern OK
for most of the day. However, a few storms fired in western OK by late
morning along a strong zone of isentropic ascent that ultimately screwed up the
whole day's potential for KS and northern OK via cloud debris and elevated
convection. Nuts! Around 1pm, we decided to head south towards Enid,
OK for a data stop and were treated to their ISP being down the whole day.
Nuts again! Since our laptop connection wasn't cooperating most of the
week, we stopped at a local motel and phoned a nowcaster who verified clearing
to our west, but we eventually referred back to our old morning analysis plots
for clues of where to go. After a long discussion, we decided that if we
were going to see anything we should head west to at least Woodward, OK to see a
potential dryline and sfc bndry intersection unfold west of there. Upon
heading west, our morning and afternoon misfortunes were slowly being replaced
by blessings from above as we met up with clearing skies that led to explosive
TCu near Woodward, a blue box for much of the TX Panhandle and western OK, and a
Radio Shack with internet access! We caught the latest visible imagery
which revealed a large, isolated Cb near Spearman, TX. We shot west from
Woodward and witnessed a classic supercell unfold before us near Gage, OK.
Four DOWs (one here) were stationed well east of this supercell, possibly
performing long range analysis. We saw beautiful backshearing of the
anvil, a distant beaver's tail, overturning convection, several wall clouds, 2
or 3 meso occlusions....an almost textbook storm! We observed this
supercell from ~25 miles away initially to get steady video versus continued
driving and poor video. With time, the supercell was ~12 miles WNW of us
when its final meso wrapped in rain and the beaver's tail became corrupted by
outflow. After this, we made some poor decisions about where to go and we
ended up missing a fantastic corkscrew updraft ~80 miles to our west.
Nonetheless, by 9pm we were just south of Canadian, TX viewing some nice
convection with lightning. After getting a motel in Canadian, we got some
data and decided to head northwest of town to video some lightning courtesy of
some non-SVR cells to our northwest. We were careful to note what lagged
behind this intial zone of convection (see here!) and planned on making it back
to the motel with time to spare. After getting the lightning shots with
some embedded structure, we were surprised to see the supercells strengthening
now just to our west. Their motion was due east, but only at 15mph.
We sat around the motel and conversed with some chasers from Australia until the
supercells entered the area. A handful of close CGs occurred around
11:45pm and then we got the report of baseball sized hail southwest of
Canadian. Thankfully, we had moved the minivan under the nearby
awning much earlier in preparation. The hailfall soon began, but at best
we witnessed some stones maxing out at only 2"...though still good by our
standards. We guessed that the heaviest core went just to our south, but
either way this was now the third day of hail in a row for
us!
Friday, May
24
If there is such a thing as a clear cut chase
forecast, today was the day! Though we accidentally overslept until
9:30am, our data while in Canadian, TX revealed that we would have a relatively
short drive today. The morning sfc obs depicted an awesome outflow
boundary from the previous night's convection oriented northeast to southwest
just to our north. This feature was steadily propagating southward into
moderate/high theta-e environs ahead of a dryline. The icing on the cake
was a distinct sfc low near Lubbock with good southeasterly winds ahead of
it. The upper pattern was to drool for...at least when compared to the
omega ridge 4 days previous. Anyways, we targetted Childress, TX based on
the latest obs and some consistent model progs. Upon getting to Childress
around 1:30, the first TCu exploded just to our west. A cycling
pattern of towers continued for another hour until the remnants of the inversion
were locally removed and voila, cumulonimbus bombogenesis began (quite
literally). We had moved just north of Childress to observe the event and
then headed south for a chase. As we passed through Childress, scattered
giant raindrops (a good hail indicator) began falling and minutes later
pea sized hail made it to the surface. After getting in position, we were
stunned to see within an hour our localized supercell becoming surrounded by
other clusters of convection. Was the inversion too weak, cold pools too
strong? This situation would plague us the rest of the day, however we
managed to see an awesome hybrid supercell to our north (beaver's tail, some
striations, persistent wall cloud, rock hard convection), though once we closed
in to within 2 miles, it lost all structure and slowly collapsed. After
this we viewed several wall clouds (none rotating from our vantage point) with
various cells west of Altus, OK, with no one cell lasting longer than an
hour...so it seemed. Our next noteworthy storm developed directly to our
west and had a steady state updraft with wall clouds, a moist RFD and little
interference to its south in the form of convection. We chased this for
about 1.5 hours along with hordes of other chasers. A nice meso occlusion
with clear slot occurred around 6:45pm CDT near Altus, OK and then it became
outflow dominant dumping hail as large as baseballs. We pushed our luck a
little by entering the rear flank precip core and saw at best nickel size hail
with heavy rains. On radar, this cell had definite rotation, though no
TVSs were evident, hence no TORs. We drove north and east of Altus since
this cell was dying and caught our last cell around 8pm. Visually, it
appeared to have mid-level rotation (laminar updraft sides below crisp towers)
and at one time a wall cloud...but following the performance of the other cells
this day, it died rather quickly. We headed north to Clinton, OK for a
motel after viewing stunning mammatus near sunset. This was our last chase
day as the next day was not in our grasp due to driving considerations back to
Milwaukee.
