2014-06-06 REPORTS: TX/OK/KS/NE/CO/NM

[Marcus Diaz]

Last night, after chasing storms in NE NM, I got to experience the fastest growing supercells I've ever been a witness to. As we drove home from Clayton, NM, upon entering Dumas, TX, we began to notice lightning off to our south. Quick look at radar showed a weak area of thunderstorms near AMA, and I didn't think much of it. Within 20 minutes, we noticed the lightning was constant. So we stopped north of town to grab lightning pics. After spending a good 15 minutes there, we headed into town. About that time the warning statement had reports of baseball sized hail just west of town. The storms had merged into one massive blob of precip. As we approached town from the north, the warnings came over our phone, tornado warning for the city of Amarillo.

I spent the next solid hour trying to get in front of the storm, making a ton of phone calls to friends, and watching this storm become a beast. Wesley Luginbyhl got a great shot of the huge meso looming over the city. This was a legit supercell, that almost produced twice. This storm went from a few CC lightning strikes to full fledged tornado warned beast in about 30 minutes. The bad thing is, I don't remember seeing the precip models showing this all day. I'll have to look again, but I know the HRRR didn't catch it. Any thoughts or comments?

 

[Marcus Diaz]

This was definitely the "Day of Days" for 2014 so far. I've never seen so many tornado warnings west of I-35 in a very long time. We headed southwest out of Amarillo towards Clovis for a storm that popped in clean air along the outflow boundary. En route, we saw the storm split twice before a tornado warning was slapped on there. We watched the storm just southwest of the Clovis airport. Witnessed a small right rotating wall cloud with multiple funnels. I guess a couple that touched down. It was hard to see due to the rain wrapping around it. Once that circulation dissipated, we drove southeast and witnessed some very nice structure. Cells to the south crashed the party. So we drove through the reason back into Amarillo. Not a bad chase for 2014 honestly.

 

[John Farley]

Although I initially got too far east, I managed to double back in time to get some decent, albeit distant (especially with the first one) views of the tornadoes east of Trinidad, CO. Here are a few pics; full report will follow as time allows.

First tornado (around 2:15 p.m.; this tornado started around 2 and lasted a half hour, though I did not see the beginning of it):

Same tornado entering the ropeout stage, around 2:20:

Second tornado, around 2:32 p.m.

No doubt this was a tornado per pictures and reports of others who were closer; only question is whether it was the beginning of the large tornado that became evident 5 minutes later, or a separate tornado. I have heard varying opinions, but it looked to me like it dissipated then the next one developed. Not sure, though, as I was pretty far away.

Large tornado that appeared to develop around 2:37 and lasted nearly 15 minutes (although for a few minutes it became totally obscured by rain from my viewpoint, before emerging from the rain and going into a long, slow ropeout):

Whether or not this one was separate from the one pictured just above this picture, both of these developed out of the same wall cloud, which developed to the south or southeast of the first tornado. You can see that wall cloud to the left of the original tornado in the second picture.

 

[Robert Edmonds]

Observed a tornado in northeast New Mexico. On the map the mountain/hills are called Hogback Butte. The tornado was brief, and stayed in a remote part of New Mexico. Happy it panned out, because I had already seen the reports of the Colorado tornado coming in, and was going to be bummed having been on the wrong side of the Raton pass.

 

[mkavulich]

Had a distant but clear view of the spectacular Roggen, CO tornado. These shots were from north of Brush, almost 40 miles away!

A contrast-enhanced time-lapse (16x normal speed) view:

Watch video >

 

[John Farley]

My chase log detailing my observation of the tornadoes east of Trinidad is now posted at:

http://www.johnefarley.com/chase60614.htm

 

[Michael King]

Hi John we were on the '2nd' Trinidad tornado, closer to where it touched down. We are of the opinion there was only one, but there could have been two. Sorry to be so indecisive! Great report. If you haven't seen pictures of them, Aussky facebook page has a few shots of this photogenic tornado.

