4/13/07 REPORTS: TX / OK / AR

[Glenn Dixon]

We made it as far as Jacksboro, then began driving like we were lost. N. toward Seymour, no south toward Graham, no, north again. Finally made up my mind and went north. Got near Archer City while the local spotters were discussing lowerings and a possible wall cloud but got chased out by the squall line. Played dodge with pea-sized hail the rest of the way back to Denton. Didn't see much lightning nor an isolated base all day. I did, however, get to hear a spotter in one county (which shall remain nameless) refer to a dark lowering as 'omulous'.....

Not exactly the chase I had in mind when I left. Good for equipment testing I guess.

 

[matt patterson]

Some how managed to find myself in Ft Worth about 1/2 mile behind the tornado... Was wrapped in rain for the entire time with only a few clearings. saw some damage to a grocery store and some abandoned cars on the 121 hwy near Irving... Fairly dissapointing for a 500+ mile drive...

 

[Eugene Thieszen]

Walt Gish, Eric Sipes and I left Cordell at 10:30am for our initial target of Seymour, TX. Storms had begun to develop from W of Abilene N to Aspermont and Guthrie by the time we arrived. Stopped to fuel up and get some fast food. Storm moving from near Aspermont toward Rochester went tornado warned just before we left Seymour heading down 277 toward Munday. At Goree we turned N and observed the storm for a short time from a mile or two N of town before backtracking toward Seymour. We headed ESE of Seymour on SR114 and pulled off on the driveway of an equipment site about 3 miles down the road and watched the storm come toward us from the WSW. At 2:41 pm the storm quickly condensed a giant, violent wedge from a large wall-cloud about 3 miles to our WSW. We were able to watch it for only a couple of minutes before it became necessary to move up the road because the tornado was coming at us so rapidly. By the time we turned around at our next pull-off the tor was wrapped in rain and dust as it crossed SR 114 to our NW. We continued following the storm to near Lake Kickapoo, but we did not see any further tornadoes. At Archer City, we pondered intercepting the storm along I-20 heading for Fort Worth, but instead decided to call it a day since none of us liked the idea of chasing in or near an urban area.

Gene
WXtreme Chase Team

Chase Log and Video Captures
http://www.geocities.com/genet_99/wxtreme_2007_037.htm

 

[Bill Tabor]

Updated detail case study of this chase on my website:
http://www.tornadoxtreme.com/Chases_By_Year/2007_Chases/April_13_07/april_13_07.html

Gene Moore and I were exiting Haskell, Tx to the north about the time of the report of the tornado 3NNE of Rule (in Haskell county). This was likely about 5 or so miles from us. I verified this with our GPS log at 1:45. As we were leaving town Gene was joking to me saying "look there's a tornado" LOL. There was lifted, blowing dust in the field. To me it looked like a gustnado, or perhaps one of those very weak rear flank whirlies everyone always sees. Originally I was thinking this was no tornado. However the location aligns very well with the path of the circulation that later led to the now know wedge. So perhaps it is somewhat likely this was a legitimate tornado. Perhaps some other chaser will come up with an image? At the time we ignored this area. We were instead focused to it's northeast on the wrapped up embedded meso that was exibiting rotation as it neared Munday. For awhile we videotaped and photographed this area as we were just within the wrapping rain. Threatnet was showing 138mph. It lowered close to the ground and then occluded. We continued following it through Goree and down hwy 277 always in or near the hook which was almost always rain obscured to varying degrees. We were in 1" hail at times near Bomarton and beyond toward Seymore with much of the road covered with near golfball sized hail, and also a lot extending in the fields while we viewed the meso to our south. We arrived at Seymore to see larger hail nearing baseball. Gene saw one stone while I was on the phone that was 4" or so with spikes as I recall near a home that had lost a lot of siding from the hail. It's a shame we didn't stop to take detail pictures of this, but I was on the phone and another core was approaching, plus we were trying to get into position for a tube. It was very cold in this part of the storm, often with hail fog. I videotaped some of this. At 3:04 at the intersection of FM1790 & FM2180 we observed some strong turbulent motion and various lowerings, but while associated with the meso, they also appeared a bit undercut and cold, outflow dominant. We didn't like the looks of these and the fact that it was going into lower dewpoints colder temps and decided to bail south along the dryline and observe possible tornadic there.

