2012-03-18 REPORTS: TX/OK/KS/NE

[Joshua Nall]

Enjoyed a great show in Southwest Oklahoma with everyone else out there. Coming in from the East I made it to Childress just as the lead storm went up. Followed it a ways contemplating my option of dropping south. What a core on this storm already! I decided to hang around. When I snapped this shot I was on a paved backroad with no wind, quarter size hail falling and there was an unmistakable hail roar above my head.

I’ve been in close proximity to hail shafts before, but I’m guessing wind noise overshadows it. I mean with wind you expect a lot of noise. This was a first for me, no wind, just a roar straight above me. It was a bit of an unsettling sound as still as it was. “what’s coming out of that cloud?â€
A while later while the storm was still on the TX side of the stateline, rfd curled into the base and this lowering began rotating. Considered calling NWS since there was no tornado warning on the storm yet, but it quickly fell apart.

I then drove up to near highway 9 to get out in front of it a ways and observed a brief needle funnel that extended over half way to the ground at about the same time the following photo was taken. I tried phoning it in, but I could not get my phone to come on and didn’t know why it was even off. Multiple inflo bands into the storm at this point. Looked like it meant business.

Soon rfd cleared out a portion of the base and formed a donut. My phone finally powered up, but the storm looked all sloppy again like it was falling apart. This was the point at which almost all the RFD precip cleared up.
I let the mess that was left of the base pass directly over me with some 2 inch stones falling. Got behind the storm on highway 9. The storm quickly reorganized and strong rotation was observed just ahead of me as I was driving E down 9 and a brief tornado touched to the E of the wall cloud. I was driving and didn’t take a photo. I honestly didn’t think it had ground circulation, but folks in better position have video that shows it well. Still no warning… I’m usually fine with that but it was evident this storm needed one. At this point tried to call the NWS again… the line was busy. I wasn’t sure if maybe it just wasn’t showing up on GRL3 or what… but the next update showed a little red polygon.
Soon after this a bowl shaped lowering, sometimes looking like a wedge hung around under the base. Cloud structure appeared all the way to the ground. I honestly never could tell if it was kicking up debri or not. Needed my binoculars which I forgot to grab when I left home.

Ended up heading out east of it at this point to get a look at the entire storm. It was an incredible sight. That curling inflow band gave motion to the whole scene, making it easy to visualize the spin in the atmosphere around the storm.

I stayed back away from the storm from this point on and caught the tornado N of Willow from a distance.

 

[Alex Heimberger]

All photos taken between Brinkman & Willow, Oklahoma

 

[Alex Heimberger]

One more

Great chase!

 

[Jeremy Perez]

After the convective shambles in the TX panhandle on March 16, this was an incredible followup chase. Deciding between better moisture south near the Red River target vs. better H5 winds north by the OK panhandle was my biggest challenge as I headed toward Shamrock on I-40. Based on previous results with NAM and HRRR on March 14 and 16, I was relying on them more heavily.

By the time I got to Shamrock, HRRR was forecasting some development up by the OK panhandle and SW KS, but it was showing this to be short-lived. The more robust, sustained development was forecast along the dryline west and southwest of Childress and moving into SW OK. When I got to Shamrock, the cumulus field was congesting along the dryline in agreement with that area proving to be a successful initiation point, so I fueled up, cleaned the windshield and headed south.

As I approached the Red River, towers were going up, and as I moved into Childress, a really nice updraft and anvil were overshadowing the town.
Storm Initiation Image
Developing cell Panorama

Following the storm back over the Red River meant either racing the core along Hwy 62 and glomming with the inbound chaser stream I saw on Radar Scope, or taking some side roads over to Rt. 680 just NE of the OK/TX border. I chose 680, and after sledding along several miles of farm road whose last maintenance heralds from before the dust bowl days, I made it to an I-Dare-You type bridge crossing with the storm moving over the OK border just ahead.

Bridge Crossing at the Red River

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After cringing at the forbidding screeching noises as I rolled across the bridge, I parked about a mile further north and shot some time lapse video and panorama shots. The lead cell was being hugged by a trailing cell with an incredibly solid hail core. I wondered if this would be like the mess on Friday near Lubbock with each batch of convection being demolished by whatever formed behind or in its inflow. For a while, both cells sported great structure and inflow features, and I couldn't decide what to photograph.

