4/13/07 DISC: TX

[Bill Tabor]

What's interesting is at 2:38 Gene and I were stopped on 277 about 7 miles sw of Seymore shooting video and pictures of the hail and wallclouds directly to our east. As I put the map and locations together I see that is exactly where the tornado is passing at that time. It would have been about 6 or 7 miles to our east. Either we caught (I got video) of the funnel / wallcloud before it became a wedge and wrapped up, or there were two areas of rotation directly next to each other and the wedge was somehow further north buried in deep rain hiding it from us.

 

[Amos Magliocco]

Do you mean you were looking east? The meso was east of 277 at 1938z unless you were actually in Seymour at that moment. From 277 in Seymour, the meso would have been due south at 1938z.

Large (238k) radar image from 1935z

What's interesting is at 2:38 Gene and I were stopped on 277 about 7 miles sw of Seymore shooting video and pictures of the hail and wallclouds directly to our west. As I put the map and locations together I see that is exactly where the tornado is passing at that time. It would have been about 6 or 7 miles to our east. Either we caught (I got video) of the funnel / wallcloud before it became a wedge and wrapped up, or there were two areas of rotation directly next to each other and the wedge was somehow further north buried in deep rain hiding it from us.

 

[Tony Laubach]

I hope that anyone on the Seymour wedge with ham radio or cell made at least one attempt to report the tornado to local authorities or the Norman ham link. Thats great vid considering its a typical north Texas HP and the road grid is not chase friendly. You must always think there may be unsuspecting souls in its path.

I was doing the on-air play-by-play for the local CBS affiliate, and I was never made aware that there was touchdown. Wichita Falls based spotters couldn't get a good angle on the cell thanks to the core going straight up 277/82.

I know chasers dont have a rolodex full of numbers to county offices , TV stations or ham frequencies, and I understand you thinking that members of spotter nets are seeing what you're seeing, but I feel this may have been worth a 911 call. This info would have been of tremendous value to me and my peers considering the storm vector toward a major population center.

Love you guys, and what you do, just rembember you cant always be just a spectator.
My number at the station is (940)-322-1153 if you have a wedge, I'll put you on the air.

The 240pm timing I gave the tornado was pulled from my video camera, still camera, and my cell phone in which I made the 9-1-1 call. There may be a minute or two difference, but its pretty close.

I'm not sure what happened with the 9-1-1 report. The police department actually called me back a short time later to update us on another report they got from a woman east of town. I informed her of the damage (flood/hail) in Seymour as we were slowly making our way through town. I haven't seen the tornado on SPC's report page, so I don't know what came of our report.

Sorry.. I'll be sure to make that clearer next time that we attempted to make the report... I guess I was kind of vague.

 

[John Cameron]

please forgive...I didnt read every post...nice pics/vid

 

[Tony Laubach]

please forgive...I didnt read every post...nice pics/vid

Forgiven... just remember as a member of the media, you should be sure you have all the facts before reporting; same with forums.

As said by Amos, this was a tough tornado to spot and I wouldn't have been surprised to be the only ones on the storm at the time. While there was a a few minutes before we were able to get in touch with officials, we assume the tornado to have still been on the ground which was confirmed minutes later when the police department called me back.

I honestly do not have an accurate distance on record, but recall saying the tornado at my time of reporting was about 3 miles southeast of Seymour; the initial tornado was probably a bit further south and obviously due south of town as it formed on the highway.

Tom Dulong, my chase partner, took excellent video out the passenger side as we turned our cars into the wind and has convincing proof of spray on the highway as the circulation was passing over the road which seems to indicate tornatic circulation on the ground at this time. The clouds were obviously very low to the ground at this point...

The vid grabs from my camera show the rain/spray in the road right beneath the circulation. Tom's video showed better the motion on the ground which makes me guess we had touchdown by this point.

