2015-05-09 Reports: TX/OK/KS/NE/CO

[STexan]

Surprised this thread isn't started already. I moved on the Graham, TX storm but it fizzled about the time I arrived. Saw a little scud clouds but that was it. Then ran down and got SE of the storm that tracked from Cisco area over to Granbury, just east of Granbury right at dark and it too was playing out. I actually woke up in Ardmore planning to drive to Guymon but decided it wasn't worth that trip, what with north TX still having some play left.

These are some test clips shot @4k and resized to 1080 for youtube

The Red River is flooding like crazy. (Red River above Muenster, TX)

Meso Over Granbury, TX

 

[Alex Heimberger]

Target when we left this morning was Lakin, KS area. We moved west as the day progressed. Scored 4-6 tornadoes from Eastern Colorado cyclic supercell. Most throughout the full life cycle. Overall a really good chase. Glad we made the drive. Hope everyone else scored big too! Chase highlight video and a few pics.

 

[Drew Terril]

It was definitely a tricky day. I didn't check anything first thing when I woke up, just headed for Elk City as soon as I was up and ready to go. Unlike 2 weeks ago though, I was there in enough time to look things over and adjust my target. Headed south for Vernon, TX and chased a few severe cells east of there and called it a chase northeast of Waurika, OK. Here are a few of the grabs I got. First one is as I'm coming up on Vernon, TX.
[Broken External Image]:http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v633/armypilot52414/20150509_OK-TX Chase Day/VernonTXStructure.jpg

This was just west of Electra, TX on Business 287. This cell later went tornado warned but I didn't have the roads to be able to catch back up to it since I'd already committed to the next one down the line.

Tried to see if tail end charlie would organize for me but it didn't. These were south of Electra off TX-25

This was the best I got out of that cell.

Once it passed north of US-287, I went to Wichita Falls and east (technically north) on I-44 into Oklahoma to wait for it to cross the Red River. I followed it to the south on US-70 before calling it a chase near Velma and headed for I-35 and north to home from there. Had a nice lightning show to look at on the way home.

 

[Dan Robinson]

A day of blown calls for me. Awoke in Altus and started the trek up to the OK panhandle/SE CO. I hesitated in Shamrock for a while before turning around and heading back south thanks to seeing the secondary surface low developing down south of Lubbock. Initially was on the Wichita Falls storm, but felt that it was never going to be able to pull the still-sinking boundary into it. I got about a third of the way to the Graham storm before noticing that the Wichita Falls boundary had stalled, and that the storm would catch up. One of the pitfalls of chasing alone, I wish I'd noticed that 15 minutes sooner. Needed gas at Wichita Falls, but never found a station right off the roads I was on anywhere on the outskirts of town (does everyone 20 miles east and south of Wichita Falls really drive all the way into town to get gas??). Had to backtrack into the city to refuel, all the while watching the couplet cross the Red River with the tornado reports coming in. I went up toward Byers to try and catch up, but near the state line, encountered fog and haze and realized I was firmly across the boundary - the storm was a goner. With the Graham storm clearly on its way out, my options were done for the day. Currently in Joplin trying to decide whether I want to continue this debacle of a chase trip.

 

[Michael Snyder]

Spent the night in Elk City and I had a solid plan in my head that I was playing SE CO. Once morning rolled around I targeted Lamar. We headed out through Perryton and then thru Guymon where my driver buddy got a speeding ticket. We got the cell just west of Lamar and it was slow developing and I kept wondering if I would need to wait and eventually shoot east and let the low come to us. However slowly the Lamar storm improved and once the MESO formed it was clearly free from any precip and this was enough to keep me interested in staying. I met Skip Talbot and the dog house just before the first and most gorgeous white tornado dropped. With beautiful fork like voticies making their way to the ground it finally touched down. We watched it move with a nicely placed rainbow, and kept with the storm as it generated 3 tornadoes, the second of which was the strongest. We bailed the storm as it approached I-70 and merged with other storms. We saw Timmer and the Dominator rushing towards it but they were far too late. We figured we had had enough and started back on I-40 which we hit what looked to be an elevated storm that suddenly lowered its base and started to funnel, violent quickly moving funnels darted up and down only to be sucked right back up by their very noticeable white updrafts. When then blasted back to Denver and fought blizzard conditions for 2+ hours.

