Simon Brewer
EF3
Jim Bishop, Tom Santillo, Cory Rundquist, and I witnessed an incredible supercell and brief tornado near Electra, TX before the moisture was significantly affected by dry air mixing east of the dryline. Will post pics soon...
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After witnessing the continued decrease of involvement in the SpotterNetwork staff in serving SN members with troubleshooting issues recently, I have unilaterally decided to terminate the relationship between SpotterNetwork's support and Stormtrack. I have witnessed multiple users unable to receive support weeks after initiating help threads on the forum. I find this lack of response from SpotterNetwork officials disappointing and a failure to hold up their end of the agreement that was made years ago, before I took over management of this site. In my opinion, having Stormtrack users sit and wait for so long to receive help on SpotterNetwork issues on the Stormtrack forums reflects poorly not only on SpotterNetwork, but on Stormtrack and (by association) me as well. Since the issue has not been satisfactorily addressed, I no longer wish for the Stormtrack forum to be associated with SpotterNetwork.
I apologize to those who continue to have issues with the service and continue to see their issues left unaddressed. Please understand that the connection between ST and SN was put in place long before I had any say over it. But now that I am the "captain of this ship," it is within my right (nay, duty) to make adjustments as I see necessary. Ending this relationship is such an adjustment.
For those who continue to need help, I recommend navigating a web browswer to SpotterNetwork's About page, and seeking the individuals listed on that page for all further inquiries about SpotterNetwork.
From this moment forward, the SpotterNetwork sub-forum has been hidden/deleted and there will be no assurance that any SpotterNetwork issues brought up in any of Stormtrack's other sub-forums will be addressed. Do not rely on Stormtrack for help with SpotterNetwork issues.
Sincerely, Jeff D.
4/7/08 REPORTS: OK/TX
- Thread starter Simon Brewer
- Start date
Shane Adams
Chad Lawson and I targeted the area southeast of the TP in west-central OK all the way, so you know how this story ends. Mickey Ptak met up with us at our chilling spot (281 & US62 at the Apache Wye). Met a nice chasing couple while sitting there, and today was the wife's first chase. We ignored the Electra storm for over an hour, confident that our target would light up later in the evening. This confidence was inspired by a rich tongue of moisture flowing up just west of us. But nothing happened. We finally said "f#$k it" around 5pm, and made the "oh crap we blew the forecast" mad dash south to the Wichita County storm, which of course remained insane right up until we reached it. We sat east of Temple, OK for the better part of an hour, watching all attempts near and southwest of us fail. We decided to throw in the towel and head home around 7pm....and as we got far away from where we'd been, the storms that once looked like crap began to intensify, so we missed two rounds of severe in the Wichita county area....great day for us.
Congrats to those who played further south into the richer moisture and scored the brief tube, wish we'd have been among them.
Congrats to those who played further south into the richer moisture and scored the brief tube, wish we'd have been among them.
sdienst
EF1
We were on the storm near Electra too and witnessed at least one tornado. Ended up on 240 heading east out of Harrold towards Haynseville where we observed a slender tornado within some heavy rain. I'll hope to get some video grabs up with enhanced contrast.
Zac Goode
EF0
Steve Burre
EF0
After working in the morning, I picked up my gear at my home in Weatherford and decided to head towards Wichita Falls with a distinct possibility of heading up to Lawton. However, I could already see towers by the time I passed Jacksboro which I estimated to be NW of Wichita Falls. Parked at the Texas Visitor's Center on the north side of Wichita Falls for the WiFi connection and see what things were doing...just in time to see a hook on the Harold/Electra storm and then hear the tornado warning on the radio about 15 seconds later.
Here is a photo as I was approaching Electra on Hwy 287:
I finally parked just to the east of Electra to witness VERY strong rotation; however, I couldn't confirm any touchdowns from where I was, although one definately looked imminent (I admit I was having thoughts back to the 4/10/79 Seymour tornado which was my first one). Following the storm down Hwy 287 back towards Wichita Falls, I also saw some pretty decent high level rotation just NW of Iowa Park, but things weren't nearly as impressive as they were near Electra.
The storm rapidly declined as it moved into the Wichita Falls area and I decided to hang around the area in case something else fired up and had dinner while waiting around. As sunset approached, I started heading back home and kept an eye out for another severe storm in Archer county to the SW of Wichita Falls. Here's a photo of this southernmost storm taken from Hwy 281 near the town of Scotland. I didn't see anything that was threatening at the base as far as rotation was concerned, however, Dopper radar was estimating the possibility of tennis ball sized hail.