At 4:37 southwest of Graford we observed a large cone shape funnel like lowering for awhile to our wnw associated with the area of rotation that was also becoming part of a bowing shape a cycle or so later on radar. Took some shots of this. Here we also drove in occasional nickel hail and fairly heavy precip. Took shortcut around Mineral Wells as bow was inbound with tornado warning, but it was starting to look like more outflow crap so we continued south and sampled other storms along the way. None of them looked like much including those that Threatnet was showing had about 161mph shear. Later in Lampassas after a brief stop at 7:45 we were treated to billiant CG bolts very nearby in the clear ahead of the precip approaching from the west. At one point the lightning stuck a very large, long wire and illuminated it for awhile. Very cool. Tried to get some video of this, but without much success.

In summary, early on at Haskell we pretty well had picked a perfect spot with great timing as the cell was strenghtening and becoming potentially tornadic. We enjoyed this chase, but overall felt let down and a bit dissipointed as we thought the day had much more tornadic chase potential. It felt good to be out though. Additionally based on what we saw of the warm front anchor cell near Haskell / Munday, etc we didn't have a lot of faith in it's capabilities over toward DFW, but I suppose any thing is possible.

EDIT: I now see the post above mine about the wedge. Very interesting. Please see my additional comment in the Discussion (DISC) thread.
EDIT2: In retrospect, now realizing there was a wedge just at arms reach from us that we couldn't see obviously lends credibility to the whole DFW torn scenario. In actuality this was the scenario we originally anticipated as the anchor storm rode east along the warm frontal boundary.

Also, this really is dissipointing now, to realize we were there at a location further west almost an hour before the other chasers that caught the wedge from looking back east, and realize we got cut off and forced out of position. Our intent was to follow close, observe, and seek the next opportunity to get back in front to the E and SE, but by the time that happened - sadly, so had the wedge. Congratulations to the rest of you guys for snagging a great catch!

 

[Randy Denzer]

Josh Jans, Allan Detrich and myself got a late start and left Brian / College station at about 1300. Got up to I 20 just as the cell west of Mineral Wells took off. hesitated as we watched the cell to our southwest develope and "poof", everything lined out and we got to see LOTS of rain and pea sized hail. This was in no way what we expected today.


Hats off to those who scored today, it was a tough chase.

 

[Brian Emfinger]

Couldnt leave Arkansas till 11am so we didnt get into target area until afternoon. We were on the eastern edge of storms for what was basically all day. First storm we got on was the tornado warned cell in Palo Pinto? county. We were very near the supposed circulation but it was already getting very outflow dominant:

When we got to Weatherford we saw the only interesting thing of the day:

Couldnt tell for sure but there seemed to be some hints of rotation with that. Then we had to go THROUGH Weatherford when everyone was getting off work and well it took quite a while. The storm above is what probably what went on to become the Fort Worth/Dallas storm. We had decided earlier that we would not chase anything in there and so being held up in Weatherford in the end really didnt matter.

Once through Weatherford we starting playing the keep heading south till you find a storm even though everything looks like crap game....and it was sooo fun!

The only storm that even appeared at all like anything worthwhile was the tornado warned storm coming out of Hamilton county. It didnt look as bad as the others on radar but it looked pretty much the same as the others when we got to it. We did get some nickel size hail around Laguna Park but it was brief and for a for a little bit there was some nice inflow in there but it just didnt last.

 

[Tony Cook]

Intercepted the Seymour cell near Archer City (post-tornado). It still had a warning, but cloud base was visually unimpressive. There was nice inflow, but that was about it. The forward flank of the storm went past me, and it took a while to get back in front of it again. I stayed in front of it all the way to Fort Worth, where it began to really get its act together again. Running into the FW metro and out of road options, I stupidly went south on I35W (this was about 5:30, I think). The storm crossed 35W with gusty winds, and I shot video of a couple of nice lowerings (one possibly rotating) along the forward flank. Will post vidcaps if I find anything worthwhile. There was a tornado warning for the cell at the time, but the main rotation was still 10+ miles south of me. Watched painfully on radar as the storm moved through FW and into the Dallas metro, developing that monster hook, and all the while, getting further east of me.

