05/23/07 REPORTS: MN/WI/NE/IA/KS/MO/CO/OK/NM/TX

[Kevin Myatt]

Poor contrast/late evening shot of the tornado SW of Darouzzett. After chasing a rabbit trail on a cell that wimped out in Harper County, Okla., we motored south to catch the Lipscomb County, Texas, cell for a dramatic pre-sunset ramp-up, watching it for 45 minutes from the highway that runs N/S just east of Darouzzett (can't remember the number). The HP supercell (below) was spectacular with an aquamarine glow and numerous CGs and anvil zits/ crawlers. We observed quite a bit of ground-level dust/scud (at right in photo below) being sucked toward the funnel that formed for a few minutes. Quite a show for our group of 12 chasers from Virginia and North Carolina on what may have been our last day of Plains chasing (currently weighing Saturday for upper Midwest/Ohio valley) that netted at least 2 tornadoes and some extreme structure.

More on our 2-week chase trip with 6 storm intercepts on my weather blog at Roanoke.com

 

[Jay Cazel]

Was a very sort chase for me yesterday, I met back up with Tyler Costantini and the Alabama chase team in Reno co Ks around 3:30pm for that cell that went Tornado warned. Never saw it drop a funnel, just a wall cloud.

These were taken just south of Hutchinson.

http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa149/jaycazel/5-23-200712.jpg

http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa149/jaycazel/5-23-200718.jpg

 

[David Draun]

Wow! What a day. One classic supercell near Buffalo/Laverne, OK around 4pm with about 2 or 3 HP beasts toward evening in the TX panhandle. We may have seen multiple tornadoes we didn't even know about due to the obscuring precip. We will have to review our videos over and over again seeing that we were on the same storms everybody else and their mothers were on. There were literally HUNDREDS of chasers out there. I got great footage of the TIV charging south toward the last storm. That was a fantastic tail-end charlie storm north of Borger, TX. The lightning was even more incredible than the previous night's chase. We watched the mothership produce numerous wall clouds from a hill along Rt. 70 We actually elected not to move after we punched the RFD of the mothership meso on 70. It was a wet RFD with some small hail. Our hotel was in Enid, OK, but getting there would mean punching NE through multiple tornadic, gorilla hail producing beastly HP supercells, given the road network in the TX panhandle. So we watched from the roadside as the storms continued to lazily drift, spin, and backbuild SW. At times the inflow from the SE was nearly destructive, seemingly sustaining at 50mph or more at times. The lightning was nonstop. Special thanks to Bob Schafer for nowcasting for us and navigating us away from gorilla hail at late hours of the night.

Some pics and video grabs to come soon, once I get to editing the video.

 

[Bill Doms]

More pretty storms but no big prize. Really thought the Buffalo storm was going to do it. The PDS curse strikes again.
http://www.mnwxchaser.com/07may23.html

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Here are a quick couple pictures of the Stinnett TX supercell as it moved east of that town.

Will post all the pictures from this day sometime soon. Currently in need of real sleep.

 

[Marko Korosec]

I am waaay too tired to write a lot, so here are some of my pictures. First we corepunched the first tornado warned supercell from north and got close to the meso, wow those were some incredible rotations! Then headed north along the supercells with impressive structures and mesos. Also observed possible brief tornado right on the 2nd supercell. Again caught into rush hour of hundreds of chasers and DOW. At early night we were following that monster supercell that produced tornado, there is a possible wall cloud visible just right to the lightning strike on the last image.

Mike H,
looks like we weren't so far from each other ;>

Another spectacular day and I am glad to came back in US, god I love this place

 

[Jerry Funfsinn]

After fueling up in Laverne OK I decided to follow the tor warned storm east of town and viewed several rotating wall clouds with the first looking
to be the most promising. I abandoned this storm west of Buffalo and then headed south to intercept the HP grinder NW of Lipscomb TX. With the
slow movement I decided to sample the notch several times and was privy to some awesome views and possible tornadoes.