Here is a photo as I was approaching Electra on Hwy 287:
I finally parked just to the east of Electra to witness VERY strong rotation; however, I couldn't confirm any touchdowns from where I was, although one definately looked imminent (I admit I was having thoughts back to the 4/10/79 Seymour tornado which was my first one). Following the storm down Hwy 287 back towards Wichita Falls, I also saw some pretty decent high level rotation just NW of Iowa Park, but things weren't nearly as impressive as they were near Electra.
The storm rapidly declined as it moved into the Wichita Falls area and I decided to hang around the area in case something else fired up and had dinner while waiting around. As sunset approached, I started heading back home and kept an eye out for another severe storm in Archer county to the SW of Wichita Falls. Here's a photo of this southernmost storm taken from Hwy 281 near the town of Scotland. I didn't see anything that was threatening at the base as far as rotation was concerned, however, Dopper radar was estimating the possibility of tennis ball sized hail.
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Jeff Snyder
EF5
Today was definitely a structure day, that's for sure. Dan Dawson, Howie Bluestein, and I made the trip southwest from OUN with an initial target of between Snyder and Hobart, OK. Upon seeing initiation W of SPS, we hedged a bit south, and sat in Lawton for a half an hour waiting to see any signs of life nearer the warm front. SFc maps at the time showed the low-level moisture mixing out across the DFW metroplex northwestward towards SPS, where Tds generally resided in the 55-59F range. Despite this, the only game in town was the triplet of cores W of SPS, so we darted southward towards Burkburnett.
By the time we made it to just N of SPS, the supercell had already produced all the tornadoes it was going to produce. We did see a nice RFD cut NW of SPS, but the base looked mighty high for most of the time. This storm died a slow death as it moved north of our location (a few mi W of I44 about 10 mi into TX), though we watched with some fascination at the many possible gravity waves produced by the supercell as they spread northward. ~3 were readily apparent from KFDR over the course of 2 hours, with Tcu and Cb developing on each wave as it near Lawton, only for all to fall apart w/in ~30 minutes of going up. FWIW, I believe the storms that developed near and W of OKC after dark can be directly tracked back to one of these waves that originated from the SPS storm sometime near 6p.
At any rate, winds backed to an ESE direction across southwestern Oklahoma (near our original target area), and Tds pooled to the 60-62F range. However, vis sat showed no substantial area of Tcu farther north (confirmed with our eyes, obviously). As convection slowly intensified near Seymour, we were all set to head back northward into OK in hopes that something would develop in the marvelous shear and pooled Tds just south of the warm front across western Oklahoma. Just as we were about to leave, the two cells near Seymour intensified rather quickly. Instead of heading S, we dropped south-southwestward towards the two cells.
We came into view of the 1st supercell (the 2nd of the day, really) WSW of SPS, where some very good structure was evident. An RFD tried to cut into the storm, and a wall cloud developed with pretty good rotation and upward motion. However, a cell to its south was disrupting the inflow to this northern supercell. Given the proximity of the storms, it seemed prudent to drop southward yet again to the "tail end charlie" supercell. So, we dropped south to Windthorst TX, running through 3/4" hail on the way (maybe bigger -- we didn't stop to size it up given that the main core was just about to come over us). The structure of the updraft was incredible at this time (815-830p), with multiple tiers in an upside-down wedding cake fashion. Unfortunately, we were right underneath the updraft, so it wasn't really possible to take pictures (we needed to be 15-20 miles away to get some good structure shots). This cell too slowly weakened as it moved to the E, and we headed back home on I44.
The 00z soundings reveal that, as I had feared (and many others had feared, I should note), moisture was the primary inhibitor for more significant tornadic action. Heck, the MLCAPE at OUN and FWD were both in the 750-800 j/kg range, with 45-50F tds just off the deck. Despite the hope of adequate moisture return last night, it appears that it was insufficient. All the storms looked rather high-based when we saw them, and the 55-58F tds "dry hole" in N TX didn't help any. It's worth noting that the 4km WRF run from last night (forget which particular run -- EMC or NSSL) had big "holes" in the higher Tds across southern OK and northern TX today, with Tds as low as 52F in some areas. I brushed this off last night since it seemed to be ridiculously low. However, looking at obs near 5-6pm, it doesn't appear to have been too far off. The various RUC forecasts (and earlier NAM forecasts) of 65+ Tds in southern OK and northern TX were obviously horrendous.
