11/05/08 REPORTS: OK, KS, NE, SD, TX, MO

[Jason A.C. Brock]

TODAYS SEMI CHASE

I would have targeted the Edmond Oklahoma area if I hadnt had class today until 3pm so I opted to sit in Wichita Falls noting the dryline was on top of me basically. I chased the cell that moved from central Archer County into Clay County Texas and noted some pretty hail shafts...very close CGs as well as a brief wall cloud along the Archer Clay County line. Storm appeared at times high based and low topped then got its act together but became more outflowish. I opted to let the storm go at dark. It was a nice little backyard chase and in November so cant complain. I did see some hail on the roadways between quarters and a few golfballs. Also noted some outflow to 60 mph. Took little of any video and or pics tho. I should have sat back behind the storm and did timelapse of the updraft but I wanted to get into it a tad being the last storm of the year perhaps. We eed the rain tho so hopefully the Sunday system will do that at least. Thanks to Jeff Papak for some Nowcasting and Jeremy Wilson for some other views of the storm.

 

[Michael O'Keeffe]

Our chase was pretty wild, but we didn't all that much structure. Intercepted the supercell coming out of Guthrie but got caught in the hailcore and decided to ride it out in Perkins, OK. Before we found a gas station to take cover under 70mph wind starting driving golfballs into the car leaving a few dents. We found some cover and I was excited to get some video, but we were boxed in on each side and the hail and wind was driving under the awning. I still got my video camera and ducked down on the side of the car that was blocking the wind. Well what I didn't know was a big hole in the awning to drain water from the top was right there and the video camera and I got a shower. The camera broke, but I still had my HD one on the dashboard. I said screw it and ran into the gas station absolutely wet. It lasted about 8-9 minutes before it settled and it was quite a rush watching those hailstones, a few tennisballs fly horizontally past the window. After that we continued to try and get east of the storm, but gave up in Cushing and went to KFC. I will get some video up from the dashboard camera when I get home from school today.

 

[Brendon Lindsey]

Well I started off in Tahlequah, targeted Perkins. I took my new GF that hasnt seen a tornado before and got her all psyched up to see one, Although I did tell her I wasnt always successful in seeing tornadoes. But I told her for sure today we would see a sick storm or two, and that we did. Followed the storms north or Stilly for about fifteen minutes, they crapped out. Then Shot down to Guthrie, And got these sick pictures... Never saw too much rotation, out what people are calling this wall cloud but its whatever and I was jw why a wall cloud would be on the NE side when the storm is moving NE at 55 mph?

 

[Tony Cook]

Clay County, TX supercell

Had an afternoon appt in Dallas, and was late getting away from that.

Hit a couple of traffic jams and by the time I got to Denton, it was already after 4 p.m. Tail-end Charlie in Archer/Clay county TX was my only pre-sunset play. Fortunately, it ended up being a nice, picturesque sup.

I caught it just South of Henrietta literally moments before sunset. I remembered to pack everything this morning except video cassettes, so a few stills from my crappy digi. camera are all I got. Saw a nice wall cloud (could not discern rotation) on the storm when it was still 15-20 miles away. By the time I got closer and got the camera's light settings set correctly, wall cloud was almost gone:

Took a couple more shots as the sun went down. Sun is setting behind a second tower which popped up SW of Charlie, but could not survive the shear. Curved base of main tower updraft is evident in foreground, very close to my location.​

Not my most exciting November chase, but still a decent-looking storm. A refreshing change after my last two chases (Gustav and Ike rainbands).

650 miles (400 of which I had to do anyway yesterday)

TonyC

 

[Thomas Spence]

Caught the storm that formed just SW of El Reno and intercepted it just south of Union City. Had some rotation and nice scud activity. Looked like it might produce something but nothing happened. Came into a crossroads on to continue to chase that one or drop south to the new storms that were forming. Due to this, we got too far behind the storm that went through northern OKC so we dropped south down 44 to the storm that strengthened just outside of Chickasha. Got caught in the hail core and couldn't even see the hood of the car! Hail was about the size of quarters that were pounding the car for a couple minutes. Then we followed that storm all the way to just outside of Shawnee, OK but the storm started getting very sloppy on radar and visually so we called it a day. Ran into the hail core of the storm that went up I-35 through Moore, OK with mostly nickel size hail. Overall it was a good day, just nice to get out and chase some storms, been too sunny here lately!

 

[Adam Lucio]

Chased with Danny Neal and Matt Fischer.

We abandoned our northern target for the better instability the south had to offer. Sat in Fredonia before deciding to go after the cells heading out of OK towards the KS border. We were worried they would go linear before reaching us.

