05/07/05 REPORTS: Central/Southern Plains

[Tony Laubach]

COMPLETE CHASE LOG FOUND HERE - Updated 9:45am MDT on May 8

***Funny to see my backyard was more exciting than 90% of those chasing yesterday! *LOL* Sorry 'bout all you guys in Texas! :cry: Hope things improve for ya! Shoot up here to Colo... we get tornado-warned storms out of thin air (no pun intended)! :lol:

The last thing I expected to be doing before my 5:00pm pizza driving shift was to chase in Eastern Colorado! Well this afternoon's surprise chase tacked on the first 181 miles of May... storms fired around 11a here and I thought some hail video was in order, so I fired up I-76 only to sit in traffic as a bridge was being worked on. After fighting my way to the exit after 15 minutes, I elected to head home as the storm wasn't anything impressive visually. I got home; BAM, tornado warned. I cursed to myself and jumped back in the car and hauled out I-70 in hopes of an intercept near Bennett. Thanks to Verne Carlson for the nowcasts as he was in Nebraska at the time. I chased this pretty naked; just the vid cam and digital still; no lappy or anything else; I had to be at work at 5 in the evening so fortunately these were kicking off very early. After the first tornado warning was dropped, I elected to continue to Byers where I could jump on US Hwy 36 east and stay just south of the storm. As I was pulling into Byers, I could see some rising motion in the very high based clouds. As I got off the interstate; BAM, tornado warning issued for my cell. I jumped on Hwy 36 just outsid of Byers and pitched camp for a few minutes before heading east along 36, jumping into some 1-inch sloppy hail and eyeing a couple disorganized wall clouds. Nothing that ever produced, but it got me out. I bailed on the storm when the warning expired at 2:30 and the storm showed no signs of temptation. While I didn't catch anything more than some slushy hail, I appeared to have scored better than the Shamrock, Texas gang who busted big time in the Panhandles... ironically enough, the area I chased wasn't even in SPC's GENERAL RISK area today... what a surprise to be on a pair of tornado warnings this afternoon! On the way home, I got stuck in traffic on the other two interstates in Denver and loudly cursed the city for its over population! *LOL*

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[B Ozanne]

Met up in Shamrock, TX where we had moderate to strong chaser convergence, low level enthusiasm and a high news reporter index.

We drove down to Turkey, TX and watched a big cell go up over the Red River Valley just off the Cap Rock. It had some ok structure, but never got too organized. Best show we got was some cloud to cloud lightning and some rain showers. Couldn't even find any hail.

I imagine there will be many reports from this area, hope they are a little more detailed than mine. I hope to see some more pictures too, we didn't get many today.

EDIT: Does anybody know who was in that Hummer that tore through Turkey Saturday evening?

 

[Chris C Sanner]

Ouch, today was pretty painful to experience, outside of the big convergence in the Best Western parking lot in Shamrock, Texas. We sat around there, met up with tons of people, Shane and his crew, Mick, saw the KSBI chasers (Roger Graham and folks), and also saw a couple of Channel 9 vehicles across the street among others.

We headed south to Childress where convection tried to go, but other than some raindrops and a clap of thunder, we really busted it out today. This pretty much could ruin my season as I am not going to be able to chase until the very end of May, and so far this year, other than the first chase, things have been extremely negative. My last possible chance is tommorow, so I'm hoping things turn for the best..

 

[Mikey Gribble]

That sucked real bad. I went to DDC this morning and got on the internet to fine tune the forecast. I decided the best place to be was the NE Texas panhandle. I set up in Canadian (I am pretty sure that is the name of the town and I am too tired to go get the map) and watched towers along the dryline. Called it quits a little after 6. A 600 mile bust is not how I envisioned my May starting.

 

[Scott Olson]

Went to Wessington Springs, SD today. Decided to go into Eastern SD at indications of deep moisture convergance. Intercepted some really ominious looking storms, with some 60 mph gusts. All in all was worth it but would have been better if I had gone with my orignal target of Grand Island, NE.

