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Chris C Sanner
EF5
Well what a dissapointing day on my end. I was initially in Davis, saw JR
Henly (I'm pretty sure that was you) jetting south on I-35. I stayed in Davis for a few more, tried to gather some info and decided to stick with my plan to target the 15% tornado potential as outlined by the SPC. To make a long story short, nothing but weak severe storms in-and-around Ada. I had a cell phone problem which held me up from going anywhere else for an hour and a half. And by then I had ran out of usable daylight. So I had Tornadic Supercells on each side of me (by about 100 miles, but who's counting), and I screwed up. No lightning show from the weak storms to boot. So as I head off to bed here in Ada at my brothers apartment, I am hoping I can rebound tommorow out west.Jeff Lawson
EF3
I had originally planned to blow off today, but I ended up chasing anyway. After watching towering CU bubble along the dryline all afternoon in NW TX, a storm finally fired in SE Clay County. I made a quick call to Steve Miller to let him know about it (as far as I knew, he was sitting in Ardmore), and the first thing he said when he picked up the phone was, "Jeff, I know about it...I'm blasting west on Hwy. 82." Once he told me how nice the storm looked from his vantage point, I grabbed my gear, hopped in the Jeep, and raced northwest on 287 out of Fort Worth.
The first SVR for Montague County was issued as I was gassing up in Decatur, giving a storm motion to the ENE at about 25 mph. I could already tell visually that the storm was sitting stationary, backbuilding to the WSW, so I just continued up 287 to Bowie rather than make any move to get out in front of it. Just a few miles south of Bowie, the updraft base came into view...with a giant, ground-dragging wall cloud underneath. This thing was SCARY.
I jumped off 287 and dove into Bowie, racing the wall cloud to the intersection with Hwy. 59. From there, I went NE, the wall cloud right over my left shoulder, still dragging the ground. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos from that point, as I was too busy driving - the inflow was intense enough to require keeping both hands on the wheel, and I was busy dodging traffic.
Steve Miller and Robert Hall passed me going the other way as I started to get into precip, so I pulled a U-turn and fell in behind (Steve was running GPS, whereas I wasn't...and past experience has taught me that the Roads of Texas is less than accurate in Montague County). We stopped on a farm road just SE of Bowie to watch the storm try to wrap up, producing a decent rotating wall cloud. But just as things got interesting, cold, wet RFD came blasting in. It was yesterday all over again.
The storm seemed to be making a pretty hard right turn by that point, so we dropped south on a collection of dirt and paved roads to just NW of Forestburg. Along the way, we realized the storm had some incredible structure: big, stacked plate, mothership meso. It's a shame we were too close to photograph it.
On FM 455, just NW of Forestburg, we watched the storm produce another wall cloud (of sorts), this time more vertically oriented. The rotation was relatively vigorous with this feature, but once again, just as it tightened up, cold, wet RFD arrived. So, we dropped down to Forestburg to assess the situation. The storm still had some nice structure, but had taken on a linear HP look - it was also about this time I first realized the storm was truly sitting stationary. We could see a newer storm going up to the west, and with ours looking like it wasn't going to put on much of a show, we headed west to Sunset for a closer look.
The newer storm was producing a wall cloud of its own, but...well, you can probably guess what happened by now.
It had become obvious by that point that the tornado potential with the storms was nil, and with everything starting to line up in an HP mess, I opted to jump back on 287 and wander south in search of some good structure shots (that, and it was in the direction of home). Made it home around 8:00 PM, only to check radar and see that the storms were STILL sitting in the same place. Ran to the post office, got back, checked radar, and saw that the storms were STILL sitting in the same place. Browsed through my photos, ate dinner, made a couple of phone calls, checked radar, and saw that the storms were - you guessed it - STILL sitting in the same place. It'll be interesting to see just how much rain fell in and around Bowie, seeing as they had an HP supercell of some sort sitting overhead for 4-5 hours.
