4/23/07 REPORTS: TX / OK / KS / CO

[Jeff Snyder]

Wow. I, Dan Dawson, Robin Tanamachi, Gabe Garfield, Jana Houser, Chris Emersick (sp?) barely recovered from what we thought was an imminent bust. We waited an hour or so in Shamrock, hoping for convection near Clarendon or Silverton to develop and sustain. Seeing that this may not happen, we jetted northward towards the convection in the extreme TX panhandle and extreme nw OK. We finally caught up to it north of Buffalo. We saw our first tornado ESE of Sitka. Punching through the light wrap-around precip, we then spotted a small tornado to our southeast (which would put it just SW of Protection). Then, a slightly larger tornado to our immediate south. Then yet another tornado to our west. Yup, I think there were three tornadoes on the ground at the same time between Protection and Sitka. The westernmost tornado was largely an elephant trunk in shape, and it even went through a drill-press-like state. I've never seen three tornadoes lined up like that... All of them were associated with organized cloud-base rotation, so it almost appeared like a multi-vortex mesocyclone, with three embedded tornado cyclones.

We followed this storm north of Protection before watching it weaken (though we got some good lightning pics). It appears as though we got to the storm just in the nic of time, though. As we drove through Canadian, the updrafts looked quite impressive, with rock-hard towers and tops. By the time we entered into OK and drove through Arnett, however, they looked quite leaned-over. We almost, almost gave up, but decided that we just wanted a view of the base. When the base finally came into view, we were extremely surprised to see a large, low wall-cloud west of Buffalo (DZ wasn't impressivel). A bad road option almost cost us, but all is well.

It's nice to avoid a bust, and the experience was quite intense for a while. We'll have pics and vid-stills up after tomorrow's (successful, hopefully) chase.

EDIT: While between the precip core and the mesocyclone on Hwy 160, we advanced through the light-moderate wrap-around precip to witness a fantastic, tiered updraft. It looked a lot like the Attica updraft of 5-12-04 fame... Incredible structure from that vantage point, and surprising considering that it looked like the tower was leaning more than 45 degrees earlier. Total tornado count: ~7 in Clark and Comanche counties, KS. I have 5 on video, and the passengers in my car (Gabe and Jana) were seated in much better position to view two more.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Did the Perryton to Canadian shuffle today and blew the whole deal. I'm a dumb****. I was south of Meade in the OK panhandle as those started. Problem was no data and they were very very fibrous and mushy early on. I still wanted to go east as the area seemed to have some hope and they were fairly solid down low, it was just the anvil area that was horrid looking...smashed in the cirrus. Looking at my alltel map I knew I'd have no data if I went east, but saw I could get some if I went west. Well went west and nothing, then had to drop south to Perryton to finally get some. Then saw the stuff going up east of AMA, first returns. Didn't wait and blasted south, back out into no data.

Meanwhile the eastern towers had more hope. I get to Canadian and get data again and see my hope east of AMA was gone, but a new return just formed out west, north of it. So I went back north to Perryton. Was with no data again till I got there. Looped the radar and saw the thing going straight north...not good. It was quickly apparent it wasn't going to work with its anvil going se as it went north(it was elevated). Still, I thought maybe just maybe it could turn since the one up by Goodland grabbed on as the deeper moisture hit it. As I went north watching it, I noted my eastern stuff in the same area it'd been the whole time, only now it was getting much more intense with convection curling back down in the backshear. I never thought I'd get ahead of it at that point and blew it off and went north of Liberal(evidently I had time as I saw Dan Robinson around this time, before I casually drove north).

Finally I decide to jet up to DDC and se to intercept it in the dark. I got some stills of it from the nw looking se as it was tornado warned. It was cool, but not 16 hours driving cool. I had about 30 minutes to shoot stills of it, before it vanished. I never tried to see any tubes under it, as I just didn't care by that point.

I knew I was messing up when I first opted to drive west to find data in the OK panhandle around 3. I sat there trying to figure out what was best, go east very early on and not be able to get data and maybe miss something out west or down near AMA...or go west and get data and let the towers to the east slip away. That was screw up one, but even at that, I still had more than enough time to correct and go east much later. I just never thought it'd be worth it(able to catch up) until it was too late and obvious I could have caught what turned into a slow mover.

I hate chasing.

Congrats to everyone that bagged today and good luck tomorrow.

 

[Martin Kucera]

Followed the same supercell Jeff is talking about, from Canadian, TX. It went through some interesting motions all afternoon and finally, just as it was getting dark, it produced. I noticed the first tube a few miles S of Protection, looking to my east. Contrast was bad on this one. Then I went a bit north and east, drove through some heavy rain and there it was. White tornado came into view really close ahead and crossed the road, about half way between Sitka, KS and Protection, KS. This is interesting since it seemed the tornado travelled due NW and if it indeed crossed the road, there were no powerlines down. Great looking tornado and so close some folks were backing up their vehicles.
The supercell died quickly, shortly after dark.
Thank You, Jim.

VIDEO HERE :
http://www.floridalightning.com/files/April23_2007_Protection_KS_Tornadoes.wmv

STILLS:
http://www.floridalightning.com/images/April23_2007.jpg
http://www.floridalightning.com/images/Protection_Tornado.jpg
http://www.floridalightning.com/images/Protection_Tornado1.jpg
http://www.floridalightning.com/images/Protection_Tornado2.jpg

 

[Mickey Ptak]

Chad Lawson, Mickey Ptak, and myself decided to stay with our target today and risk a capbust as opposed to screaming north to the OK/KS storm. Jeff Snyder and company passed us after we'd already decided to give up going north, so obviously we made a bad choice. We were headed to the north storm when we all decided we wanted to risk a cap bust to keep our original target area...so we did. We were nearly rewarded, as we managed to get on the tornado-warned storm southwest of Pampa, and watched it go from t-warned to gone in less than an hour....chase over. We don't regret the decision, as we dared the subsidence (sp?) to try and stop our storm.......it did.

