04/05/05 REPORTS: Central/Southern Plains

[Tony Laubach]

COMPLETE CHASE LOG CAN BE FOUND HERE - Updated April 6 @ 10:22am MDT

Personally, I'd stay away from areas in NE Oklahoma and far Eastern Kansas as I think tomorrow's best tornado potential will in fact be near the SFC low.

Well, I was right... I just wasn't there! :lol:

Verne Carlson and I observed a helluva squall line in Southeastern Kansas this afternoon. We punched the line east of I-35 on US Hwy 160 and then ran north along side her to the east as we intercepted several tornado warned cells embedded within the line. None of the cells tornado'd, but we had some driving hail, crazy rain, and a lightning bolt which picked off a tree 10 feet from the car as we hauled-ass north along the line. It was so close, we both physically felt the shock. My hands, which were attached firmly to the steering wheel, felt hot and numb for several minutes. Verne's arms had a tingling feeling as well. All I remember seeing was the bright white flash, Verne saw the sparks, and the instantanious POW which sounded like something inside the car exploded. While there were no evident marks on my car, I wouldn't be surprised if it took some kind of a hit. To be honest, it was pretty damn cool! 8)

We dropped back south in hopes of catching the southern most cell which was at the tail end of the line which we had been straddling most of the afternoon. That cell died a slow and painful death. We picked up some storms right along the dryline later on US Hwy 56 as we headed back to the west to hit I-135. We stopped in El Dorado where we nearly had our ears blasted off by wind driven marble hail on top of the aluminum roof which he took shelter under during this storm.

All-in-all, not a bad way to start the season! It was actually my first April non-bust chase! We had a great time! Many thanks to Verne Carlson for sharing my ride and conserving cash for gas. We managed nearly 35 miles per gallon the entire trip! How's that for sick.. and yes, it was before AND after the alternator was replaced. Special thanks to Amos Magliocco for his nowcasting expertise!

Great day... nice to ring in 2005 finally!

COMPLETE CHASE LOG CAN BE FOUND HERE - Updated April 6 @ 10:22am MDT

 

[JHadorn]

Everything looked so good this morning for at least some sort of severe activity today. When I got up at 5:00 and did a brief data check there were some favorable factors (good dew, promise of excellent daytime heating, surface low action, frontal stuff) . . . and then around 7:00 or so this morning this cloud cover just rolled in. Daytime heating killed. We needed surface temps of at least 75+ to overcome the cap. The closest we came today was at the 0z sounding from OAX which showed some erosion of the cap, but not enough to allow any real convection.

If that cloud cover would have burned off like I was hoping it would, even at 2:00 PM, something might have popped.

To an extent I'm disappointed in myself for getting my hopes up on such an early system.

It was just too good to be true.

 

[John Diel]

Well, my chase didn't go near as well as Tony and Verne's. I didn't get started until 3:30. and then it was really a chase. I attempted to catch up and head off the 50 mph storm line in the Pawhuska area. That didn't pan out. So I continued on to Bartlesville via US 60. Made it there just in time for a T-Warned cell to over pass and couldn't see a thing for all the rain! Little doubt that I was near the area of circulation that was warned, but blasted by the wind and rain, I just wasn't up to see what was over that mountain. Also got some pea size hail buffeted about by 40 mph winds, but nothing to really write home about. I think Tony and Verne had the right idea staying to the north as traffic in B'ville was a pain.

From there I cut north on US 75 hoping to catch OK 10 across to Wann OK and attempt another head off, but just north of Dewey, I came across a Van that was on fire. Oh well. so much for the chase. The Van on fire was the best video I had during the whole trip. I did get to stop in at Fox 23 Studios in Tulsa though. That was quite a trip as I've never had the opportunity to be in a large Network Studio.

Many thanks to George Flickinger for letting me know where the major cells were. It just wasn't my turn at the plate this time. I'll try to get some video of the Van up soon (as soon as I find a place to host it). Congrats to Tony and Verne!