Not a bad chase. It was nice to see a big honkin' supercell south of the Red River again (a rarity in recent years), and the drive was short.David Schuttler
EF5
I was heading to hwy 75 and I-40 but decided to stick around south Tulsa since storms looked to be firing here.Went east at 151st and hwy 75 and proceeded to Bixby and went south of the Arkansas River. Headed east on 64 . Ended up going to Haskell so I could head back north since my sister lives close to where the Tulsa tornado hit . Luckily it wasn't so I went from there back to Bixby to watch the one moving in there. After it was moving on east and I wanted to get away from the parking lots being created along 64.and winded my way to the one south of Bixby at that time. Followed it to the east side of Muskogee. Heard the one out of Henryetta was strong so I headed for it by the time I got to Checotah it was off to the west and dying. Decide to get a mickeyD's at the WalMart drive thru but was told everyone was in the bathrooms because of the tornado warning. The Manager was in the parking lot looking north I pointed it out in the west for her and went down the street for a pack of donuts instead.
Chased 3.5 cells , 3 of them had funnels off and on (South Tulsa, Bixby and the one that went into Haskell then Muskogee)
I saw nothing I could actually say touched the ground, so no tornadoes for me, again
Pic's by tomorow and video in a day or so.
I did have 3 vans pull into one of my shots then they procceded to pull in a private drive and set up cameras right across the hwy in front of me . Havn't decided if I will post those pics yet. The crowds out today already got negative media reaction today we don't need this kind of thing to add to it.Kevin Martin
didnt get to chase, but friends of mine said the storms were cool, saw some video, neato.
BTW
from Jeff
Whats a rotating wall cloud? doesnt a wall cloud HAVE TO BE rotating to be called a wall cloud? thats like saying, hey, theres a rotating mesocyclone.Lance Maxwell
EF2
Actually, a wall cloud does NOT have to rotate to be considered a "wall cloud". A wall cloud can consist of any organized lowering from the base of a thunderstorm. Although rotation often takes place when this happens, it is not a mandatory feature.Jeff Lawson
EF3
Nope. Technically, a wall cloud is just a lowering underneath the updraft base. It doesn't have to rotate.
EDIT: Lance beat me to it.Lance Maxwell
EF2
Haha, but yours mentioned the updraft.....so you win on detail, lol.Aaron Kennedy
EF5
Brief overview. No tornadoes.
Got on a nice LP storm near Castle. Heard about the tulsa tornadoes at this time but decided to stick with our storm. Did for a bit, but delorme maps let us down and we got temporarily lost in the middle of the core and okfuskee county. to make matters worse, our planned route was detoured and we got an extremely long scenic route around Lake Okmulgee. Finally got east of town and rejoined on the Muskogee supercell. Followed it from somewhere around Haskall to Muskogee... somehow we missed the tornado. What a madhouse!!! people everywhere! mostly locals it appeared.
AaronLance Maxwell
EF2
Some good CG here in Norman right now -- that's about all I saw today as I ran outside to the Tahoe to roll up the windows I forgot I had left down.Austin Ivey
EF3
Just wondering if anyone had noticed the TREMENDOUS doppler estimated rainfall in/around Montague county Texas since this afternoon. Supposedly over 13 inches as of midnight central with another storm currently taking aim on the waterlogged area again!
Tulsa area tornadoes
The first cell in NE Oklahoma formed directly under the surface low. Ir began rotating as a small shower over south Tulsa, then dropping 1 inch hail in Broken Arrow. Tree and roof damage was reported in NE Broken Arrow from a brief spin up, and then Tulsa NWS issued a TOR. The tornado later touched down several times south of Inola and south of Choteau. It looked it was about 100 yards wide at times, but did little damage through the countryside east of Tulsa and Broken Arrow. Charles Allison captured a 5 minute tornado life cycle near Haskell, OK, and his video is being shown on the Weather Channel.
