05/14/08 REPORTS: TX

[Paul Sherman]

Much the same as many other, got onto the Big Spring Supercell just before it merged with a cell to its south and then rampaged east down I20
Saw some spectacular skies and strong Gustnados, Stu tells me we missed the Trunkated Tornado by seconds DOH!

 

[Bill Tabor]

Here is my best photo of mine and David's tornado. Taken just south of the town of Melvin. The base is already beginning to be obscured by rain unfortunately.

Compare this with David's shot just about 5 to 10 seconds earlier!

David's photo was taken at 5:59 which according to my gps log would place us directly north of the town of Melvin. This correlates well to the SPC log and movement of the storm:

2308E MELVIN MCCULLOCH TX3120 9958 TORNADO WAS REPORTED BY THE PUBLIC ABOUT A QUARTER MILE EAST OF MELVIN. (SJT)
2317 4 W BRADY MCCULLOCH TX3114 9940 DAMAGE TO TREES NEAR BRADY LAKE. (SJT)

This means our shot was right before the reported / logged tornado in the same general area. It was one of those deals where you are driving along and suddenly you say 'Oh $hi+ it's a tornado!' and slam on the brakes and jump out. Things were changing fast and I suppose I was lucky to get anything before it hid itself behind the rain. Fortunately David was a bit quicker.


Perhaps I shot video first, and it looks better. I can't remember. As I recall though I was just trying to take a quick picture while it was there. Funny how tornadoes are...sometimes you only get a glimpse.

Other pics to come, as usual I'm slow as all heck getting them out. My apologies for that in advance.

 

[Greg Ansel]

Sweetwater Stuff...

Hopefully this will work. Here is the stuff we got into on Wednesday afternoon just south of Sweetwater.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWQPJXE7y1Y

Greg & Lydia Ansel
Team Remora

 

[David Hoadley]

05/14/08 REPORTS: KS/OK/TX

A late report on Wednesday's chase. I left Brownwood at 11AM (low clouds streaming west under scattered, mid-level, moving east --nice!) with my surface-based forecast centered on Andrews, TX. At Garden City, the tower near Big Springs looked best, so I drove northwest of there and saw the first of three tornadoes (same results as Roger Hill's group) --a brief 10 second dust column below a short tube, too quick to photograph. As that base grew and continued east, I stayed on county roads north of Big Springs and up State Hwy 350 to 1229, then SE toward Colorado City. At 4:50PM, the San Angelo tornado warning was received, and about 4:58PM I began seeing the elephant trunk 11 miles southwest, at the end of a long turbulent base near Iatan. However, because it was next to similar formations (from my perspective) and seemed to be coming from the side of the base rather than under, it took me a full minute to decide what it really was. I stopped east of Cuthbert with several other vans/cars and taped for another minute, before a southward moving rain curtain began to hide it. I then charged down to near Colorado City and taped another short vortex from a new base, that briefly touched down near Westbrook.

Since heavy rain was just leaving Colorado City and blocked my view of the new southern cell, I chose to stay with the old one as it continued east and north of I-20. This cost me the two tornadoes south of Roscoe and Sweetwater. The fun part happened when I drove down the ramp from I-20 to catch 208 north. I didn’t fully appreciate the **lake** at the bottom until 10 foot rooster tails suddenly exploded on both sides of the car! I floated/coasted to a stop, somehow still on the ramp, and engine STILL running --thank you Ford Fusion (rental car)! I drove up to Hwy 1992 and then east. The old base was beginning to rain out but still drawing a brisk SE wind. I finally gave it up and returned to I-20 but didn’t get ahead of the southern cell until Cisco. By that time, it had become a big outflow storm and, after a brief jog south (met fellow storm chaser, Mark Egan), I turned toward home -- 3710 miles in 4 1/2 days and 3 small to average tornadoes. It was noteworthy that the morning's Slight Risk forecast (5% tornado prob.) produced 16, while the day before Moderate (10%) had only one.

Thanks to Greg Guise for cell phone updates on where the Box was and radar reports. Now to think about next week...

 

[Bob Schafer]

David D and I left Mineral Wells and shot down I-20 Wednesday morning, getting to Big Spring just at the right time. There's not much to say, I guess, that hasn't been said. The storm blew right past us from there. Is this May or March?

2:43 Vid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9w36xH-kn4

 

[Tony Cook]

San Angelo->Austin supercells

Took a buddy of mine on his first chase. Thought it would be fairly low-key, and good for a first-timer, but like almost every other chase this year, it ended up being a bit hectic at times. Caught the San Angelo supercell shortly after initiation. Wall clouds and tail cloud observed from Hwy 87 SE of San Angelo:
http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm253/HesterMofet/14May2008/EastSanAngelo_.jpg
http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm253/HesterMofet/14May2008/EastSanAngelo_2.jpg
http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm253/HesterMofet/14May2008/EastSanAngelo_tail.jpg

Got blasted by straight line winds south of Eden. Rotating funnels observed shortly thereafter, S/SW of Eden. Time is about 5:42:​

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm253/HesterMofet/14May2008/SouthEden_funnels.jpg

Never got back to the business end of this cell, although we got close at Brady. Gave up on it, and dropped SE to intercept a new cell that was near Llano. Ran into hail and street flooding in Lano, and finally got in front of the hook in Marble Falls. Wall cloud observed briefly in low light, time ~8:15, looking north from in Marble Falls:
http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm253/HesterMofet/14May2008/MarbleFallsWall.jpg

Trailed the cell towards Austin on a very curvy F.M. 1431. Observed a solid, barrel-shaped wall/funnel cloud from 1431, just west of Burnet/Travis county line. Time is ~9:00, looking east towards or just north of Lago Vista:
http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm253/HesterMofet/14May2008/LagoVista_0202Z_1.jpg
http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm253/HesterMofet/14May2008/LagoVista_0202Z_2.jpg

Tried in vain to catch up to the cell, finally giving up on it in Lexington, TX, NE of Austin. Drove back towards Austin, meeting yet another severe cell. Observed golf ball and slightly larger hail in Manor, TX, around midnight. Observed a menacing shelf cloud over Central Austin shortly thereafter, with numerous power flashes. Video did not come out well for this, unfortunately.

Got home about 1:15 a.m.
601 Miles
12+ hours

TonyC

 

[Andrew McDonald]

In Marble falls, we found a fantastic lookout over the city. Mike shot one picture of a possible tornado. Then we experienced the south side of the hook. We measured 62MPH wind gusts before calling it a day.

We were also at the same lookout and the following is a link to a fairly contrast adjusted photo (mine) of the possible tornado mentioned above.

http://macca.bsch.au.com/gallery2/v/USA2008/140508/140508am27.JPG.html

There was a persistent rain-wrapped, bowl-shaped wall cloud for quite a while and the photo either side of this one shows what appears to be a funnel (in total the 3 photos I have are about 2 minutes apart).

Cheers,

Andrew McDonald