Caught up with the 1st storm on hwy 166 just as it went tornado warned. We observed what we believe to be a ragged wall cloud partially embedded by the (hail?) core. No rotation was ever noted, but we were a bit far away. The CG activity was some of the most intense Ive experienced, several VERY close strikes jolted us in under a minute.

Looking west along hwy 166. Ragged wall cloud embedded in core. SN reports of a wall cloud came in around this time, though I cant say for certain this is the same feature.

I wanted to get closer so we went west on 166 a little more but never noticed any tight rotation. I had little confidence in the storms tornadic potential at this point given its out-flowish appearance. Decided to let the core overtake us and had a brief flirt with pea size hail and sub severe winds.

Went back east along 166 to stay ahead of it. Stopping at various point along the way to observe. Awesome contrast with the precip core.

The second "cell" in the bunch went warned as the whole mess headed towards Sedan and Cedar Valley so we just stayed ahead of it. I never really noticed more than a whales mouth and one heck of a hail core [which i was very tempted to sample.] At one point we thought we noticed a wall cloud like feature well to the south of the whales mouth.

We stayed with it till reaching route 75 where we decided to call off the chase and head for home.

I never at one point thought the storms would produce, but the instense CG activity along with some neat structural features made it a fun chase. Its been awhile since Ive been out, and it felt great to get on some good storms once again. Met up with Dick , Darin and crew for a bit, was nice to meet you guys in person finally.

 

[Chris Rice]

Cool probable last chase for season!

Nothing like coming into the target area when the cell you're watching goes "tornado warned!". Didn't really see anything we haven't already seen this year many times. Wallcloud (near Sedan, KS just off 166 Hwy) was pretty impressive, and it was good to catch up with chaser friends one last time before next season. Now back to boring stuff, see you guys later...

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Chased the north target in South Dakota. Saw cool towers in Sioux Falls on the way home. They looked unlike anything I'd seen before...if only for a very short period at sunset. Something out west was blocking the sun from hitting them, but only in the middle. Sun was just above the horizon. Bright white anvil up top, shadow, then orange bottoms. But the parts in the shadow looked so surreal. Looked like they were glowing inside right there, which they were, thanks to the sun hitting the bottoms still, and that part being so shaded. I'm guessing the low November sun angle helped since it would be darker out while the sun was still just above the horizon. Consider the towers being that far north too. I don't know, after it stopped(sun set) that was the first thing I thought of to explain having never seen a tower look quite like that at sunset....was the time of year and being that far north.

The couple first pictures I have during that don't show it very well. It's not the first time I've seen portions of a tower get shaded like that, but it is the first time I've ever see it look anything like it did. You had to be there I guess...and be watching during that, oh, 2-3 minute time frame. I was just flipping my lid since it was happening as I was in Sioux Falls and not out of town somewhere. And I knew it wouldn't keep it up long.

I'm not sizing down from 720 wide just to fit on here. Images and account are here:

http://www.extremeinstability.com/08-11-5.htm

I've noticed some lightning talk and figured I'd comment. It seems that loves to happen when you get highly sheared over low towers, convection often still bubbling upward in the anvil well downstream of the base.

 

[Angie Norris]

I met up with Sarah Glenn and a couple of her friends yesterday to see what we could track down. We watched the storms initiate down around Lawton and debated about going down to catch them, but decided to sit still in Norman for a while. One of the cells looked like it was making a move towards Norman, so we headed out on I-35 N with the idea of going to Indian Hills Road (same storm as Shane's #2 storm) but the storm seemed to make a bit of a right turn, so we pulled off on 24th Street and let the storm roll over us. We were treated to some nickle sized hail. We then attempted to follow the storm, but had to abandon it when we caught EVERY single red light on Robinson Street (ahhh, the joys of urban chasing). We then dropped south on Sooner Road and headed east on Highway 9 and picked up the cell that tried to bury east Norman in hail (I had forgotten just how much fun it is to drive on hail covered roads!). After that storm ran off and left us, we considered going after the next storm that was coming up from the south out of the Maysville area, but it was dark by then so we broke off the chase.
It was a quite enjoyable afternoon, with lots of hail to enjoy. Not bad at all for November

 

[Dick McGowan]

Nearly identical report as Andy Fischer's. Darin, Derek, Eric B., Jordan, Doug and I punched through the Sedan storm right into the rotation and I nearly soiled my drawers when outflow shifted to inflow, then strong northerlies on US 166. Game was over shortly after with a big whale's mouth forming. Saw Rick Schmidt, Damon Hynes, Adam Lucio, Matt Fischer and Danny Neal out and chatted for a bit. We were home by 8, which was good! Same outcome as October 17th last year with unidirectional 850 and 500's out of the SW...and same cold-looking OFD POS storms. Goodbye 2008...bring more classic and LP's for 2009!

