2012-04-14 REPORTS: TX/OK/KS/NE/IA

[Rick Schmidt]

Tim Metz and I chase the first Marquette/Salina/Falun storm, and counted at least 5 tornadoes. These are the best quality images I got, but I do have a low contrast shot of the wedge before these. Amazing storm! We were north of Belleville before we turned toward this storm. My best day since Greensburg.---RickView attachment 6819
View attachment 6820

 

[Damon Lewis]

Here is a video compilation of the Alfalfa county tornadoes that were near Ingersoll.
This was taken and edited by David Ballew on our chase today.

http://www.tulsagoldenhurricane.com/apr14Alfalfa.MOV

We have a full video of the main funnel going to the ground while the 2nd one formed to the NE then the main funnel roping out. Total time of the main tornado being on the ground at that time was roughly 10 minutes. I post more tomorrow with some pics.

 

[edward oneal]

2012-04-14 Reports: KS

Chased not to far from home today, started from Dodge City and never got more then 90 miles from town and saw 9 to 10 Tornadoes. Most of the Tornadoes we saw were all small and of short duration. Did see damage in spots. Here is a link to pictures.http://www.flickr.com/photos/27494159@N04/

 

[Dan Robinson]

Amazing day, my personal all-time best. Between 6 and 8 tornadoes today in the Waynoka/Ingersoll area in northwest Oklahoma. At least two instances of multiple simultaneous tornadoes. Screen captures and a video clip (in 1080p HD) here:

http://stormhighway.com/blog2012/april1412a.shtml

 

[Robert Balogh]

An awesome chase day. Was on the tail end charlie storm in NW Oklahoma - saw 6 or 7 seperate tornados starting just east of 281 on 412 (SW of Waynoka). Some pics (unprocessed)here on my facebook page http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?...7.665501413&type=1#!/profile.php?id=665501413. Can confirm Dan's report of simultaneous tornados, though looking at his pics I was a good bit further away - I saw it headed north on route 8 where I was south of Cherokee and the storm appeared to be around Capron or Burlington. Excitement of a great day tempered when I got back to Lawton just in time to watch the live reports as the bad nighttime tornado ripped thru the western part of Woodward.

 

[Tim Nendick]

Went on the northern target due to time constraints, and kept hope that the dryline and WF would pan out eventually. Watching the stuff go through KS was nerve-racking, but eventually got on a small cell firing right on the boundary. It went through a pretty nice wall cloud cycle, and really started to intensify near Oxford, NE. It produced a brief, dusty rope -- which was plenty consolation for me!

(photo by my chase partner, Bill)

Also, ran into moderate damage near Atlanta, NE. I don't think that's associated with the tornado imaged above, but I didn't see any others, nor a SPC report.

A while later, we found this gustnado near Kearney, NE.

Followed that to about Cairo, NE, and then chased some downright scary night storms back home.


All and all a bit of a disappointment given the potential, but nonetheless as well as we could have done given the target we took.

 

[Paul Townsend]

Saw the 2 Oxford, NE area tornadoes with the second one forming just down the road and passing within a quarter mile of me. The RFD gustiness was killing me, so you'll have to bear with the motion. It was trying hard to push me into the ground and to the right.

[video]http://s72.photobucket.com/albums/i199/oshkoshf4/April142012/?action=view&current=04-14-2012_181422.mp4[/video]

 

[Jason Young]

Chased today with Chad Vandever . Caught are first Tornado west of Hardner Ks. could not afford to chase Kansas so dropped down to Carman , Ok. Caught are second Tornado in the Lambert area .
Then caught the sister's Sw of Cherokee ,.
Watched a very scary Tornado that look like it real chase to day.
Watched atleast 4 tornado's east of Byron and a wedge east of Medford. But do to a poor camera we used , we got no video due to being a dark . One odd part of today was we got very little rain and had no Hail ...odd.

 

[Brody Flavin]

I tried to chase the storm near Burrton, KS until I was called in to work. Missed the tornado it dropped northwest of Hesston. I'm currently covering phones for one of the 911 centers that was hit (2 were hit last night, apparently.) Will probably end up working 13 or 15 hrs by the time it's all said and done.

The chaser convergence around here was bad, and I was disgusted with how a number of folks were driving. Apparently had an issue where a chaser/spotter/local yokel didn't pull off the road far enough, and caused one of my fire units to roll over as they tried to pass them. Not sure what the whole story is there...I've been up for the better part of 23 hrs right now, will research it later - after I've slept.

 

[Russ Conlon]

Incredible chase day. I'll try to keep the chronology as consolidated as possible. First tornado was a rope tornado NNW of Harmon, OK viewed from Highway 60. Second and third tornadoes were cone shaped funnels half way to the ground that had concrete debris clouds on the ground seen looking west from the Highway 281/Highway 412 junction. We (I, James Slightom, Josh Starr forecasting from home) then traveled north on 281 toward Waynoka getting a nice shot of a funnel looking back SW as we cleared some elevated terrain and kept going north as this storm got a head steam NE. We were able to get onto Highway 45 going east and caught tornadoes 4 and 5, a double, both elephant trunks all the way to the ground that were due south of us as we were on the western edge of a hail core but we still had a good visual. This thing kept on turning like crazy as it banked NE, dropping another tornado, number 6 which didn't have a condensation funnel but a large debris cloud on the ground that took out power lines and trees as it crossed highway 45. We turned north onto 281 at the highway 281/45 junction and again, as we traveled north, an elephant trunk tornado, #7, dropped on the east side of highway 281 and barrelled toward Dacoma. Power lines, trees down and a barn/shop building near Sand Creek were all taken out. There was probably a 1/4/ to 1/2 mile swath of damage along 281 here. This indicated that this may have been a long track tornado that had started south of Highway 45 but I just don't know. Then tornado #8 dropped in what we had to figure was near Dacoma as we travelled north on Highway 281, a white stovepipe tornado that could be seen through the rain curtains. We were debating taking 281 into Alva and then take 64 E toward Ingersoll but because of low gas and dwindling daylight, we decided to peel off and head back, checking on family (they were okay) who had their barn/shop building taken out but their home across the highway had been spared. Unfortunately, we missed out on the action that happened at Ingersoll. Looks like a lot of other chasers were on this storm. Have a lot of video and pictures we're going to have to go through. I'll upload them when we get it all sorted through. One thing I was reminded that everyone is aware here, getting wireless data in NW Oklahoma stinks at times!