This screen grab was before the circulation reached the highway, and we had very convincing motion which had us all thinking a tornado was imminent. However our view makes it difficult to see if there was ground circulation at this point. I'd be curious to know if there was.
http://www.tornadoeskick.com/images/2007/070413_06.jpg

 

[Bill Tabor]

Do you mean you were looking east? The meso was east of 277 at 1938z unless you were actually in Seymour at that moment. From 277 in Seymour, the meso would have been due south at 1938z.

Yeah sorry, I meant east, but you made your comment before I noticed / changed it from west.

I did some maps (post analysis) I want to post on this, but I'm not really sure if they are part of my REPORT, or belong in DISC. For now, it seems since we are all talking about it here, I will post here in a bit. I have to upload first.

 

[Bill Tabor]

Sorry.. I'll be sure to make that clearer next time that we attempted to make the report... I guess I was kind of vague.

You know, that's what you hear about all the time, that you call 911 and they never relay to the NWS. Looks like that is what happened this time. My guess is that's why it took so long to get logged.

You can use my Street Atlas NWS Phone Overlay, which is also a layer for Grlevel3 too. I probably need to update all those numbers, and re-issue.

I hear a number of chasers stopped reporting because of this, or because their information was ignored or not believed. I've had it happen to me too.

 

[Bill Tabor]

This first map image shows the zoomed in layout of the chase, with most participants represented, along with their location and time. It also includes the times the wedge was spotted, estimated path, and some of mine and Genes times and positions relative to the developing tornado.

 

[Tony Laubach]

You know, that's what you hear about all the time, that you call 911 and they never relay to the NWS. Looks like that is what happened this time. My guess is that's why it took so long to get logged.

I was contacted this morning by someone from OUN in regards to our tornado and it was actually them that made the update to include our report as we obviously can confirm via multiple witnesses to the tornado.

As far as I know, our report ended at the police department... it wasn't til I was in touch with OUN today that the report was made official.

Bill, would you mind if I included your image on my chase reports?

 

[Bill Tabor]

This second map shows our decision option 1 along with our position starting out where we (in reality) went north to Goree. This option shows what I was thinking would have been the best option to get to the storm. I used Street Atlas's routing function to determine distance and time of trip, and I have my routing preferences set aggressively. It's possible I could have been even more aggressive in real life if I had to , but let's just keep it pseudo legal right ?

I believe this is the same option Tim Marshall chose, believing the other option was fruitless and would only end up with an unsuccessful attempt and a smashed vehicle. Using this option we would likely have arrived at 2:57 near your viewing location on hwy 183. This is too late for the tornado.

 

[Bill Tabor]

Bill, would you mind if I included your image on my chase reports?

Sure, no problem

 

[Bill Tabor]

Option 2 based on our position after leaving Haskell, is our only other possibility at this time I believe to try and reach the point where the tornado was viewable. It calls for being very much more agressive and hitting the accelerator and shooting up through Munday, to Goree, and on to Seymore where we shoot south of hwy 183 near Tony, Amos, and Eric, etc's position. I calculated this the same way with Delorme's routing function and determined that it would take about 41 minutes in clear, dry, best scenario conditions to arrive at 2:30. This would be in time for the 2:38 thru 2:44 wedge to cross the road, but only gives us an 8 minute leeway.

In reality I believe this route is fraught with peril and difficulty, and likely doomed to failure as well. We'd be taking hwy 203/277 toward Munday and crossing in front of / penetrating a very large wrapped up area of precip and wind that I that time, I thought really might have a tornado embedded. I still think this was a possibility. Once reaching Munday the supercell tracks pretty much along the same path as hwy 277 on the road to Seymore, and having followed it I know it had hail which grew from nickel, to golfball, to baseball - along with who knows how much high wind, flooding, and blinding rain. I suspect we'd have gotten slowed down some, especially by the large hail breaking our windows in Seymore. I'd say we'd be slowed at least enough to give back those 8 minutes margin of safety between our 2:30 arrival time and the 2:38 tornado arrival time. If that happened then that means we'd still have to somehow get in front of or drive through the tornado. Like I say this approach seems problematic to me as well.

