3/21/07 Reports: NE/IA/KS/OK/TX

[cedwards]

Casey Crosby and I chased the Texas Panhandle. We ended up in McLean, TX and watched a high based verga shower aproach. We had hoped that it would get better organized as it got closer to the better moisture. It provided for some nice video. After dark, another cell to the south produced some nice lightning. It was a great view of the storm and the moone and stars neaby. I just wish the moon and Venus was in the frame of this shot as well.

 

[Angie Norris]

Got to Childress about 4pm yesterday and decided to head back north on 287 after watching some little baby Cu's trying to go up. A sweet, high based cell with some good structure went up somewhere west of Goodnight well behind the dryline (was 79/30 in Goodnight, and the cell was well west of there). Watched it for a bit, then headed to AMA for dinner. As we (my son and I) were leaving, saw a nice storm going up near Palo Duro Canyon that turned into the elecritified beast that Charles got the shot of. Lightning from that one was visible all the way back to Sayre.
Not bad for the first chase of the season.

 

[Jerry Funfsinn]

The day had promise when I left early in the morning and I considered not going until work was canceled for
the day. I ended up in Gretna, NE late in the afternoon hoping the cap would break during daylight hours. Well soon after development
was picked up on radar and I could see towers to the west. I intecepted the cell near Wahoo which looked ok
but high based.

I then headed south from Wahoo to intecept tail end charlie as the storms were starting to fill
in between. I then decided to stay with this original cell because it continually developed really nice inflow
tails on the eastern side and I really thought it might get its act together. It soon developed an inflow notch
as it approached Memphis, NE so I continued with it.

I followed until I was back in Gretna and losing daylight
and fast approaching Metro Omaha. As I abandoned the storm and drove through Omaha it developed a really nice hook
on radar with some weak rotation. I was not about to follow so I continued through metro and across the bridge towards
home.
After a 900 mile journey I was happy to see slow moving storms in decent terrain and extremely glad storms fired before dark.

Jerry Funfsinn
http://www.creativejetstream.com

 

[Scott Olson]

Intercepted the cell that formed near Geneva/Wilber, it at least intially formed on the TP (intersection point of CF-DL). This cell looked pretty decent near Wilber and later on when the darkness came and the lightning kicked up it was pretty active. Had a hail kamikaze near Sterling. Followed with the squall line until 1 am. Looked elevated pretty much the whole time but the structure of the Anvil and updraft tower was at times impressive (especially early on).

 

[Dean L. Cosgrove]

Yup, more pics of the event described above

Dean Cosgrove
http://chasetours.com/

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Report here

 

[Bryan Putnam]

Headed west at around noon for from Norman with Brett Roberts, Brandon Lawson and Ilya Newman to play the dry line. We got to Elk City at around 2pm and hung around to size up the situation. Some small cumulus built around the stronger dry line gradient to the north, however the growth fluctuated and they never got going. We went further west to Shamrock, TX on the hope that if something finally broke the cap we had some good north/south options. We ended up going back to Sayre, OK when we received some info from fellow chasers that storms could still try to fire around Woodward where the dryline had stalled out. However, again, nothing broke the cap. At around 6 storms finally started to fire in the lower dew points in the west Texas panhandle. We hoped that as they moved into the higher cape and moisture to the east that they could go severe. The dew points in the southeast Texas Panhandle where starting to go up as the winds backed. We raced back to Shamrock while a small high based cell grew and moved off to the northeast south of Amarillo. It could never really get going, however, and stayed rather small as it reached I-40 by 7pm. We hung around just to the west of Shamrock to grab some photos of a couple supercells to the south west of Childress. To our surprise, the little cell began to gain strength as it moved north of I-40. We got behind it and watched it rotate with a small updraft. It wasn't anything spectacular, but it was pretty awesome in its own right (picture below). Another supercell had formed to our southwest and we drove along with it just south of I-40 as we headed back east. We got a decent night lightening show plus some brief nickle sized hail before rejoining I40 at Shamrock around 10 and heading home.

 

[Dustin Wilcox]

Not a real exciting, but kind of a fun chase as it was close to home and I was with good company. Story is much the same as others; started the Day in Wilber chilled there for a while then went North just to check out the stuff along I-80 knowing the cap would eventually weaken to the south once it did we droped back south, only to watch the storm struggle to maintain its supercell characteristics, as dark fell I was able to shoot some lightning with my SLR for the first time (there was not a lot of CG to work with), but about the time it was getting too far away I was getting the hang of it, at least I'll be better next time, hopefully this Saturday!!!!

Looking Just North of Lincoln

Hail near Douglas at the McMullen Residence. Picture aproximatly 20-30 minutes after the hail fell.

The one weak Supercell that tracked across 77 between LNC and Beatrice as it became part of the line. Somewhere near Sterling.

Just trying to figure the lightning thing out, wish there would have been a few more CG

 

[PeteMcConnell]

Left Hastings Ne at 3:30 or so to meet up with Scott Olson in Fairbury. Ran into Verne Carlson along the way and stopped to say hello. Scott and I followed a storm for a while that showed some interesting structure from time to time but never became tornadic. Sat at a gas station as everyone raced in to take cover from a brief moderate wind/small hail event. Scott took off to stay with the squall line and Pete went back to Hastings to go to work on Thursday. I'll try to post some pictures soon.

 

[Brett Roberts]

I chased with Bryan Putnam (posted above), Brandon Lawson, and Ilya Neyman yesterday along the southern portion of the dryline in the E TX PH. Although we never got initation of surface-based storms in the deep mositure east of the dryline, some photogenic higher-based activity developed a bit before sunset, salvaging an otherwise wasted day.

First item of interest was the small cell that developed southwest of Amarillo late in the afternoon and tracked south of I-40 - we headed westward from Shamrock upon seeing that developing on radar and got a cool backlit view of the front side, then eventually got behind it near McLean as twilight set in. This made for some nice contrast-controlled long exposures.

As we were about to pack up and head back to Norman with the very last light fading away, the supercell developing to our south in Donley Co. quickly became more impressive and lightning more frequent, tempting us to pursue it. I got a few lightning shots (below), the second of which shows some good structure. The structure became even more impressive afterwards, but we were heading south to get a closer look at the base so I didn't get any additional photos.

We hung out near Quail for awhile watching the intense CG activity and watching for any interesting features during the brighter strikes, then eventually hit I-40 at Shamrock and paralleled the storm into W OK before it weakened.

 

[Mikel Shively]

I targeted the Beatrice, NE area. I left home to drive towards the target area at 1:30 PM. I got to Beatrice at around 4:30, when the storms to the west of Omaha were starting to go severe warned. I then drove north, then west, to the town of Crete. where I intercepted the southern cell. The bases were pretty high. I then turned around and drove slightly ahead of the storm. I quit and called it a chase near the town of Tecumseh. Other than that, I really don't have much more to say that hasn't already been said about this storm.

 

[Darin Brunin]

Doug Mitchell, Adam Kretzer, and I were not on the southern supercell in SE NE the other day. Okay, yeah we were. Photos...........

Thank you Matt and Dick for the nowcasting