05/13/08 DISC: KS, OK, TX

[Mike Peregrine]

Last night as I was attempting to nowcast (had to shake the rust off), the big thing I noticed was that the storms were not tapping in to any low level energy. The llvl winds out of the south were generally weak at around 10 kts or so. The storms that did fire and attempt to feed off the moisture appeared only marginally severe for the most part and could not achieve real balance, tending toward outflow. The Texas storm was the most frustrating to watch, because appeared to just park itself about 15 to 20 miles left of the healthier surface winds. I didn't check, but I'm guessing that 500mb was also on the order of weak. The SE Kansas storm was most surprising, as its environment did not really look supportive of tornadic activity, and yet it was the most active of the evening.

The other thing I noticed almost universally were the high LFC/LCLs last evening, particularly in Kansas.

 

[Brian Stertz]

I think the cap certainly kept this Tue. event from busting loose...and this is what kept me at home base in KC yesterday. The veered LLJ and cap were just two factors that seemed to keep things from realizing much tornado potential at all. The supercells would look super tough at times, and then cycle down quickly...with just a moderate hail threat. I had targeted the Parsons-Pittsburg KS area if I had decided to make the 2 hr. trip down there...gladfully I did not have to expense the gas that can be saved for better events down the road.

 

[Brandon Ivey]

That first clip in the video was taken at 7:45PM sitting on the south side of McCune facing northwest. I was about a mile north of highway 400 in far southwest Crawford County. Nice lightning image by the way!

I'm pretty picky about making the call on tornadoes myself when it comes to storms like these and brief touchdowns. In my younger chase days I would have easily called this a tornado without a doubt! I just hesitate to report stuff like this when I'm not 100% sure. There is no need to cry wolf to the public unless there is a major threat to property or life. They won't take things seriously when the big one does hit.

 

[Dick McGowan]

Hmmm, looks like something I'd probably call a tornado, and I'm pretty picky anymore. I'm a lot confused on when and where it did that though. I went east of Parson's and watched it approach.

I must be near McCune on these from highway 400 looking sw. This was the only time I saw it where I thought it had a legit hope to tornado in there. It had a nice bowl wrapped back in there.

It would make a lot of sense to me if your video was taken at this time.

After this that bowl slowly gets smooshed east up against the gust front of the storm. Northeast of it at this time was getting a big cold shelf bowing se ahead of it. I don't get how it could continue to about my location and end up doing what it does in your video. But evidently it did if you're sure that's right where you were at that point. I must have been driving east again. That area was smashed, sheared out to hell and gone when I left though, with a big cold undercut mess just north of it. It was that ne portion that went on to become the main area at Pittsburg though. I wasn't paying the storm too much attention after this area on my vid captures lined out with the rest of the shelfy look ne of it....until I reached Pittsburg and could see it morphed ne and was cutting in hard way up there now.

I'm taking this from the reports thread....to discuss.

Mike, when Brandon's footage in the beginning shows what looks to be a tornado (which is very convincing) was within 2 minutes of the tornado warning popping up on GR3...I remember you drove by right as this happened to position further to the east and waived. We then headed back east when it really started to wrap in rain, then saw you parked north of the highway there...

Those photos you have were (I'm pretty sure) about 3-5 minutes prior to the tornado warning and south of the highway. I remember that as we had just punched through the core (with no hail!) east of Parsons and that was directly to our south....

 

[Mike Peregrine]

I vote tornado on Brandon's video. The way the rain is wrapping up around the feature appears to be due to cyclonic rotation, and that certainly looks like a condensation funnel to me. You're right - quite convincing. No one happened to go back to see if there was damage, did they?

That's actually pretty nice video!

 

[Evan Bookbinder]

Playing devil's advocate, a tornado should be rotating violently. Granted the darn RFD blasting rain curtain is in the way, but at least the top half of that condensation structure looks to be just meandering there where one should be observing very strong and obvious cyclonic rotation if that were actually a funnel or tornado.

Man, I've played that video probably 30 times and I just don't know.

Evan

 

[Mike Peregrine]

Looking at Evan's comment in the report thread ... this really reminds me of the May 29, 2004 event southeast of Belleville, Kansas. Very similar rain-wrapping with what certainly appeared to be a condensation funnel in contact with the ground. I believe it later verified, but it had lots of people scratching their heads. Very bizarre because it had characteristics of outflow and tornado both at the same time.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Playing devil's advocate, a tornado should be rotating violently. Granted the darn RFD blasting rain curtain is in the way, but at least the top half of that condensation structure looks to be just meandering there where one should be observing very strong and obvious cyclonic rotation if that were actually a funnel or tornado.

Man, I've played that video probably 30 times and I just don't know.

Evan

I agree, other than the violently part. I watched it a billion times and become more unsure each time. I'd call it a low cloud becoming pointed, with some rotation(scud off the ground a bit looks to be going around, right next to it), and an apparent bit of ground contact underneath...lol. Life is easier that way. If it was mine(wish it was!) I'd be calling it a not-sure-or-nado....but a cool sight regardless of the name(which is most important anyway).

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

I'm taking this from the reports thread....to discuss.

Mike, when Brandon's footage in the beginning shows what looks to be a tornado (which is very convincing) was within 2 minutes of the tornado warning popping up on GR3...I remember you drove by right as this happened to position further to the east and waived. We then headed back east when it really started to wrap in rain, then saw you parked north of the highway there...