John Diel

 

[cedwards]

I didn't expect all that much today. Target area was south of Ada, OK. I went south to Sulfur when Cu already started to break the cap. Soon a line formed rapidly. I was on the south end of one line and watched the storm near Ada. It was not that impressive. I opted to go farther south to catch the next storm. It got better organized and looked very HPish near Atoka. I drove up 69 to McAlester just ahead of the storm. In Savanna, I decided to find shelter and let the storm overtake me to film the hail. I only saw very small hail and wasn't impressed with it. At this point the storm got ahead of me and I decided that was it for the day. I met up with Rocky in Henrietta for dinner. After eating we were treated to a nice mommatus display.

Pictures are at:
http://www.cloud9tours.com/bear/2005/040505.html

 

[Chris C Sanner]

We were on the atoka storm as well. We spent ~2 hours in Atoka county today on that HPish storm and the rest of the squall line. We had one very good ~30 minute period where we had an organized wall cloud and rotation, but after that, things were in complete squall mode. After trying to get south, but soon realizing the line was into Texas, we ate and headed home. Oh well, on to the weekend...

 

[Shane Adams]

We drove south, stopping in Ardmore and Durant to make nowcast calls to Dwain Warner. Everyone was in agreement that Hugo/Paris looked to be the place, so we continued to Hugo. Set-up there and waited, and waited, and waited....while the storms along the dryline west of us continued to intensify. Finally new development ahead of the line was evident, so we moved south to Paris and then east to Honey Grove.

From there we went south on TX 34/50 to Ladonia, then further south to just south of Wolfe City. There we finally got some definition on a single storm, which had a somewhat impressive strucutre, with a cascading RF inflow tier and a classic, beaver tailish FF inflow band. Winds at the surface backed to SE, and for a little bit things looked like they might get interesting. But alas, it soon became full-blown ouflow dominant, so we moved back north up TX34 to just south of Honey Grove, where we stopped and decided to just the let the storm crash us (wasn't anything better to do).

We got hammered for over four solid minutes with pea-dime size hail, so loud we couldn't hear each other speak. After that ended, the road was white with hail, as we heard someone announce a tornado warning for Collin County, for a storm near Farmersville. Apparently this guy issued his own warning, because we never heard about it again from him or NOAA. We'd gone after the storm anyway, and attempted to once again let it slam us, going for some wind/hail shots. We didn't get far enough south and missed the meat of it, so we tried one last shot at redemption by heading down to Commerce for the last core we could see. This too moved east of us before we could reach it, so we threw in the towel and headed home.

Highlights of the trip included a structure fire in Kingston, OK that was throwing insane amounts of black smoke across US70 as we drove by (it was some sort of an out-building, not a home), finding gas in Boswell, OK for $2.01/gallon, and hearing Tool's "Disgustipated" on the radio - a true rarity, a first (though they did cut off the crickets and secret message at the end).

I just don't understand cold core lows. How in the hell can you get tornadoes with 20s dewpoints? I hate cold core systems, I hate them with a passion.

Thanks to Dwain for great nowcasting, no one does it better

 

[MMartin]

Well, ended up driving to Paris, Texas for the second time this year already. Much preferred the first chase there, however.

Ended up on the same cell as Shane was mentioning, near Wolfe City. This storm had an impressive shelf cloud/core definition on it as it approached Hwy 69 north of Greenville. Stopped to videotape some of it, and ended up taking too much time and got sideswiped by the north end of the hail core in Celeste, Texas. Jason Politte was kind enough to return a nowcasting call to inform me that the meso would be passing just to my south. Sure enough, dropping back south on 69, I broke out of the precip to view a beautifully backlit wall cloud about 1 mile to my west. However, it didn't seem to show any signs of rotation, and quickly scudded out as it passed to my north.

These storms were highly electrical, as well! This made for a rather enjoyable drive back on I-20 as I made sure to stay just behind the line. With little to no precip to block my view, the lightning was worth several stops for video.

On an interesting side note; just to the east of my hometown of Henderson, Texas, there were reports of "tea-cupped sized" hail. These were noted as being thrown out the backside of the updraft of an intense cell that had moved off to the east of the area. That's twice I missed significant reports near my home while I was, ironically, off chasing.

