Simon Brewer
EF3
Caught a nice couple of supercells in Western Oklahoma today/tonight; documented some 2.5 inch diameter hail and incredible structure! Here are some pics:
Simon
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3/30/08 REPORTS: OK/KS
- Thread starter Simon Brewer
- Start date
Caught a nice couple of supercells in Western Oklahoma today/tonight; documented some 2.5 inch diameter hail and incredible structure! Here are some pics:
Simon
Tony Laubach
EF5
Busy and hail of a day for Carl Young and myself along with the Carlsons. Got on the same storms as half the chasing world, but had a great time! Saw a control burn, 3.5" hail, and great structure... more to come later...
Passing time early in the afternoon south of Sayre shooting a control burn. (c) Michael Carlson
The hailstorm that got a few folks, including me. A big ol' spider in my windshield and some good dents (finally) on the van.
Good structure early in the day.
Our storm at sunset.
More big @$$ hail in Union City well after dark.
More pictures on my blog with a chase report to follow later.
Passing time early in the afternoon south of Sayre shooting a control burn. (c) Michael Carlson
The hailstorm that got a few folks, including me. A big ol' spider in my windshield and some good dents (finally) on the van.
Good structure early in the day.
Our storm at sunset.
More big @$$ hail in Union City well after dark.
More pictures on my blog with a chase report to follow later.
Well just as I start this report, tornado warning officially issued for northern OK Co and southern Logan. Been monitering Gary all evening.
Anyways I didnt go out today...initially. Many factors turned me off (1) lack of shear (2) initiation not till after dark possibly. But as is the case this time of year, so many factos are involved that makes things so volatile that sometimes SPC cant keep up along with the models. Thats not to beat up on SPC, not they're fault, its just that thare sooo many things that come into play in the mesoscale and such that we cant forecast (see Thursday, see May 3rd, hell see today).
So I didnt head out till 8pm. At that time there were 3 main storms. One heading NE in eastern Blain, western Kingfisher. Second storm was over Hinton with third over Hobart. At that time, the second storm was exhibiting strong rotation but crawling. I looked quickly at SPC tornado parameters and saw maximized area that middle storm was heading into and that tripped me and I hit the ground running. By the time I got out to El Reno, the southern storm was the dominant one being tornado warned. So I headed down 81 to Pocasset and sat there and waited for the meso to come to me or slightly to my north. Well I swear I sat there for almost 2 hours cause it crawled. Well at about 11:45 the meso was to me north and I moved up to just north of Minco and got on a humongous hill and thats where I first saw a base. Hank Brown was right behind me with Val ahead of me. I was listening to Gary through an earpiece. Not 5 minutes later I began to see a bowl shaped lowering to my NNW. At that same moment Val broke in going off about the same lowering. Kept an eye on that at the same time I was watching a pronounced wall cloud that was very low hanging. Classic wall cloud shape. Was hard to disntinguish upward motion at dark but ground light was lighting up the wall cloud. That thankfully b/c was no CG with this storm at all at time. Well lowering disappeared not too long thereafter and I kept eye on the meso as it passed to my NE toward Mustang at which point I headed north and then turned east on 152 in Union City. ...(Wow tornado as I type)... toward Mustang. Pulled off 1mile west of Mustang on a hill and took look at things. Didnt see damn thing so called it a night and headed home.
Havent even looked at tomorrow but welcome to Spring, I have 9am class and risk.
Hope everyone had good day.
Anyways I didnt go out today...initially. Many factors turned me off (1) lack of shear (2) initiation not till after dark possibly. But as is the case this time of year, so many factos are involved that makes things so volatile that sometimes SPC cant keep up along with the models. Thats not to beat up on SPC, not they're fault, its just that thare sooo many things that come into play in the mesoscale and such that we cant forecast (see Thursday, see May 3rd, hell see today).
So I didnt head out till 8pm. At that time there were 3 main storms. One heading NE in eastern Blain, western Kingfisher. Second storm was over Hinton with third over Hobart. At that time, the second storm was exhibiting strong rotation but crawling. I looked quickly at SPC tornado parameters and saw maximized area that middle storm was heading into and that tripped me and I hit the ground running. By the time I got out to El Reno, the southern storm was the dominant one being tornado warned. So I headed down 81 to Pocasset and sat there and waited for the meso to come to me or slightly to my north. Well I swear I sat there for almost 2 hours cause it crawled. Well at about 11:45 the meso was to me north and I moved up to just north of Minco and got on a humongous hill and thats where I first saw a base. Hank Brown was right behind me with Val ahead of me. I was listening to Gary through an earpiece. Not 5 minutes later I began to see a bowl shaped lowering to my NNW. At that same moment Val broke in going off about the same lowering. Kept an eye on that at the same time I was watching a pronounced wall cloud that was very low hanging. Classic wall cloud shape. Was hard to disntinguish upward motion at dark but ground light was lighting up the wall cloud. That thankfully b/c was no CG with this storm at all at time. Well lowering disappeared not too long thereafter and I kept eye on the meso as it passed to my NE toward Mustang at which point I headed north and then turned east on 152 in Union City. ...(Wow tornado as I type)... toward Mustang. Pulled off 1mile west of Mustang on a hill and took look at things. Didnt see damn thing so called it a night and headed home.
