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

[Marcus Diaz]

We had initially targeted McLean, TX for action to fire off the dryline buldge. We noticed a CU field going up in the entire eastern panhandle, so we made our way north to just east of Pampa. After sitting there waiting for initiation for a couple hours...we decided this wasn't the spot. Storms had fired south near Childress, Paducah, and points south. Each storm looked descrete and good on radar, so we bailed south. We decided that one of the storms in the cluster exiting Childress would go dominant, so we stuck to those storms. We zig-zagged from the backside until we got just SW of the storm. We stopped to grab some hail samples (2.5" stones) west of Mangum...I decided to take a few shots into the meso. Sure enough, some contrast enhancement revealed a large wedge in the middle of it. I took 3 more pics seconds apart and the wedge was in all 3. We continued east and noted very rapid rotation in the rain. There was still something large in there. It spit out 2 seperate satellite tornadoes as we pulled over. After the storm cycled, we again stair stepped through county roads and we positioned ourselves SE of the Willow tornado. After that lifted, we continued north and east, and observed another long elephant trunk tornado. All in all, 5 tornadoes (4 on pics, but all on video). Hopefully I can get a video up tomorrow. All in all, great chase! Late to the party but just in time to see the show!

Lot of my pics were taken in poor contrast areas, so please forgive the quality of my pics.

Wedge west of Mangum, OK

Satellite tornado wrapping around the main circulation buried in the precip, west of Magnum

Tornado west of Willow, OK

Tornado east of Willow

 

[Brandon Jenkins]

We started the day targeting the northern area around Shamrock and areas north. After sitting around in shamrock for a couple of hours and observing temps 3-4 degrees below forecast we decided to head toward the cell that had form just southwest of Childress. We tracked with the storm through Hollis and Gould where we observed a very brief tornado that we failed to capture. After traversing a difficult creek and some dirt roads we managed to get out ahead of the meso and observed tornado #2

We then continued on to more dirt where we intercepted tornado #3

After backtracking a bit and joining the convergence on 283 we witnessed tornadoes #4 and #5 (Picture is of #5, the Willow tornado).

After hitting a crawl in chaser traffic with dark quickly approaching we decided to call the chase and head home. A great start to the season no doubt.

 

[Brian Emfinger]

Its been quite a while since Ive posted a report! It was nice to be out in W Tx thats for sure. All of these are of the same storm that dropped the tornadoes in SW OK.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAbeQnz_YGM&hd=1 time lapse

more pics are here - http://www.realclearwx.com/031812.htm

 

[Brett Roberts]

Daniel Betten, Charles Lubensky and I started in Canadian, but recovered in time for the main show in Harmon/Greer Co. Thanks in large part to horrible road options and our decision-making being on the wrong "wavelength" with this storm, I'm quite confident all of the tornadoes were better captured by numerous other chasers, so I'll stick to structure shots. Fortunately, the structure was phenomenal, and easily the best I've seen this early in the season.

 

[Travis Davis]

The first chase of the year ended up being really great! Mike Collins and I started off heading to Canadian, Texas. We sat there for a while and watched the storm go up near Childress. We ended up intercepting the storm before it had became warned near Reed, OK.

I really wish that I had pulled over a couple of times to take these pictures, as they are extreamly blurry!

Youtube video here. Note: Sound was removed due to language.

 

[Alan Broerse]

Willow Oklahoma Tornado

Willow Oklahoma tornado, stove pipe wrapped in rain but lasted nearly 30 seconds. I was due east near Retrop looking west. Video snapshot...

 

[Alan Broerse]

Willow Oklahoma Tornado

Willow Oklahoma tornado, stove pipe wrapped in rain but lasted nearly 30 seconds. I was due east near Retrop looking west. Video snapshot...

 

[Sean Ramsey]

I started out the day in Vinson, OK and wandered west to Wellington and then to Shamrock. Started moving back south towards Childress when the storm started firing up and stayed with it til it dissipated near Clinton. What a great chase!

More pics and others to come at funneljunkie.com

 

[brice.coffer]

We started the day in Childress making use of the McDonald's wifi. We followed the same storm from Childress, across the Red River, then almost to I-40. Here was the first tornado we saw with jaw dropping structure.



Zoomed in view of tornado:



After sitting in some chaser convergence traffic we saw another couple of tornadoes:





Great day in March!

 

[Zack Hargrove]

We also started near Canadian. Initially frustrated we dove down towards Willow, hoping we wouldn't miss the show. The storm waited on us however, and we got the best footage we've ever gotten in our young chasing careers. Words cannot express how amped up we still are about this chase! The first of the 3 tornadoes we saw was the skinny rope that crossed 100 yards in front of us!

Watch video >

 

[Marcus Diaz]

Video from our chase. I had to enhance the contrast on some parts, but you can see the Mangum wedge in there pretty well.