Those photos you have were (I'm pretty sure) about 3-5 minutes prior to the tornado warning and south of the highway. I remember that as we had just punched through the core (with no hail!) east of Parsons and that was directly to our south....

Yeah, I believe him on his location, so it had to be after all that if it was north of the highway. I was thinking, it had to be with the newly formed area to the ne of things, when the old e-w "base" along the forward flank down draft(core) decided to be the new main player. Had to be near/just after you guys stopped and noted the cutting in to the north. All that was well ne of what we'd been chasing that just lined out over the highway. It's not typical cycling where the new area forms on the rfd/gust front southeast of the occluding one. But some storms love to cycle like this at least one time, and then just do well with that new ne side taking off, and maybe then becoming more typical.

As for the day as a whole, I don't think all those clouds helped anything, with those elevated crappers popping off down there(n TX). I'm not terribly surprised how the northern half panned out. You could see the thermal axis pointing straight ne into se KS right where that boundary turned mostly n-s. That storm was at the nose of that and the southern part of the boundary before it began trailing more sw. Also, KS was doing much better in the sun dept all day. Still, they struggled. Not good when they take that long to fire. They were highly beat down/tipped way over all along. After a while I was surprised the KS storm wound up being fairly long lived.

I noticed on several forecast soundings in se KS it was uncapped after 4, but still had a big ol area of warming at 700mb pinching into the cape. The updrafts acted like you'd expect with that. I wasn't too upset I spent whatever on 800 miles of gas. Wish it was all $3.55 like I found in St Joe, lol. The lightning made it worth it to me. I never expected much at all, but just wanted to chase without waiting another 10 days. For as not-so-great as the storm was, it was more than I thought I'd see. I was actually surprised a big messy line didn't come out of that original stuff.

 

[Dick McGowan]

Yeah, in your first post you said, ".... I'm a lot confused on when and where it did that though. I went east of Parson's and watched it approach."

I just remembered... literally as you passed our location heading east was precisely when that tornado warning was issued, and about 2 minutes after that, that 'feature' became more visible and organized to our west as it crossed the highway, so I'm guessing you were moving east and missed 'it'. It didn't last very long, maybe 5 minutes and we repositioned east with precip shielding our view.

I think Bookbinder reported a wall cloud on SN about 5 minutes later and we were wondering if it was an old report when, it became evident a few minutes after that (as we were moving further east into the town of Cherokee?) it reorganized/cycled and we could see the wall cloud about 8-10 miles to the north.

Anyone else listen to 96.9 covering the weather during all of that? "I see 4 wall clouds and the hook on the wall cloud" were some sayings that were cracking us up.

Those due west 850's near the Red River couldn't have been good for down there, and even though instability wasn't as strong further north which had a cold front instead of a dryline, but at least there was some decent turning in SE KS with 100-200 0-1 km SRH in extreme SE KS at 22-23z IIRC.

I wonder if I'll get to see a classic supercell this year, they seem to be pretty rare these days.

 

[Darin Brunin]

Here is a zoomed in highly contrasted photo around the time of Brandon's video that shows a different point of view. Tornado? Who knows....I do remember saying that it looked like there could be a tornado back in there but definitely wasn't confident enough to call it one by any means.

 

[Brandon Ivey]

Here is a video that shows (what I believe to be a tornado) in better detail. The first clip is the original shot, the second is with the contrast boosted, and the third is the same clip at 5X the speed. This is the full lenght of what I was able to record before the rain blasted in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IEu715CaGI

This was shot at wide angle and camcorders never do justice with rotation and other cloud motions. The naked eye can focus in on these features and give you much more detail than a camcorder lens. Matt and I observed rapid motions with strong rotation behind the wrapping rain. I just wish we could have viewed it longer.

After further thought and pondering, I would venture to say that brief tornadoes form in these types of conditions more than we think/observe. They would be weak and short lived of course, but it is the same principle of a tornado developing in the comma head of a bow echo, only on a smaller scale. I think a lot of us chasers do not observe this development due to it occuring mostly or completely wrapped in rain. You would have to be in the notch or "bears cage" to get a good look. We typically play south and southeast of storms and once the hook wraps around cloud formations like this one, it is usually lost from sight forever.

 

[Rich Thompson]

Chad Lawson and I
With activity going both north and south of us down the dryline, the automatic diagnosis would seem to be subsidence. However, we had hard towers most of the evening making repeated attempts, so subsidence wasn't the culprit. I'm assuming it was a combination of cap and lack of convergence, although both really disappointed me because we were working with around 3000j/kg and the DL didn't seem to retreat much (if at all) during the evening. I figured getting tornadoes might be difficult, but I figured sups were a sure bet. Oh well.

Shane,

I don't think it was subsidence. My guess (from sitting down there near you, before giving up and driving down into NW TX) is that we were just too close to the rain-cooled air from the convection across N TX during the day. Surface dewpoints held around 70-71 F east of the dryline, but temperatures actually cooled from 86 to 81 F as the cloud character changed and the cooler air flowed in from the SSE. You could see this as a diffuse "fine line" backing NW into the boundary, per the Frederick radar.

It just left us a little too cool to get the storms rolling, plus the dryline was not particularly well defined. Areas to the SW got warmer, and lift was stronger along the cold front farther to the NE.

Rich T.