The first "needle" touchdown
[Broken External Image]:[URL]https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8727/17478737925_4130d8c970_z.jpgDSC05403[/url] by Michael Snyder, on Flickr

Becoming established
DSC05413 by Michael Snyder, on Flickr

First regeneration
DSC05651 by Michael Snyder, on Flickr

2nd regeneration
DSC05801 by Michael Snyder, on Flickr

Ill post more pictures later.
A top 2 chase for me all-time easily!

 

[Marc R. O'Leary]

I was north east of Eads, CO when the Lamar cell started dropping tornados. I believe my final count was in the 6-7 range, but need to go back and check. Will post pics and video in the next couple day.

After bailing on that storm, went after Colby, KS supercell to try to get some lightning, but got caught up on backside, so eventually headed back west to Goodland where I boondocked in the car overnight after wife told me about blizzard conditions back home. Generally chilly and uncomfortable evening, but made it home this morning.

Hell of a day. I went out after structure, but all the low clouds killed that plan and accidentally ended up with tornados, so can't complain.

I'd like to credit the folks in chaser chat for sharing so much info. Their discussions helped me decide to head back west and catch one hell of a storm.

 

[James Gustina]

Almost in an identical boat as everyone else. Initially set a target of Booker, Texas up in the far NE corner of the TX Panhandle but after making it to about Elk City decided to drop down to the OFB/dryline intersection just south of Vernon. The southern storm down by Cisco was already going nuts by the time we made it out of SPS but decided to play the middle storm as it underwent a transformation from a group of multicells. Made it down to Graham and somehow managed to find an area that didn't completely suck with all the hills and trees. Watched it come through and cycle through a few wall clouds before we had to move back north and east of Graham. Watched some actually decent laminar updraft structure before the thing just imploded. The tornado drought for me continues.

[Broken External Image]:https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd...._=1440619156_b08633cd7eaaf388df02d2633569242e

 

[Chad Alcares]

Had planned for a chase on this day for many days out. As things started to look messy in the warm sector with early morning convection, decided to go closer to the low - hoping that the lower mid level temps, and higher low level lapse rates would help destabilize that area quicker than western and southwestern Kansas. I've seen that type of setup happen before - so decided to go all in. If that meant going into Colorado then so be it. It meant going into Colorado... Coming out of Lincoln, NE had to commit to this early. Off and on the way with chase partner Steve Blum by 6:30 am. Arrived in Burlington, CO in time for lunch at around noon - noticed the clearing and higher lapse rates near and west of Lamar, and made our way to about Eads, CO and set up to wait for the supercell that was coming from Lamar. The storms around us were going with the flow - kind of going up and backing to the west. But that cell to our south was not doing that, it was going against the flow - and coming north and slightly northeast. A rebel - so it had our interest very early. We eventually took a closer took at that cell south of Eads, but ended up backing into town - getting more gas and as we got gas noticed the mid levels of the storm seemed to be under the influence of much more shear - at that point, the lowering and meso on the storm seemed to "jump" to the right a bit - so we felt we needed to go east to keep ahead of the jump. Set up slightly east of town, but kept getting rained on - so went about 3 or 4 miles east. And set up to watch the wall cloud - funnel - and tornado form southeast of Eads - just before 4:30 pm local time.

After watching that tornado dance around for awhile - and dissipate, we noticed a new area of rotation directly north - followed it north on a side road with many other chasers and interested locals on every once in awhile muddy road to watch a wonderful tornado form north of Eades.

Followed that to the end of the road, then backtracked back to the highway... caught back up with the storm west of Cheyenne Wells - but the clouds were low and it was becoming much colder. Outflow? oh heck no that's the cold front. This storm crossed the cold front as it went north and northwest. As we move north, more storms form to our north moving northwest. Happy with our chase. Right?

