4/22/10 REPORTS: CO/TX/KS

[Skip Talbot]

Amazing yet hectic chase with five tornado intercepts including two large cones along highway 70 north of Clarendon and a close encounter with a multi-vortex north of Alanreed.

Here's the full log including pictures, video, and map:
http://www.skip.cc/chase/100422/

 

[Michael O'Keeffe]

Intercepted 4 tornadoes on the storm that tracked across W Kansas! The first a fat cone. Then while planning where we should go thinking our day was over a massive stovepipe borderline wedge was about 1-2 miles to our W! We filmed it for a good 5 minutes as it became a stout stovepipe followed by a great rope out. The next tornado was a large wedge near Friend, KS followed by a small quick rope tornado north of Shallowater. We then got caught behind the storm and decided to call it a day. And o ya the structure was similar to the Valentine, NE storm from last July! UNREAL!

Incredible structure as the storm moves north of Lakin, KS.

The third tornado of the day near Friend, KS.

The video is much better but won't be able to get that up until Saturday.

 

[Allan Jeffers]

Here is what I got from my back yard: (hope its okay to link to another post)

http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/showpost.php?p=267058&postcount=11

 

[cdcollura]

Good day all,

I was simply in the space BETWEEN the "batches" of tornadoes today.

Intercepted two supercells, one SW of Liberal, KS then another near Perryton, TX. Both produced funnels / rotating wall clouds but no tornadoes.

Above: One of the supercell storms in the TX Panhandle.

Lesson learned: Stick to your ORIGINAL target (mine was SW of Wheeler, TX).

 

[Greg McLaughlin]

Chased today with Justin Teague, Dan Robinson, Joseph Tyree and some other friends. We had been looking at the area around Turkey, TX as our target since last night. We arrived to our target area around 5pm. Supercells had developed to our northwest and became tornadic, but instead of racing north to catch them we stayed true to the target.

A cluster of supercells developed on the caprock and one of the cells became the dominant storm. We latched onto this storm as it came off the caprock. After a split, the southern cell deviated to the right and quickly became tornadic. Due to heavy rain and limited road options, we only had a few brief moments to see the large wedge tornado near Paducah, TX around 7:30pm. The tornado was on the ground for at least 20 minutes, maybe longer. Dan Robinson, who chased the Greensburg tornado in 2007 said this one was similar in appearance, however not quite as large. The tornado had intense rotation and I wouldn't be surprised if it was a higher end tornado. Dan and Joseph plan on posting pics and video soon. Congrats to everyone who caught tornadoes today. 2010 tornado season has officially arrived, and it looks like we are in for a lot of chasing in the coming weeks.

 

[Adam Adkins]

Well a very long story short I went out into eastern CO today with no data whatsoever. All I had was a map. This cost me a lot I will not lie but I came with a rather interesting bow-echo which went screaming north towards Ft. Morgan. Here is a shot.

 

[Michael Carlson]

Caught the tornadoes south of Las Animas, Colo.
FULL REPORT HERE

EDIT: VIDEO HERE

 

[brandongreen]

 

[weskranz]

Lucky 22

Funny how Lady Luck works sometimes....

22 has always been my lucky number....and today (4/22) she did not disappoint.

I really enjoyed the nice "stocky" tornado off of 70 just south of I40 (near Jericho). It was a great viewing location and I was able to watch its full evolution. Next I got lucky again on the north side of I40 on 291 (near Alanreed). This beauty had a solid wall cloud and a nice needle danced around a curtain of rain. Another tornado dropped from the same storm and danced around....actually towards 291 which made it interesting.

To top things off, I got pulled over 1/2 mile from my home at 12:30am.....after a 15 hour day. What do you expect......the fine officer notices my chase gear and let's me off the hook. He wanted to hear all about my day!!

I'll get some pics up later.

One final note: Thanks to the Stormtrack members for all of your posts. I've learned alot from everyone and really appreciate your insights.

Good Night.


Pics:
The landscape shot on the left shows the full structure and the anvil popping out from the Jericho storm prior to tornadic activity. The other landscape shot shows the wall cloud in a distance of the Alanreed storm.

The tornado shot on the left is from Jericho & the other shot is from Alanreed.

 

[B Doss]

Video Stills

West of McLean, TX, looking North from I-40 at about 6:40 PM CDT.

 

[Jason Blum]

Dave Toner and I spent the night in Shamrock, TX and spent a couple of hours last night debating whether to chase the CO versus the panhandle targets. We eventually settled on the Texas target and in the morning headed out toward Memphis, TX, where we had lunch. We eventually drifted northwest based mostly on vis satellite observations (and a desire to see some blue skies) and soon found ourselves just north of Alanreed, TX. (Along with what would eventually become a chaser convention of approximately 15 to 20 vehicles).

We then watched two very well-structured supercells pass by our location, both of which were kind enough to drop tornadoes. The second one in particular forced us to retreat a few hundred feet, when it began right-turning toward us.

I got some good video of both of them, which I'll upload tomorrow after editing.

YouTube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-Jqf68C4W8

 

[Terrence Cook]

Finally scored my first high-contrast, rain-free tornado today!

