I've rarely had real success chasing Storm Prediction Center Moderate Risk setups and today was no exception. We started in Paris TX where we had overnighted and targeted an area south and east of the Dallas/Ft.Worth metroplex where short range models hinted that discrete storms would fire ahead of a line. Those cells proved to not be worth much so we continued southward to try to intercept a "Tail end Charley" cell on the south end of the line that had formed during late morning west of the metroplex.
Unfortunately that same line kept back-building further south and west and the upshot is that we are here in Conroe TX - 40 miles north of Houston - after chasing a cell with a nice shelf cloud (yawn) and dodging hail cores. I'm not even tempted to download photos from today...that will wait until sometime later. Meanwhile we start the journey back home to Blacksburg tomorrow.
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Recap of May 20th chase in Oklahoma
After a chase in southern Kansas Sunday that included being on the
storm that produced the Wichita tornado (we had pulled off that very
cell prior to that because it was getting too close to the congested
metropolitan area) the Hokie Stormchasers targeted southern Oklahoma
today. We pushed to the Paul’s Valley area south of Oklahoma City (OKC)
where conditions looked ripe for strong and severe storms and were
rewarded when convection began early. We were on our first storm of the
day by 2 p.m. (CDT) southwest of the OKC metroplex and noted that a
cell north of “our” storm that didn’t look too promising.
That particular cell rapidly intensified and produced the tornado that created the frightening devastation and tragic deaths in the OKC area. The eerie part about that tornado was that we had traversed the I-35 corridor thru OKC that morning and were talking about the May 3 1999 event over our radios when a local resident of Moore chimed in. He told of us his experiences with that and the 2003 tornadoes and gave us a feeling for what it was like for the residents of that area. Literally a few hours later the next in the continuing cycle of huge tornadoes hit Moore. The news about Monday's events struck us particularly hard after that conversation.
We didn’t pay much attention to the news as it was happening since we were busily engaged in maneuvering into position on our second storm of the day further south (our initial cell had fizzled). We caught a great looking wall cloud just outside Purcell OK that was misidentified by a spotter as a tornado. The sheriff who had pulled up behind us on the road to watch the storm was unimpressed by this report and - I believe - called in a correction on his radio.
After we ran out of decent roads that would allow us to keep up with this cell we abandoned it and motored south to meet the next storm south along the line while the students caught up with the news on the OKC metroplex tornado and the damage it had caused.
In the small crossroads town of Dickson, Okla., we had to turn east and run for it when a large hail core with indicated stones over 2 inches in diameter bore down on us. As we pushed east through the town of Kingston we suddenly spotted through a break in the treeline a full-fledged funnel under a section of the storm several miles north of us. Quickly pulling off the road we attempted to get a better look but failed so we rolled farther eastward past Madill, OK. As we rolled down the road a circulation developed literally almost overhead and dropped a funnel about 200 yards to our left. As far as we know it never touched down to officially form a tornado but it was a bit nerve-wracking to have it be that close, especially as our three vehicle caravan was fighting the rear flank downdraft crosswinds that were rocking our minivans. Another funnel spun down a couple of minutes later but that was a bit farther from the road…perhaps a quarter mile or so.
We finally pulled over in Boswell to duck under a gas station overhang as the hail core gained on us. Along with several other vehicles including law enforcement cruisers we sat and waited for the wildness to pass. With the worst of the storm now east of us we continued east and then south into Texas to wind up in Paris.
That particular cell rapidly intensified and produced the tornado that created the frightening devastation and tragic deaths in the OKC area. The eerie part about that tornado was that we had traversed the I-35 corridor thru OKC that morning and were talking about the May 3 1999 event over our radios when a local resident of Moore chimed in. He told of us his experiences with that and the 2003 tornadoes and gave us a feeling for what it was like for the residents of that area. Literally a few hours later the next in the continuing cycle of huge tornadoes hit Moore. The news about Monday's events struck us particularly hard after that conversation.
We didn’t pay much attention to the news as it was happening since we were busily engaged in maneuvering into position on our second storm of the day further south (our initial cell had fizzled). We caught a great looking wall cloud just outside Purcell OK that was misidentified by a spotter as a tornado. The sheriff who had pulled up behind us on the road to watch the storm was unimpressed by this report and - I believe - called in a correction on his radio.
After we ran out of decent roads that would allow us to keep up with this cell we abandoned it and motored south to meet the next storm south along the line while the students caught up with the news on the OKC metroplex tornado and the damage it had caused.
In the small crossroads town of Dickson, Okla., we had to turn east and run for it when a large hail core with indicated stones over 2 inches in diameter bore down on us. As we pushed east through the town of Kingston we suddenly spotted through a break in the treeline a full-fledged funnel under a section of the storm several miles north of us. Quickly pulling off the road we attempted to get a better look but failed so we rolled farther eastward past Madill, OK. As we rolled down the road a circulation developed literally almost overhead and dropped a funnel about 200 yards to our left. As far as we know it never touched down to officially form a tornado but it was a bit nerve-wracking to have it be that close, especially as our three vehicle caravan was fighting the rear flank downdraft crosswinds that were rocking our minivans. Another funnel spun down a couple of minutes later but that was a bit farther from the road…perhaps a quarter mile or so.
We finally pulled over in Boswell to duck under a gas station overhang as the hail core gained on us. Along with several other vehicles including law enforcement cruisers we sat and waited for the wildness to pass. With the worst of the storm now east of us we continued east and then south into Texas to wind up in Paris.