This image also shows the path of meso / tornado all the way back north of Rule. It is my believe based on observation and time that the Rule tornado was formed by another weaker area of rotation further south on the supercell structure / flank than the area of rotation which eventually created the Seymore wedge, and which also crossed the road in front of us on hwy 203/277 north of Weinert. Following is the map 3:

 

[Bill Tabor]

Here are some additional statistics I recorded:
Stamford stop for gas at Shell - 10 minutes (1:25 to 1:35)

Rule Tornado 1:45

We are just on the south end of Haskell at 1:45

We exit Haskell and observe dust or 'gustnado' to our wnw at 1:49

First paused to observe approaching meso and wrapping rain at 1:55 to our NNW we resumed after about 1 min

We paused again at 2pm intersection of 277 and 203 (We resumed nearly 3 min later at 2:03)
2:06 turned down FM1720

Arrive at north turn on Ranch 1720 at 2:14
2:27 turn northeast at Goree for Seymore on hwy 277
2:39 - pause at CR 436 (I believe we were looking taping hail, and wallclouds here)
Resume moving at 2:42
Paused again at 2:48 for 1min 28 sec on 277 at CR411
Arrived Seymore at 2:52
Exited Seymore on hwy 114 at 2:54

Seymore tornado - 2:40 to 2:45

At 2:44 we are 5 miles south of Seymore on hwy 277

Eugene Theiszen - 3 miles se Seymore on hwy 114 observed torn 3 miles to wsw (2:40 to 2:45)
Tony Laubach - position 3 to 4 miles s of Seymore on hwy 183 observed to his immediate east / northeast
Tim Marshall was in similar position to us at Weinart (but apparently ahead a bit) and tried to follow
the same way but encountered big hail so went back to Throckmorton & missed the wedge
Amos Magliocco - reports his position as 4 to 6 south of Seymore on Hwy 183 with wedge nearby crossing to
ENE & most violent near Ogden Road and 226 and surely grazing the C Lazy T Ranch on 222
Bill Mudd - Thinks he might have seen it from 20+ miles south down by Throckmorton

 

[Amos Magliocco]

Tony Laubach - position 3 to 4 miles s of Seymore on hwy 183 observed to his immediate east / northeast
Tim Marshall was in similar position to us at Weinart (but apparently ahead a bit) and tried to follow
the same way but encountered big hail so went back to Throckmorton & missed the wedge
Amos Magliocco - reports his position as 4 to 6 south of Seymore on Hwy 183 with wedge nearby crossing to
ENE & most violent near Ogden Road and 226 and surely grazing the C Lazy T Ranch on 222
Bill Mudd - Thinks he might have seen it from 20+ miles south down by Throckmorton

Bill, I don't presume to speak for Tony, but, as I mentioned, and as you can see from his images, our vehicles were less than thirty five feet apart. Tony was south of me on the road at the moment that my GPS shows us stopped 5.98 miles south of Seymour. So, unless my GPS was wrong, Tony was about 5.981 miles south of Seymour. That's the position from which we both observed the tornado. Your graphic shows Tony north of the tornado track when we were actually both south of it as it crossed the road.

I don't think Tony and I disagree on any positioning or track estimates. Tony, correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Jenn Brindley]

Amos,

It's so funny you mention it, because I was noticing that as well, we were directly behind you. And with the path of the wedge, I pointed that out to Tom just a little while ago. It is possible that it had dropped down prior to lifting and potentially "re-formed" over the road ahead of us... but I don't think it started that far south of us. I'm pretty sure Tony would agree... But that synopsis is very cool... I'll have Tony take another look at it in the morning before we head back to Denver.

Jenn Brindley

Bill, I don't presume to speak for Tony, but, as I mentioned, and as you can see from his images, our vehicles were less than thirty five feet apart. Tony was south of me on the road at the moment that my GPS shows us stopped 5.98 miles south of Seymour. So, unless my GPS was wrong, Tony was about 5.981 miles south of Seymour. That's the position from which we both observed the tornado. Your graphic shows Tony north of the tornado track when we were actually both south of it as it crossed the road.

I don't think Tony and I disagree on any positioning or track estimates. Tony, correct me if I'm wrong.