Wall Cloud on Lead Cell
Structure on Trailing Cell
Solid FFD Core on Trailing Cell

Panorama of Both Cells

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As I followed at a hail-safe, happy-rental-car distance, the lead cell became dominant and from there, the RFD did all sorts of wonderful things to the updraft base and enclosed wall cloud. From that distance, I was having a hard time resolving details behind the nearly constant precip curtain, but rotation had become sustained and it was one great photo op after another with some very tantalizing wall cloud structures emerging periodically through the hazy mists.

RFD with Rotating Wall Cloud Structure in Background

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Structure Panorama

I travelled the smaller county roads as much as possible, which lowered the convergence factor. I still encountered smaller groups at key intersections and vantage points. This small group was enjoying a perfect donut hole backed by a shaggy wall cloud and tail.

Chaser Audience and RFD Donut Hole

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Closer View in Case You Recognize Anybody

About the time the tornado warning went up, I was back on a main road headed north, trying to get in better position when I was passed by law enforcement blazing north with lights flashing. I figured they were getting ready to road block my route, so I started to detour east to find another dicey county road, when a quick check out the side window showed a funnel snaking down (7:04 PM). I squeezed off some still shots, but wasn't in time with the video camera. The slender funnel I saw may have been a small satellite to something bigger happening behind the precipitation curtain--there appears to something ominous going on along the right edge of that rain curtain in the photo.

Satellite Tornado and Rain Wrapped Circulation (7:04 PM)

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As I stepped my way north and east, I was awestruck by the incredible structure on this storm. While I wish I could have been closer to view the detail in and around the wall cloud and the tornadoes it spawned, I can't complain in the slightest about the views I got of the entire storm from a few miles away.

Awesome Structure

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As I navigated northward near Granite, I found a high vantage that gave me a view of a second tornado spinning up near Willow (7:30 PM)

Willow Tornado (7:30 PM)

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Willow Tornado Image 2
Willow Tornado Image 3

My third for the day spun up a few minutes later at 7:38 PM. This one lasted a couple minutes before the slender rope dissipated.

Third Tornado (7:38 PM)

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I followed the storm a bit more as it approached Clinton, but lightning was too sporadic to make out any more features, so I made my way into Elk City for a big steak and fries at Western Sizzlin. Chasing solo, trying to run two cameras and experiencing this unbelievable storm gave me a case of full-blown sensory overload--I'm still having vivid flashbacks. It was a great chase. I can't wait for my next opportunity in the northern plains in June. (Still need a few days to finish editing the video.)

 

[Eugene Thieszen]

The WXtreme Chase Team together with friends also chased the SW Oklahoma storm of the day. Most of the above posts cover the chase well. Here's a shot of the very picturesque Willow tornado at 7:35 CDT:



For those of you all who are interested the full, illustrated chase log with links to a couple of You Tube videos can be found at:
http://wxtremechaseteam.blogspot.com/p/most-recent-chase-log-110711.html

Gene
/for the WXtreme Chase Team

 

[Brendon Lindsey]

Sara Manners and myself left Joplin, Mo at 7am. Around 12:30pm we met up with Eugene Thiezen, Eric Sipes, and Jayson Caster in Cordell, OK. We were sticking with our target of Shamrock, TX. We left shortly after arriving in Cordell. We met up with Walt Gish in Shamrock. I noticed cells popping up on GRLEVEL3. I couldn't visibly see them due to the heavy deck of clouds above us (that I wasn't expecting at that time of day). We all held off on the southern storms because we knew the majority of the ingredients were from WC OK, to NW OK. Unfortunately that area stayed capped. A tiny storm (with a base) tried going up N. of Turkey, TX. So we headed towards that when we decided to just drop that storm and head towards the Childress, TX storm. It was a good decision seeing that that storm was the SOTD for the TX,OK,KS area. All in all a good chase day for the 5% odds the SPC called. Good call though seeing only one storm produced down there. This is what it turned into:

 

[jaredleighton]

Like most, I targeted Shamrock, Texas with the thought that convection would go up between 4 and 5 pm. Well, about the time I got to Clinton, Ok on I-40 the towers started to go up before 4 pm just southwest of Childress. In our first of 2 big decisions, we decided to dive south out of Erick, Ok to the Childress cell. We waited in Hollis, Ok for the cell and watched it transform from standard cell to supercell as it moved toward us. The second big decision was whether we should hold onto our cell while it underwent all of the mergers as it moved into Oklahoma or dive south to the southern, tornado warned cell. The tornadic parameters were forecast to be better in the Hollis/Willow area so we stayed with that storm, which proved to be the right move. Unfortunately, after that we ended up on the wrong "wavelength" (as someone else put it) as the storm since many of the tornadoes occurred while we were repositioning. Due to a tough road network to negotiate we ended up well east of the storm on a couple occasions, which afforded us great structure shots. Anyway, we ended up seeing two of its tornadoes and captured great structure. Good chase for any time of the season, especially for mid-March.