Havent even looked at tomorrow but welcome to Spring, I have 9am class and risk.
Hope everyone had good day.
Dustin Wilcox
EF5
Decent chase, saw storm nearly get it done during daylight hours just East of Rocky. Baseball sized stones as well, East of Rocky, enough to bust windshields. Supercells still raging just 15 miles North of our Motel here in NW OKC.
Jason Montano
EF4
Just got home a few minutes ago. It was a good chase overall even though the storm never dropped a tube. I finally pulled my self north from Vernon, around my original target (that never panned out) when I saw the towers going up in OK. I got on the storm west of Hobart and it already had a rotating wall cloud on it. The structure was amazing in this beasty. I followed it for a while as it crawled to the East, trying to put down a tube numerous times. After dark this cell really got cranking, it could of been my different position as I backed off the meso a bit but the inflow increased dramatically. I broke off from the storm shortly after it went tor warned around Ft Cobb.
I will post pics sometime today when I get them uploaded to the server.
I will post pics sometime today when I get them uploaded to the server.
Shane Adams
Chad, Mickey, Mickey's son Michael, and I observed an awesome supercell south of Weatherford before dark, which looked almost identical to our March 2 storm south of Carnegie. We picked up the next storm to the south as the first one seemed to weaken. However the first storm soon got cranking again, and we followed it east for several miles. Eventually it began to weaken and we decided to target a new storm due west of us, the furthest south storm. We turned south in Binger to Anadarko, then went west to Ft. Cobb. We came into view of the base north of town, and it reminded Mick and I very much of the Greensburg storm, with crazy structure and insane inflow. We tracked this storm east and observed an apparent brief tornado near Albert, as we saw multiple power flashes south of town. Video review shows a cone funnel above the power flashes.
Let that storm go and picked up the one west of it. This one was a lot like the Ft. Cobb/Albert storm, with great structure and crazy inflow. We were repositioning and missed the brief tornado near Sickles/Lookeba. Got chased by this beast all the way to Mustang, where we called it a day...just after midnight. But apparently this was too soon to quit, as I'm still watching live coverage on KWTV as I write this.
Let that storm go and picked up the one west of it. This one was a lot like the Ft. Cobb/Albert storm, with great structure and crazy inflow. We were repositioning and missed the brief tornado near Sickles/Lookeba. Got chased by this beast all the way to Mustang, where we called it a day...just after midnight. But apparently this was too soon to quit, as I'm still watching live coverage on KWTV as I write this.
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Eugene Thieszen
EF0
In spite of other committments preventing me from going into full chase mode, I did manage to see a few interesting things in the local Cordell and Corn, OK area.
Gene
WXtreme Chase Team
A small funnel about 5 NE of Cordell at 7:00pm
"Spaceship" rain-free base about 7 miles ENE of Corn at 8:00pm
Gene
WXtreme Chase Team
A small funnel about 5 NE of Cordell at 7:00pm
"Spaceship" rain-free base about 7 miles ENE of Corn at 8:00pm
Hank Baker
EF1
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2006
- Messages
- 66
What a enjoyable early chase, close to home, slow moving storms etc..
The structure was really nice before dark. We were on the north storm just south of I-40 the whole evening following it as it lumbered along. What a treat this time of year to chase slow moving storms in March. The most interesting visual as far as tornadoes, were the several power flashes we witnessed just to the south of Binger right under the meso. To clarify, this was the first storm that past through Binger not the second one that followed behind it later on.
The structure was really nice before dark. We were on the north storm just south of I-40 the whole evening following it as it lumbered along. What a treat this time of year to chase slow moving storms in March. The most interesting visual as far as tornadoes, were the several power flashes we witnessed just to the south of Binger right under the meso. To clarify, this was the first storm that past through Binger not the second one that followed behind it later on.
David Drummond
Member
I agree with Hank, the slow storm movement was a real treat this early in the year.
I was on the farthest SW storm when it first formed up and got a pretty rapidly rotating wall cloud which I was sure was going to tornado, (many of you watched that on the live steaming video), but then got undercut by the RFD I believe.
Storm made many more attempts. I later went to what then became the western cell and stayed on it until OKC. I cannot believe this storm didn't put down large tornadoes. Inflow at times into the notch was over 60 mph! Structure was very nice.
