05/14/08 REPORTS: TX

[Verne Carlson]

Our group intercepted the cell southwest of San Amgelo, TX and followed it to Brady, TX where we finally got back out ahead of it and rode out the core from main street. Large tree limbs were downed in the intense driving winds and rain. No tornadoes observerd from our location but pretty incredible straight line wind damage.

 

[Bill Schintler]

Chase summary - Sweetwater/Abilene storm

We had a great chase day today in western TX on the Sweetwater/Abilene supercell. After starting the day in Denton, we headed west on I-20 towards a preliminary target of Abilene. The surface map was a mess due to the effects of convection during the early morning hours, and the stable air mass had surged well south of that area by early afternoon. Convection started firing west and northwest of the Midland/Odessa area closer to the upper low, and the target was adjusted westward. We observed what appeared to be a landspout tornado 1 mile west of Vincent at 4:29 PM from a distance of about a quarter mile – I noted only slow rotation in the clouds above this circulation. From there we headed east towards Snyder, and observed a funnel or tornado back to our southwest that quickly became rain-wrapped. Our attention then turned to a new cell just to the south near Sweetwater. We watched this storm organize from the top of a hill 5 miles south of Sweetwater, and observed a large, slowly rotating wall cloud 5 miles southwest of Sweetwater at about 6:30. From that point, the road network prevented us from locating back east of the storm until it was near the Hasse and Proctor areas along US-377/67, where a rotating wall cloud was observed near nightfall. Photos to follow when I catch up on things - bill

 

[Stuart Robinson]

May 14th Big Spring Texas Tornadic Supercell.

Note: - that I was Lead on Van2 for Silverliningtours and Roger Hill today.

Started the day In Wichita Falls, TX after a somewhat disappointing chase day the day before. Our Target was Central Texas where a surface low was pforecast to pull Gulf moisture up towards the Higher terrain of New Mexico and into an eastward moving dryline. Lunch was stopped short at Abilene as cells started to fire along the dryline to our west. We targeted a cell that was North West of Big Spring near to Ackerly. The cell was showing good rotation and a brief landspout tornado was observed for a good two minutes under the updraft (note that dust plume did not reach up to the cloud base)

In order to keep up with the updraft we dropped back down to the interstate where a smaller cell to the south merged with our cell. We then observed a 5 minute elephant trunk tornado near Iatan, TX, just North of Interstate 20. This followed by a brief pencil tornado 5 minutes later. Time for the elephant trunk tornado was 4:56-5:01.

We almost got cut off by the cell but were able to get ahead of it again by driving through the core East down I20. At Abilene we took the option to re Gas before dropping South East down highway 36 – unfortunately we were cut off by hail and once the hail size reached 3 inch (teacup) we broke off the chase – shame really as we were just two miles from our East option and our only option to keep ahead of the storm.

Great calibration steak dinner in Abilene afterwards

Picture of Tornado #2, North of the Interstate - Picture Taken by Brad who was a guest on Van2.

 

[Greg Ansel]

Crazy Day Near Abeline

We bit on the cell west of Abilene, and it paid off. We heard reports of Roger and Stu seeing tornadoes, but we were too far east at the time. We watched as it came east across I-20 and headed a little south, which at the time seemed like a good idea, but the storm veered southeast and we were barreling down a dirt road at 80 mph with a wall cloud at our heels. As we looked back, we saw a beautiful white rotating cloud about a mile behind us. Just then I looked over and saw a dust whirl about 50 feet off the passenger side of the truck. We floored it for another mile, alternately praying and cursing ourselves, then I slammed on the brakes as another funnel touched down less than 100 yards in front of us. Lydia, my wife, grabbed the camcorder and filmed this amazing clockwise rotating gustnado for about 20 seconds. At the time we were freaked, but it was awesome! We're getting the footage together in the hotel room now, so it should be up soon.

Greg & Lydia Ansel
Team Remora

 

[David Drummond]

Chased the storm near Big Spring, TX, saw it go outflow for a while and produce MANY very impressive GUSTNADOES before it finally managed to produce a great white tornado and a couple of attempts at another one. Tried forever to catch up to the new batch but just never could get ahead.