Jeff Snyder
EF5
I actually liked the setup today more than yesterday. After review model data, decided to play the boundaries up between I-40 and I-44 east and northeast of OKC. Left Norman about 3p, and heard that a storm was going up north of Tulsa. Got to Henryetta, and proceeded to head north on 75. I liked a storm to out west, but the storms south of Tulsa, and north of us, were severe with rotation. Hearing persistant reports of a large and damaging tornado in and around Rogers County, briefly thought to try and catch up to that storm. However, the storm in Okmulgee county went tornado-warned as we neared west of Bixby. So, we shot east on 171st and then south of hwy 64. Drove through some very heavy rain, but emerged near Haskell and watched a very nice wallcloud try to do something. The main one seemed to get undercut, as a new wallcoud formed a little to east south and east. Headed back on 64, where we saw a tornado looking west out of Haskel. It had nice cloud-to-ground condensation, but was relatively short-lived. I reported it to WX5TUL, but it didn't last long enough for me to get a picture or vid of it. Gabe Garfield, however, was able to get some of it on video...
Caught hwy 62 and headed east a little, periodically stopping to watch wallclouds and attempts at tornadogenesis. It looked quite promising for a while between Jamesville, through Taft, and up to Muskogee. As we neared Muskogee, we began to see evidence of a strong RFD punch developing, as scud was pushing rapidly southeastward just to the south of the meso. Non-coincidentally, rotation started to tighten up and again attempt to do something. Now, here is the grey part....
Looking north from Muskogee, we saw a narrow area where condensation in the shape of a tornado was touching the ground, and it had some rotation as well as strong upward motion. However, the rotation was quite weak. The pseudo-nado lifted, but 'touched down' again near the same area a few minutes later. I still don't know what to really call this ([url]www.tornadocentral.com/now/pseudonado.jpg]...[/url] Whatever the case, we went south a little in Muskogee to ensure safety, but later went back north and then east on 64 out of Muskogee. As darkness was falling, the storm appeared to lose some of its supercell characteristics. Could be wrong, but that's just what it looked like from our perspective. So, we called it a day and headed back to OUN.
All in all, it was a good day. Slightly disappointing to again have a nice supercell with numerous wallclouds that only produced brief, weak tornadoes. However, can't complain with 1 for sure and possibly another tornado. Whatever the case, I was happy that my target verified well.Shane Adams
Obviously New Math is no substitute for chase experience......
Now, onto the disaster......
Mickey Ptak, Jo Radel, and myself convoyed with Chad Lawson and Susan Walling. My thought was to go east and stay ahead of the boundary, so we left OUN around 2:30pm on OK9, with the intention of driving east until we had backed surface winds (or at least due south winds). I had been debating between using 40 or hwy 9, the latter of which was obviously our choice.
Stopped in Wetumka and made a call to Dwain. he said the only storm was a cell near Tulsa that was right on the boundary moving northeast. We both assumed the storm would cross the boundary and elevate....big mistake. By the time we realized the craziness going on east of Tulsa, we were still west of McAlester with no choice but to continue east until we hit the Indian Nation Turnpike.
Long story short, we missed all the Tulsa stuff, and missed the Haskell tornado by 10 minutes. The tornado reported west of Muskogee at 7:15pm was bogus, IMO. We were all over that storm from 6:20pm through 7:30pm and at the time of this reported tornado there were cool west winds and the entire base was surging east on outflow winds. The road in that area at that time was lined with emergency manager/spotter/volunteer FD folks, so I'm highly skeptical of any tornado in that area at that time. Gene Moore was parked not 100 yards east of us, and he left during this time.
Then we heard a tornado warning issued on the storm because of a media-reported tornado at 7:35pm 3 NW of Muskogee, which again, we were looking right at and saw nothing but outflow scud (winds were cool from the west the entire time west of/into Muskogee. I don't see how any tornado was possible.
Ran into Hank Baker south of Taft earlier (around 6:50pm), and he reported having seen a nice stovepipe tornado west of Haskell (the one we missed). From about 6:40-6:50pm, the storm wrapped up hard near Taft and (once again) we were certain it would produce a tornado....but no.
So yet another day goes by this week and tornadoes have still eluded us. Tomorrow is the last chance for a while, so I'm gonna lick my wounds, get some sleep, and get after it again tomorrow with the hopes of finally breaking this horrid April curse.
David Drummond
Member
I am sorry but wasn't this the same person that was doing is own predictions and issuing his own outlooks and doesn't know there are non-rotating wall clouds? :shock:
LOTS of wall clouds do NOT rotate.Similar threads
