Quincy Vagell
EF4
Today, I targeted the eastern portion of the Texas panhandle. I knew that severe thunderstorms were more probable in Wyoming, but the southern play gave me the option to bail early and head home to Oklahoma City. That bailing plan was not needed.
I slowly worked south from Liberal, Kansas into the Texas panhandle. Aside from uncertainty regarding convective initiation (large capping inversion), boundary layer moisture looked marginal and deep layer shear was also low-end. Being on the last day of a mini-trip, I felt no need to rush home and when a fire began to look increasingly impressive on radar, I headed toward Goodnight.
After fire chasing in Oklahoma last month, I was not particularly thrilled with the idea of fire chasing, but I was already nearby and this fire looked quite large. While it was not as big as the Oklahoma fires, the plume was growing rapidly, probably aided by very steep mid-level lapse rates and large, elevated buoyancy. I stopped for a photo just north of Clarendon and decided I might as well try to get closer.
Once I got into town, traffic was backed up and officials were detouring traffic. Instead of messing around with the detours, I decided to turn around and watch the dry thunderstorm that the fire had induced. Before I got close enough to do so, I noticed that echoes on radar downwind of the fire, but north of most of the lightning strikes, were becoming more pronounced. Could an actual thunderstorm be forming? I had not encountered a situation like this before, but given the mid and upper level environment, now that a storm was beginning to develop, I knew it had the potential to take off.
The storm was slow to organize. I sat watching it for a while west of Shamrock and aside from lightning, the visual was not very impressive. There was some "pyro"mammatus, but if I had not been paying attention to radar, I may not have stayed as long as I did. As I watched radar, I noticed that the storm appeared to be evolving into a maturing supercell. Sure, LCLs were quite high, but the effects from the fire seemed to be creating an environment that was at least somewhat more impressive than what the models were suggesting. (I heard at least one person suggest that the fire basically erased the cap, but even without the fire, most convection allowing models showed at least some convection in the area. Note that near-surface temperatures were approaching 100 degrees and that was nearing the convective temperatures. If the smoke plume had not been so large [cloud debris], there would have been more surface heating, allowing to erode most convective inhibition.) What the fire did was give a potential storm a heads start.
I drifted east toward Shamrock to continue to watch the storm and I noticed that the cloud base was becoming a bit more well-defined and rotation was becoming more apparent. It wasn't the type of low-level rotation that screams tornadogenesis, but I was growing increasingly optimistic that this storm was going to finally show off some structure. Around this same time, there were fires in the western distance that were ignited by lightning caused by this fire-induced supercell. Think about that for a minute!
I got back on I-40 and stopped just east of Shamrock to finally get a decent picture, as prior to that, I was too close to capture all the storm's mesoscyclone in a proper photo. I thought that the previous day's structure in Nebraska was my best of the year, but this might have been even better. Factor in the fire angle and I think today's chase may take the cake, at least in terms of chase uniqueness.
The storm drifted east and I stayed with it, but it was gradually beginning to look less impressive. Seemingly right at the Oklahoma state line, the storm was losing it's pronounced structure quickly and was producing less lightning. This was no surprise given that sunset was approaching and the cooling boundary layer was resulting in a rapid increase of convective inhibition.
I slowly worked south from Liberal, Kansas into the Texas panhandle. Aside from uncertainty regarding convective initiation (large capping inversion), boundary layer moisture looked marginal and deep layer shear was also low-end. Being on the last day of a mini-trip, I felt no need to rush home and when a fire began to look increasingly impressive on radar, I headed toward Goodnight.
After fire chasing in Oklahoma last month, I was not particularly thrilled with the idea of fire chasing, but I was already nearby and this fire looked quite large. While it was not as big as the Oklahoma fires, the plume was growing rapidly, probably aided by very steep mid-level lapse rates and large, elevated buoyancy. I stopped for a photo just north of Clarendon and decided I might as well try to get closer.
Once I got into town, traffic was backed up and officials were detouring traffic. Instead of messing around with the detours, I decided to turn around and watch the dry thunderstorm that the fire had induced. Before I got close enough to do so, I noticed that echoes on radar downwind of the fire, but north of most of the lightning strikes, were becoming more pronounced. Could an actual thunderstorm be forming? I had not encountered a situation like this before, but given the mid and upper level environment, now that a storm was beginning to develop, I knew it had the potential to take off.
The storm was slow to organize. I sat watching it for a while west of Shamrock and aside from lightning, the visual was not very impressive. There was some "pyro"mammatus, but if I had not been paying attention to radar, I may not have stayed as long as I did. As I watched radar, I noticed that the storm appeared to be evolving into a maturing supercell. Sure, LCLs were quite high, but the effects from the fire seemed to be creating an environment that was at least somewhat more impressive than what the models were suggesting. (I heard at least one person suggest that the fire basically erased the cap, but even without the fire, most convection allowing models showed at least some convection in the area. Note that near-surface temperatures were approaching 100 degrees and that was nearing the convective temperatures. If the smoke plume had not been so large [cloud debris], there would have been more surface heating, allowing to erode most convective inhibition.) What the fire did was give a potential storm a heads start.
I drifted east toward Shamrock to continue to watch the storm and I noticed that the cloud base was becoming a bit more well-defined and rotation was becoming more apparent. It wasn't the type of low-level rotation that screams tornadogenesis, but I was growing increasingly optimistic that this storm was going to finally show off some structure. Around this same time, there were fires in the western distance that were ignited by lightning caused by this fire-induced supercell. Think about that for a minute!
I got back on I-40 and stopped just east of Shamrock to finally get a decent picture, as prior to that, I was too close to capture all the storm's mesoscyclone in a proper photo. I thought that the previous day's structure in Nebraska was my best of the year, but this might have been even better. Factor in the fire angle and I think today's chase may take the cake, at least in terms of chase uniqueness.
The storm drifted east and I stayed with it, but it was gradually beginning to look less impressive. Seemingly right at the Oklahoma state line, the storm was losing it's pronounced structure quickly and was producing less lightning. This was no surprise given that sunset was approaching and the cooling boundary layer was resulting in a rapid increase of convective inhibition.
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