BIG NASTY GUSTNADO:

 

[Bill Tabor]

OHHH! Completely worn out. Hammered the forecast from San Angelo to Brady, Tx. Chased it and got chased all the way back to Austin. Fairly white knuckle chase just trying to stay ahead from propagating wallcloud, and cell mergers, driving through cores much of the time.. eh. Beautiful incredible storm though. Likely embedded tornadoes in rain. Saw many wallclouds, and a few funnels. David and I got one tornado - somewhere, possibly another somewhat embedded on the southerly leading edge of the wallcloud. I'll have to check the timestamp and gps log to find out where. I tried to stream video all day but that whole area from Brady to San Angelo is a big cell coverage hole. I couldn't even call in or Spotternet log tornadoes.It's a bit of a blur now from rat race mode. Even when we got back to Austin we had two large cells that merged with large wallclouds. We got to stop for awhile se of Lampassas and watch for a change. Incredible hook showing on radar west of Cedar Park with supposed tornado on the ground near Lago Vista and was headed straight for my house. Just barely west of it, and the hook seemed to be showing a large 'debris' ball on the end. I thought the house was done for, but I guess it lifted - fortunately. David and I also set up on I35 near Yager Ln in Round Rock to try and video tape the tornado crossing town. I did manage to finally stream video in town in the dark. Got some low to ground flashes / lightning, but I don't know if any were power flashes. Seemed like we were in fine atomized rain for awhile. Later further east I saw a rope funnel in the direction of rotation in the dark. Couldn't see it all the way to ground though. I could see it quickly changing and it dissipated very soon.

More tomorrow I suppose as I have time. David got the best shot of the tornado. I shot it with my cam just a few seconds later and the precip was already obscuring. I saw some of his shots and there are some beautiful features he captured. Hopefully he'll post some. Dashcam was pointing away from the action most of the time as we were running. I did shoot a bit of video with the Vx2000 though. Probably the coolest feature that I think I caught on the Vx2000 was that leading edge of the wallcloud. It was extremely active and was over wet fields. Appeared to be funnels moving and interacting with the ground in and out of precip. For a long time that feature stayed up with us and seemed to be getting closer - which was a concern, but somehow we managed to stay ahead even with all the cell mergers on top of us. A good time, but I am SO worn out now. I just finally finished my lunch. Just no time today. Time to Sleeeeeep..

 

[Tim Marshall]

SHORT: It was my best chase of this season, so far. Kay and I sampled two supercells (San Angelo-to-Brady and Llano-to-Liberty Hill), and filmed what appeared to be two brief touch downs east of Melvin. Like Bill Tabor's report, it was a nail biting chase on the edge of the hail core for hours. Fortunately for us, the storms were moving east at about 25 MPH.

LONG: Target was San Angelo, TX. Headed to Abilene and had to make a decision to either stick with my forecast target or head for the Big Spring storm. I decided to stick with the forecast as surface winds to the Big Spring storm were out of the northeast and were bringing in worked over air (55 to 61 dewpoints). In contrast, dewpoints east of San Angelo were in the mid-60's at Brady and near 70 at Austin and winds there were east and southeast, respectively. Hindsight tells me that those higher dewpoints might not have been a good thing as it likely promoted HP type storms.

Kay and I arrived near San Angelo to a classic supercell. However, another cell formed to its south and quickly merged with it. The storm became HP and moved eastward along Highway 87 (how nice) gobbling up relatively modest east inflow. We filmed a large, low to the ground, rotating wall cloud west of Eden that was located in front of a nasty looking green-colored core. Motion in the wall cloud became violent near the town of Melvin and we filmed what appeared to be two brief rain wrapped tornadoes southeast of town. The wall cloud had a double-stacked inflow band that extended out to the north. We had to get fuel for our vehicle and so bolted to Brady. However, we only got five gallons of fuel before being blasted by the core with blinding rain and small hail. It was decided to break off this storm due to the poor road network beyond Brady.

