07/17/09 REPORTS: NE, CO, NM, TX, VA, NC

[Tony Laubach]

JULY 17, 2009 STORM CHASE LOG HERE

JULY 17, 2009 HAILSTORM VIDEO

Had my second best hail day of the season south of Burlington, but had the chase called short when I ended up on-scene of a couple of vehicles that got stuck in the baseball hail and assisted until EMTs arrived. A woman was minorly injured and her and the baby were taken away by ambulance, but were treated at the scene.

More details, video, and photos on my website..

Again, everyone was fine aside from a few scratches being very shaken up. My vehicle was also fine as I stopped shy of the monster hail, only taking golfballs and adding a few new dents. My windshield was not harmed during the making of this video.

 

[Jason Boggs]

Myself and KAMR Meteorologist Chris Martin headed north from Amarillo towards Dumas. Got gas in Dumas and headed west to get to the convection near the TX-NM state line. As I was driving west out of Dumas I looked over my shoulder to the north and saw a base of an LP supercell starting to develop. I quickly pulled over at a gas plant and watched it from there for a while. We streamed video back to the station for a while and moved north about 3 or 4 miles to get a better look at the now mature and gorgeous LP supercell. The cell evenutally died near Channing so we headed back home and got some damage from either a small tornado or straight line wind about 6 miles south of Vega. Again, a T-storm watch does it for me. I didn't get a tornado, but I saw one of the best LP cell's I have seen in a long time, and it's July!!!

 

[Bill Hark]

Mod, please also add Virginia and North Carolina.

With an approaching trough, potential backed surface winds and decent CAPE, I was hopeful for tornadic storms in the Mid-Atlantic. I was able to get off work by about 12:30PM in Richmond, Virginia. There was already a line of storms forming in far southwestern Virginia. One cell was dominant and had previously had a tornado warning. I decided to target the area ahead of the line with better backed winds. The southerly dominant cell was becoming more defined and had two compoments. I headed south on 288, then I-95. The southernmost cell was more isolated and was showing episodic rotation. I turned off I-95 onto 630 near Jarratt and headed toward the crossroads of Peanut (never did see a town). The storm had a nice updraft and a lot of CG's. I followed it north, then eastward on 642 but was overtaken by the core and couldn't escape. I turned south on 35 to get ahead of the main core. The storm was showing significant roation on XM but no tornado warning. Several miles north of Courtland, I encountered extremely high winds that I estimate were aroud 70 to 80 mph. I stopped in an open area to avoid falling trees. The storm was getting away. I decided to head north on 628 but was blocked by a fallen tree. At this point, the storm was weakening. I decided to end the chase and head home. I did see some amazing lightning and filmed hurricane-force winds. No tornado.

Youtube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_2yYAIt13o

Bill Hark

 

[Wesley Luginbyhl]

Chased the TX/NM border yesterday. By the time I made it to the storm that moved south out of Clayton, NM it had already lost its punch. As I was watching it, I could see the storm Jason was on exploding over Stratford. I could see striations on that storm from over 40 miles away, so I quickly shifted back to the east. Saw some small hail and a couple areas of decent rotation. Not a bad day. It was just nice to be chasing the Panhandle again... in July.

1st cell at NM/TX border

2nd cell forming near Stratford, TX

 

[Verne Carlson]

Started out with Tony chasing the long-lived supercell from Burlington, CO down to south of Las Animas, CO. Along the way saw numerous cycles of the meso where it tried to produce a tornado. At times the wall cloud was churning on the ground with incredible RFD surges that snapped at least one powerpole mid-height! Encountered baseball hail by Lamar, CO that put a bunch of new nasty dents in my car before 3 of us pulled under a grove of trees and let the car-nage pass! The screen grab below was just one of the cycles that seeme as if something large was on the ground back in under there!

22:37z East of Kit Carson, CO on hw40 - tornado? Could not confirm because of blowing dust!

 

[dmckemy]

I ended up chasing in NC Friday...early in the day, I was thinking about heading up to Virginia, but after watching the radar and the storms develop, it seemed a lot of it was becoming linear and there weren't many individual cells. I wasn't too sure how long that tornado warned cell in Virginia would last either, so I decided to stick close to home and chase anything that formed nearby (though the better storms ended up being toward Virginia IMO). I ended up going out to Rocky Mount and chasing a severe warned storm there, but all I encountered was some rain and clouds. A little further east there were two tornadoes confirmed that occurred at two different times...if only I had been out there!