I

I eventually followed it NE after dark one to many times and while I was getting into position my GPS lead me on a dirt road. I did
not realize this right away until about a mile and a half into the road. As soon as I stopped, the Blazer literally slid sideways
into a ditch due to the major crown in the road. I immediately got out to survey the mess I was in. Just then I notice to the west
what appears to be either a very large wedge illuminated by lightning under a RFB or a really impressive scud bomb. I filmed it anyway
while trying to figure out what to do next. Just then a family of coyotes vocalizes nearby surveying their next meal. Surreal to say the
least. Thank God for 4WD and some creative driving (legal of course) and an hour later and I'm back on paved roads. Decided then to
hell with this night chasing BS and head for home. I stopped near Slapstick when another cell Tor warns nearby and I watch this for a
bit with some chasers from Michigan. I decide to head towards home again while dodging this storm and realize I need to find fuel and
stop in Buffalo. As I am fueling, the storm is west of town and tor warned and a young couple approaches and asks if I'm tracking any
storms. I showed them the hook on radar and told them it was heading this way and not to get caught in it. As I headed out of town the
sirens were blaring and all I could think of was the green look on the young couples face when I told them of the approaching storm. For
locals living in Kansas with the recent events nearby they were certainly frightened.
With an all night drive and a two hour nap I arrived home in good order and happy about a few days of picturesque supercells in the plains.

Link to Video- http://www.creativejetstream.com/video/LavernOK_LipscombTX_52307.wvx
The first portion is the Lavern OK wall cloud and the second is the HP supercell NW of Lipscomb TX. I was just NE of the velocity couplet
during the filming of this around 7:41 PM.

Jerry Funfsinn
CreativeJetstream.com

 

[Michael Thompson]

There is plenty of Wolf Creek / Perryton storm pics so I won't repeat those again ( I have a heap of these ). I saw the Larverne / Buffalo cell fire up from my waiting posistion west of Woodward, OK, the development was so explosive that I had to run with that storm for a while, even though I knew the anvil from from the Wolf Creek supercell would eventually overun and limit the Buffalo cell.

Here are some pics

 

[Mikey Gribble]

I chased with Ryan Shirk and we were on the tornado warned storm West of Buffalo. I am too lazy to post video grabs, but the storm did have decent structure a couple times. It would start to get a nice base on it with a lowering (showing some rotation) and then it would crap out again. It just kept cycling through like that until it collapsed near the Kansas border. It never looked like it posed an immediate tornado threat IMO, but it did look like a storm that could tornado within 5-10 minutes if it kept cranking. We thought about heading SW to catch the storm in the NE Texas panhandle. We knew it would likely have a tornado or two, but I had work at 5AM Thursday morning and didn't want to be out that late so we called it a day and headed home.
I bumped into Jim Reed when we were stopped at a construction zone. That was suprising because I didn't know he was back in town chasing this season. I also met a couple other nice chasers (and saw some not so nice chasers). All in all it was kind of a crappy chase, but after getting the Hill City storm the day before I had had my fun for the week anyways so I wasn't upset or anything.

 

[cdcollura]

Good day all,

I chased with Verne and Michael Carlson on this setup ... On Tuesday May 22 - I was sitting in my office in Dayton at 4:30 PM, at 8:55 PM I was on a flight bound for Kansas City, and 12 AM I was at a hotel in Abilene, KS! Chasing was all day in TX / OK panhandles on May 23, then began driving back to Kansas City (from TX panhandle) by 9 PM on May 23. This all-nighter landed me in Kansas City airport at 5:30 AM - I actually caught my flight back to Dayton at 5:50 AM - Yawn!!

OK, cutting to the chase ... I posted some pictures below.

Tornado warned supercell near Laverne, OK (Harper County) from along Highway 270.

Beautiful HP supercell storm near Lipscomb County, Texas near route 305.

I saw this rotating "feature" just west of Highway 305 in Lipscomb county, Texas. I would like to hear any comments on this one.

The Harper County, OK storm put out lots of large hail east of Laverne and west of Buffalo near Highway 46.

I put together a very large chase log on this storm chase - Lots of great pictures. The link is below...

http://www.sky-chaser.com/mwcl2007.htm#MAY23

Special thanks for Verne and Michael Carlson for joining me on my solo chase out in this neck of the woods!!