Watch video >

 

[Nikki Golesh]

Pretty Excited!! This was my first chase. Went out with Jason Hammer, we left Amarillo, TX Sunday afternoon and headed east on I-40. We turned south on the 70 and waited for initiation just out side of Clarendon (approx. 3pm). Once storms started firing, we bolted southeast to Childress, TX. Came across a few chasers there while watching radar and deciding our next move which brought us back northeast to Hollis, OK. From our vantage point, we saw a few different funnels. Being as far away as we were, it was hard to confirm they were on the ground (from previous posts, sounds like what we saw were satellites) Trying to stay ahead of the storm, zigzagging county roads north/east we caught glimpses of two more before we lost sunlight. Ended up close to the I-40 again and watched the lightning show

Here are some of the pictures I captured near Hollis

 

[Scott Blair]

I had work obligations until the early afternoon of 18 March, which limited my target options to western Kansas. While no warnings were ever issued and no severe reports were documented in the area, something actually occurred that was notable, at least from a photogenic standpoint.

I was fortunate to observe a LP supercell for over two hours from Sublette to Garden City to Gove. The storm became very photogenic towards sunset, exhibiting a traditional LP appearance with wonderful pastel colors. More photos and a few more details can be found in the link below:

http://www.targetarea.net/mar1812.html

Congrats to those that observed the storm/tornadoes in W OK.

 

[Doug Drace]

Practiced patience to a Tee and stuck to our original target most of the afternoon, staging in Shamrock, TX. It took everything we had not to get suckered into bailing early to the storms firing down in NW Texas, especially when the storms south of the Childress Supercell got Tornado Warned. After watching the little LP struggle near Shamrock, we decided to go for it on the storm moving into extreme SW Oklahoma from Childress, knowing that the models had been very consistant in that area having some rediculous 0-3 EHI's, watched it go through an interesting storm merger SW of Reed, Oklahoma and take over as the Dominant Tornado Producing Beast of the day! Everyone knows the story from there, so I wont bore you with the details, other than it turned out to be on helluva fun evening, starting off with the Reed Tornado developing virtually right on top of us! Chased with my regular chase partner Jeremy Milligan, Chief Meteorologist Steve LaNore (KXII-TV, Sherman, TX), who was out for his first chase in over 20 years, and saw his first, second and third tornadoes ever! Also my good friend Jeremy Anderson (WeatherNews) was back in the Plains for the first time after spending the last 5 years in Japan....so it was fun to witness these guys excitement after not being around tornado action for several years! Finally, we teamed up with Stephen Denney and Dean Romans from Storm Chase Media....it was a pleasure to chase with those guys all evening!

Beautifully Sculpted Meso SW of Reed, Oklahoma

Tornado #1 near Reed, Oklahoma

Reed Tornado transitioning to a Large Multi-Vortex Bowl

Tornado #2 near Brinkman, Oklahoma

Tornado #3 near Willow, Oklahoma

Video link:

http://www.youtube.com/user/FirstIntercept1972?feature=mhum

 

[Amos Magliocco]

Taken 1m north of Willow, Oklahoma, 0030z

Scott Currens, Bob Fritchie and I converged on the Shamrock, Texas Taco Bell, and tried the Doritos Locos Tacos while monitoring radar on our phones.

When it was clear our target area had mixed out via an elevated dryline, we drove south and intercepted what we'd called the "Childress storm" three miles southeast of Hollis, Oklahoma a few miles north of the Red River. The storm intensified as we approached, but in person looked initially high-based and benign. It looked like an outflow dominant cell struggling with the high dewpoint depressions of its environment, a ragged updraft region and weak convergence. But soon, the first serious wall cloud emerged, and an impressive tail cloud formed as scud collected around a circulation before it crossed our N/S county road. We pursued the storm into Hollis and turned north on 30. Near the airport, we observed the second of many occlusions, this time with more promising signs of tornadogenesis, but the pristine green fields and lack of power poles or wires was too ideal a foreground, I guess.

At McKnight, we made the fateful turn east on E1550, a perfectly fine and well-paved road but without any northern options that didn't terminate at the river. We were stuck driving east. We fell behind, but in doing so we noticed the incredible structure of the supercell. The farther we went, the better it looked.

Taken about 10 miles east of McKnight

This was quite a sight, a seemingly low-topped cell with the stable-layer, polished sheen on deeply grooved stacks. Though we were well to the south and east, far out of position for tornado-viewing, we didn't mind. As Scott Currens said later, "Being stuck on that eastbound road was the best thing that happened." At that point I considered the tornado potential marginal at best--not the last wrong analysis of this persistent little storm. But when it reached the higher theta-e air in southwestern Oklahoma, and the more supportive shear arrived, the show was about to begin.

During the last few miles of our journey to SR 34, the rotational signature on radar increased sharply and a wall cloud emerged in the distance. This was a large, dark blocky wall cloud, the kind that produce tornadoes you can't see when you're more than five miles away. We were probably ten to twelve miles south at this point. Finally we turned north on 34. Somewhere along the way we may have seen the first tornado near Reed, but I wasn't able to shoot it.

We were parked near the fork of 283 and 34, one mile north of Willow, when the elephant trunk tornado descended.

This funnel dissipated but the same circulation produced another fully condensed funnel seven to ten minutes later.

Taken three miles north of Willow about 0038z.

A great March chase with Bob and Scott, a reasonable distance traveled and an unforgettable storm. While it wasn't my first chase of the year (An extended reconnaissance to Lubbock two days earlier isn't worth reporting), it was a gratifying start to the season's opening slate of chases.