Started with two funnels on I-40, and ended up with a nice cone for a few minutes.

Then after 3 more funnels and a jog back and forth on I-40 we returned to the exact same road for the storm that immediately followed the first.

There were approx 4 funnels that were rotating rapidly, but fell apart while a couple of needle tornadoes touched down briefly on the edge of what was a large rotating mass, the inflow into this second storm was phenomenal... makes you wonder what was way back in there once it wrapped up in rain.

We shall see what tomorrow brings...

 

[Jay McCoy]

Like many I caught the Groom (Jericho) tornado and also caught another jusr NW of Alanreed. I left Amarillo with Jason Boggs and Bri Winkler from KAMR. We had decided to target Groom and setup at the I-40 hwy 70 intersection. We arrived as the 1st storms fired to our SW south of Claude and moved NE directly at us so we just sat there for over an hr waiting for the storms to come to us. The 1st few built up and died out until that one finally took over as it moved north of hwy287 and dropped a couple small rope tornados before it really started to rotate and hook. I headed back west to the other intersection of hwy70 that heads north to Pampa and I-40 as Jason and Bri stayed east for a different angle. As the 1st cone dropped the cell took on more of an ENE movement and the tornado stayed south of I-40 coming right me so I had to move east and missed the last half of it including the ropeout. I then moved east to Alanreed and headed north but after a few miles decided that option wasnt going to work well so I backtracked and went back to I-40 and set up at the rest stop a few miles west of Alanreed and waited on the second tornado warned cell coming up from my WSW. It dropped a somewhat rain wrapped multiple vortex tornaod north of I-40 near Lake McLelann and then another nice straight narrow cone about 2-3 miles NW of Alanreed. After that i went to Shamrock but the cells were merging and lining out so I then decided to head back to Amarillo to get my video back to the station. I saw 6 tornados for sure but being a solo act I could only get video of 3.

You could tell this was the 1st true chase of 2010. The chase convergence and caravan was insane. At least 200 cars minimum. The TIV and its 10 vehicle armada and the Dominator with about 7 vehicles along with tour groups and regular chasers. This looked more like Memorial weekend in a high risk!! I was surprised with such a large outlook and numerous targets. To be honest it wasnt bad though.. Most people were behaving. The only issue I had was as I was driving down an access road. The TIV pulled out ahead of me off a side road which he had plenty of room to do but then his whole armado went right after him pulling out directly in front of me as I was doing about 50. I had to hit the brakes and swerve into the oncoming lane to avoid hitting this idiot in the driver door. I blasted my air horn at him and went on. Guess they still own the road.

Oh well here is a bit of my video.

Jericho (Groom)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9winH4_tZkI

Alanreed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPrROEegn4Y

EDIT***** Also not sure why but NWS AMA's LSR only has hail and wind reports. It did not report any tornados on its LSR that the SPC uses for its storm reports even though I know they received the reports and issued the warnings.. wonder what the deal is.. Chris Nuttal old buddy.. can you give some insight here??

 

[Bill Tabor]

Caught a nice tornado from inception to rope out. Streamed it, took pictures, and video taped with Hi Def. This was an amazingly beautiful tornado. Also called in the warning of this tornado as it approached highway 287 from the south near Goodnight. That was some of my streamed video on the weather channel. Amazing day! This chase wore me out!! Probably more detail chase account and website update. Maybe I'll post some vid on Youtube or something. Submitted warning per NWS call at 5:22 as the funnel was coming down to the ground.

 

[Danny Neal]

Witnessed anywhere between 6 to 8 tornadoes today in the TX panhandle. 6 for sure and 2 that were iffy and are reluctant to count. 3 tornadoes with storm A (as I call it) and 3 with storm B. The other 2 maybes were also with storm B on the heals of storm A.

Tornado #3

Tornado #3

Tornado #1 - Bowl/cone lowering with debris kicked up underneath initial wall cloud.
Tornado #2 - New circulation and fat cone tornado with slight debris field.
Tornado #3 - The tornado the majority saw, a skinny stovepipe that transformed into a multi vortex before roping out.
Tornado #4 - (Same time as #3 further to the west southwest on storm B) A slender stove pipe seen from well over 15 miles away back to the SW of "Storm A"
Tornado #5 - Seen from I 40 as were heading east (no documentation of this tornado was we were driving and could not stop)
Tornado #6 - Multiple vortex tornado NE of Jericho under a bowl lowering.
Possible Tornado #7 - What Brandon Green and BDoss saw but as the funnel was lowering to the ground before it got wrapped in rain. We could not see ground circulation from our position but apparently it was a tornado... tough call.
Possible Tornado #8 - Embedded NE in the rain outside any circulation.... people were saying tornado by us but the funnel looked real high based and didn't seem to make contact.

By then the cold front caught the sups and undercut them and gusted them out and we headed back to Shamrock to upload video via FTP and now are on our way back to Wichita for tomorrow.

Will have photographic and video evidence ASAP of this amazing day near the C(r)aprock later when I get home.

Teaser Pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/NorthernILStormChaser/4222010#