 

[Sean Ramsey]

I started out on a cell that ended up being the second cell through NW Oklahoma, and just to the north of the cell that produced the tornadoes near Waynoka. Chased it from May, OK all the way to Kingman, KS before I finally called it a day, as the storm speed was at least 50mph and the road network made it tough to keep up with. Almost got stuck in mud near the Kansas border as a nicely paved road turned into a dirt road for no apparent reason. Although the storm I was on had plenty of rotation and a definitive wall cloud for much of the day, I somehow ended up not seeing a single tornado.

 

[Travis Davis]

I had a great chase as this was probably the best storm I have been on to date, even though I need a new windshield now.

I left Broken Arrow, OK around 12:30 and picked Mike C and Chris W up in Enid on my way out today. We went out to Fairview and waited for initiation to the southwest. When it was apparent that storms were having a time getting going SW, we headed to the storm that was SW of the Woodward area. That storm looked like it was going to produce many times, but we abandoned it near the KS border when it was harder to find through roads. We then dropped south to the next storm in line. We caught up with the storm just SE of the Waynoka airport, or whatever that was, it was a paved runway. We sat there for thirty minutes watching that storm. It kept getting organized then falling apart.

After sitting on that storm for quite some time, I finally got a good radar update (ATT air card in that area wasn't cutting it) and noticed the storm to the SW. I was figuring that this storm that we were on was having a hard time producing due to ingesting the outflow from the southern storm. We then tried to reposition ourselves to intercept the next storm. Upon doing this, and the mediocre road grid, I had to punch the far northern end of the core. We ended up getting hail for about a mile that was between golf ball and tennis ball size which was fine until one piece hit a chip in the windshield. After that first hail hit and spidered the windshield, each subsequent hit cracked it further. We ended up chasing this storm which produced I would say between 8 and 12 tornados that we saw. There was even a time when there were two tornados on the ground at the same time. The first tornado we saw was actually to the south west of us, so we had to be extra cautious as to its movement. We watched as it went over a tank battery and it caught fire.

I also had my first experience with hail about the size of tennis balls falling when we were out filming. All of a sudden I heard something that sounded like a missile drop... then SPLAT! We took off running for the truck!






Some pictures.













The result of driving through golfball to tennis ball size hail.. I would of probably been fine if there wasn't a chip in the windshield that got hit, it just went everywhere after that.







Youtube Link... Warning, some language.

http://youtu.be/QS4AkuochQY

 

[Taylor Wright]

Brody- I chased the storms that went through Burrton last night and you're definitely right about convergence. I seen 30+ chasers and probably more than 60 people parked watching the storm. But seeing as how this was my first time driving more than 3 hours to chase, and my first time ever seeing a tornado, (2, maybe 3, actually) I would say it was a pretty successful day.

 

[weskranz]

Northwest Oklahoma

820 miles, 15 hours, 4 tornadoes & 1 Monster energy drink to get me home.

Very eventful first chase of the season. Lots of interesting photo opps, with the best being the storm north of Bouse Junction (south of Waynoka). After chasing numerous storms throughout the day, I watched this storm approach east of 281 with 2 brief touchdowns. I then dropped south 1/4 mile and the center of circulation passed just north of me. It rapidly intensified and eventually spawned a satellite with one hitting a tank in the area igniting a fire with black smoke drifting high into the atmosphere.

My thoughts and prayers to all impacted in Woodward and across the plains. I chased several storms in and around Woodward earlier in the day with storm sirens in full force. I was very saddend to hear about the overnight tornado with fatalities and injuries.

East of 281 Supercell approaching

East of 281

West of 281

West of 281 Satellite

Spinner

Cell dissapating over Roger Mills at Sunset.

Time to head south

 

[Timothy Finn]

I had a pretty good chase day yesterday for my 4th time out. Targeted Pratt, KS and started out there. Followed a cell up to St John, and didn't have very good position, but saw a great wall cloud and some rotation. Dropped down to Sawyer, went through the outer fringes of a nice supercell, and got pelted with 1 inch hail. This guy looked very promising, with good structure, and good rotation, but just couldn't seem to produce.

Followed it a while up the road back toward Pratt, and it started looking intriguing again...

We lost it, because we were needing gas, and went to Kingman to get fuel, was watching a nice looking cell on radar working it's way up NE, and decided to catch it just outside of Kingman, but the convergence traffic got incredibly bad, including being nearly squashed by the Dominator, that I couldn't get any pics, but we got some video that I haven't reviewed yet. It produced a couple of funnels, and one short lived tornado that we were once again in bad position for.

I'm totally happy with how it turned out for me, even not seeing any tornadoes, it was great experience, and we still have plenty of time left yet.

The chaser traffic was INCREDIBLE out there. Lots of people doing things wrong, lots of lousy parking, and some people were just treating it like a racetrack. I was running about 65, and several people went past me like I was standing still.

Still, a great chase day for me, and a lot of valuable field experience.

Tim