Sunday, May 19, 2013
May 18th storm intercept
As Maxwell Smart used to say: "Missed it by that much"...
We departed North Platte Nebraska this morning at 10 a.m. after our
morning deliberations pushed us to target northern Kansas instead of
staying in the Cornhusker state. We wound up in Hill City Ks where we
ate a picnic lunch while waiting for convection to start. When several
large storms fired south of us we packed up and headed east and then
south to gain position on the developing system.
Finally one storm dominated the others and took over as the King of the Hill (pun intended) as it robbed the surrounding cells of their energy and morphed into a tornadic supercell. We finally got into position on it just south of Hays KS on a dirt road that led right into the heart of the mesocyclone. We parked and gawked for 20 minutes as the storm lumbered directly toward us and tornado sirens sounded all over Hays. It almost put down a tornado but didn't quite make it but the proximity of the storm (the wall cloud was perhaps a mile from us at closest approach) was breathtaking while we remained perfectly safe, not even getting wet!
We left this position and raced east to Russell KS where we picked up the WDBJ television crew who had finally made it out here from Roanoke and then sped northward to catch back up with the storm. While we were relocating the cycling storm dropped a confirmed tornado five miles north of the eastbound road we were on but we didn't see it. I did record a funnel via dashcam video as we rolled northward in a vain attempt to catch back up with the now accelerating storm:
Finally one storm dominated the others and took over as the King of the Hill (pun intended) as it robbed the surrounding cells of their energy and morphed into a tornadic supercell. We finally got into position on it just south of Hays KS on a dirt road that led right into the heart of the mesocyclone. We parked and gawked for 20 minutes as the storm lumbered directly toward us and tornado sirens sounded all over Hays. It almost put down a tornado but didn't quite make it but the proximity of the storm (the wall cloud was perhaps a mile from us at closest approach) was breathtaking while we remained perfectly safe, not even getting wet!
We left this position and raced east to Russell KS where we picked up the WDBJ television crew who had finally made it out here from Roanoke and then sped northward to catch back up with the storm. While we were relocating the cycling storm dropped a confirmed tornado five miles north of the eastbound road we were on but we didn't see it. I did record a funnel via dashcam video as we rolled northward in a vain attempt to catch back up with the now accelerating storm:
We called it a day and headed west to Hays for the night to avoid the gathering squall line that was steaming eastward.
Friday, May 17, 2013
Storm survey from the 15 May tornado plus upcoming plans
The National Weather Service office in Dallas/Ft. Worth published their storm surveys today with a total of sixteen tornadoes in their area of responsibility. "Our" storm - the Alvord/Wise county cell, produced an EF-0 tornado with an estimated peak wind of 80 mph, a path length of only 0.1 miles, and a width of only 25 yards. I did speak with a local resident in the Decatur Wal-Mart parking lot Thursday morning (5/16) who said that her house was just outside the damage path but they did have some damage to outbuildings and trees. Nevertheless it is always sobering to hear of major damage, injuries, and deaths from outbreaks like these.
We are currently in North Platte Nebraska in position for an even bigger outbreak of severe storms tomorrow. The Storm Prediction Center has issued a Moderate Risk for severe weather tomorrow with a significant chance of tornadoes. Being the weekend we expect to see chasers galore but hope that enough storms will fire to spread out the inevitable convergence. There is another probable center of activity in southern Kansas that may help with that spreading out process.
Meanwhile a television crew from WDBJ Channel Seven in Roanoke will join us tomorrow with the potential for live television coverage during the chase. Follow their coverage of our chase as they rendezvous and chase with us.
We are currently in North Platte Nebraska in position for an even bigger outbreak of severe storms tomorrow. The Storm Prediction Center has issued a Moderate Risk for severe weather tomorrow with a significant chance of tornadoes. Being the weekend we expect to see chasers galore but hope that enough storms will fire to spread out the inevitable convergence. There is another probable center of activity in southern Kansas that may help with that spreading out process.
Meanwhile a television crew from WDBJ Channel Seven in Roanoke will join us tomorrow with the potential for live television coverage during the chase. Follow their coverage of our chase as they rendezvous and chase with us.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
May 15th tornadic storm chase
We began today in Conway AR knowing that we would be headed to the Wichita Falls TX area to chase given the setup and conditions. After hours of pushing westward on I-40 we dove southwestward onto I-44 near Oklahoma City and wound up punching through several early afternoon thunderstorms that had fired up in the moist air. Since the area we were targeting had better conditions for severity we continued toward Wichita Falls to get ahead of the dry line that was forecast to spit out some decent cells.
When we reached Lawton OK, however, one storm began wrapping up in earnest and we diverted to a side road to observe.
This storm really looked good for about 10 minutes and then began to fall apart so we abandoned it and continued southwestward to get into position to intercept the dry line storms.
The unfortunate part was that the dry line surged much further eastward than we thought it would and we wound up in a tail chase of a tornadic storm that we really didn't get into good position for until almost dark. We did see several wall clouds, one which is shown here:
More later when I have some brain power returning.
When we reached Lawton OK, however, one storm began wrapping up in earnest and we diverted to a side road to observe.
 |
| Hokies watching an organizing storm |
The unfortunate part was that the dry line surged much further eastward than we thought it would and we wound up in a tail chase of a tornadic storm that we really didn't get into good position for until almost dark. We did see several wall clouds, one which is shown here:
More later when I have some brain power returning.
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