Spent the next hour and change slowing to a crawl at every highway overpass until I finally went through some neighborhoods in South FW and escaped on Highwy 287. From there, it was a white knuckle drive back to Austin, as marginally severe cells translated along and across I-35.


Thanks to Shane Hale for excellent nowcasting help, and road advice near Fort Worth (which I should have listened to). Congrats to TonyL and anyone else who managed a tornado out of this system. My April tornado count is still 0...

Miles: 646
Quarts of Oil: 1+

TonyC

 

[Mikey Gribble]

Ryan Shirk and I decided to chase at the last minute and left Wichita a little after 10AM. We went West of Dallas and intercepted the storm that went through Dallas about 45 miles West of DFW. It never looked very impressive. It kind of appeared outflow dominant after we got on it. As it started to move into the metro area we started contemplating whether we should call it a day or try to stay with the storm through DFW. There wasn't a tornado warning on it and we both figured that if the storm was showing the slightest possibility of producing a tornado the NWS would have already put a warning out because of the high population density in DFW. In addition to that, the storm didn't look good at the time. There wasn't a lowering, no fast vertical motion, and no rotation, so we decided to stop at Whataburger and eat some dinner before heading home. 10 minutes later the storm produced a tornado due East of us (right where we would have been). It felt similiar to getting kicked in the junk.

 

[Jason A.C. Brock]

was on 114 as the wedge passed over 114 to my due West ABOUT 1/4 mile away at most. One had to be in perfect position to see the thing. It appeared at first as tho strong inflow was pushing dirt off the fround then it was wrapping upward into the updraft as I watched a wall cloud to the SW. However a new wall cloud had formed closer to the precip core and when the tornado touched down it wrapped this precip around it very quickly. Ill have to review the video but until the thing was about to cross 114 to my West I wasnt even aware it was a huge tornado. You could see the massive inflow and upward vertical motion jsut before this occured however. It was actually some of the most intense VERTICAL motion ive seen on a storm. I will have to post video and pics later however as my laptop is having issues. There ertainly was a tornado....you jsut had to be in perfect position for a great shot of it....better poition thatn I was anyways :-(. I heard Tony Laubach has a great pic of this wedge. Maybe he can shed more light on the subject.
I went on south to sample the storms as they moved into DFW...I saw numerous dwoned trees and powerlines and got into alot of golfball size hail near Springtown Texas. To make a long story short my chase was cut short in Fort Worth due to my finding out where the Texas Motorspeedway is lol.


Edit : Updated....... I have posted pics & Video of the monster HP supercell storm that Moved from Haskell County Texas into Knox Baylor & Archer Counties of Western North Texas on 4/13/07. You can see the amazing cloud motion and rotation this storm had in our videos and timelapse videos as well ass see video of the large hail that later moved into Springtown Texas West of Fort Worth Texas. These storms would eventually move into the Dallas Fort Worth metro producing as many as 3 tornadoes.
If you look closely at some of the video you can see a large rain wrapped tornado cross 114 SE of Seymour Texas. This is a perfect example of why it is not a good idea to go out looking for tornadoes yourself unless you have the proper training and or have been chasing storms for awhile. Monsters hidden in the shadows such as these can fool even the most seasoned chasers.

Video can be found http://www.texhomastormchasers.com and clicking the 4/13/07 link at the bottom left on the buttons margin.

Or you can also go to the page directly at http://www.texhomastormchasers.com/41307.html

BE SURE TO BROWSE THE PAGE AND LOOK FOR ALL THE VIDEO LINKS AS WELL AS CHECK OUT SOME OF THE RADAR IMAGES OF THIS AMAZING STORM AND CHECK OUT THE REST OF THE SITE.

 

[Rodney Harper]

Well we weren't exactly chasing but we were working in Saginaw when Tarrant went Tor warned. We decided to head back home cause our son was there by himself. We core punched the storm just on the SE side of Eagle Mountain Lake and noticed to very ominous lowerings to our south which would be Ft. Worth and one to our NE probably not a mile apart. We didn't get more than a few quarter sized stones as we punched and heavy rain. As we got home in Azle there was golfball hail all over the ground. Although not the smartest idea to punch a storm of that nature it was lucky for us since there was 3" hail where we were working and a poss Tor soon after. It was definately some of the best motion I have seen near home since the Alvarado Tor of 2005. Whew.