Marcie

 

[Jeff Snyder]

Similar story as Shane and Marcie... Headed to Ardmore then Madill to await convection... Saw the storms developing along the dryline, and kept pace with them as they headed eastward. Tried to make a data stop in Durant, though to no avail (for whatever reason, my internet connection stopped working while driving to Madill)... Noticed that stuff to the north was line-segment in nature, so dropped south. Drove through some small hail (pea-sized mostly) near Denison... Drove southeast towards Bonham and eventually Honey Grove (on 82). The convection was highly linear at this time (was a semi-cool shelf cloud at one time), though we noted a more discrete cell to the south... Dropped south on Hwy 50 through Ladonia and Commerce... Thought we may have some okay action to our west-southwest, though that cell interacted with a cell to it's south, and took on strong outflow-dominant appearance. Ended up calling it a day with an hour of sun left... Was about to throw the radio out the window as FWD statements continued to mention the possibility of tornadic supercells in the afternoon and evening...

The storms today just looked like garbage for the most part. Heck, the updrafts on 3-21 looked better (more solid and rigorous) with 1000 CAPE than the updrafts did today with 2000-2500 CAPE. I expected to at least see some rock-solid updrafts given the awesome lapse rates and resultant vertical acceleration expected. All in all, I was disappointed with the way things played out today, though I suppose ya can't win 'em all. I was especially hoping for some good tornado action since I brought along a friend who had always wanted to come chasing with me... I would have been pleased with some awesome supercell structure, but that wasn't to be had.

How long before TRUE Gulf moisture?

EDIT: My chase log and map are up at http://www.tornadocentral.com/chasing/2005...05/040505.shtml

 

[Nic Wilson]

I had a similar day to the other Oklahoman chasers as well. We got down to Ardmore just as the convection along the whole dryline fired up around 2:15 pm. Note to other chasers: the Wifi worked great for me at the Love's TruckStop there so I can vouch that the service is free and available!

I quickly discounted that as a linear mess and we headed to Texas hoping for a discrete cell. Unfortunately, everything went linear down there as well so we eventually rode out the squall line near the uniquely named small town of Tom Bean, TX just after 5 pm. There we encountered a 15 minute long hailstorm! Thankfully nothing larger than nickel sized so no car dents to worry about.

The 500 mb winds were screaming yesterday afternoon because the tops of the convection were sheared out tens of miles. This certainly didn't help create an environment suitable for sustainable discrete updrafts. It was a disappointing chase, but we did make a storm report so you can never feel as if its a total waste when that occurs. It is never good when your favorite photo of the day is of the restaurant you ate dinner at on your way back home though haha. I highly recommend Hobo Joe's Diner in Madill, OK.

Check out my full chase report and photos at:
http://weather.ou.edu/~nwilson/chase2.html

 

[Jay McCoy]

I am Posting our chase report for Kanani who is still waiting for her posting priveleges but wrote our account.


Okay, here goes my first post for a chase account. Please bear with me as I will get better everytime I post!

Date: April 5, 2005

Who: Kanani Foster and Jay McCoy

Departure City: Amarillo, TX

Target: Ardmore,OK

Actual Initiation Point: We wern't quite there when storms fired.

Severe WX Observed: Large Microburst (West of Tushka,OK)
Quarter sized hail (Atoka, OK)
Winds of 60 mph (Atoka, OK)

First chase of the year! I was so excited this morning when Jay called me up and told me to meet him at work at 11:00. Poor Jay went back to work Monday night to catch up so he could get off early today to chase. Thanks Jay! We knew that the possibility of seeing tornadoes today were slim but with both of us suffering from SDS this was an opportunity to see some kind of severe weather. We headed out about 11:00am to our target area of Ardmore, OK. (357 miles) Made pretty good time but knew we ran the risk of playing catch up to these storms if they fired before we got there. At 2:30 pm outside of Grandfield we observed our first towers going up near I-35. We were still 90 miles from target area when the first storm fired. We arrived at target area at 3:40 and decided to continue east on Hwy 70 to get east of the storms so we could get on the southern storm. At 4:26 we had our first bolt of lightning!!! I was never so happy in all my life. As we continued on we ran across pea sized hail on the road. We were worried we were too late to catch anything but at 4:45 a local TV station was showing radar and the radar showed a break in the line on a storm due east of Tishamongo, OK. We took 78 southeast to try to intercept the storm. We were able to get to Hwy 69 where we went into full chase mode. We were able to make out a base for a brief period in time before a large microburst occured just west Of Tushka, OK. We could see the rotation taking over in the new wall just before we got caught in the wraparound in Tushka. We thought we could drive through it and catch the base which was now leaving us at a rapid pace. The storms were moving NE at 35 mph. We continued north on 69 to Atoka, OK where we ran into the hail core. It started out as heavy rain, then you could hear the pings of hail. It went from pea sized to dimes, nickels, and even some quarters. You have to love the sound of hail hitting the roof and yelling at your partner to be heard! There was extensive flooding in Atoka and lots of water on the road that we were on (good thing Jay had put Rain-X on last night!). Unfortunately, the road we were on was going NE, the same as the storm. We were in heavy precipitation (we hydroplaned SEVERAL times even though we were doing 35 mph) for an hour and never could catch up. The storms were moving as fast as we were and we saw another radar update at 5:40. It appereard that the storms had once again lined out and were racing off. We had already had our near death experiance for one chase and decided to call it a day. We broke off the chase at Kiowa and decided it was time to make the LONG trip home.

