3/21/05 REPORTS: OK/TX

[Karen Politte]

Hope beginning this thread is OK - if it isn't mods, do with it what you will.

Just passing Okemah Oklahoma westbound on I-40 now, after chasing the Seminole-Okfuskee supercell. After dodging the developing hail cores, we managed to come out around Castle OK to see our first funnel. With cascading RFD on our side, a ghostly semi-transparent funnel apeared in the concavity of a mesocyclone over the road (Hwy 62), lasting about 20 seconds.

Moved down to near Okemah just north of I-40, and saw another major mesocyclone begin to occlude, producing an impressive cone aloft with a snakelike funnel occasionally stretching to the ground, causing dirt to fly now and then.

Carried on north on Hwy 56 for a mile or so, but didn't get very far as another rain-wrapped, intermittent stovepipe-ish tornado revealed itself to us. Heavily rain-wrapped with rain and hail curtains, it began to the west of the road, to our northwest, as a fairly stout tornado, and then crossed the road moving east.

Wonderful start to the 2005 chase season. Couldn't have asked for more.

Writeup will appear online at http://www.stormskies.com shortly. I will post here when it is ready for viewing.

KR

EDIT: Couldn't help but mention that it is fairly satisfying to have seen over a foot and a half of snow, and tornadoes, in less than a week.

 

[Mikey Gribble]

I had equipment problems and spent all morning on the phone with tech support. I finally excepted the fact that I was not going to get the problem resolved today and headed out at about 2pm with nothing but a weather radio and a bad attitude. I didn't have time to get all the way down to central Oklahoma, so I opted for NW Oklahoma. I got to the South end of the tornado warned storm in Grant county as it approached Medford. I saw a brief lowering and some horrible muddy red Oklahoma roads and that was about it. It began to build back to the South and I headed home. That is what I get for not trouble shooting my equipment until the night before the first chase :twisted: .

 

[Sam Sagnella]

Chased the Seminole-Okfuskee storm, and I really, really enjoyed it. It really began to get organized as we passed thru Shawnee, and saw it produce a mid-level funnel about 7 mi W of Seminole. As we moved east on Hwy 9 and turned north on SR 56, we could see the meso really wrap up and we could see a funnel begin to form. At this time, our view was blocked by a small hill, but later found out that it produced a tornado in Cromwell. Damnit. Overall a very nice premier chase for 2005. Pictures to come soon.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v699/sam...21/050321_1.bmp

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v699/sam...21/050321_4.bmp

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v699/sam...21/050321_7.bmp

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v699/sam...21/050321_9.bmp

 

[Jeff Piotrowski]

Tornado Amorita, NW OK

Kathryn & I filmed a beautiful tornado 3 SE of Amorita OK. The tornado was on the ground about 10 min. It passed within 50 yards of me. It was great chase day. Pictures and video will be up tonight link soon.

Jeff Piotrowski

 

[Bryce Stone]

Today went very well for me. It was my first chase day of the season and I saw the Cromwell tornado from less than a mile away. The tornado was very brief, lasting less than a minute. However, it was a very clearly defined white condensation funnel stretching all the way to the ground with some debris. It was very photogenic, but I got no pics because the tornado was so brief. Got to meet Sam as well shortly after this tornado.

I also saw the tornado NE of Okemah, but I was much farther away from it. Overall a great day and a great start to the 2005 season.

 

[Reed Timmer]

tornado

We saw about three tornadoes today with the seminole-okfuskee storm...also saw some golf ball or larger hail in the core just north of the meso. One of the tornadoes developed directly above our location and had a very large funnel that extended about 3/4 of the way to the ground with ground circulation. Incredible structure on this storm. I'll post some video captures later tonight. Incredible day...did anyone take any pictures of the cold core tornadoes in northern OK?

 

[Scott Currens]

Eric Nguyen and I observed two tornadoes in N OK near Wakita. The first was an long rope tornado with a tiny circulation at the ground. At the surface it was smaller than many dust devils. Eric now has pictures online.
www.mesoscale.ws

 

[joel ewing]

Congratulations!

Congratulations to all of you who scored today! I'm in So. Arizona, and watched this day unfold while glued to the 'puter screen.
I remember chasing with Warren Faidley into eastern Oklahoma in the early 90's.......and we both swore that we'd never chase that area again. For the most part....was viewing / visability a problem for many of you today??
I'll look forward to seeing the various chase reports and pics that show up.
Once again....congrats to all of you who scored today.....what a wonderful way to kick off the season!!
Joel Ewing

 

[Shane Adams]

We f'ed this day up good. Started in Norman, ignored the convection developing northeast of there to head for NC OK. Stopped in Guthrie to check radar, decided to go for the initial stuff we'd seen, now in SW Lincoln county. About halfway there, we couldn't see anything for low clouds and, hearing the continous radar reports that the storms "weren't anything significant," decide to go back to Guthrie to play closer to the LOW. Major F'UP #1.

Got to Guthrie again, in the exact same spot we'd been before stealing broadband. As soon as we logged on, we heard a tornado warning for the storm near Seminole - which we'd have been very close to had we not turned around. I still don't know what I was thinking.

Raced south to I-35 to intercept the Seminole storm, and missed the exit to I-40. Major F'UP #2. No sweat, we'll just run down a mile, hit the cross under, and get back east....except we missed the exit back east and instead went south towards Dallas. major F'UP #3.