-Scott.

 

[Jeff Wear]

Ended up near Miami TX watching some horribly CAPE starved Cu try to go up beneath a hole in the cirrostratus deck. Became slightly encouraged when I saw rows of stratocumulus streaming in from the southeast towards the Cu - but once the sun went behind the dense cirrostratus deck it was clear not much else would happen. Was able to catch a glimpse of the mammatus filled anvil of the storm way to my south around sunset.

 

[Aaron Kennedy]

Clear Sky Bust... well sort of. Cirrus shield moved in and blew the insolation along the dryline.

http://www.convectionconnection.com/CHASE-050705/

Met half of stormtrack and friends @ OU in Shamrock, TX. Headed SW towards Claredon, but saw a cell go up north of 40. That cell quickly died, and we debated going after the stuff near Childress (it didn't show much promise). Called it a day and headed home.

This chase will be better known as a wildlife safari. We saw (alive): deer, turkeys, quail, snakes, and a hawk that caught a snake. We saw plenty of other things dead, and a dying 5ft bullsnake. It had gotten run over by a car a few minutes before we got to it. It was still wigglin around so we got it out of the road and took a few pictures.

Aaron

 

[Mark Sefried]

Started the day with an initial target of Broken Bow, NE. Once in Broken Bow, we then went after the tornado warned cell for Lincoln County, NE. We got on the tornado warned cell near Arnold in far western Custer County. The cell had a wall cloud with it, but it was fairly high based. We stayed in the Arnold area for a while, and then got word of the tornadic cell SW of Kearney. Me and my chase partner Darin Kaiser decided that it would continue to have a decent chance of staying tornadic for a while. So, we decided to make the 110 mile track in order to get out in front of it. Eventually, we made it to St. Paul, NE and then dropped south on Route 251. We were able to get into posisition about 6 miles south of St. Paul without getting cored, thankfully. Once the cell got to us, it more or less stopped producing tornadoes (although still tornado warned). Figures huh? We then went East of St. Paul, aprox. 12 miles or so to get a better view of the tornado warned cell. WE still did not notice anything impressive, so we decided to sit and wait to see what the storms to our sw would do. at 7:40 or so, we noticed a tower that very quickly went up to our wsw, so we decided to go after it. Aprox. 5 minutes later, a wall cloud with an inflow cloud quickly developed under the tower. Around 8 pm a funnel developed under the wall cloud roughly 5 miles or so North of Palmer, but it only lasted about a minute or so. Right after the funnel dissapated, the wall cloud quickly collapsed. After that storm, we just more or less just messed around with "junk" the rest of the evening. Not too bad of a day really, but I wish we were on that Kearney cell a lot sooner!! Hopefully I should have some pics up withen a week or so.

www.vortexhunter.com

 

[David Schuttler]

Chaulk up another 600 plus mile bust. Watched from just NW of Canadian up along 83 I think. Plenty of ,OH here we go then a big sigh a few moments later... It was a nice drive anyway

 

[Shane Adams]

My report will read like about 50-60 others' will. I set my all-time record for the most chasers seen/met in the field. I could make a list of the chasers I didn't see and it would be shorter...

Bailed on Shamrock around 4:30pm, after serious doubts about any sort of lifting mechanism plus a lovely cirrus shield that just wouldn't quit. We moved down to US287/TX86 and eventually drfited west to get a better look at the absolute crap that was northeast of Turkey. Of course, with Chad, Jo, and me, the chase wouldn't be complete without another blown tire...and this time we even threw in a bent rim for good measure. After 550 miles and just 20 miles from home, I hit a huge something as I merged onto I-44 from I-40. I had turned my head backwards to look for merging traffic and when I turned back around to continue forward, there was either a roll of carpet or a power pole or some long piece of wood blocking off my entire lane plus half the inside lane. I couldn't avoid it and nailed it at around 70mph, blowing the left front tire and ruining the rim too (I'm thorough). As Jo observed, "we're working our way around the car" with the blown tires. A left rear will complete the set.