At this time a tornadic storm is ongoing north of Waukeeney, KS. Our planned route to get home was through Colby, KS anyway - so ate at Arby's and waited for that storm to come to us. Waited northeast of Colby for the storm to cross and think we viewed 2 separate tornadoes at night as we drove to Selden and then north on US 83 towards Oberlin. Decide at Oberlin to not keep following and come home to Lincoln.

 

[Patrick Martin]

Been watching this setup/day for days, and intially targeted wrn/sw KS. Left my house in the Denver metro area plenty early, and once to Limon, opted to head down 287 towards the clearing behind in the morning convection. Made it to Lamar, and met up with Michael Pare, Rachel McBee, and Sean Mullins for lunch. Opted to head down to Springfield to check out the small blips coming off the Raton Mesa. After gassing up in Springfield, followed the sub-severe cell back to Lamar, eventually heading up paved roads that paralleled 287 a few miles to the east as the cell started to get it's act together. Was able to watch the entire meso and tornado formation, and stayed with the cell up to the convergence at hwy 40. I opted to stay with pavement, and made my way over and up 385 To Cheyenne Wells. Was able to see the storm continue to tor from a variety of distances as I met it back in Cheyenne Wells. Followed it until it crossed the cold front and died. Made my way to Burlington in the chaser train, and pointed west back to Denver/home. Road conditions went straight to hell in near white out conditions near Deer Trail, and I slogged thru the snow and back home at 10:30pm. My thanks to my chase partner Chris Strahan for his nowcasting support!

South of Eads
[Broken External Image]:http://ct1co2.smugmug.com/2015-Captures/i-6hmQLmd/0/L/Tor north of Lamar-L.jpg

Cheyenne Wells, CO

 

[James Wilson]

I took my girlfriend out with the goal of seeing her first tornado ever and she ended up with around 12 ... I am still looking over video but it was an amazing day.

We arrived on the cell by Eads just as it went warned and followed it to I-70 dropping from our count 8 ... we then went for the cell by Grinnell where we were able to get around it in time to see four more nighttime tornadoes.

Amazing day and a great way to break the girlfriend in.

NOTE it only allows me to attach 6 files so I cannot load the night shots.

 

[Jeff Duda]

From the moment I woke up and first looked at radar, I knew Oklahoma was out of contention for a serious severe threat.

After lunch, we left Norman headed southwest towards the OFB/dryline intersection near Childress. We diverted south of Norman to check out a rotating storm near Lindsay. It had impressive inflow in the cloud base, but it was cool at the surface and there wasn't much wind. We passed on by and ended up in Lawton when I noticed the first blips showing up along the dryline farther south in Texas. I knew the moment I saw them that we needed to get to the southernmost one, which unfortunately was 150 miles away at the time. That storm was right on the edge of the cap and thus was going to get an open source of inflow uninterrupted by other storms, and it was in an area with extreme instability (3000+ MLCAPE). Unfortunately, because early day convection essentially shunted the entire play of the day south by 300 miles, the storm was in an area with suboptimal deep shear and poor anvil relative flow. Not believing much would happen between SPS and that storm, we went all out and blazed a trail southward towards it. We took no chances, going out as far as Jacksboro - Mineral Wells - Stephenville to get out ahead of it. We watched it on radar attain a classic supercell shape, then watched velocities suggest it had a tornado on it. After that first cycle it was done being a classic supercell. It looked like the flanking line was blowing up into its own new storm, thus perfectly raining down on the updraft.

By the time we got on it northwest of Stephenville, it was just another ordinary, low-contrast, HP piece of garbage. The best thing it showed us all day was +CGs. We found a good viewing spot near Huckabay to watch it roll in. It was a great spot because the meso and associated wall cloud it produced eventually crossed the road no more than a mile or two from us. During that time it actually looked like it was trying to go back to being a classic, and it developed a pretty meaty wall cloud that was pulling in scud pretty well. It even began to show low-level rotation as the RFD came around and cleared the rain for long enough for us to see it cross the road.