 

[Jeff Snyder]

I chased with my semi-regular group of folks (Dan Dawson, Robin Tanamachi, Jana Houser, and Mike French) west of the DFW metroplex. Our original goal was to target the area around Decatur, in hopes that it would keep all options open (e.g. we could intersept any northeastward-moving storms that developed near or sw of DFW, while also giving us space to head west or east if necessary). I was pleased to see the lack of convection in the warm sector during the morning (the models had forecast widespread convection across northern TX during the morning), and I was pleased to see some insolation occurring across parts o western north Texas. By the time we made it into Gainesville, we were well aware of the cell near Seymour, but we though it would quickly cross into more stable air. So, we waited for new initiation near or SW of I20, thinking it would move northeastward at us. Well, we waited in Decatur for what seemed like an hour (it probably was, actually) before opting to head towards Weatherford in hopes that the developing convection to our west would be more discrete in that area. Well, that didn't happen. The squall line (with embedded mesos and leading-edge mesovorticies that were very apparent on the Fort Worth 88D from time-to-time) passed over us near Springtown. Just south of Springtown, we came upon a pretty serious head-on collision, and we were just the 2nd car to come across the accident (the first car was just ahead of us). I didn't know where the driver of one of the vehicles was (the driver of the truck), but the driver of the car was pinned. I worked with a few others to pull the door open enough for someone to pry the guy's leg out. Regardless to say, he will probably have a very sore leg for some time (I can't imagine it isn't badly broken in some places, especially considering the stearing column was pressed all the way to the driver's seat). When it appeared as though he was free of serious injury, with emergency services 'en route, and a dozen others at the scene, we figured we couldn't provide any more help, so we continued onward.

By the time we made it to Weatherford, we heard about the tornado warning for Tarrant county. We briefly thought about (and tried) to catch up to it, but 4 accidents in a 2-mile stretch of I20 east of Weatherford made that impossible. Instead, we met up with Amos M., Eric N., Tony L. and his crew at a mexican food joint in northern Fort Worth. It was great to chat with Amos and Eric again, and it was great to finally meet Tony.

I'm not not entirely sure what that fineline was that was ahead of much of the convection west of FTW. First guess was an OFB, but it was continuous with a very fast-moving front that was sweeping eastward across the area. In addition, it was readily apparent before much convection developed along and behind it. With such intense low-level shear, I also can't imagine the outflow and gust front would have been able to surge that far ahead of the convection. So, given all this, I think it was more of a pacific front / cold front that moved so quickly that it undercut the convection and provided for an intense, linearly-oriented source of surface convergence. By early to mid-afternoon, I saw several obs near I20 in western TX that had westerly winds at 20-40kts. During the mid-afternoon, it looked as though the Canadian cold front was located E-W near Lubbock (northerly winds N of that), with a Pacific airmass located south and southeast of Lubbock (with very strong westerly winds). I thought briefly that this main boundary was a sort of dryline, but, IIRC, the air behind it was not "hot and dry" as we typically see with dryline (it was mild and relatively dry, not atypical of Pacific cold fronts). By the time 23z approached, it appeared as though the Canadian cold front had joined up with this Pacific cold front across much of the northern TX, as winds had turned to the NW and NNW behind the fineline and convection.

Well, strongly, linear sfc convergence along a rapidly-moving cold front will do that. I'm still surprised that we saw an upgrade to High risk all the way to the Red River, since it seemed apparent that the northern 1 or 2 counties in northeastern Texas were not going to see appreciable destabilization. I think the 00z or 01Z mesonalysis showed negligible SBCAPE (and very high CINH) for areas north and northeast of the DFW metroplex, which seemed to agree with 12z model forecasts. For the complete lack of sfc-based instability, along with the linear storm mode along the rapidly-moving cold front, I was surprised to see the High persist on the 01z SWODY1 (though I have a feeling this was more for continuity sake than anything else). Now, I agree that this setup looked like it could have supported strong tornadoes (and even violent tornadoes, given the very intense low-level shear), but I think the MDT + PDS tornado watch would have sufficed, at least across the northern 1/2 of the High risk area (hindsight is 20/20, yes, but I thought the same thing after the 20z SWODY1 was issued). We talked about this at dinner, and we wondered if some politics crept into the outlook process (being that the metroplex and TMS were under the gun). I'm not being overly critical, but it's just an observation that was shared by several I talked to today. (Politics will always play a role in the warning, watch, and outlook process in situations like this, so I'm not necessarily meaning to negatively criticize this)

 

[Tony Laubach]

COMPLETE APRIL 13, 2007 STORM CHASE/TORNADO LOG CAN BE FOUND HERE!!!