An added bonus is a new day one that begins with the word "complicated". Sounds like another "fun" day tomorrow of guessing where the muck will clear and being in the right place at the right time. Good news is, by the climo pattern this year, June should actually see some chaseable storms, since it will basically be May.

 

[Jeff Snyder]

LOL same as all those others in the TX area...

Set up at the Shamrock Best western for several hours, seeing/catching up with a ton of fellow chasers. Couldn't decide whether to go northwest towards a boundary intersection (dryline + fineline representing some sort of convergence axis) or southwest to the cirrus hole. Since it was basically a dice roll, we headed south to Childress, then norhtwest to Memphis. Talk to Tim Marshall at the Sonic in Memphis, TX, before calling it a day a little after 7p. A few TCU did develop within the area and to the southwest, but all quickly transitioned to orphan anvil...

All we really needed was either a weaker cap or stronger forcing/convergence along any of the several fronts/convergence zones in the area. Alas, this year is looking more and more like 2002 with each passing chase. Moisture is too little too late, while the cap just couldn't be broked by the very light/non-existant convergence along a non-advancing dryline. The lack of any real mid-upper level support didn't really help, but it was nice to see the better-than-previously-forecast mid-level flow. Of course it looks like we finally do get moisture up here this week, but we lose the upper-level support (250mb largely <30kts)... What I wouldn't have given for some real gulf moisture (>65 Tds)... What I wouldn't give for a formerly-typical severe weather setup... Ugh.

 

[nickgrillo]

I got the same report as quite a few others, as I wound up in Shamrock as well. There was at least 40 chasers in that Best Western parking lot, it was by far the biggest convergence I've ever seen, LOL...

We (Me, Kurt Hulst, Shane Adams, Jo Radel, Mickey Ptack, Chad Lawson) wound up "chasing" that junk that kept dying as soon as it went over the Caprock... New cells kept forming as they kept dying, and we decided to place ourself as close to the cells as possible. I got a few photos of a LP-looking piece of junk... Hopefully I got some good timelapse from it.

I bet tomorrow is gonna be just as "fun"... :roll:

Got to meet quite a few chasers, today, so it was kind of nice...

 

[Darin Brunin]

To make a long story short since I am pretty much exausted. Mike Deason, Ben Prusia, and I intercepted the tornadic supercell in South Central Nebraska yesterday. We observed an unspecified amount of tornadoes. I say unspecified because the conditions made it very unfavorable for easy visual confirmation of touchdowns. Between the large amount of dirt blown into the air in the early life of the supercell and the HP characteristics later on it was nearly impossible to tell what funnels touched down. The only way that we will be able to get a good idea is to go back through the video and review stuff and I am in no condition to do that right now. Also it was a situation where I would like to compare our angle to other chasers angles on the storm. I am sure that Ben and Mike will want to give their input as well so I am going to leave the rest up to them :wink: . Here are a few pictures that I took throughout the day. I will have video captures of the possible touchdowns later as I seemed to have the camcorder rolling more than I used my camera and didn't end up with as many stills as I would have liked. I will also make the pictures smaller tomorrow. Sorry about the large size.





LARGE TORNADO(a little blurry due to motion while driving and trying to get into better position on the tornado)

 

[Verne Carlson]

Started the day in Denver at 8:00am and headed up thru North Platte, NE on my way to Valentine, NE when I entered the no-man's land of the sand hills on HW83. Saw that the stronger discrete cells at the tail ends of each line looked the best back to my south so I turned around and caught the first Tornado warned cell back in North Platte. Could not visually confirm a tornado but it was one mean mother of a supercell with golfball size hail that I thought was going to cave in my windshield many times.

Let that storm pass, and another smaller one until the cell that had started as Tornado warned all the way down in Yuma County, CO had swung all the way up to pass over me.

Couple of things I learned about western NE were:
1) The sand hills are beautiful but I wouldn't want to chase there.
2) Roads off I-80 are few and far between.
3) A closed bridge in town is the best place for a soapbox derby race, please detour around town into the hail!