So now we're bouncing along I-40 headed home, to lick our wounds and prepare for tomorrow's headache,,er chase.

btw...this is Shane on Mick's computer

 

[Jason A.C. Brock]

Saw the LP storm near Pampa along with half the other chasers in Oklahomam and TX Panhandle who were not in NW OK. Amazing structure and corkscrewing updraft! Timelapse of this thing will be AWESOME. I will post pics and vid of this & last weekends and tomorrows storms on my website perhaps Wednesday.
Will have plenty of pics and video to play with once this season slows down....if it slows down. Still looks like first week of May may be quite at least in Southern Plains. Until then tho we have another storm forthis weekend.

 

[Jerry Funfsinn]

This storm developed SW of Lavern OK and was pretty shy about producing a tornado for a long while. I would be shy too, I must have seen
the entire who's who of storm chasing on this poor cell. It took moving into Kansas for it to finally let loose just west of Protection Kansas. I've seen
tornadoes and I've seen 2 tornadoes simultaniously, but three! This storm literally had me surrounded. I no sooner finished
filming a beautiful slender tornado and nearly got clipped by another in the field directly south of me and was amazed to see
a third "very large" one behind that one.Incredible structure with this storm prior to the tornadoes.I've never seen such rotation
in so many parts of a storm before.
Oh did I mention, I LOVE KANSAS!

Jerry Funfsinn
CreativeJetstream.com

 

[Tony Laubach]

Well, I just wrote a lengthy report covering our 522 mile trip today, but was an idiot and hit the back button on my mouse and it is now gone...

Short version, we arrived late to Protection but nabbed the long slender rope tornado.

I've had 3 chases in a row with at least one tornado and have eclipsed my single April count to 6 tornadoes with a total of 7 thus far on the year. Hoping to go 4-in-a-row after tomorrow!

Low contrast video still as we raced east on Hwy 160.

 

[Mikey Gribble]

I was on the Protection Kansas supercell and got four tornadoes. We got on the storm about 10 minutees after it got severe warned. Over the next two hours it produced countless funnels and some very impressive rotation and vertical motion, but for some reason it could never get the job done and put down a tornado. I was starting to loose hope in my chances for a tornado, but then it finally got its act together an put down one tornado after another. The first one was a stove pipe that lasted about 6 minutes. The second one was a beautiful elephant trunk that looked like a drill bit at the surface. Then the third and fourth tornadoes only last a minute or two each and they both were cones. It was an awesome chase day. I am way too tired to post any pics right now, but if you want to see my video it will be on CNN. It feels good to get a forecast right and bag a nice tornadic supercell after missing out on Saturday. Congrats to everybody who got the tornadoes today.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Post deleted due to updated log posting later in this thread.

See

http://stormhighway.com/april232007.shtml

 

[Jason Boggs]

Got on the LP supercell in the TX panhandle that went up south of White Deer. I chased it to Pampa when it died a quick and sudden death. It was definitely one of the most beautiful LP storms I have ever seen. I was surprised when it went tornado warned though. I never saw any tornadic signs with this storm at all. Anyway, here are the photos.

 

[Wesley Luginbyhl]

Chased the LP storm near Pampa today as well. It had some incredible structure, but after seeing the photos from those who bagged today, its feeling like a bust. Congrats to those who didnt waste their time thinking this storm was actually going to do anything.

The last photo sums up the whole day.

 

[Cameron Redwine]

I just got home from a nice day chase to northwest Kansas. I chased today with Scott Landolt, David Dowell, and company. We spent most of the afternoon waiting for initiation at a truck stop in Limon. We eventually headed east towards developing convection near Tribune. By the time we reached I-70/KS 27, there had already been one report of a tornado on the ground. We went south on KS 27 and witnessed a nice little cone for a couple of minutes just south of the Sherman/Wallace County line around 7:00PM MDT.

 

[Simon Brewer]

Gonna make this quick: followed the supercell from Lipscomb Co, TX to Protection, KS; saw tornadoes and had a good day.

 

[Kenny Drake]

We (me and Chris Whitehead) made the initial target Woodward for data. We made it to the Days Inn on the west side of Woodward at about 3:00pm. Sat vis showed a nice clearing in the cirrus deck to the SW which was subsequently mixing out the low level clouds. We drove southwest to Canadian hoping for something to go up along the differential heating boundary between the cloud deck to the south and clearing to the north. The cell that would become the reason for the Great NW OK Chaser Convergence of 2007 was quite ragged for some time. I have not been able to flood over the obs yet but the cell just exploded NE of Canadian. I'm assuming the influence of the 500mb jet max may have something to do with that. We finally intercepted the meso on 283 just east of Catesby. This cell was interesting in that there was never one concentrated area of rotation and made it very difficult to get up close and personal. Finally, just into Kansas... well everyone else has posted what we saw. Cut the chase just east of Protection, KS and headed back to Norman. Now with a little luck we'll get initiation in central OK tomorrow Because I do not really want to go to KS after 12 hours today.

 

[Bryce Stone]

I drove 600+ miles (round trip) to get an ice cream cone at the Braum's in Pampa, and it took me 10 hours and about $100 to do it. Ah, well. I'll get something today (Tuesday) to make up for the bust. That LP did have really nice structure for a while, though. I suppose it was worth the trip.