3/30/07 REPORTS: TX/OK/KS/MO

[Caleb Kimbrough]

Wow. What a mess out there.

I wasn't even planning on chasing today... but you know how that goes.

I convinced my girlfriend to go catch the severe warned storm that was just SW of Topeka, KS with me. So we headed out there in my Camry and I had my dad nowcast for me on the phone. We core punched the storm just for the heck of it...I was hoping for some hail or something but all we got was a loooot of rain and some decent lighting.

After that cell died we headed back home. Then SPC issued the TOR warning on the cell just to the SE of Manhattan so I head out again and almost got in 23 car wrecks. There were some decent winds blowing but nothing to get too excited about. Pretty intense rain though...visibility was zero, or perhaps even negative...



Here's a photo of the cell by Topeka:

 

[Jeff Snyder]

Not much to report... I headed out (with Dan Dawson and another) towards an area west of Fort Worth around 1pm. Our thought was that the I20 corridor was going to be the southern line of the convection that had been occurring across northern Texas. Though there was tremendous low-level shear south of I20, we weren't sure we had enough time to target a place south or southeast of ABI. At any rate, by the time we made it to Gainesville, we realized that the ongoing convection was leading to poor lapse rates and relatively cool sfc conditions, two things which significantly stabilized the risk area. So, we putzed around Gainesville for a while, before heading southwest towards Decatur to intercept a bowing line segment approaching from Jacksboro. Waiting experienced very near the apex of the bow echo ~4-5 mi NW of Decatur, but we received no winds >20mph or even any lightning. We quickly realized there was absolutely no hope for significant discrete activity, and we called off the chase to head home.

I'm not sure why I'm surprised we saw the result we saw. Most models forecast pitiful instability, and the widespread convection certainly saw that it happened (terrible lapse rates and unimpressive sfc temps). I'm slightly surprised various forecasts remained bullish in light of marginal instability, but even my less-than-optimistic forecast was a complete bust. Oh well, it's only March, so I'm fine with a bust. LOL

 

[Brandon Lawson]

Sadly I have no pictures to post, and this tornado is not listed in the storm reports

Although today looked really sloppy and I had my doubts about actually seeing tornadoes, let alone supercells, I decided to venture out into the land of never ending rain and no sunshine. I took off from Norman with Brett Roberts, Bryan Putnam, and Trey Perry around 12:50pm. My rockin 4 cylinder honda civic, which has a sunroof just begging to be destroyed by large hail, handled the flooded roads effortlessly, hydroplaning without abandon.

Our original target was also I-20 west of Ft. Worth, but thanks to some highly appreciated advice from Gabe Garfield, we continued south through all the traffic and muck the wonderful city of Ft. Worth has to offer, instead. Later a telephone call from Aaron Gleason notified us of a new MD over the area around Waco, Texas and also of the storm slowly approaching. We hightailed it, as quick as the rivers of water would allow my car to swim, to Waco just in time to get bombarded by even heavier rains. Quickly we headed southeast out of town on Highway 6 where we came out of the rain into the city of Riesel.

Now we saw that we were under a canopy of dark clouds. Scud here and there and everywhere were rising up into the cloud base to our west. With looks of glee and the awareness that blind luck was on our side today, we saw a narrow funnel slowly descend, touching the ground ever so softly. It danced before us, touching the ground multiple times, before bidding us farewell and dissipating into the wind. We looked ever and anon to see our friend once more, but she was gone and that was the end.

 

[Zac Flamig]

Gerard Jebaily and myself along with a group of others headed out towards Pauls Valley today. After awhile and some Denny's food there we proceeeded on to Ardmore. We didn't really see anything note worthy, just lots of rain and some strong winds.

When the tornado warning went out for Norman we started back that way on the off chance something did occur there. After the excitement died down involving that we enjoyed the sun peeking out from behind the clouds for a brief time. As we were nearing Norman the sun finally reappeared and we were treated to a very nice rainbow.

 

[Kiel Ortega]

I don't know where else to post this, so I guess in here (apologies if placement is wrong). I went chasing yesterday, but of a completely different kind: damage chasing. Adam Atkins was my navigator (went by the call sign "Goose") for the day. Since the OUN WFO was busy with the weather and OKC tornado survey, I volunteered to go play Indiana Jones and search for damage in Grant and Garfield Cos. Found some damage (mostly tree) and results are pending. The roads up there were pretty bad (meaning extremely muddy!) from all the rain, but provided some excitement! There was also another report that I went to investigate: a damaged barn near Okeene in Northern Blaine Co. The barn was beat up pretty badly and results of that survey are pending. While surveying the barn, several people from Norman started calling us asking why the tornado sirens were going off! What a coincidence: I've gone to OU for 6 years (Adam too) and never heard the sirens blown (except for tests). The one day they do, we're not in Norman and not even chasing! So on the way home, got some good shots of mammatus outside Okarche...here's one:

 

[Jim Bishop]

I intercepted the incredible supercell north of Del Rio, TX. This thing had amazing structure and produced a rain-wrapped tornado as I viewed it from the east. The overall rotation on this storm was impressive.

The picture below shows the ocluding meso. This photo doesn't show much really, but my footage clearly shows rapid rotation in the cloud base, along with rain wrapping around it as well. I'm pretty certain there was a tornado in there, and in the video you can see what appears to be a tornado back there in the rain. Too bad it wasn't more visible!

