South Brice-McLean Tornadic Supercell
RJ Evans, Gene Rhoden and I saw at least four tornadoes from the Silverton-Brice-McLean tornadic supercell and numerous funnels.
The headline for us is great recovery. We missed the first few tornadoes from the initial northern storm between South Plains and Clarendon and the first tornadoes from the southern storm around Quitique/Silverton, but recovered southwest in time for some great shots. Thanks to Tim Marshall for calling Gene with the initial tornado report that kicked us into high gear.
Our highlight was a close view of a cone-elephant trunk-rope tornado a few miles southwest of South Brice, TX. At one point, the multi-vortex debris cloud was lit by bright sunlight less than a mile to our west and the entire funnel took on a zebra appearance. We shot great video and stills from high vantage point of looking down into the Mulberry creek/river valley. According to Gene's digital photo times, the tornado touched down at 1843 CDT and ended around 1915 CDT. It moved pretty slow, only about 15 mph we estimate.
We also saw a truncated cone-stovepipe-elephant trunk tornado after dark from about about 3-5 miles south of McLean, TX from this same supercell. The tornado just missed McLean to the west, while a new tornado touched down on the east edge of town and moved north. McLean dodged a bullet.
This new tornado hit the west TX Mesonet site on the northeast edge of McLean with a 127mph 3-second wind gust and 9 mb pressure drop. Pictures of the damaged mesonet site can be seen here:
http://www.mesonet.ttu.edu/temp/McLean_tornado_28March2007/message_mclean.html
RJ's Personal Mobile Mesonet Project (PMMP) data logs can be viewed here:
http://pmmpdurango.com/Data07Temp.html
We sampled this storm's environment quite well. Around 0050z, on TX273 between Headley and McLean, we measured a period with inflow sustained ESE at 40-50mph.
Here's a description of RJ's vehicle:
http://www.pmmpdurango.com/
This supercell and others apparently formed on an elevated nw-se oriented boundary in the Crosby-Floydada area. At first, it appeared the left splits might ruin the show, but the great environment won out. This boundary was a tornadic supercell factory with multiple hooks noted over the ern Panhandle. Not sure what this was associated with, but the models predicted this convection accurately. Gene calls it a wave. Was it an elevated dryline bulge that intersected a NW-SE boundary between AMA-CDS? Moisture funneling up the Palo Duro Canyon? Who knows! Fascinating!
Special thanks to RJ for saving us from a crash while departing Oklahoma City near the I-44/I-40 junction. A truck in front us of slammed on his brakes and swerved into our lane. RJ swered onto the shoulder to miss him. Our hearts missed a beat or two on that one.