I was on the farthest SW storm when it first formed up and got a pretty rapidly rotating wall cloud which I was sure was going to tornado, (many of you watched that on the live steaming video), but then got undercut by the RFD I believe.
Storm made many more attempts. I later went to what then became the western cell and stayed on it until OKC. I cannot believe this storm didn't put down large tornadoes. Inflow at times into the notch was over 60 mph! Structure was very nice.
Jeff Snyder
EF5
Dan Dawson, Robin Tanamachi, Gabe Garfield, and I stayed primarily on the northern supercell from not long after initiation to sunset. We successfully played a "split the difference" deal for a while, with bases of both supercells in view, though we opted to stay closer to the northern storm given it's rather beautiful appearance at times. The structure of this storm seemed to improve nicely by about 8 pm, and a blocky wall cloud and tiered low-level structure developed shortly thereafter. Unfortunately for us, though, cell interaction with the supercell to the southwest proved detrimental to the storm we had been following. As such, as dropped south and east to get a spot southeast of Binger that provided a good view to the west. We saw rapid wall-cloud motion between Binger and Cogar not long after, and we measured a 51 kt (not 51 mph, as the LSR indicated) inflow wind a few miles W of Cogar as this 2nd supercell lifted northeastward. With a 3rd supercell to the immediate west, we jumped back towards Binger to get a better view, and we ended up following this one through Union City (were we saw 2" hail on the ground) before calling it a night (near 11:45 or midnight).
I then made it home about 1:15p (home in extreme northwestern Arcadia) to see a very large, what-I-thought-to-be elevated supercell to the southwest over far NW OKC, Piedmond, and Edmond areas. A tornado warning was soon issued, and we lost power at my house immediatley after one of the TV mets reported a tornado on the ground near the Edmond/OKC border (don't see it in an LSR, so it must not have been legit). It certainly looked as though the rotation was weakening as it passed through Edmond, and it looked as though it'd pass to the north, but I played it safe and opted to take a drive southeastward with the wife and pets to make sure we were out of the path. OG&E restored power to my area around 5:45a, I think.
Overall, it was a pretty good chase, enhanced by the slow storm motion, 2+ hours of daylight supercell action, a supercell that fluctuated between classic and wet LP type, and 3 different times of severe (51kt measured inflow W of Cogar, 2" hail in Union city, 0.88" hail in Yukon). Given that the primary concern was daylight initiation, I can't complain too much. The northern supercell we chased from 4:45p (-ish) to sundown had some nice structure, but it never appeared to be imminently tornadic; cloud-base motion wasn't ever terribly impressive to me. The 3rd supercell (the 2nd one to go near/through Binger) seemed to barf out cold outflow some ways ahead of the precip that constituted the hook/appendage/whatever which may have had something to do with the problems it had tightening up the low-level meso.
I then made it home about 1:15p (home in extreme northwestern Arcadia) to see a very large, what-I-thought-to-be elevated supercell to the southwest over far NW OKC, Piedmond, and Edmond areas. A tornado warning was soon issued, and we lost power at my house immediatley after one of the TV mets reported a tornado on the ground near the Edmond/OKC border (don't see it in an LSR, so it must not have been legit). It certainly looked as though the rotation was weakening as it passed through Edmond, and it looked as though it'd pass to the north, but I played it safe and opted to take a drive southeastward with the wife and pets to make sure we were out of the path. OG&E restored power to my area around 5:45a, I think.
Overall, it was a pretty good chase, enhanced by the slow storm motion, 2+ hours of daylight supercell action, a supercell that fluctuated between classic and wet LP type, and 3 different times of severe (51kt measured inflow W of Cogar, 2" hail in Union city, 0.88" hail in Yukon). Given that the primary concern was daylight initiation, I can't complain too much. The northern supercell we chased from 4:45p (-ish) to sundown had some nice structure, but it never appeared to be imminently tornadic; cloud-base motion wasn't ever terribly impressive to me. The 3rd supercell (the 2nd one to go near/through Binger) seemed to barf out cold outflow some ways ahead of the precip that constituted the hook/appendage/whatever which may have had something to do with the problems it had tightening up the low-level meso.
Rob Satkus
EF2
It was very legit...we observed the tornado from less than a mile away...it was rather small and didn't last very long. NWS has surveyed and rated it EF1. There were some absolutely insane things going on with that storm...sudden, rapid wind shifts, roaring sounds overhead with light winds at the surface, not to mention a lot of the hail...(2"+ in a few locations along NW Expressway.)
Rob
Michael O'Keeffe
Had a great chase yesterday evening, but we just couldn't get the rotation to come down. However we since got incredible structure, monster hail, and rapid rotation.
The incredible mothership supercell south of Rocky, OK. View looking WSW.
One of the baseball sized hailstones that I found after we got pounded south of Rocky.