For all intents and purposes, meager moisture ended up laying waste to an extremely good shear profile across the risk area today. Alas, it is only early April, a time of year in which we expect moisture to be a primary inhibitor. And here I was, thinking that we may actually see a significant tornado day in Oklahoma... Foolish me -- I ended up about 75 miles farther south than I ever thought I'd be today (I didn't think I'd have to go south of LTS-LAW), with no tornadoes. Good structure makes up for it a bit, but I'm chomping at the bit for a good tornado, especially given the hype of the past few chase days.
By the time we made it to just N of SPS, the supercell had already produced all the tornadoes it was going to produce. We did see a nice RFD cut NW of SPS, but the base looked mighty high for most of the time. This storm died a slow death as it moved north of our location (a few mi W of I44 about 10 mi into TX), though we watched with some fascination at the many possible gravity waves produced by the supercell as they spread northward. ~3 were readily apparent from KFDR over the course of 2 hours, with Tcu and Cb developing on each wave as it near Lawton, only for all to fall apart w/in ~30 minutes of going up. FWIW, I believe the storms that developed near and W of OKC after dark can be directly tracked back to one of these waves that originated from the SPS storm sometime near 6p.
At any rate, winds backed to an ESE direction across southwestern Oklahoma (near our original target area), and Tds pooled to the 60-62F range. However, vis sat showed no substantial area of Tcu farther north (confirmed with our eyes, obviously). As convection slowly intensified near Seymour, we were all set to head back northward into OK in hopes that something would develop in the marvelous shear and pooled Tds just south of the warm front across western Oklahoma. Just as we were about to leave, the two cells near Seymour intensified rather quickly. Instead of heading S, we dropped south-southwestward towards the two cells.
We came into view of the 1st supercell (the 2nd of the day, really) WSW of SPS, where some very good structure was evident. An RFD tried to cut into the storm, and a wall cloud developed with pretty good rotation and upward motion. However, a cell to its south was disrupting the inflow to this northern supercell. Given the proximity of the storms, it seemed prudent to drop southward yet again to the "tail end charlie" supercell. So, we dropped south to Windthorst TX, running through 3/4" hail on the way (maybe bigger -- we didn't stop to size it up given that the main core was just about to come over us). The structure of the updraft was incredible at this time (815-830p), with multiple tiers in an upside-down wedding cake fashion. Unfortunately, we were right underneath the updraft, so it wasn't really possible to take pictures (we needed to be 15-20 miles away to get some good structure shots). This cell too slowly weakened as it moved to the E, and we headed back home on I44.
The 00z soundings reveal that, as I had feared (and many others had feared, I should note), moisture was the primary inhibitor for more significant tornadic action. Heck, the MLCAPE at OUN and FWD were both in the 750-800 j/kg range, with 45-50F tds just off the deck. Despite the hope of adequate moisture return last night, it appears that it was insufficient. All the storms looked rather high-based when we saw them, and the 55-58F tds "dry hole" in N TX didn't help any. It's worth noting that the 4km WRF run from last night (forget which particular run -- EMC or NSSL) had big "holes" in the higher Tds across southern OK and northern TX today, with Tds as low as 52F in some areas. I brushed this off last night since it seemed to be ridiculously low. However, looking at obs near 5-6pm, it doesn't appear to have been too far off. The various RUC forecasts (and earlier NAM forecasts) of 65+ Tds in southern OK and northern TX were obviously horrendous.
For all intents and purposes, meager moisture ended up laying waste to an extremely good shear profile across the risk area today. Alas, it is only early April, a time of year in which we expect moisture to be a primary inhibitor. And here I was, thinking that we may actually see a significant tornado day in Oklahoma... Foolish me -- I ended up about 75 miles farther south than I ever thought I'd be today (I didn't think I'd have to go south of LTS-LAW), with no tornadoes. Good structure makes up for it a bit, but I'm chomping at the bit for a good tornado, especially given the hype of the past few chase days.
