10/29/04: REPORTS

[Mike Peregrine]

Didn't really want to start a new thread for this, but I did "chase" tonight and came up with a few neat photos. The storms were moving over 50 mph for the most part, which is just way too fast for a decent shot at it in the Missouri hills ... and the good stuff did not get going down here until it was getting dark (welcome to November) ... but as the sun went down, I got a few shots of the backsides of both the Davies County and Clinton County supercells in Missouri. The Davies Co. storm was tor-warned for quite a while, followed later by another cell east of Pleasant Hill that tracked over Warrensburg. Haven't heard any confirmations yet ... still turned out to be a beautiful night ... one of the top 10 sunsets I've seen, I'd say (the sunset photos were not filtered or Photoshopped, just to give you an idea of how beautiful it really was).

Here is a link to a few photos:

http://www.stormseason.com/1029NWMissouri.htm

 

[Charles Allison]

Chased up in Northern Oklahoma:
[Broken External Image]:http://www.oklahomalightning.com/October29/430.jpg
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That last shot taken about 8pm in Broken Arrow

 

[Jeff Snyder]

I headed out with my girlfriend (Kim), Gabe and Phil about 2:30p from Norman / OUN, aiming for somewhere along I40 in eastern OK. I was originally thinking about heading up I44 towards Tulsa, but the winds were veering so much in this part of the state that I though it better to stay more south, where the surface flow was more southerly. Decent instability for this time of year (1500-2200 j/kg) and strong vertical wind shear gave us some hope that we'd see a nice supercell. We sat around for a while near Cromwell along I40, watching occassional TCU bubble up and down. We finally spotted a nice TCU that looked to be taking hold southwest of Weleetka. Headed towards that storm and noticed a nice wallcloud with it, despite the lack of any severe/tornado warning (technically, wallclouds alone are not necessarily a condition for tornado warnings). The storm really started to look awesome as it neared Lake Eufala near Pierce and Checotah. We witnessed several nice wallclouds and RFD punches, though tornadogenesis failed each time. The storm began to lose it's nice appearance for a while as we headed north on Hwy69 towards Oktaha. At this point, however, we noticed it was starting to cycle up again and turn a little more right (again). We tried to navigate, semi-successfully, backroads / dirtroads to get east again. We saw a couple more wallclouds and attempts at tornadogenesis, though ended the chase empty-handed east of Warner around 7p as the sun was setting.

Several interesting things to note... Firstly, this storm largely lacked any sort of anvil feature. In fact, the storm looked highly sheared / tilted over, and relatively low-topped given the lack of anvil features. A similar case that comes to mind immediately was a tornadic supercell on 8-9-99 in southern MN that dropped numerous tornadoes, though completely lacked an anvil. Secondly, I opted to go for a low-tech chase. This meant no laptop, no GPS, no cell internet. And guess what? I learned that, while not necessary, such things very much become handy at times. Case in point -- we tried to navigate on some backroads to get from Hwy 69 to Hwy 64 near Oktaha (I think). This, however, proved unwise as we couldn't find a right-turn that would bring us to Hwy 64. Very fortunately, we ran into Dave Crowley (we tend to cross paths on chases quite frequenctly, oddly enough) on some backroad east of Oktaha. We ended up following him (though at quite a distance since we had to turn around originally) out of the dirt-road mess and onto some dry pavement (hwy 64). Lesson learned: since I have a GPS/laptop, I'm going to use it next time! AGain, not a necessity, but it makes navigating the backroads MUCH easier (and safer). The low-tech approach was nice for simplicity, but cost us some time in backroad navigation...

All in all, this was a pretty awesome chase given the fact that it's October 29th! Despite the failure of tornadogenesis, the storm possessed a few pretty impressive wallclouds for a time. Despite being very near / under the meso a couple of times, we never experienced any hail...

 

[Mike Peregrine]

Several interesting things to note... Firstly, this storm largely lacked any sort of anvil feature. In fact, the storm looked highly sheared / tilted over, and relatively low-topped given the lack of anvil features.

Glad you reminded me ... intended to mention this as well. Storm tops up here were also noticeably low, with very little in the way of anvil features as the photos show. The Davies Co. storm had the closest thing to an anvil feature that appeared to be pushing back to the west, but still quite a low-topped storm. Wondered if anyone may have glanced at cloud top readings at some point to let us know what was returning on these storms.

 

[David Schuttler]

Started off by heading too west Tulsa. Followed cell back east/ne following onI44 then 412, took back roads into Tiawa(?) Some tree damage with small limbs on roadway. Finally making it up to hwy 20 then to Pryor and gave up catching the storm with reported slight rotation .

On the way back home stopped to watch and shoot some lightning.
Not a bad Oct. chase

pictures HERE

I-44 Memorial Exit
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[Andy Wehrle]

Is it my inexperienced eye playing tricks on me or is that a funnel just above and to the left of the highway sign?