Here are some pics of the storms. Didn't get alot today as we had to keep driving to keep up with the storms!


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v652/tor...05/DSC00404.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v652/tor...05/DSC00409.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v652/tor...05/DSC00412.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v652/tor...05/DSC00414.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v652/tor...05/DSC00420.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v652/tor...05/DSC00422.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v652/tor...05/DSC00425.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v652/tor...05/DSC00429.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v652/tor...05/DSC00430.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v652/tor...05/DSC00433.jpg

Actual Breakoff Point: Kiowa, OK

Miles driven total: 800
Hours on the road: 14
That is what we call a DEEP STRIKE!


Happy Chasing!
Kanani

EDIT::: the links are now working.. Sorry for the screwup.

 

[Chris Sokol]

Well...I decided to play the Low and went Northwest out of OKC...unfortunately, not far enough. I did get to see a bunch of rain though.....

This was a bust created out of economics. I really would have liked to have gone further NW into Kansas, but with the combination of uncertainty about the tornado possibilities, and the steadily increasing gas prices as I drove NW, I chose not to continue past Canton.

 

[Russel Parsons]

I was on the same Washington County Oklahoma tornado warned storm that John Diel posted about a little earlier. My chase account and photographs can be found at the two links below. I thought I did a decent job at picking my target of Choutea, Oklahoma, and then going to the storms after checking data in Pryor, Oklahoma. I saw some cloud lowerings along the rain free base on the Washington County Oklahoma storm when it was to the east of Bartlesville, but I didn't see any rotation at that time. Overall, I can't complain about my chase, because if I had stayed home all I would've seen was rain.

Southeast Kansas Chase Blog:
http://seksweather.blogspot.com/

Photo Website:
http://rparsons.photosite.com/Washington_C...ounty_Oklahoma/

 

[Verne Carlson]

April 05, 2005 South-eastern KS

[Broken External Image]:http://www.stormchaserco.com/20050405_ElDorado1_sm.jpg

This is a storm that fired up along the dryline east of El Dorado, KS on HW 54 late in the day as Tony and I were heading back to CO. About 10 minutes after this shot we took shelter under a gas station awning from nickel size hail. Some of you may have seen Tony's video on TWC today.

www.stormchaserco.com/20050405_ElDoradoKS.MOV

File sizes are less than 1Mb each, to view place your cursor in the window and then move your mouse while holding down the left mouse button.

Earlier in the day we caught the squall line over Elk County, KS. This shot is from near Moline, KS at HW160 and 99. It went Tornado warned about 20 mins after this shot was taken.

www.stormchaserco.com/20050405_ElkCountyKS.MOV

Click this link for my complete report:
www.stormchaserco.com/20050405

 

[Mikey Gribble]

I went with the cold core target and headed West out of Wichita a little after noon. I ended up parking on a country road about 10 miles Northwest of Kingman to wait for initiation. After about a half an hour there was a storm that fired along the dryline a couple of miles to the South of me. I stayed on this storm for a couple of hours until more storms started to go up off its Southeast flank. Wasn't much to look at, but it was nice to get out.

 

[George Flickinger]

I just had to step out the door at work for the above photo.

Most of south, central, and northeast Tulsa received a high dollar hail storm about 4:30pm. For those of you familiar with Tulsa, most residents and businesses between Riverside and Memorial suffered hail damage to roofs, cars, and some broken glass...GF