Earlier in the day I followed a hp supercell through Comfort, Texas (off I-10 west of San Antonio). I followed the meso for a while. I never saw a wall cloud but witness incredible motion in the cloud base. I did encounter impressive flash flooding from streams overtaking the road. The water reached 3-4 feet high! I had to go through many different country roads to get back to the interstate.

 

[Brett Roberts]

I was riding with Brandon Lawson, who posted above, and saw the brief tornado near Riesel with the storm that moved through Waco. The entire drive down from Norman was a deluge with no breaks in the clouds, culminating in extremely torrential rain and serious road flooding once we got off I-35 in Waco. We finally outran the precipitation in the core by heading southeast on TX-6, and a very ominous, low base immediately came into view. We stopped less than a mile south of a gas station in Rieser to watch the circulation approach from the west, and a thin tube developed right around 5:37 PM, touching down briefly just west of TX-6 in Riesel... some debris was visible, but the condensation funnel only very briefly extended all the way down. The funnel was so small and in such a poorly-lit environment that it took us at least 30 seconds to notice it after it had formed (the second photo below has the funnel barely visible, but we weren't aware of it at the time).

After the funnel passed over the road, we decided, for better or for worse, to think long-term and go well south to TX-7, head 14 miles east to Kosse, then attempt to rejoin the storm by driving northeast on TX-14. There was another east-west option a few miles back to our northwest from where we saw the tornado, but it would've taken us back into the core, which seemed undesirable enough given the flooding rains we'd just experienced, nevermind the danger of coming right out into the circulation.

We never did see much else other than some weak rotation and perhaps a wall cloud or two. The high tree coverage in this region certainly didn't help, although I don't think we were missing much anyway.

Photos below, although they don't really show anything very well... Trey Perry's video posted on www.tornadovideos.net is much more convincing.

Base (wall cloud?) approaching from the west:

Very thin rope a bit before we even realized it was there:

Tornado on the ground and approaching TX-6, cars on the road seemed obvlious (not that I blame them in this case, if I hadn't ridden 300 miles looking specifically for a 'nader I probably wouldn't have noticed it either )

 

[Chris Vagasky]

I don't know where else to post this, so I guess in here (apologies if placement is wrong). I went chasing yesterday, but of a completely different kind: damage chasing. Adam Atkins was my navigator (went by the call sign "Goose") for the day. Since the OUN WFO was busy with the weather and OKC tornado survey, I volunteered to go play Indiana Jones and search for damage in Grant and Garfield Cos. Found some damage (mostly tree) and results are pending. The roads up there were pretty bad (meaning extremely muddy!) from all the rain, but provided some excitement! There was also another report that I went to investigate: a damaged barn near Okeene in Northern Blaine Co. The barn was beat up pretty badly and results of that survey are pending. While surveying the barn, several people from Norman started calling us asking why the tornado sirens were going off! What a coincidence: I've gone to OU for 6 years (Adam too) and never heard the sirens blown (except for tests). The one day they do, we're not in Norman and not even chasing! So on the way home, got some good shots of mammatus outside Okarche...here's one:

I was doing the same thing. I was trying to find the damage report for the Garfield County storm. Found some tree damage at one farm house, and the cover for one of their storage areas was blown in. Saw a downed powerline as well (not sure if that is the damage in the SPC report or not) but only found it when I saw the OGE trucks turning down a road to start the repairs. Attached is a photo of some pretty angry cows behind the storms that went through.

 

[Jason A.C. Brock]

3/30/07 Chase report

Posted some video of the severe squall lines and gustfronts that moved accross parts of Western north & North Central Texas on 3/30/07. You can go to our youtube site and see timelapse of the severe gustfronts as they move into Olney Texas In Far Northern Young into Southern Archer County Texas. Also is timelapse of the same lie as it moves into the Vashti Texas area in Clay County and finally a different timelapse of a line as it moves later into Denton Texas in Denton County. Some weak rotation along the lines at times but nothing more than marginally severe winds occured. This system had alot more bark than bite. Still I always like to look at timelapse to see the cloud motions even along weak gustfronts.

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=shadowchaser777

 

[Bill Tabor]

Camp Wood, Tx Hp Beast Chase

Here is a link to the detailed account:
http://www.tornadoxtreme.com/Chases_By_Year/2007_Chases/March_30_07/33007_Account/33007_account.html

Here is a quick shot of the Hp monster as it was about to eat me (albeit a bit blurry):

Many more pictures and chase account on my site:
http://www.tornadoxtreme.com/Chases_By_Year/2007_Chases/March_30_07/march_30_07.html

This was an exciting day in many ways. I saved a goat, heard one one of the loudest roar's I've ever heard hail / tornado? And still managed to escape with my widows all intact and no glass in my eyes.

The countryside down by Del Rio is rugged and just beautiful in many ways though it is somewhat desolate.

I wonder if this is the same storm Jim Bishop was on? He has a similar hill in his picture. Oh the dark area in mine was an area of intense wind (over 100mph) shear markers on threatnet in the embedded Hp. There is a good chance that was a tornado coming over the mountain / hill to the west. When the large hail and giant roar started I didn't wait around too long to find out.