3/9/09 REPORTS: TX/OK/KS

[Connor McCrorey]

Nothing particularly special today, but it was great to finally see some lightning and hear some thunder again! I didn't get to leave Plano until around 4:30, and then even though I had originally targeted NW TX, we blasted north on I-35 to try to make it into Oklahoma before storms fired when we saw how much better the instability was up there than forecasted. We struggled with whether to head for Lawton or Chickasha, as our angle of approach meant Chickasha would guarantee us storms but after dark, while Lawton would get us there before dark, but we would risk getting behind the storms. We went with Chickasha, and it was the right decision. We got on one storm just after dark, and stopped near Verden to shoot lightning. While taking pictures, the storm suddenly appeared to be rapidly organizing. It even started to develop a lowering on the base, but this only lasted a few short minutes before the whole thing turned to crap. Like I said, it was great to finally see some lightning and hear some thunder, but hopefully when I get home in two weeks after my spring break the Gulf will have its finger on the trigger, ready to really start the season off!

 

[CZandbergen]

First post from a new member. Today was my first chase. I spent the last few months doing a bunch of research here on the innerwebs and my first choice was to head to Perry OK and wait there. That said, it looked like there was a good chance for SW OK too so when I left Tulsa at 3PM I headed down 44 to OKC to split the difference. Got off the turnpike and took a look at the soundings and the radar and decided to make a run up I35. I ended up intercepting a cell the developed over Medford and ran along I35 watching it from the SE. Finally stopped in South Haven and ran into a group of chasers there. Met Jeff Snyder and lamented that the storm was not going to make it. Cold air, not good. I decided to call it a day and head back to Tulsa. While south bound on I35 I tried to run west fast to catch the cell that was firing over toward Enid, but after 15 miles it was clear I wouldn't catch it so I called it a night and headed home.

Overall I would call it a successful first try. I intercepted the storm I wanted, the atmosphere just wasn't going to cooperate. Looking forward to next time.

 

[Jason Bolt]

I chose to bust on the boundary along the KS/OK border. Got so bored I jumped on the craptastic cell north or Ark City that was briefly SVR warned. It was such junk I didn't even snap one pic. 324.7 mile bust. Now that I'm home (within a stone throw of the KS/MO/OK intersection) something will probably come right to me with no daylight.

 

[Bryce Stone]

A 500+ mile (round trip) bust for me. Looks like a bust day all around, so I don't feel so bad. I ended up in my general target area and saw storms there which were briefly severe thunderstorm warned, so I guess I can't complain. I finally ended up in Alva before I turned around to head home. I didn't really see any nice structure out of the deal - just a lot of grunge, a lot of rain.

An interesting side note - as I was nearing Woodward the weather radio alarm went off. I thought I was close to something, but it was an alert for the town of Laverne, OK to evacuate because of a large wildfire approaching the town. Harper County EM asked the whole town to evacuate to the fairgrounds at Buffalo, OK. That was strange, hearing that when I was expecting to hear a storm warning.

 

[Bryan Stokes]

After checking the forecast this morning, I loaded up the car before heading off for a busy day at work. If storms fired in N OK/SC KS late in the afternoon, we didn't want to miss out on the action.

I got done with work around 5:30pm and didn't like how cool the temperatures were at the KS border. I also didn't see any real initiation on radar except for the cell that sprouted just N of Ponca City. Jennifer and I left work and decided that it would be best if we just went home. On the way, I could see another cell firing just N of Enid on RadarScope. We still didn't like the cool temps, but then Jennifer made a good point when she said "Why don't we go down there and check it out? Otherwise, you'll just be glued to the computer when we get home to track storms anyway." She had a good point. We made a beeline for the turnpike.

We drove through the western edge of that cell as we passed by Wellington, and then we pulled off at Exit 4 (South Haven) at 1850L to see if anything else would fire. We must have just missed Jeff Snyder and the other folks that were there. Nothing was happening, so we turned around and headed home.

I hate to use the term "bust" for this one, because it was close and it sure beat watching things on the computer at home!

Bryan

 

[Brian Emfinger]

I made my way to Southwest Oklahoma and intercepted the storms coming out of Texas. The first storm looked like it was trying. I saw a couple of grass fire caused by lightning. The first was right underneath a unorganized base and I thought it was a landspout for a few secs. The second one was much larger with flames visible from several miles away. After that storm began to gust out I punched through the second one (without any hail) and it wasn't much better. I did get some decent after dark storm pic as storms began to fire right on the dryline just back (west) of the earlier storms.

I streamed live video throughout much of the chase at tornadovideos.net.

Full report Here

Vid Here (not sure why its dark and no sound as thats not how it was edited - but it will have to do!)

 

[Greg McLaughlin]

Justin Teague and Joseph "T-Money" Tyree chase with me today. We left Tulsa around noon and headed west on 412 to Enid. We were originally hoping to play the outflow boundary situated across northwest and north-central OK, but this boundary quickly lifted to the north into Kansas. We finally jumped on the cell that crapped out in Kingfisher county.