Once the wall cloud crossed over we started to lose vision in the trees, so we repositioned. Apparently during those few minutes it decided to spit out a cone tornado, not under the wall cloud, but along the front edge of the RFD precip. Go figure. So we missed that. We were able to stay up in the notch for awhile, meandering around some local roads between there, Morgan Hill, and Bluff Dale. But as time went on it became more and more clear that this storm was fully HP and was not coming back. There was no way we were going to be able to see any subsequent tornadoes lest we drive into the core. Mother nature made the quitting decision easy for us when the storm simply lost its supercell characteristics and became a multicell cluster that subsequently died while passing over us in Ft. Worth as we ate dinner before heading home.

The one image attached shows the rotating wall cloud just before crossing the road.

 

[Mike Marz]

I started this day off in far southwestern Kansas and waited around all afternoon under a struggling cu field. I followed some towers north with the hopes that one of them would be able to get things going. I saw the tornado reports coming in from the cell to my west in Colorado and couldn't take it anymore, so I bolted west. By the time I got to the Colorado storm it was just a big mass of low clouds and hail. I saw a crashing boundary flying west on radar and knew it was over at that point. My only good road option to get me onto I70 brought me through the core and the hail was intense, it really slowed the hoard of chasers down because the road became full of hail. It was like driving through a snowstorm. Once I was able to get through that storm I flew west on I70 towards a tornado warned cell coming up from central Kansas. It was awesome driving back east through that crashing boundary, every window in my car instantly fogged up once I got east of it. Never had that experience before, but I have heard about it. The 75 mph limits on I70 allowed me to catch up to the gorgeous supercell racing north. The sun had set once I gained visual of that storm, and the lightning was insane. You could see the massive updraft being constantly illuminated by flashes and bolts. I eventually got into position to see the base and moments later it went tornado warned again, with the confirmed large and extremely dangerous text. I found a north road to try and keep up with the storm but pavement turning to wet mud stopped me in my tracks. A flash of lightning illuminated the storm and under the base I got a glance of what looked like a skinny stovepipe on the ground. I was extremely excited, but worried I wouldn't be able to prove it to anyone. The lightning was not nearly as constant at this point. I quickly grabbed my camera and prayed for the next lightning flash. I was able to get a shot of the tornado with the next flash. It was very fast, but it appeared as a multi-vortex with stuff being kicked up underneath. Sadly the RFD came wrapping in and I couldn't really make out anything after that. It's really too bad I didn't have a north paved option. It was such an eerie feeling being next to that cell knowing what was in front of me but being shrouded by darkness. Overall, I am extremely jealous of everyone who got the stunning Colorado tornadoes, and I am sad I didn't have the foresight to go west earlier. Congratulations to you all. I am happy though that I saw my first nighttime tornado, and that cell was a beauty to watch.

 

[Adam Adkins]

I left Fort Collins this day with a target of Kit Carson, CO. After driving through quite a bit of rain I arrived around 2:30 and sat there for a while. There is a restaurant there that looks pretty interesting! The sky was broken and low level flow was pretty strong out of the southeast. I saw some good looking cells on radar further west but saw the main cell to the south failing to organize. I ended up heading west from Kit Carson and intercepting a tornado warned storm about 50 miles west. That was the first tornado of the day, but I only saw it from afar. I got myself into a pretty hairy situation with a dirt road, and even my 2000 4runner had trouble escaping. But as soon as I made it out I flew east back to Kit Carson to check out the main storm, as I saw on radar it had begun to organize. As soon as I passed through the rain I could see the tornado on the ground. Unfortunately because I had shot west for that other storm I was a little late to the game, but I still was able to view the tornado decently. The circulation passed overhead and I let it go shortly after. Took 70 back to Denver and road conditions were a nightmare!

Overall, good chase. I saw 3 tornadoes, golfball sized hail, and a blizzard! My initial target was spot on. Here is the Cheyenne Wells tornado during its last regeneration.

 

[Scott Hammel]

I too wrote off the SW KS target from the get-go and played SE CO instead. Got on the tornado maker from birth down near Pritchett, CO and patiently followed it back up toward the Eads area when it started producing.
[Broken External Image]:http://www.chasecaseco.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/May9pic9.jpg
Stuck with it and watched the big cone north of Eads.

What a day. High Plains chasing for life

 

[James Wilson]

Since I could not post more in the above post here are a couple of the night tornadoes North of Grinnell Kansas