Tony you owe me since it was my leaving Denver that prompted those 4 separate Tornado warnings in CO! :lol: :lol:
All-in-all it was the right place to be and a good chase. Will have some pics up soon.


Tornado warned cell in North Platte, NE
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Second tornado warned cell that originated in Yuma county, CO
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[Mike Johnston]

Dick McGowan and I eagerly anticipated a chase on Saturday. Leaving Olathe, KS at 9:30am, we headed west on I-70 towards the crossroads of Salina, KS. In Salina shortly after noon, we stopped at a wifi hotspot to review the charts and refine our forecast. Based pretty much upon the anticipated wind barb crossovers, satellite sky cover, and time and distance to likely initiation, we targeted south central Nebraska - thinking in general of an area from York to Hastings to Kearney. Being just outside the southern extent of SPC 5% probability area gave us some pause, but we felt once we got just north of the state line, we would need ample driving time to make our way west. We also hoped initiatiation would be towards the west portion of our target area where anvil level winds were closer to 40kt, so any storms would have better chance of classic vs HP mode. During this portion of our drive north on US 81, winds were directly out of the south, gusting to 35 mph. Just across the state line at Hebron, we turned west and kept making north by west jogs towards Hastings - trying to follow perceived break in the cirrus. Reaching Hastings, we were momentarily at a loss as to our next course of action, so we decided we would go try to visit the NWS forecast office. Just blocks away from the office, we received a call from our nowcaster, informing us of convective initiation to the SW of Kearney and Lexington, so we nixed the visit and bolted west on US 6. About 10 minutes later, we received word the cell was severe warned, as we gradually made out a dark flank of clouds in the distance to our southwest. We stopped briefly somewhere around Minden to take some shots of wall cloud forming, then quickly headed west again. We came upon a crossroads in the countryside around the town of Axtell, where another chaser was already set up, and a county sheriff officer was parked to observe the now confirmed wall cloud probably about 5-6 miles to our WSW. We set up and began filming. Gradually, we observed a swirling very dark cloud of dust on the ground underneath the wall cloud - which then began making a plume upward to the base of the wall cloud, but the feature could not be identified as a condensation funnel at this point. As the storm approached, there appeared a relatively large curtain of rain and dust from ground to cloud, we felt the inflow and then what seemed to be alternating periods of warm and cold air around us. In the meantime, we could pan up and see the relatively compact curvature of a mesocyclone in the sky above, which was indeed indicated as such on the radar view another chaser shared with us. As the storm passed through a field well within 1 mile to the northwest of our vantage point, we spotted a white tornado within the swirl of dust and rain. We excitedly screamed and pointed towards it to the Sheriff officer, who then apparantly saw what we saw and grabbed his radio. Within a couple minutes, the EBS buzz sounded on our car radio warning of the tornado. In the meantime, we lost visual contact with the tornado behind the rain and dust and now due north of us. The officer raced off to follow it more closely, but we held back a couple minutes. Over the course of the next 45 minutes or so, we followed the storm from a southward vantage point, zigzaging north and east all the way up to the western outskirts of Grand Island. Along the way, we saw the visible funnel 3 more times, twice accompanied by visible ground circulation directly underneath. On one viewing, when we were heading north just north of Wood River, and the definition prompted us to call in a spot. Reaching Grand Island, even though counties to our north continue to be warned, we decided to discontinue the chase as it was pulling us further away from home and we had seen what we came to see.

In summary, this was a very rewarding chase. We were fortunate enough to have targeted the area, and the timing and angle of our approach put us in position to witness the development from wall cloud to tornado. For me personally, this was the first time I witnessed such an event and it was quite exciting. Special thanks to our nowcaster, Derek Shaffer. As we were without wifi and cell connections were sparse during the final phase of our approach, his timely and concise reports put us in perfect position. Dick is reviewing his photos and will hopefully have a subsequent post on the board.