This was our first bust chase of the season. Oh well, its March. We believe the mid-levels were a little too moist today which likely made it very hard for an updraft to sustain itself for very long.

We streamed live video on www.wxstream.com and we had a pretty good showing for our first streaming chase of 2009. The stream was quite steady and worked well. We are working to get the audio problems fixed in time for our next chase. We enjoyed chatting with all of you who joined us in our chat room.

On a final note I must brag some more about the Sprint Sierra Compass 597U aircard. With the signal booster we were streaming live video, hosting a chat room, running GR level 3 and looking at weather data all at once on that aircard! I am quite pleased with its performance over the first year I have had it.

 

[Rocky Rascovich]

Nothing amazing yesterday, albeit, it was great getting out. I didn't leave the farm until 1530 and headed toward Kingfisher where I met up with Ray Walker and Michael Ratliff. We were getting frustrated by 1730 when still nothing was coming together in our close vicinity around Kingfisher. I am guessing that subsidence from the lead wave that came through earlier in the day may have supressed convective initiation and surface moisture being somewhat mixed out due to the extremely dry conditions.

By 1830, we had joined up with Dave Ewoldt, his girl friend Mary and Doug Speheger (look for his excellent forecast discussions as #26 while reading the AFD's from the OUN office). We headed for Watonga where we intercepted what I found out was the left split that tracked just south and east of Watonga. We just missed getting clobbered by hail just over 2" in diameter. Dave measured 2.19" diameter stones within 10 minutes after the hail stopped about 10 miles south of Watonga.

That was about the height of the day other than a brief but intense cg barrage around 2200-2230 at my farm. Several bolts were within a half mile of the house. No hail or even a noticeable increase of wind during the event.
We got at least a half inch of very welcome rain.

Now... how 'bout at least one round of snow for later in the week???

 

[Elinor McLennon]

Me and some chasing buds jumped into "Stormie" and headed southwest around tuttle, newcastle, mustang area. Caught 2 cells that looked promising but they quickly weakened. Got into a little bit of hail and few good downpours of rain...which we desperately needed. It gave us a chance to fine tune equipment and software. I really enjoyed the Gr level 3 program! It may have been a bust but had fun and enjoyed meeting new friends.

 

[Jason Young]

Well got a late start due to being laid off out at 3:30 and being rehired at 3:45 . ( long story ) . Left out at 6:00 targeting the SW ok. storm's . Stopped in Rush Spring's and took lightning pictures for awhile before meeting up with Kris Hair in Chickasha. Watched a nice lowered area NW of Amber , that quickly crapped out . Then got lost in Bridge Creek , so I gave up and returned home.

To the couple in the White van , sorry did not mean to be rude , was just a long day.
A 225 mile bust here.

 

[Bob Hartig]

Chased southwest Oklahoma yesterday and caught two of the storms drifting in from Texas. The first had what looked like a wall cloud struggling to put in an appearance, but it just couldn't seem to get going. A rather high-based storm, pretty to look at but not much to it.

Dropping down to the next, tail-end cell to the south, we caught a very low wall cloud moving in over the hills. From our first glimpse, it looked like a large wedge, but I doubt it ever put down a tornado. Cool to watch, though. Here are a couple shots.

 

[Scott Roberts]

After sitting for what seemed like days just west of Tonkawa, Lance and I took the bait on a storm west of Brahman that was briefly warned. Followed it into Kansas, fell off the edge of the cell phone coverage along 166, and let it go.

We saw the cell developing south of the front in Woods county, and got back in time to catch a brief funnel and a decent shot of wall cloud over Caldwell.

More on the blog post...

 

[Stephen Locke]

Kingfisher County

Photographs and account. Stephen Locke the Tempest Gallery

 

[Jason A.C. Brock]

3/09/09 Western OK chase

Chased this day with Jeremy Wilson of holytornado.com from the El Reno area to Anadarko after leaving Wichita Falls around noon. Brief wall cloud SW of Anadarko along with some intense lightning at sunset.
Video & pics at http://www.youtube.com/user/shadowchaser777 also check out the twitter myspace & ustream links.
Our main website http://www.texhomastormchasers.com is down so we will be using the youtube site for the time being.

 

[Randy Denzer]

Sam Furman and I took off from Austin around 1100. We knew we would not make the big show in Northern Ok so we thought we would attempt to get to the south end in time. We headed for Lawton and then towards Altus. Around 5 two cells exploded to our south on the Texas boarder and we shifted a bit to the east to get in front of the better of the two cells. We ran into Steve Miller (Tx) and sat to watch the show. We had an interesting lowering and after looking at the video, a possible funnel off in the distance as the two cells merged.

Here is a couple clips of the lowering.
1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsK5ORR77fs
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KE7IgAGBts


Couple of pics..