Bill Tabor
EF5
Finally posting a note on this day. I was on the storm near Llano. I was quick to notice the convergence boundary mostly NNE/SSW of mild storms propagating to the south along said boundary toward the E/W frontal boundary. I hypothesized (apparently correctly) that when they intersected - BAM! Apparently I was right. When this occurred I saw the small radar crescent echo begin near & just west of Junction, Tx. I figured it might be the storm of the day, and as I recall it pretty much was. I started grabbing all my gear to go, and loading the vehicle. Unlike SPC this area had been my primary target area since the night before, but sadly I screwed around until the last minute even putting my gear in the car. (SPC was more focused on east Tx). The cell was headed mostly NW at 30 toward Mason and Llano. I shot out down hwy 29 as quick as possibly through Burnett but it was clear I was running late. The cell strengthened then right turned. This made my intercept plan at Llano difficult because rather than Llano being the clear inflow area I now would have to penetrate heavy core for many miles and then come back SE on hwy 71 to the inflow area. After I got about 10 miles past Burnett and toward Llano I made the decision to reroute and backtracked all the way to Burnett then Marble Falls and on to hwy 71 roundabout. I caught up with David Douglas who I had been in contact with and Randy Denzer, Aaron Dooley - even David Drummond was there and later I believe Reed Timmer showed up - but I'm not sure exactly where he was. Still, I was late even though I got most of the way to Llano. Good news however is through a round about fashion my email about the JCT cell circulated and helped Randy ge to Llano about 30 minutes before I would have arrived had I not had to divert. This allowed Randy to really watch the inflow area. He spotted and logged a tornado on Spotternetwork. I don't know if it ever made SPC Chase Log. Randy says he saw a wedge tornado and has Hd footage showing about half of it. I haven't seen it yet though. I didn't catch the tornado but was happy my forecast and nowcast benefitted others - plus they were spotting for the public.
Basically I caught up to the inflow area just a bit later than the tornado occurance time, and it was mostly an outflow dominant HP storm with lots of wind most of the time and precip coming out from the inflow region as it chased me back down hwy 71 and on toward Bee Cave, Tx. David and I witnessed a wallcloud, and a funnel. None of it was very impressive - it was quite messy. I took a few pictures and I have one of the wallcloud I believe that turned out ok. Most of the time David and I were driving under the shear markers displayed on Threatnet. As we raced back to the east we only got to get out briefly 5 or 6 times each about 30 to 45 seconds before the storm caught up to us. One or two times while under the shear markers we developed inflow and dust was rising around us - blowing past us along with leaves and all that stuff. At one point Threatnet showed markers on both sides of the road which seemed to correspond to what we were seeing visually. I was a bit reluctant to be in our position. I assumed elevated rotation. Due to the lack of sfc winds I figured tornado potential was minimal. However Threatnet lags so every time we advanced away from the storm we were probably under the real updraft. Other chasers didn't seem to understand this and were way behind us in the precipitation where the visibility was poor and included hail. It's nice to taste the storm but I prefer to maintain visibility otherwise it is difficult to see the tornadoes and you can get behind the action.
David and I followed it on east past Bee Cave and then diverted on toward Dripping Springs to catch the flank portion of the storm approaching. The active tornadic warned portion continued on over Marble Falls toward Cedar Park and my home. We got nickel hail at my house and no damage that I am aware of but many places near by received almost baseball hail I have heard with car windows smashed and roofs damaged.
This was my 2nd chase of 2009 and the first with my new Asus notebook combined with my Suzuki Sx4. My computer and vehicle are just about all setup for the season now. Likely my next chases I will be streaming video but I haven't decided which service to go with.
A fun chase. David and I ended up driving the core near Dripping Springs close to his house and then stopping for some good Florez mexican food and margaritas. A nice local chase indeed.
Nothing on the website yet. I suppose I need to start updating.
Basically I caught up to the inflow area just a bit later than the tornado occurance time, and it was mostly an outflow dominant HP storm with lots of wind most of the time and precip coming out from the inflow region as it chased me back down hwy 71 and on toward Bee Cave, Tx. David and I witnessed a wallcloud, and a funnel. None of it was very impressive - it was quite messy. I took a few pictures and I have one of the wallcloud I believe that turned out ok. Most of the time David and I were driving under the shear markers displayed on Threatnet. As we raced back to the east we only got to get out briefly 5 or 6 times each about 30 to 45 seconds before the storm caught up to us. One or two times while under the shear markers we developed inflow and dust was rising around us - blowing past us along with leaves and all that stuff. At one point Threatnet showed markers on both sides of the road which seemed to correspond to what we were seeing visually. I was a bit reluctant to be in our position. I assumed elevated rotation. Due to the lack of sfc winds I figured tornado potential was minimal. However Threatnet lags so every time we advanced away from the storm we were probably under the real updraft. Other chasers didn't seem to understand this and were way behind us in the precipitation where the visibility was poor and included hail. It's nice to taste the storm but I prefer to maintain visibility otherwise it is difficult to see the tornadoes and you can get behind the action.
David and I followed it on east past Bee Cave and then diverted on toward Dripping Springs to catch the flank portion of the storm approaching. The active tornadic warned portion continued on over Marble Falls toward Cedar Park and my home. We got nickel hail at my house and no damage that I am aware of but many places near by received almost baseball hail I have heard with car windows smashed and roofs damaged.
This was my 2nd chase of 2009 and the first with my new Asus notebook combined with my Suzuki Sx4. My computer and vehicle are just about all setup for the season now. Likely my next chases I will be streaming video but I haven't decided which service to go with.
A fun chase. David and I ended up driving the core near Dripping Springs close to his house and then stopping for some good Florez mexican food and margaritas. A nice local chase indeed.
Nothing on the website yet. I suppose I need to start updating.