We got suckered into the storm heading towards Seymour and barrelled north on Hwy 183 to get beneath it. What an unreal scenario as we certainly nabbed the needle in the haystack on this day!

Started in Wichita Falls; ended in Wichita Falls, and drove the same highways twice in some cases, but in the end, scored one of the better chased tornadoes of my career!

We met Amos and Eric in Ranger, TX at a small cafe; After a fuel fill-up and some data, we elected to fly north from Ranger to catch what was being dubbed as the "sucker storm" as we later came to find out.

We got positioned to the storm's immediate south on 183 just about 3-4 miles south of Seymour when the circulation took on violent characteristics and formed into the giant wedge which churned away to our immediate east/northeast before we got swallowed by the RFD.

We fought our way through hail and water covered roads to get east out of Seymour where we encountered incredible anti-cyclonic cloud motions and a newly developing meso to our southwest. Fortunately, neither of those areas developed into anything and we were free to parade east.

We tried to dive south to give us a catch, but to no avail. We called the chase southwest of Ft. Worth as the state of Texas held its breath when the right-moving supercell tore straight across the entire Metroplex; a sobering experience listening to that on 1080AM.

Kudos to Eric and Amos for their navigation to get us in position in time to view this tornado! And of course, how nice it was to be chasing with friends! And mega-kudos to Tom who was calling this storm beautifully the entire time! And also big congrats to Jenn who witnessed her very first tornado in a state she had sworn to hate...we may never get her to leave it now! LOL

SO GLAD I'M CHASING TEXAS IN APRIL.. NOT NEBRASKA!

COMPLETE APRIL 13, 2007 STORM CHASE/TORNADO LOG CAN BE FOUND HERE!!!

COMPLETE APRIL 13, 2007 STORM CHASE/TORNADO LOG CAN BE FOUND HERE!!!

I'll be posting raw videos as soon as I get home... was having computer issues with my FTP software and haven't been able to upload anything over a meg... will try when I return to Denver Sunday...

 

[Brandon Smith]

We left Norman, OK a little before 2 PM today, making it to Gainesville, TX at little before 4 PM. From there, we headed SW on Route 51, making a stop in Decatur, TX to do a radar check. After having some difficulty finding a wifi location and navigating the local roads, we finally continued SW on Route 51, heading towards Springtown, TX.

We realized we had spent a little too much time in Decatur messing with wifi when we started to see the edge of the squal line about 5 - 10 miles north of Springtown. The updraft behind the shelf cloud was incredible. For some reason, probably related to the storm, we got caught up in traffic in Springtown as the storm beared down us. By the time we reached the Route 51/Route 199 intersection, we could hear tornado sirens blaring through the town. We decided that we would head east on Route 199 to try to get ahead of the line.

Heading east, we began to see one of the many leading edge mesovorticies, that Jeff Synder previous mentioned, just to our south. There was definitely rotation, althought not strong, but still noticable enough from a moving vehicle. The mesovorticy approached us, passing over our heads, heading E/NE Keep in mind, at this point, we are attempting to race eastbound along Route 199, along with a bunch of other drivers. Suddenly, and with no warning, our vehicle started getting pelted with pebbles/sticks/leaves directly from the due south. We quickly began to roll up our windows. Dust began to whirl up and move quickly across the road. All the vehicles, including ours, were getting buffeted around, causing everyone to get on the brakes to stay in their lane. It became obvious that this mesovorticy that we saw had begun to make contact with the ground, very close us. There was nothing to do but race eastward in hopes of getting out of it. Apparently the beginning tornado we witnessed was on the ground between Boyd and Briar. This was definitely one of the most scariest moments I have ever been in. Being in a situation where thing are starting to blow all around you with no knowledge of where the possible tornado is is very frightening.

