3/4 FCST: Thursday Southern Plains

[Karen Rhoden]

The whole day was a grungefest - neither unexpected nor surprising.

I'd be surprised if anybody has anything near photogenic from the mess today. The only good point was that a large expanse of the Southern Plains received very beneficial rainfall - and this should ensure a pleasantly green springtime.

That, and it was fun to watch a powerful, wound-up system like this blast out to the northeast and do it's thing.

This was our second chase of the year, and not as satisfying as the first. I probably won't write this one up - and won't be writing up on today's Reports here regarding it.

__________________________________
Karen Rhoden

www.stormskies.com

..

 

[Larry J. Kosch]

3/4 FCST Thursday Southern Plains

Hello Chasers,
I'm stuck in wet, cold, chilly Nebraska while all of you storm/tornado chasers are having a ball in the great state of Texas. Here's a doppler radar of NE Texas right about the time they issued a tornado warning for Red River County, TX : http://www.srh.noaa.gov/radar/latest/DS.p3...r/si.kshv.shtml
Can't wait to see all the great shots and hear about all of the adventures you lucky stiffs had in TX!! 8)

Larry

 

[Matthew Hatton]

I found this event very useful. OK, not out in the field but it was handy using SWIFT and seeing how the information came in and how to relate it to all other sources of information on the net. I am no expert when it comes to meteorology so rely on data created elsewhere. I will learn however, its one steep learning curve!

 

[Stuart Robinson]

Some images and reports of todays event

http://www.nbc5i.com/weather/2896839/detail.html

watch out for those pop up adverts ...

 

[mikegeukes]

Severe Weather Event is over, removed information.

Mike

 

[Matthew Hatton]

So all in all not a bad March day then. I do wonder what this means for the rest of the season (I say 'rest' as I assume it has started now). Glad to see only one injury too...

*** 1 INJ *** DAMAGE TRACK FROM SOUTH SIDE OF CITY TO I20
ON EAST SIDE. SEVERAL WEAK STRUCTURES AND VEHICLES
DAMAGED. TRACTOR TRAILERS ON INTERSTATE ROLLED INJURING
ONE.

Not heard of any others as of yet.

 

[Matthew Havin]

Low vis, rainfall abundant, squall line, groggy soggy mess. Boy am I glad I stayed home today!

 

[John Cameron]

This is one of the few events where I'm kinda glad I wasn't out in the field. We had about 3-4 counties w/ tornado warnings between 11:30a and 1:30p. The majority of warnings gave speeds of 55 miles per hour . . .yuk. We have some obvious s/l wind damage in our "cwa" with no reports of significant tornadoes. the only thing local spotters could do get behind 'em and give damage reports.

ahh . . . to be a wxcaster in Texas :?

 

[Tim Marshall]

TARGET: MINERAL WELLS TIME OF DEPARTURE: 11 AM This is the first chase
day of the year and a difficult forecast. Carson and I will head west on I-20
toward Mineral Wells just to get out of the DFW area. This would be the middle
of my target area anyway between Wichita Falls and Brownwood. We figure to
race back to Dallas later today and will be in seach of that isolated storm
ahead of the line. Other target areas of interest are northeast Oklahoma/southeast
Kansas ahead of the surface low, but I question the instability there -and
down in the Austin-San Antonio area as the morning RUC shows a nice dry punch
there around 00z. But, I don't want to head down there with a lifting system.
PROS: Lots of upper dynamics, surface moisture, and convergence/turning along
the warm front boundary. CONS: Lots of cloud cover, convection already
firing in west Texas, a fast-lifting system, and a 500 mb jet that is forecasted to
be oriented more southwest-to-northeast. This is more unidirectional than
prior ETA runs. I don't see a big outbreak today, but there should be a few
tornadoes out there. Good luck to those of you who go out. The summary of our chase will be posted under a different header - (3/4/2000 - Chase summary for the southern plains)

 

[Austin Ivey]

The only cell that looked semi-discrete and chaseable to me today ocurred in Bexar county (San Antonio Texas) around 230pm I believe. I saved some nexrad images where it looked as if the storm was developing a hook. I don't know of any chasers down there but you would have to be right on top of things because it was quickly absorbed back into the larger squall line racing east. There was a tornado warning issued on this cell as well.

I had some friends chasing near Norman and all they reported was a blown over trash can and some rain. I believe things were slightly out of phase. That said there were still many svr wx reports but, it's still winter! (We had 3 inches of snow in Los Alamos today)

 

[David Draun]

The only cell that looked semi-discrete and chaseable to me today ocurred in Bexar county (San Antonio Texas) around 230pm I believe. I saved some nexrad images where it looked as if the storm was developing a hook.


I saw that storm at about 2:30 as you said. It did appear to be trying to organize itself, I thought it was going to be the one that could produce the big one. One that could have been warned with the NWS wording, "tornado emergency," but it reformed with the squall line. Not to say that it would be a good thing though, that is a high populated area.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Lightning visibility with current system/San Antonio report

Just a quick question for those who chased today: How was the lightning quality in terms of visibility? All in the grunge with only flashes of light visible, or any nice visible channels coming out of the clouds? I would love to chase this tomorrow in Kentucky just to see some lightning, but if it's a sheet-lightning-fest I'll sit this one out.

Also, I just talked with my parents who happen to be in San Antonio on a short vacation. Unfortunately my mom came down with the flu and stayed in the hotel room all day today, but was watching the weather situation from the hotel. She reported brief gusty winds and copious amounts of small hail. Outside the hotel window, she watched several nest-building Herrons dig in and take the pummeling, noting that the birds seemed to handle the hail just fine.

 

[Aaron Kennedy]

I saw several CGs....

Aaron

 

[Lance Maxwell]

Ya, same here, the lightning within the squall was surprisingly good. There was quite a bit of CG.

 

[mikegeukes]

Severe Weather Event is over, removed information.

Mike