2011-05-12 REPORTS: TX/OK/AR/MO/KS/NE

[Joey Ketcham]

Had a nice local chase today, there was a storm in Cherokee County, KS that prompted a severe thunderstorm warning so I decided to intercept the storm over on the Missouri side in Jasper County, MO. I didn't have enough time to get south of the storm, so I decided to intercept it at the junction of Highway 96 and 171. Soon after getting there the storm became tornado warned, I ended up getting blasted by hail up to golfball size and the wind, it had to be at least 65MPH or so. Soon after it passed I saw some disorganized rotation off to the SE.

I did see several cars off in ditches alone 171 on my way home. It was a great local chase.

 

[ChristianTerry]

I was actually at school when the band of severe thunderstorms hit near Tomball, Texas today. Had about 60MPH Winds and saw a possible funnel cloud develop near us. Lot of lightning and heavy rain which we needed bad.

http://s767.photobucket.com/albums/xx317/Htownman/?action=view&current=DSC00499.jpg

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[Andy Jackson]

I ended up on the storms that were training NW around the Aurora, NE area. I noticed a nub funnel under one of the smaller cells and didn't think a whole lot of it. I ended up driving through Aurora with the sirens going off and realized that the funnel I saw earlier became a tiny rope tornado: (There was definitely a dust column under it eventually).

Here's another cool shot as the storms chugged NW:

It was quite an interesting day.

 

[Doug Drace]

After several BUST days in a row in OK/KS, chase partner Kavin Sconce, Myself and Brandon from HolyTornado.com got a nice little treat close to home in SC OKLA. Thanks to the DL hanging west of I-35 with little to no movement late this afternoon, along with a little chunk of energy rotating around the base of the big cold core low in Neb coming across the DL around 6pm, the storms that fired in SC OK got pretty impressive at times. Kavin and I originally were headed to a storm west of Marietta, OK, stopped for gas, and Brandon happened to be there at the same time. After watching the storm just west of us fizzle, a couple cells developed north of us in Garvin County, so we all decided to go for it, since storm motions were incredibly pokey around 10 mph. We got to the Supercell in Wynnewood, which seemed to never move, and continued to back build constantly. There were a couple small couplets on radar with it at times, as well as some broad rotation aloft. While nothing produced, due to poor low level flow all afternoon...it was still really fun to finally see something other than crapvection or clear blue skies! Nice Storm Structure, Explosive Convection, it was really cool to meet Brandon, plus getting in an unexpected chase close to home!

 

[JeffGonzales]

I did get a brief landspout Tornado near Bradshaw, NE. It looked too high based to come down, but it did.
Watch video >

 

[John Farley]

I chased a nice tornado-warned supercell today from Stockton Lake to Lake of the Ozarks in MO. With the rather weak lower-level winds, it couldn't quite get the job done, but it sure did try - and dropped hail up to 2 inches in a few spots and golfball hail in many places along its track. Here are a few pics; will post a full report on my Web page as time allows and once I have time to look at my video.

 

[Drew.Gardonia]

Had the pleasure of chasing with Jeremy Holmes and Jeff Piotrowski today in Eastern Oklahoma. Jeremy and I met up with Jeff in Chouteau, Ok about 2 pm, made our way east on 412, where sat for 2 hours waiting on initiation. A nice severe warned cell out of McAllister looked promising but fizzed out before it reached us. Finally initiation was in full swing in our neck of the woods (about 30 miles NE of Tahlequah) and we went after a severe warned storm that began producing baseball size hail about 20 miles SW of the Oklahoma/Missouri border. Jeremy's windshield took a hit and cracked pretty good. We followed this cell for about 2 hours as a massive wall cloud developed, spun up a pair of quick needle funnels and never did put a tornado on the ground, though it had plenty of good chances to do so. Lightning and thunder were both incredibly intense, as was the hail and rain.

After we abandoned the chase, we made our way back towards Tulsa on I-44, and we were treated to some neat sky effects from the clouds and rain and sun

here the sun reflects off a precipitation shaft and gives a unique rainbow effect

Partial rainbow near Miami, OK

and a stunning sunset facing west in Miami, OK

although we didn't get a tornado, this was definitely redemption for the big bust yesterday in Dodge City.

 

[Dustin Wilcox]

Filmed an intense Rain Wrapped Circulation with several weaker tornadoes on Dirt Roads NW of Stromsburg.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHRjssGdRE8 "Severe Chase" on Facebook for more pictures and video...

 

[Zack Hargrove]

No tornadoes for us, but this was by far our most fun chase that we've been on since being out in the plains for a two week period. We decided to venture north for the cold core play and we got some amazing photogenic structure early, as well as some rocking cool hail, and an amazing lightning shot!

 

[Zack Hargrove]

Forgot to post some of our hail pics:

 

[George Grant]

I did get a brief landspout Tornado near Bradshaw, NE. It looked too high based to come down, but it did.
Watch video >

Was barely able to make out the needle funnel, as I believe I was farther to the west along US34 at that point. The crud cloud in Jeff's video was more to the left in my field of view. Met up with Jeff and his crew a few minutes later. Nathan Luey pulled up a few minutes later. We caravanned for the next several hours. Made it up to the south side of Stromsburg a few minutes before the sirens went off in that town. From everything we could see of the lowest areas of that storm, it appeared as though the storm had started to backtrack to the southeast. As evidenced in Dustin's video, there was indeed a brief spin-up on the north side of town. We left that storm to head off the cell moving through Seward to our southeast. We arrived on the northwest side of that storm a few minutes before it went tornado warned. Got into the hail core at that point. I broke off from Jeff and ditched between two abandoned buildings to save the windows of my truck. Made it back east to Lincoln where I picked up I80. Encountered one of the worst hailstorms I've ever driven through between Lincoln and Omaha. The hail was not particularly large at nickel to maybe quarter size, but, the sheer volume of hail falling was incredible. All of the underpasses were jammed with motorists trying to shield their vehicles. It was so loud I could barely hear myself yelling. Yeah, a weird test, I know.
All-in-all, it was a fun day chasing, albeit with only one needle funnel as a souvenir.

 

[weskranz]

I had a quick backyard chase yesterday afternoon in NTexas. The bust on the 11th made me eager to get back out. After the storms near the TX/OK border fizzled, I went south and found a few nice storms west of I35. We simply didn't have enough low level flow to see any tornadic storms, but a few did pop quickly and went severe. At best a few nice photo opps with low mileage.

 

[Jason Young]

Also chased the Garvin county cell . Left work at 3 pm busted north on I-35 to Pauls Valley and followed the cell east only getting very little hail outside Stratford . Moved north and watched a small rain free base with Chris Sanner ( love road side chaser chat ). Dropped south on to a cell moving into the Davis area , but gave up and headed home.

 

[Stephen Locke]

Auto Transport Semi-truck Versus Land-spout Tornado
I-80 at Aurora, Nebraska 5-12-11

 

[John Farley]

I wasn't sure at the time, since I was driving, that I got any images of a brief funnel cloud that I saw near Stockton Lake looking west from the west edge of Bolivar, MO. But on reviewing my video, it turns out I did:

Full chase report is now posted at:

http://www.johnefarley.com/chase51211.htm

Still working on the video, but everything else, including a detailed report with lots of pics, is up at the link above.

Edit, 5/15/11, 8 p.m. - video is there now, too. I added two clips - one west of Bolivar including the funnel cloud, and one from Bolivar to near Camdenton.