So, Kay and I headed down Hwy 71 to Llano after seeing a second supercell develop southeast of Brady. We had to punch the core, but fortunately, only got pea-to-marble hail. We arrived in Llano to a large, low to the ground, rotating wall cloud west of town. The storm was a hybrid type, a cross between classic and HP. It had a vertical vault, beaver tail, and vertical cumuli-form towers that reached up to a sharp anvil with a patch of blue sky. We stopped to get fuel again, but only got five more gallons before being hit by the core. The storm moved eastward along Hwy 29 (how nice again) but the terrain grew hilly and we eventually lost sight of the wall cloud (no tornado touch downs observed). On radar, a large hook did develop at the north end of Lake Travis, so I wonder if there was any damage out there.

By that time, it was dusk and we headed to Georgetown to eat and finally fill up the gas tank!! Heading north on I-35, we encountered a few spots where water had flooded the road bringing traffic to a halt. Total trip was 650 miles, and that cost $140 in fuel, or $70 per supercell. TM

 

[Kevin Myatt]

Our 12-member Virginia Tech-aligned chase group originally targeted Brady, Texas, but changed plans and moved west on Interstate 20 once the storms started firing on the dry line near the Texas-New Mexico border. We caught up to the supercell north of Big Spring, observing a wall cloud and a gustnadofest in the red West Texas dust. We were on a road turning to dirt just west of rapid rotation being detected by radar as a TVS ... resulting in the first tornado warning of the cell. We followed that circulation for a few minutes on the dirt road just in case it was about to drop a tornado, but it didn't. We were trailing behind the storm the rest of the day. We tried to punch through it once near Abilene but pulled back.

Now ... what to do for a week and a half as the pattern goes into the tank ...

See my blog at Roanoke.com for more on our chase trip ....

 

[Dave Lewison]

What a successful, and yet frustrating day...
We chased the San Angelo to Brady and then the Llano to Marble falls supercells in central TX yesterday.

We were on the San Angelo cell right from the beginning. We followed it down hwy 87, which was a great road until it ended. Just before Brady, we saw this really menacing lowering. Can't confirm a tornado due to the wrapping rain....
http://www.facethewind.com/chase2008/may14-1.jpg

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica]Right about this time were nearly struck by lightning! We were all outside on Hwy 87, packing in our gear in preparation to move, when a CG forked right above our heads and hit on the other side of the street about 50ft away. All I heard was a "pop", and I felt my hair move! Felt like someone had poked me in the head. Never want to have that experience again. The CG's were VERY intense in this storm.[/FONT]

Once my heartbeat returned to normal, we proceeded further down 87, and just west of Brady, we paused to watch the mean green core approach.
http://www.facethewind.com/chase2008/may14-2.jpg

But we waited a bit too long, and as we were racing into Brady, the hook wrapped in right on top of us. It went to white out very quickly, with whipping SW winds, and pieces of sheetmetal, trees & signage blowing across the roads. We thought about finding an overhang to wait out the core, but the possibility of a tornado buried in there made me quickly decide against that option!

Finally dove SE out of town on the 71 toward Llano, where another supercell was waiting. This one put down some really convincing lowerings, but no tornado that we saw.
http://www.facethewind.com/chase2008/may14-3.jpg

As the road gradually pulled away from the storm to the SE, we blasted north towards Marble Falls, and found a great lookout point just as the hook passed to our north. No power flashes noted...with this view, we would have easily spotted any tornado. I measured winds in the hook at 65mph, and that was *before* the intense stuff hit and I had to dive back in the car!
http://www.facethewind.com/chase2008/may14-4.jpg

Our location was here in the white circle:
http://www.facethewind.com/chase2008/823pm.jpg

Still not sure why that cell up near I20 managed to produce a tube and ours didn't. Ours was in an un-contaminated nose of 3000 CAPE. Inflow wasn't all that strong, but the storm's motion should have compensated somewhat. I dunno... Still a fun day though.

 

[Willoughby Owen]

Getting to the scene a bit slow from OK meant we had to decide which developing supercell to play on pronto, the San Antonio monster or the smaller Sweetwater one dropping tubes. Decided on the northern one, but also kept close tabs on a new storm brewing behind on the southwestern side. Saw a wall cloud with this storm but became ragged 3 minutes later so we hauled north on highway 70. Caught up with the Nolan supercell and on the south side we observed a landspout in the distance looking westwards.