For more photos and a detailed chase account check out my event page:
Slight Risk - March 18, 2012

I also time lapsed the entire chase. First try on that front, so there is plenty of room for improvement.
March 18, 2012 Time lapse

The storm produced a tornado after we got too far east to focus on any tornado photography. So we got a great shot of storm structure with the tornado underneath the updraft.

 

[Wesley Luginbyhl]

Last Sunday turned out to be a spectacular day. I had high hopes for this chase, and were exceeded with ease though our exact target area was a bust. Had multiple issues this day, like only having internet for about 10% of the time and my camera stopped recording in my dome halfway through the chase. Despite these problems it was still a great chase.

Started the day targeting the Eastern TX Panhandle, but focused more on the NE Panhandle. We set on I-40 for an hour or so, but eventually moved up to Pampa till about 4:45. After watching the stuff near Childress go for a couple hours finally gave up on the NE Panhandle ever firing and decided to head SE. I made a straight shot into OK to near Sayre and cut south in front of the slow moving storm cluster. Going this route instead of coming in from behind gave me one of the best storm structure shows of my life, which made my day even without the tornadoes. I set in the area around Willow, OK and let the storm come to me. Witnessed 3 tornadoes before the storm even got to my location and saw 2 more within the next 20 miles of driving on the clogged highway. Total tornadoes for the day is 5, but I could easily argue 7 or so not that it matters.

This day will not be topped anytime soon, because I have rarely seen structure like this that also produced so many tornadoes, even a quite large one you can see in the first photo below. As long as it took me to give up on the other target I really should not have any tornadoes to show for Sunday, but mother nature threw me a bone after my pathetic showing in 2011.

Timelapse video of the storm approaching the Willow area.
Watch video >

 

[Jeremy Perez]

I finally finished editing video of the chase. It contains time lapse as the storm moves into Oklahoma and strengthens with great RFD and wall cloud dynamics, and ultimately the Mangum/Willow tornadoes.

Watch video >

 

[Austin Marti]

Tried to share some photos a few days ago, then was very annoyed with the fact that I did not have the privilege to post. Apparently the restrictions have been lifted, and I am now a superior-enough human to post in the Target Area.

Anyway, I had first targeted an area of SW Kansas east of Liberal, as I wasn't sure I wanted to drive so far as to get down south (and also wondered if I had the time).
As I continued my trek toward that area, I kept deciding to drive a little farther. Eventually I made it down to just west of Mangum where I was able to see that brilliant LP supercell.

Here are some of my shots:

http://500px.com/photo/6003136

http://500px.com/photo/5922135

http://500px.com/photo/5930360

---

Non-storm, but shots from this chase, nonetheless:

http://500px.com/photo/5905175

http://500px.com/photo/5952686

 

[Bobby Prentice]

SHORT...Chris Spannagle and I chased the Hollis-Reed-Willow-Clinton, OK tornadic supercell. We saw good supercell structure and three (maybe four) tornadoes.

LONG...Chris Spannagle and I targeted areas along and east of the dryline over the eastern Texas Panhandle and adjacent areas of westcentral and southwest Oklahoma. My thought was that our target storms would fire east of the Caprock along a developing dryline bulge between Silverton/Clarendon and Paducha around 20z. I thought deep-layer shear might be initially marginal for supercell structures (particularly south of the Red River), but improving as storms moved to the northeast over time. The late morning RUC forecast soundings were quite impressive over our target region during the 22-01Z time frame. The plan was to depart Norman at 18Z and drive west to Shamrock, TX, arriving around 2030Z.

We drove as far as the OK/TX state line at Texola when it become apparent that our target storms were firing a bit farther south than expected and, yes, they were multicell. However, by 2230Z, three supercells had become apparent...near Hollis, OK; Crowell, TX; and Guthrie, TX. And the only one we could reach before sunset was the Hollis, OK supercell which was the "messiest" one of the three according to Chris's Barons ThreatNet. At least it was entering our target zone where the most favorable shear profiles existed and were forecast to improve.