 

[JR Hehnly]

Chased in eastern OK tonight. Saw a few wall clouds, but nothing persistent.
Photos posted at:
http://www2.okstorms.com:8080/images/chase.../HTML/index.htm

[Broken External Image]:http://www2.okstorms.com:8080/images/chases/2004-10-29/HTML/20041029_173947_ps_thm.jpg[Broken External Image]:http://www2.okstorms.com:8080/images/chases/2004-10-29/HTML/20041029_172940_ps_thm.jpg[Broken External Image]:http://www2.okstorms.com:8080/images/chases/2004-10-29/HTML/20041029_165001_ps_thm.jpg
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[David Draun]

Several interesting things to note... Firstly, this storm largely lacked any sort of anvil feature. In fact, the storm looked highly sheared / tilted over, and relatively low-topped given the lack of anvil features.

Glad you reminded me ... intended to mention this as well. Storm tops up here were also noticeably low, with very little in the way of anvil features as the photos show. The Davies Co. storm had the closest thing to an anvil feature that appeared to be pushing back to the west, but still quite a low-topped storm. Wondered if anyone may have glanced at cloud top readings at some point to let us know what was returning on these storms.

I look on Intellicast's radar summaries during most events. And this afternoon, yes, a lot of the storms, especially along the cold front were indeed low topped. I got cloudtop readings of less than 40Kft, but there were also storms in excess of 50Kft. Much of that activity was prefrontal.

 

[Andrea Griffa]

Several interesting things to note... Firstly, this storm largely lacked any sort of anvil feature. In fact, the storm looked highly sheared / tilted over, and relatively low-topped given the lack of anvil features.

Glad you reminded me ... intended to mention this as well. Storm tops up here were also noticeably low, with very little in the way of anvil features as the photos show. The Davies Co. storm had the closest thing to an anvil feature that appeared to be pushing back to the west, but still quite a low-topped storm. Wondered if anyone may have glanced at cloud top readings at some point to let us know what was returning on these storms.

I look on Intellicast's radar summaries during most events. And this afternoon, yes, a lot of the storms, especially along the cold front were indeed low topped. I got cloudtop readings of less than 40Kft, but there were also storms in excess of 50Kft. Much of that activity was prefrontal.

David, could you give me the link please?

 

[David Draun]

This site shows a clickable radar map with an overlay of cloud tops, motion vectors, and watch boxes. It's the Intellicast National radar summary.

http://www.intellicast.com/Local/USNationa...ry&prodnav=none

 

[Jay McCoy]

Is it my inexperienced eye playing tricks on me or is that a funnel just above and to the left of the highway sign?

It looks interesting to me also. Any other pictures of this or maybe an enlargement?

Reported tree damage, rotation and a pic of a possible funnel! :wink: HMMM

 

[Bob Schafer]

David, could you give me the link please?

Andrea, just beware that the data there can be quite old and corrupt.

Bob

 

[Glen Romine]

Several interesting things to note... Firstly, this storm largely lacked any sort of anvil feature. In fact, the storm looked highly sheared / tilted over, and relatively low-topped given the lack of anvil features.

Glad you reminded me ... intended to mention this as well. Storm tops up here were also noticeably low, with very little in the way of anvil features as the photos show. The Davies Co. storm had the closest thing to an anvil feature that appeared to be pushing back to the west, but still quite a low-topped storm. Wondered if anyone may have glanced at cloud top readings at some point to let us know what was returning on these storms.

Don't have a chase report - but maybe I can address this issue.

There is a good probability that this was caused by a sharp inversion at midlevels that acted to limit the storm tops, or at least slow the updraft down enough that the tops essentially where blown downwind by the strong winds at midlevels. Take a look at the soundings from last night - say from TOP or OMA - and you'll see what I'm talking about. In case you are wondering, the sharp inversion is caused by strong subsidence owing to the cold air advection (CAA) below this level. If you looked at the obs/model guidance yesterday, you'll note that a cold front aloft advanced out ahead of the surface boundary - which weakened (erased in some cases leading to a deep dry adiabatic layer) the cap allowing storms to develop, but also would have led to subsidence and the mid-level inversion noted in the soundings.

Glen

 

[Jeff Snyder]

Chased in eastern OK tonight. Saw a few wall clouds, but nothing persistent.
Photos posted at:
http://www2.okstorms.com:8080/images/chase.../HTML/index.htm

LOL JR, is the last picture in your post taken at W. 93rd Street northeast of Oktaha? That bridge looks identical to the bridge that we missed before we ran into Dave Crowley. FWIW, we saw you again on I40 heading west after the chase, but I'm interested to see where you took that picture from...

 

[Scott Olson]

Left eastern South Dakota at 11 am and went into Austin Minnesota. Just as I arrived the intiation had begun in Western Iowa forming the squall line and more intiation had begun to my north. Waited a while but didn't notice any real strong intensification. Decided to intercept the squall line in Iowa. Went to Albert Lea and headed south and intercepted what were previously the three stronger cells of the squall line. Orignally several funnel clouds on the protrouding eastern cell. During the course of the next couple hours I patrolled the squall line. A rapid intensification seem to occur around 2300z-2315z as the gust front became very well defined. Very strong winds, with buckets of rain and garbage cans relocated. This particular area was severe warned twice. At about 00z I got to some town in Iowa and parked in one of those all night- car wash ports and took some video. The orignal impact was quite impressive. At about 0020z the same storm put down a tornado about 15 miles to the East.