Dan Robinson
EF5
What a surreal thing to be chasing supercells near the Red River in late June! I left home at 2AM and arrived at my target of Carnegie, Oklahoma by 4PM. It was a long wait for storms to finally get going. I resisted jumping on the first storms to fire near Mangum, expecting the outflow boundary to light up farther to the east. When it became apparent that this wasn't happening, I decided to go after one of the newer updrafts getting started to the west and southwest. I chose the southern storm near Tipton, as it was heading into an area of 70s dewpoints and stronger backed surface winds.
I arrived on the storm at Manitou. By now a second leading updraft had started, with both seeming to struggle to dominate. Eventually the lead (eastern) updraft slowly shriveled, and the western one started diving south at Hollister. Despite this, the storm was fighting a losing battle with the cap as the 700mb temperature gradient to the south was quite sharp here, in addition to new storms to the south cutting off the inflow. Nonetheless, it was a nice structure show with lots of color as the sun set.
Convection to the south across the Red River in Texas was also interesting with the sunset coloring, with this bolt from the blue arcing out to the west:
I stayed in Edmond, OK for the night, preparing for the next day's event (which never materialized). I woke up at 9AM Sunday, took one look at the visible satellite image and decided to head back home instead of chasing the Panhandles.
I arrived on the storm at Manitou. By now a second leading updraft had started, with both seeming to struggle to dominate. Eventually the lead (eastern) updraft slowly shriveled, and the western one started diving south at Hollister. Despite this, the storm was fighting a losing battle with the cap as the 700mb temperature gradient to the south was quite sharp here, in addition to new storms to the south cutting off the inflow. Nonetheless, it was a nice structure show with lots of color as the sun set.
Convection to the south across the Red River in Texas was also interesting with the sunset coloring, with this bolt from the blue arcing out to the west:
I stayed in Edmond, OK for the night, preparing for the next day's event (which never materialized). I woke up at 9AM Sunday, took one look at the visible satellite image and decided to head back home instead of chasing the Panhandles.