 

[Daniel Christianson]

Not much to say but i played with the junk as most would say in chaser terms lol ,( Southeast NE, into KS ) i hung around Sabetha for awhile and well got some decent lightning on video, but one storm to produce a good image for me anyways )

Along Hwy 75 North i encountered some bursts of 50mph wind gusts and pea to dime sized hail though i have to say the heavy rain was a pain in the @ss for awhile, visiblity was poor, roads flooded so you could drive about 45 or a little more !

 

[Caleb Kimbrough]

Tornadojunkies full chase account here

 

[Linda Kitchen]

Kathy and I were on the storm south of Booker. It looked really good for a while and we thought it would drop something but it seemed that the inflow was too cold and it couldn't get it's act together. We dropped southwest for the storm at Stinnet and it also looked very good for a while, no tornado. We decided that PDS days are often busts. We had reservations in Woodward and had to drive between several tornado warned storms to get there, what a drive!!! Of course it was dark. In Woodward as we were crawling into bed, it had a tornado warning. All in all it was a great exciting day with some beautiful storms!

 

[Sam Sagnella]

Wow is about all I can say.

Even without any tornadoes, this was easily the best chase of my life. Tommy Winning and I were in excellent position on three beautiful, tornado-warned supercells, and were probably only rained on for a total of 15 minutes all day. We saw what seemed like a million and one chasers out there; glad to see so many get a piece of the action. As most of this has already been covered, I'm just going to post a few of our best pics. Also, many thanks to Phil Warren for his invaluable nowcasting, especially in directing us down to the Lipscomb cell after the Buffalo cell had weakened near the KS border.

North of Shattuck, OK along HWY283. Can you say explosive thunderstorm development?

Harper County, OK (10NE Laverne along HWY46) looking W. This is the most textbook wall cloud I've ever witnessed; I'm still surprised this never produced.

Notably, as the above picture was taken, there was a news chopper from one of the local OKC stations hovering overhead, which was a cool first for us. In this low-res version it doesn't show up as anything more than a black pixel roughly above the "2" in the watermark, but in a cropped high-resolution image it's pretty clear.

Lipscomb County, TX (6N Lipscomb along 305 just south of CR. N) looking WNW.

Lipscomb County, TX. Mothership HP supercell (looking WSW).

 

[Paul Stofer]

Eric Nguyen, Scott Eubanks, and myself left Hays, Kansas around 9AM for our target just North of Canadian, Texas. Before we departed we met up with Jeff Snyder and Howie Bluestein's crew with the new Phased Array and UMass mobile radars. After conversing with them, taking a few photos, and some video we headed South on 183. We went through Woodward, then West on 60 through Arnett, OK and Glazier, TX. Storms began to fire NW of Canadian, Texas so we took 83 Northwest. We parked in the grass off of 83 and watched a very ragged wall cloud and funnel approach 83. Here we ran into Al Pietrycha whom stated that himself and a Sheriffs deputy observed a weak and brief circulation on the ground for about 20 seconds. Eric and I also observed this tornado before it lifted and the HP storm began to cross the highway. The Doppler on Wheels, scout, and TIV were on this tornado as well. The DOW was scanning the core, while the TIV attempted to punch it. We observed some small, quarter sized hail as the core passed. We turned back East and watched the core cross the highway and took some still photographs and video. We continued SE on 83, then North on 23 and observed what appeared to be another funnel reaching towards the ground. After shooting more structure we drove East on Perry Rd in an attempt to flank the storm so we could get some structure shots. By this time our road had become a 1 lane, dirt, mud, sandy mess. The structure was again amazing and the lightning was also intense. We continued to flank it by taking CR6 to Duke Rd all the way to SR305. We went North into Lipscomb on 305 and parked in the grass and watched an amazing shelf cross the highway just to our Northwest. Here we met up with Bob Fritchie and Rachel Sigler. We talked for about half an hour and watched the storm pass by before we called it a day and headed back home towards Dallas.

CHASE PHOTOS
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