At this point I could only stare out the window. WE finally almost caught up to the storm near Okemah, but then we were almost out of gas. (someone trying to tell us something??) Gassed up, got on with the chase. Finallly worked our way into a real storm with intense rotation near the small community of Onapa, about 5 miles south of Checotah. Observed some very nice broadscale rotation that eventually squeezed itself down into something we could really get excited about, but alas, no tornado (that we could see). Moved north to Checotah as the core crashed us, then back east out head of it again. Between Checotah and Warner, we stopped again and observed more intesne rotation, and again it did get an area of small-scale, near-tornadic type rotation going, but once again we had to move to avoid being rolled.

Overall, very difficult chase, coming from behind after an afternoon of screw ups. Didn't realize until we read the reports forum just how much we actually missed. Heard a report of damage near Onapa as we were stopped for a final fill-up in Checotah, so will have to check reports and video to try and scrape up a consolation tornado somewhere, lol.

Considering how bad we f'ed up the first half of the chase, ending up in position to see tornadoes a few times later in the evening was pretty significant. It's not fun being the guy who screwed up the tornado day that everyone else killed on. Feels like every April of my career.

 

[Bill Hamilton]

I chased the storm up through Okmulgee and saw one decent tornado starting to get rained wrapped. Met up with Chris Sanner while on a backwoods tour around Lake Okmulgee and caravaned with him until 6:20PM when we called it off. He got some good video of a multi-vortex tornado and several different lowerings. Nickel size hail and massive rain when we had to core punch through the cell while we were on I-40. I hate the road system up there but it was a good first chase of the season.

 

[Mike Peregrine]

Props to the Oklahomans today ... nice work on what turned out to be a pretty complicated scenario. Looks like Scott and Eric are getting their season off to yet another successful start ... terrific photos and accounts from everyone - would really like to see Jeff P's catch as well - 50 yds(?!). No worries, Shane ... at least you could be out there and still got something to show for it ... Like Reed, I'm hoping to see something from the cold core cells in the north. Hopefully someone was on them -

 

[Mike Mezeul II]

well our chase team ended up chasing in texas today and we were soooo close to giving up but stuck with our storm and bagged a nice cone / stovepipe tornado just south of Paris. It was only on the ground for a matter of a few minutes, but it had great contrast to it and was well worth the patience! Besides the tornado, our storm which was horrible looking and very disorganized for hours, finally got its act together and provided great structure! An awesome corkscrew updraft and beautiful bowl shaped mesocyclone with a never ending beavers tail! The rotation in this storm was incredible, in my opinion it comes to close competition with the rotation seen in the Conway Springs, KS wall cloud! We will have a chase log with pictures and video up on stormphoto.net by the end of the week!

 

[Aaron Kennedy]

Quick summary... I'll post the whole caboodle later on. Myself and two chase partners ended up meeting with Gabe , Jeff, and crew near Sherman, TX. A storm went up SE of there and took its time in getting organized. Several hours later, the storm took on supercell characteristics near Cooper, TX. A bit after that, the storm produced two tornadoes near Paris, TX just before sundown. At that point, light was waning, and with little lightning we called the sucessful chase off. A great start to the season!

EDIT1: Mike, we passed you(blue/green saturn with OK tags) somewhere on HWY 82 on the way home. Thanks for making the pass easy

PICTURES

www.convectionconnection.com/CHASE-032105/

Aaron

 

[Jason A.C. Brock]

3/21/05 NE TEXAS CHASE

I headed out of Wichita Falls Texas about 11am heading towards my initial target area from the previous day of Sherman Texas. I was tempted to head towards Central Oklahoma and hang out in OKC (which I should have done) but I wanted to show a little discipline and keep to my original target. It didnt look too bad either but the slower than anticipated movement of the dryline would actually be my undoing. I was a little glad the dryline had slowed actually because I was afraid any storms that formed would race NE at up to 40.
I heard over the scanner that A tornado watch had been issued until 7pm but was a bit perplexed that the entire watch was North of the Red River. I figured things would just be expected to fire a little later (perhaps mid-afteroon) and stopped in Sherman my target area and was able to obtain some net access and also using my XM WX WORX was able to see a small storm develope just E of DFW. I was about to head toward Denison and then into Okie land but this new storm was much closer than anything else so I figured the show was about to begin.
I caught this small cell just South of Whitewright and took alot of timelapse of the cell build then die and build then die and also watched as marble size hail pelted me for about 5 minutes then turn to more slush than hail. Just as the cell was to my East about a mile It seemed to gain alot of strength with an overshooting top and somewhat corkscrewing updraft but yet again soon weakened. I also watched as a few new cells developed to my SW towards Rockwall. I decided this little cell wasnt ging to do anything so I headed towards Greenville as the cell near Rockwall was getting stronger and headed that way. Each cell exchanged intensity and the Greenville cell even began to form a bit of a wallcloud but soon once again weakened. The time lapse of these storms was incredible and I was in awe at the motion of the clouds.
knowing i had to be back to Wichita Falls for some sleep for class at 7am I headed back home about 6pm. To a little of my disapointment I later learned the original cell I had been on eventually did form a tornado Just South of Paris Texas at about 6:49pm or so. I probably should have stayed on the cell till total darkness but oh well. Better luck next time. It was jsut good to get back to chasing once againand be able to get away for a day just going where the storms lead me.
Ill try to have some pics up at http://www.texhomastormchasers.com in a couple weeks as the whole website needs a major makeover.
Congrats to those who saw the naders today and glad to ehar everyone stayed safe.
Hopefully another chase day is not too far on the Horizon?
thanks to Jeff Papak & Kenneth McCallister for nowcasting even tho my cell phone crapped out and I need to get a new one.
Total chase miles 457.7

 

[Skip Talbot]

Quick question, was that Paris, TX storm the southern most one in that line just northeast of Fort Worth? I was arm chair chasing and that's the target area/cell I picked. I thought it was a bustola when no tor reports came in on it though. Can't wait to see the pictures!