 

[John Farley]

Thanks, Michael. I assume you are referring to the tornado or tornadoes from the second mesocyclone, i.e. the narrow funnel followed by the much larger one. There was, of course, the large tornado that came from the first mesocyclone, then the tornado or tornadoes that came from the second, separate, mesoclylone. Yes, saw the Ausky pics as well as the Australian Sky and Weather Page. Great pics; wish I had been able to get as close as you guys did. I could have gotten closer but stopped to get pics and video; I was chasing alone and didn't want to lose out too much on that trying to get closer to the tornadoes. BTW, I think I may have seen you guys a couple times, saw a Traverse (same color as mine!) with Kansas plates that looks a lot like the car in your pics.

 

[Michael King]

Yeah John, a blue Traverse & (after speaking to my friends) you are right, there were likely two tornadoes from the 2nd mesocyclone

 

[Manuel Salgado]

I left Santa Fe early in the morning and drove toward Dalhart. Spent a couple of hours there then headed south to watch TCU develop. I eventually ended up south of Channing and got to watch the supercell there develop. The first lowering I noticed was pretty shrouded in rain but eventually I got a clear view as it moved east. I watched a scuddy funnel come together but it never quite made it down. I wasn't in a position to see if the circulation reached all the way down but the funnel itself stayed above. It didn't last long and eventually the lowering dissipated. A new wall cloud then developed a bit further to the east of here the funnel was located on base. This lowering was rapidly rotating but quickly became completely rain wrapped.

Tried to get ahead of this storm again but got caught in heavy rain and never quite got in the clear.

Initial wall cloud shrouded in rain.

Funnel cloud

Rapdily rotating and extremely low wall cloud right before it got completely rain wrapped.

 

[John Farley]

Finally have gotten video from east of Trinidad edited and up on Youtube:

Video of the brief second tornado: http://youtu.be/lqaIdHWW4Gs

Video of the third tornado (the second large one): http://youtu.be/enlmD_G7ywU

Still not completely sure these were separate from one another, but that seems to be the clear majority opinion among chasers who were closer than I was, and also how it looked to me. My full report is at http://www.johnefarley.com/chase60614.htm

 

[StephenHenry]

Jeez I can’t believe it’s already been nearly of two months since this day. Finally trying to catch up with a report.

Watch video >

We started the day in La Junta, CO and targeted SW Kansas. Driving through the cell-reception desert between Lamar and Springfield CO, we saw the Trinidad tornado warning go up, but figured there was no way we could get to it in time, so we stuck with our target. We sat for a while north of Elkhart, KS until a decent looking cell started growing to the north near Syracuse. The radar orientation and movement gave me the impression that the storm was elevated, but we were hopeful it would be able to root down with time. We arrived in Syracuse as the storm was departing to the ENE and observed some literally ground-scraping scud rising into the storm. As we followed the storm east along Hwy 50/400 there was initially some strong northerly outflow winds, but as we neared Lakin, KS the winds switched 180 degrees and became inflow. I won’t lie, the visual structure here was really confusing and I had a difficult time reading the storm. However a very clear couplet began to develop just to our east, so we proceeded cautiously through Lakin. About a mile east of town we cleared some trees and were greeted with a very nice little cone tornado about a quarter mile ahead of us in a field. This tornado looked like it was moving NNE, wrapping around the front side of the larger meso, and it only lasted a couple minutes. Following a little further east, we saw a second tornado develop, this time moving SE as it pivoted along the back of the meso. This second tornado was only a few hundred yards away, which was the closest we had ever been. Continuing to trail just behind the meso, we saw one last funnel before the storm started to get wrapped heavily in rain from the south. At this point, a big bow echo was encroaching from the southwest which pretty much ended the day. In Garden City we did have a neat view of the bow echo’s northern bookend rotation, which I had never seen before. So after a tough 2014, we finally caught a tornado. I’m kinda embarrassed of the shaky footage we got; I will definitely have to work on a DSLR dash mount for next season.

I pulled out the most telling radar images from before and during the tornadoes. In hindsight, the structure is a little more clear. But at the time this was one confusing storm.

As a final question, I was wondering if there is a way to find any additional followup on these tornadoes. I see the LSRs from the day, but nothing on a subsequent damage survey or rating (I searched all of DDC's text products from the following days and found nothing). I contacted DDC but I'm sure they are busy with other things. If anyone had any insight here I'd be most grateful. Could it be that these tornadoes aren't in the official record? EDIT: I have heard back from DDC and the official ratings were both EF-0. Ground circulation but no damage.