We intercepted the classic supercell along Highway 9 near and east of Reed, OK. Along the way we had observed multiple left splits getting shed to the north-northwest. The supercell had a laminar base and striated updraft. We witnessed a few occlusion cycles and each time the occluded meso would become rain wrapped with the new occlusion point to the south. Fortunately, this led to a manageable storm motion of northeast at 30 mph.

One of the occlusions led to a serpentine/60degree-tilted rope tornado near Reed, OK between 2350-2351Z. We were parked 3 miles east of Reed looking west and my guess is the tornado moved north across Highway 9 about 1 mile east of Reed.

We observed a second elephant trunk tornado several miles to our WNW-NW while parked on E1370 Road about 5 miles east-southeast of Willow, OK. The tornado only lasted a minute or two between 0030-0031Z.

We observed our third and final rope tornado several miles to our WNW-NW between 0037-0039Z from a vantage point on OK highway 6 at E1340 Road about 9 miles ENE of Willow, OK.

The occlusion cycles were quite rapid after the first tornado near Reed. I think that's why the tornadoes were so brief. A few times, I counted 3 (or 4?) simultaneous occluded mesocylones.

The storm was really fighting the increasing SBCIN after 01Z and died at 02Z northwest of Clinton. We drove home on I-40 from Clinton.

 

[Jenn Henley]

Sorry for being a slacker and just now getting to this post. March 18 was actually my first chase ever and I got to see my first...two and a half tornadoes! One was rain wrapped and we saw ground circulation but we decided to not totally count it, so that's the half. Like everyone else and their mother, we got footage of the Willow tornado, and a probable satellite near Mangum. Since it's been a few weeks I won't bore you all with details of our chase day but I'll give a reader's digest, ADHD fueled version:

Aaron Estman of TexasChaser.com offered to let me ride along with him on the evening before the chase. I was too excited to sleep much so Sunday was a very long day! We left the DFW area and headed up to Childress where we waited about 2 minutes before deciding to join "everyone else" in Shamrock. We sat there for a while then started heading back towards Childress. On the way back down, we saw several storms trying to get going but we picked our storm and stayed on it the rest of the day. It looked wonderful at first, then looked rather unorganized but we decided to stay on it anyway. We ended up in Hollis for a while getting amazing pictures of the structure. There was another supercell behind ours that I guess just got ingested because it was there for a while then it was gone and our storm became a beast. Sitting on the side of the road in Hollis I realized that chasing is definitely something I want to do until I physically can't anymore. I'd been having fun all day but standing there holding my cameras and just gawking at the beautiful storm in front of us changed me. Anyway, we ended up on dirt roads shortly after our time in Hollis(and we were chasing in an Accord...) and that's where we got tornado #1 (or one-half). A little bit later we popped a tire on another dirt road and while we were changing it, a small tornado (probably a satellite of the Mangum one) dropped in front of us..thankfully from a very safe distance! Not long after that we joined what seemed like 100s of chasers on the side of the highway to catch the Willow tornado. I was so overwhelmed I didn't take any stills of the tornadoes but I got them on video. I was using my own camera plus Aaron's and it's not easy to film with two cameras at once! The video is a little shakey and definitely not the best, but I still show it to anyone who will sit still long enough. Since we were on a "donut" tire and it was getting dark, we called the chase and left to go find a place that would sell us a new tire late on a Sunday night. We still had a long way to go home and I had to work at 9am Monday the 19th!

It was probably the best day of my life and I can't wait to go chase again. I'm completely hooked and am in the process of learning all I can about forecasting so I can be more useful than as the person holding the cameras.

A few pictures:
From Hollis, the almost twin supercells.

My favorite picture...wish it was my car looking that awesome in front of the storm!

 

[Ben Holcomb]

Watch video >

Jeff Duda, Cory Watkins and I witnessed incredible structure and 3 tornadoes in southwestern Oklahoma on Sunday. I've got my full recap posted at http://www.benholcomb.com/Chase-Accounts/20120318

Couldn't believe the stacked plates/alligator mouth near Mangum. What a pretty storm.

My pictures are at http://www.benholcomb.com/photos/stormchasing/20120318

 

[Marcus Diaz]

Re-worked my video and made it longer with some high res radar loops.

Watch video >