2016-04-11 REPORTS: TX

[Greg McLaughlin]

I went on an impromptu solo chase down to northeast Texas. I left Tulsa around noon with Greenville, TX as my target. Overall the environment didn't look that favorable for tornadoes, especially low-level shear, however an outflow boundary present and surface-based supercells forecast to develop and interact with the boundary. That was enough to get me out the door.

I arrived in Greenville around 4pm as a developing supercell latched onto the boundary. I followed this storm as it tracked east-southeast along the boundary. For most of the chase the storm was outflow dominant as the outflow boundary was being reinforced by new convection. By this point I was becoming convinced the storm had no chance to produce a tornado and began to consider breaking off to set up for a sunset photo op. Then a tornado warning was issued and the chase was on!

Around 7:13pm the storm's updraft was finally able to balance out with the RFD and a low-level mesocyclone quickly materialized. I was in the thick of trees with limited visibility, but managed to find a decent view as a brief multi-vortex spun up about a quarter to half a mile east of me. This tornado touched down about two miles west of Marshall, TX.

Here is video of the tornado

 

[Randy Jennings]

I started the day developing a target area forecast, and it looked like a hail day to me – too little low level sheer for much tor action. Not wanting to waste a vacation day chasing hail (not to mention dents), I decided to go to work and stay thru my afternoon meetings and reevaluate then. I went into my 2 PM meeting thinking something was going to fire while I was in meetings and I was right. About 4:30 I got done and raced out the door to meet my chase partner who had already chased a cell across Collin County TX. We decided to setup for the next cell by meeting up at the parking garage at Frisco City Hall, ditch one vehicle under cover, and decide where to go from there. The storm was tor warn’ed in Wise County and moving into Denton County by the time we got there. Not wanting to risk chasing in DFW traffic during a major hail storm, we decided to stay put on top of the garage where we had a great view of the approaching supercell. The cell kept cycling. There was very broad circulation on the southwestern end of the storm. Inflow winds stayed at least 12-15 mph most of the time, with some periods where inflow increased to 30-40 mph for a while and a slight lowering looked like it was trying to form. After a minute or two the inflow would decrease and it would cycle down. We went down a level just before the hail hit. We had 7 mins of mostly ½ to ¾ inch hail, with a few as large as 2 inches. We thought about trying to chase around it and get out in front of it, but it was moving too fast so we abandoned that idea. We where rewarded with a rainbow to our southeast after the storm passed. This cell would go on to produce softball size hail in Wylie in southeastern Collin County.