Beautiful lowering to our east. The sun was setting creating this awe-inspiring look.
Here is a 3-minute video of the chase.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxtV33Hiv4o
Good to see the Carlsons, Sean, Jon, and Tony again!
The incredible mothership supercell south of Rocky, OK. View looking WSW.
One of the baseball sized hailstones that I found after we got pounded south of Rocky.
Beautiful lowering to our east. The sun was setting creating this awe-inspiring look.
Here is a 3-minute video of the chase.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxtV33Hiv4o
Good to see the Carlsons, Sean, Jon, and Tony again!
Kiel Ortega
EF4
- Joined
- Jun 9, 2004
- Messages
- 325
Short story of my day yesterday: chased with Kevin Manross, Kevin Scharfenberg, Corey Mead and Tiffany Meyer. Started off at the Cherokee Truck Stop and then made our way down to east of Cordell. There made the decision to take off after the Kiowa/Wa****a county line storm. Storm became very photogenic at sunset just west of Gotebo. Followed the storm home towards Norman, finally ditching it north of Anadarko.
My morning today was spent surveying the above tornado with Rick Smith. A little disappointed that we couldn't survey the whole path due to some power poles being down. However, I think we got the "best" part of the tornado in the Valencia neighborhood. I was further disappointed when I got home and found out a neighborhood just north of Valencia had some roof and fence damage. And a car at Waterloo and Coltrane was also tossed; this location lines up nicely with from the Valencia to 192nd/Western power pole damage...so who knows. Looks like the warning process worked well as sirens woke people up and got them to take shelter.
The house that had the most serious damage was a bit of a conundrum. No other house showed as serious damage; the front door--which had a glass window and was dead-bolted--was blown into the house along with the entire door frame. The half circle window above the door was intact and the large window in the wall next to the door was just fine. Oh, and the small window that was part of the door frame was intact. So yeah...small tornadoes are interesting. 2nd worst luck in the neighborhood belongs to a guy who owned a red Suburban. Roof/fence debris was driven into his truck denting the hell out of a rear door and blowing out two windows, and some wood was driven into the gap between the car door and body. I'll be damage hunting tomorrow in the Albert-Binger area.
Alex Lamers
EF4
Chased with Jess Erlingis, Joe Young and Luke Madaus. We headed west on I-40 fairly early based on the RUC's false babble about early initiation. Wound up in Weatherford, OK which wound up not being too bad of a target in retrospect. After waiting around for a couple of hours and tossing around a frisbee we got impatient. Cu fields were developing off to our ene around El Reno and Kingfisher, and also sw.
Wound up seeing a beautiful supercell to our southwest just off the interstate. (Ignore the bug mash on the windshield in this shot)
We watched this northern supercell near Corn, OK (just ene of Cordell by about 10 miles) for a little while. It had a nice updraft base and looked ok but there was very little rising motion and we didn't see much rotation. So we decided to drop south, and we had about an hour to play with on the southern storm. Wound up with some nice pictures (a couple below). Most interesting part of the journey...we were probably 8 miles away from the circulation and well away from the FFD when a golfball size hail stone randomly fell out of the sky and hit the ground right in front of us. Nothing else fell...but apparently this golfball size hailstone was lofted so far out of the storm it reached us (we were east of the rotation as you'll see in the pictures).
AJL
Wound up seeing a beautiful supercell to our southwest just off the interstate. (Ignore the bug mash on the windshield in this shot)
We watched this northern supercell near Corn, OK (just ene of Cordell by about 10 miles) for a little while. It had a nice updraft base and looked ok but there was very little rising motion and we didn't see much rotation. So we decided to drop south, and we had about an hour to play with on the southern storm. Wound up with some nice pictures (a couple below). Most interesting part of the journey...we were probably 8 miles away from the circulation and well away from the FFD when a golfball size hail stone randomly fell out of the sky and hit the ground right in front of us. Nothing else fell...but apparently this golfball size hailstone was lofted so far out of the storm it reached us (we were east of the rotation as you'll see in the pictures).
AJL
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Verne Carlson
EF5
Great chase with the two nice cells breaking out right at 6 o'clock magic hour! Northern cell looked too high based, jumped down on the southern cell which had great striations, scud lowerings and up to 3" hail busting our windshield and breaking in Michael's new Subie!
Earlier in the day we had some great fun watching a controlled burn south of Sayre, OK. The fire updrafts were so intense they were creating their own cumulus clouds. Was able to get some great test flights in with the Wicked Witch 3, check out the video here!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9mZVXQtZw0
Earlier in the day we had some great fun watching a controlled burn south of Sayre, OK. The fire updrafts were so intense they were creating their own cumulus clouds. Was able to get some great test flights in with the Wicked Witch 3, check out the video here!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9mZVXQtZw0