Got to the mesocyclone pretty quickly after the landspout disappeared at 5.38pm. Met with a rotating wall cloud so took a road west to try and get behind it. Blasted by 65MPH winds and it lifted our hood for a little bit! Pretty scary. Then we realised there was no road eastwards from where we were. Had to go right around to Sweetwater to try and intercept it again but ever since the two cells joined it increased in speed to around 41 knots and failed to recycle properly. Gave up on it south of Baird like a few other chasers.

 

[cedwards]

We chased the storm from San Angelo to Marble Falls. We experienced the hook in Brady where tree branches and siding were flying through the air. Near Eden, we experienced VERY close lighting. We were all outside watching the storm when the first strike hit VERY close! It was a warning shot that all took seriously. We stayed in the vans for the rest of the barrage of close bolts. Mark was able to capture the initial bolt on video. It can be found here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOB7OfdRwtI
I will post some fantastic stills on my web page soon.
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.

 

[David Douglas]

I chased with Bill Tabor today (see his earlier report). We arrived a few miles south of San Angelo about 4:20 for the first cell before the first merger. For all of you out there, you know what it was like. Bill and I were lucky to navigate ourselves out in front and stay in front. We were never able to get ahead enough to try and make a run at the southern cell.

Here are a few photos from the day as we worked our way from the south of San Angelo, eastward through Vancourt, Eden, Melvin, Brady, San Saba, all the way back to Austin, where we sat off I-35 for a while looking north into Round Rock.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2261/2495415504_7a954f4685_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3061/2495498870_b21a2c9f38_b.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2327/2494677373_b4a0740478_b.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2248/2495499020_9502746062_b.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2073/2495499104_a984fcb3fb_b.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2389/2494677717_d90426491a_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3122/2494677833_e192708377_b.jpg

--------------------
David Douglas, W5TN

 

[Tom DiMatteo]

Severe in Austin - AGAIN!

I went out last night for a bit after tracking storms on google earth and watching the hockey game - damn it those storms got here after sundown...night chasing, definitely not my forte'!

At around 8:30, after seeing tornado warnings for Travis and Williamson counties, I gave in and drove right at the tor warned stormed north on the 183 toll road - started seeing pretty much constant lightning and I think a very ominous looking wall cloud hanging like an anvil. I ended up turning around between 2243 and liberty hill -at that time I think I saw some chasers running up a hill in a pickup truck with a propeller looking deal on top of their truck I was driving my G35 so I wasn't looking for trouble just wanted to see what was up - knowing I would turn tail and
run at the first sign of hail....

Drove back to North Austin and again went home
to check my radar and now reports of tornado in my neighborhood! I drove back out to a nearby parking garage about 9:15 pm where I think I witnessed a funnel cloud pass quietly by...sorry I can't offer any pics this time as I never really got a chance to setup or get lightning at the right time. Wish things would have developed a couple hours sooner!

 

[Andrea Griffa]

We saw a wall cloud with rotating dust caused by probable tornadic rotation N of Coaohma and experienced a lot of gustnadoes. We got hit by RFD hail for some minutes and we tried to escape.
After that, we headed toward Westbrook as the supercell was hooking up and we observed a white stovepipe W of Westbrook just at the apex of the hook. It stayed at the ground for not too much time and we saw it roping out.
We stopped at Colorado City while the supercell was getting riorganized after the tornado roping, and after the occlusion of the mesocyclone.
As the 500mb flow was rinforcing and the storm motion was getting faster we decided to core punch the storm to stay ahead of the mesocyclone. After that we saw a beautiful structure of the meso and followed the storm for 2 hours but we didn't see any other tubes except some funnel clouds. We ended the nice chase in Stephenville,Tx. Later for pics.

Andrea and Thunderstormteam

 

[Olivier Staiger]

I just uploaded a few pix and video clips on http://www.klipsi.ch/twistandshout.htm
look at the right viewer, click on the SHOWS tab at upper right to view previous shows. I also tried live stream during the chase but often lost data, despite having a choice of AT&T and Alltel data, both have poor coverage in rural TX as soon as we are out of towns...