More pictures here: http://stackedplates.blogspot.com/2008/11/hp-supercell-stormchase-in-november.html

 

[Erik Burns]

Awesome Day for november

Left at around 11am and headed towards Ringold Tx to meet up with Aaron Dooley. We watched storm fire up to the NW towards Lawton and decided to run north into Jefferson county OK. Watched storms continue to build and got north of Duncan and saw a nice wall cloud that developed several appendages. We let this storm go and waited around for another cell the was to our SW, This storm had a very nice radar presentation but when it got to our location was high based and raggedy.. We decided to follow it anyway to see if it would rebuild as it would move into better enviroment, we ditched it shortly after for another cell to our SW.. This cell was amazing with the setting sun, it produced several rotating wall clouds, a sculpted meso and a couple of small funnels. This storm was the good looking cell that passed just north of Pauls Valley near 7pm. On the way home to Denton from Sherman I got a bonus shelf cloud when the cold front came busting through north Texas.


First Cell we got on just north of Duncan OK

Storm we were waiting on

 

[Brandon Headley]

Didn't really get to chase. I had school and appointments. I did sit in OKC for a while and got rain, a little bit of dime size hail, and lightning. It was mainly just to test out some of the equipment I just got mainly the scanner to make sure I put the right freq. in and that it would get reception. Also, took a little video with my hv20 looks pretty good, got some good towers at sunset and also a few lightning strikes. Not bad for not wasting any money on gas and just killing some time in a parking lot.

 

[Brandon Ivey]

I chased the supercell north of OKC. I got on the storm around 3:30 near Guthrie and documented the storm through southern Payne county. It had a good notch and, at times, even tried to form a hook. I got into some quarter sized hail and saw some unorganized rotation. Sampled the RFD, that was fun! Not a bad chase for November by any means. Video of this storm can be seen here http://thestormreport.com/blog/2008/11/november-5th-2008-oklahoma-supercell/

 

[Aaron Gerhardt]

Teamed up with co-worker meteorologist Tim Jones (extremewinds.net) and his friend Ryan Carter for this sucker.

What a run to get to OK, but man it was worth it. Tim Jones and I got off of work at about midnight right after the elections. Drove to Des Moines to pick up his old chasing buddy Ryan who gave us the latest outlook. Grabbed his gear and we were gone.

Drove no-stop from Des Moines to a truck stop just outside of Braman, OK at about 1:00pm. Took some power naps and kept the HAM radio on, waiting for a watch to come in, Tim got us in a great position. Sure enough at about 2:15pm we got the watch, blew south to catch the cells.

First cell that ended up around Ponca City we let go, knowing that the second cell behind is was gaining strength quick. We punched through the Ponca City strom going down 177, watching GRL3 as the second cell got big. Got outselves in a tough spot, since we weren't catching the cell going on 177. Jumped on the turnpike back to 35, flew down to Guthrie and got on 33 like a lot of you guys did, and blew east to get in front.

Got half way between Perkins and Cushing, took a farm road and set up in nice open field.

Back of the first cell, looking to the Northeast from this point.


Finally getting ahead of the big cell, going down 33 from this shot, shooting to the SW


Shooting in the field, Tim was beside me with his pro camera getting his action in . Tim was convinced that there was a tornado embedded in there somewhere.



We were positioned just perfectly, just in inch or so away from the notch according to GR, though this was a couple frames since it had a hook in it




Ended up jumping in and blasting just east to 18 between Agra and 33, stopped at the intersection of the two highways to get some last video and shots before we got outflowed on



Ended up going to Cushing as the outflow came in, trying to go north and punch through it, but then we came back to the realization that we were using another weather guy's Blazer, so we stayed in some quarter sized hail for a while and let it pass, then booked through the outflow and had some close lightning calls. Got back on the turnpike to 35 and called it a night. Got some good video, hopefully we can sift through it and cut it up a bit. Ended up going to Wichita and having some steaks, crashed after 36 hours of no sleep and drove back for work on Thursday.

Great storm for November I say, gas prices saved us big time. Good finish of the season, time to find a chase vehicle for next year and get ready for spring.

 

[Dan Melby]

On a lighter note.. Not that I thought that it would be better than Oklahoma, but I targeted the northern target hoping to get at least a brief tornado. Targeted Yankton, SD, trying to get as close to the low as I could. I stopped to get fuel up 20 miles northwest of Sioux City when I realized I had gone to far west. Dropped back south to Sioux City and waited for the crapvection to form. I messed around with the storms in NW Iowa for awhile, hoping something could get going. Made the best of what I had up north as I was right in front of the only storm that went TOR in NE Woodbury county. It showed a little potential for about 15 miles, but with the lack of lightning I couldnt see much. I got into some penny hail NE of Kingsley. The storm fell apart then the squall chased me back to Ames. Bring on Spring!!