It was apparent that this rotation was what spawned these warnings. We were kind of stuck between the areas the warning was issued for:

http://kamala.cod.edu/offs/KFWD/0704132148.wfus54.html
http://kamala.cod.edu/offs/KFWD/0704132243.wfus54.html

Getting closer to Fort Worth now, we decided to pull off and let this storm pass us and there was no way we were going to be able to keep up with it. Once it passed, we then began to hear the warnings come out about the tornado N of Fort Worth. If only we would have kept on chasing east. We continued south of Fort Worth in hopes of catching some of the southern cells but realized we were too late. It was getting to be a bit far from Norman and we were getting tired. Overall, it was a very good experience for chasing on our first high risk day. Photos below.

The squal line about 5 miles north of Springtown, looking west. Taken near the Wise/Parker county line.

The backside of the shelf cloud with the intense updraft.

Beginning of the mesovorticy embedded in the leading edge of the squal line. A few miles east of Springtown, looking south.

Getting better organized and getting closer. Same location and direction as before.

Another shot, shortly before we encountered the circulation reaching the ground. Same location and direction as before.

 

[Amos Magliocco]

You Tube video here

Web report with a few video grabs

Eric's still imagery here

Eric Nguyen and I observed a large tornado at 1938z, which was on the ground for at least six minutes and probably much longer as we lost visual once it wrapped in rain.

We had targetted an area from Throckmorton to Ranger but elected to go west on I-20 rather than SR 380 because we lacked confidence that significant instability would develop northwest of DFW. Moisture seemed to be advecting mainly into areas further west and southwest and the early RUC, even as it increased the "wrap around" moisture north of the surface low, generated little CAPE there. We assumed this was a function of cloud cover and cool air associated with (model-depicted and mostly imagined) WAA storms and earlier convection. We suspected this could keep the warm front along or just north of the interstate and we wanted to play storms crossing the boundary.

We stopped in Ranger and took lunch at El Rancho Cafe where Tony Laubach, Tom Dulong, and their friend Jenn joined us. We emerged to a very different situation. Now our skies were dotted with cu and it was apparent the front had sailed north without us, much like 07 April 2002 when Eric and I both missed the great Throckmorton tornado for the same reason. This was heavy on our minds because, on the way to Ranger, we had replayed the first episode of Gene and RJ's "High Instability" radio program where the hosts and Dr. Doswell discussed that event. Imagine our amazement when we realized this storm to our north was intensifying and probably about to traverse the warm front as it neared...where else? Throckmorton of course.

We moved north and finally gained a view of the base from about ten miles south of Seymour. We observed intense rotation west of the road, followed by strong RFD and occasional baseball hail. The tornado crossed 183/283 approximately six miles south of Seymour and we observed a fully condensed wedge tornado from near that location as it moved to our east northeast. For survey purposes, I would place the tornado at its most violent between 183/283 and SR 114, perhaps between Ogden Road (FM 1286) and CR 226. The tornado wrapped in rain and continued northeast and almost certainly grazed the C Lazy T Ranch on CR 222.

From there we tried to maintain position relative to the mesocycolne, but it was apparent the storm had crossed the front and suffered from more stable inflow. We dropped south but observed nothing more interesting than some elevated albeit pronounced rotation in a forward-flank meso in extreme northeast Palo Pinto and northwest Parker counties around 22z, about when Fort Worth warned on the storm.

We meandered back to the metroplex listening to radio coverage of the storms moving through Tarrant and Dallas Counties, an experience which was, as Eric described, "sobering." For all the noble efforts of FWD to raise awareness of such a possibility here, watching it happen on radar (and during race weekend no less) was surreal and scary. We were both glad to see the damage to life and property is apparently minimal.

We had a great dinner with Tony Laubach, Tom Dulong, and their freind Jenn--all from Colorado, plus Jeff Snyder, Robin Tanamachi, Dan Dawson, and their friends Mike and Janna.

 

[Bryce Stone]

Blugh. Arrived in Decatur just as the line was moving in. Went back east and then south to Justin. From there, I could see the backside of the storm producing the tornado just north of the Fort Worth area. That's about as close as I could get. I would say I was maybe 15-20 miles north of the tornado while it was on the ground in the FW suburb. Then drove east all the way to Greenville in hopes of seeing something. Gave up in Greenville and came back home.

It was an interesting experience to be in so many tornado-warned counties in one day. I think I managed to be in at least four different counties while they were tornado-warned and all I saw was rain, rain, and more rain.