2012-05-30 REPORTS: TX/KS/OK

[Paul Sherman]

Eric it had amazing Structure, I started the day in the 10% Tornado Box but fully agreed with Tim's Forecast so dropped south from Elk City into the South East Texas Panhandle.

Full report and Pictures in the below Link.

http://forum.netweather.tv/topic/73...-day-21-texas-panhandle-moderate-risk/unread/

 

[Mike Smith]

Two tornadoes; Two Separate Funnels on Northern Target

We did just fine on the northern target with a tornado northeast of Jetmore at 7:25pm and one south of Jetmore at 7:35pm. A report is on my blog here: http://meteorologicalmusings.blogspot.com/2012/05/two-fer-tornado-chase.html

In addition, we saw two very nice funnel clouds that had great rotation but never touched down. These were both before the tornadoes.

 

[Terrence Cook]

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Here is video of the 2 tornadoes that Mike mentioned. The video begins with the intense gust front that approached from the North and then we turn South at which point you see the old mesocyclone from the lone Jetmore, KS supercell being eaten alive by severe winds and apparently producing... we were unsure of this from our vantage point. Then a spin-up behind us does seem to have some intense cloud base rotation... not sure about this being a tornado but its suspicious.

 

[Mike Smith]

The Second Tornado South of Jetmore


Here is a better photo of the second tornado. It occurred at 7:35pm five miles south of Jetmore. The rotation around the funnel was the most rapid I have ever seen. I believe this would have been at least an EF-1 (as opposed to the more typical EF-0) based on the radar and the wind speeds detected on the DDC BV. Fortunately, it was in an open area south of the Jetmore airport.

 

[Marcus Diaz]

Well, I figured I would've learned to not play on the southeastern quadrant of a southeast moving storm. But nooooo...

Anyways, I left Amarillo at 5, and hauled butt to get to the beast south of Childress. When I got to Paducah, I realized the storm south of us was too far out of reach. At that time, the storm NW of us was just going tornado warned. There was a fire to the north of us, and the inflow was kicking up dust so we couldn't see the base. But the structure was absolutely incredible reguardless, with the inflow tail about to the ground!

We got a tad closer to see the base, but still couldn't see anything. Then the storm cycled up after this:

We started to get some golfball sized hail, so we blasted south on some dirt roads. Well, the road was blocked by a very large tree, so we were stuck. I went up the road to try and get into a farmhouse we passed, but it was gated and locked. We basically had to sit on the road, and ride out the hailcore. We were getting hit with anywhere from golfball to baseball sized hail. The car didn't do too bad, cracked the windshield and cratered a couple times. I was actually surprised.

After that ordeal, we went back south to get ahead of the storm, now near Guthrie, TX. We approached the storm on the west side, but couldn't see into the precip for anything. We decided to get out ahead of it and get some structure at sunset in Aspermont, TX.

 

[Hank Schyma]

Caught the Tornado just east of Jetmore KS... Isolated cell with great structure and rotation, but saw no tornadoes until the gust front slammed into it. I was headed east on 156 when it dropped to the ground and accelerated southeast... Then it was pay-up time as 70mph winds hail and rain slammed into me. South of Dodge after was a rare treat of Mammatus, Rainbows and lightning. Glad i didnt bite on the Childress cell.

 

[Bryce Kintigh]

I was in Wichita, so decided to follow the supercell that was wreaking havoc on Wichitans during 5:00 traffic. This image was from 4 south of Augusta, Kansas as the storm continued to roll east.

 

[weskranz]

Eventful chase in and around Childress / Paducah. On the way out to NW Texas, I enjoyed watching the field of wave clouds west of Wichita Falls which made for some unique pics. This was a first for me. As I arrived in Childress, the storm dropping down from Estelline went tornado warned. It had decent low-level rotation with a somewhat high-based wall cloud. This storm was moving around 15 – 20 mph, so it was great for viewing. The storm dissipated a bit and made its way SW of Childress, as another storm to the SE of Childress began to build. I ventured south on 62/83 between both storms. The storm to the west re-intensified and was again tornado warned. The wall-cloud became very well-formed, rotation intensified and a couple brief funnels formed. I couldn’t confirm anything on the ground, but it put on a great show non-the-less. As I continued south towards Paducah, I could see the other storm to the east had built substantially. The storm kicked up a large dust plume from my northern view-point, so visibility was not great. A fairly large fire had also started north of Paducah. As I pulled into the center of town, windows had blown out of cars, a metal roof had been peeled off a building, and debris was scattered through town. I turned east on 70 and ran into an obvious damage path running NW to SE across the highway. Trees had been toppled and a debris field was obvious across the countryside. One building was mostly destroyed and some of the metal from the roof had been completely wrapped around a road sign. Later reports suggested this to be caused by a potential landspout/gustnado with winds estimated between 80-90 mph. I personally believe this was a separate event south of town that I also photographed. I spoke with some residents who were a bit shaken, but safe.

 

[Joshua Nall]

I was content to stick with the southern end of the threat area this day from the start, considering home was a straight shot E on 82 where I had to work Thursday afternoon. Again, HRRR and visible satellite showed about how things were to unfold. I was North of the first storm to get going and captured this shot of a left split from it.

That first cell soon fizzled and I noticed one or two ropey funnels with in its thinning updraft. I got on down to the cell below that and stayed with it for a while. It had an amazing vault. Notice the deer under the vault area. That is a pretty good deer there. Don’t take too much imagination to visualize that even though it does have fairly large ears. Must be a mule deer.

I then played in the hail… lots of golf balls… took one hit to the sheet metal from a big one but most bounced off the rack. Saw some for sure baseballs lying in the road. I then hightailed it down to the new cell that had become dominate but was too late to get out in front really. Saw all the damage in Paducah. I was sure it was not a meso generated tornado considering the RFD passed to the east… but that was some serious damage. The way that massive RFD surged around though I guess you could expect that. There is video of that dust plume from the side and it's pretty clear it is intense pocket of straightline wind. Too bad it had to go right through town. I then got on the storm that fired up west of these two for some lightning. Was late for the tornado. Pulled off the side of the road for these next two shots and fell in a hole. It was like a cavity where maybe an animal had borrowed then water had washed it out or something. Invisible in the grass but just big enough to swallow my whole tire. I was surprised I got out even with 4WD considering how my truck was cocked. Lot’s of CGs from this storm, but as is commonly the case, the best bolts alluded capture. Had an excellent time these two days. Maybe one more trip in June will keep me happy till the hurricanes get going.

This last one was well after dark further east.