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Ben Prusia
EF4
I just got back home from Wichita Falls, TX (1,030 miles in 15 and a half hours...wow). It was an okay day, chasing-wise, I did not notice any tornado while I was on US-287 NW of Wichita Falls, but did witness some rotation as the storm moved slowly to the east from Electra. Report and pictures to come soon!
sdienst
EF1
After looking over video some more, it appears that a fairly large tornado was on the ground for a brief period of time before dissapating. I viewed this tornado from roughly the Wichita/Wilbarger county line on SR 240 looking NNE about 1 mile, or about 2 miles WNW of Haynesville. Like I said before, we exited at Harrold and drove east on 240 into heavy rain and hail while getting breif views of the meso. We stopped when I noticed brown debris swirl and tried to shoot some video through more heavy rain. You can see the motion on video and the contrasted stills bring it out even more. We slowly continued east before getting another view of it beginning to rope out. My friend works at SPC and he called someone he knows there but still no report for this tornado.
Attachments
JR Hehnly
EF4
I arrived too late to the Wichita/Wilbarger to see the early tornado, but did experience what was possibly a brief spin-up just west of Bacon. I was standing outside the car watching the clouds rotating overhead just barely to the north. A strong west wind picked up and rapidly intensified. I assumed it was RFD until it REALLY sped up and then grass and dirt was lofted up just a hundred yards to my east. At that point I decided to high-tail out of there rather than stay and video. This was all as the local spotters on the radio were reporting a funnel nearly on the ground where I was. I'm guessing I was just too close to see any condensation funnel above me.
Ended up with nice structure shots, though, as well as worked through some equipment issues and had video streaming most of the time.
Images can be see at http://www.okstorms.com/images/chases/2008-04-07/index.html
Ended up with nice structure shots, though, as well as worked through some equipment issues and had video streaming most of the time.
Images can be see at http://www.okstorms.com/images/chases/2008-04-07/index.html
Darrin Rasberry
Target location: Lawton, Texas. We felt that Lawton played the dryline/triple-point scenario well, so we headed there from Wichita (KS) and arrived at the destination at approximately 3:30-4 PM, just as the Wichita Falls cell began to intensify.
1. Cutoff at the Red River I44 bridge. However, our biggest letdown came when we did not make the Interstate 44 crossing before the storm grew over Burkburnett, Texas. Fearing a continuous hail shield over the Red River bridge, we attempted to view the monster cell from the Randlett, Oklahoma area, but the cell was difficult to document from our vantage point.
2. Lawton, Oklahoma. Tossed between a growing threat near Archer County and potential for the triple point to explode, we decided to play north of the Red River so we could avoid running into the core of the aforementioned cell. We headed north to a promising-looking structure just as the stationary mothership began to disintegrate.
However, the cells between Oklahoma City and Wichita Falls never matured, as they were possibly cut by the moisture-grabbing and early Wichita County cell. By that time, other cells too far north of our position began to grow and become severe warned, but they moved out of reasonable intercept range, so we decided to resign this setup and march home.
3. North of Emporia, Kansas. As we were returning, we had a choice to continue on the Kansas Turnpike and avoid the storms, or return to chase mode and intercept a severe-warned cell north of Emporia on Interstate 35. We chose the latter, and reached the target in time to at least grab a view of a lightning show in the gorgeous flat area north of the Flint Hills/Matfield Green park. The sight was incredible, and managing our speed in this night chase allowed us to avoid a hail core situation. Although our video camera was inactive due to a power converter failure, we managed to take some snapshots of the beautiful and close lightning, and will post the pictures if any of them turn out worthy upon review.
Conclusion. All in all, this was a busted chase, in that our positioning prevented us from (in our opinion at the time) safely intercepting the Wichita County cell from north of the Red River, and also of witnessing the interesting structures from the better side of the setting sun. Save an arrival that was a tad late, there was nothing much more that we could have done to salvage the disintegrating weather situation at the time.
1. Cutoff at the Red River I44 bridge. However, our biggest letdown came when we did not make the Interstate 44 crossing before the storm grew over Burkburnett, Texas. Fearing a continuous hail shield over the Red River bridge, we attempted to view the monster cell from the Randlett, Oklahoma area, but the cell was difficult to document from our vantage point.
2. Lawton, Oklahoma. Tossed between a growing threat near Archer County and potential for the triple point to explode, we decided to play north of the Red River so we could avoid running into the core of the aforementioned cell. We headed north to a promising-looking structure just as the stationary mothership began to disintegrate.
However, the cells between Oklahoma City and Wichita Falls never matured, as they were possibly cut by the moisture-grabbing and early Wichita County cell. By that time, other cells too far north of our position began to grow and become severe warned, but they moved out of reasonable intercept range, so we decided to resign this setup and march home.
3. North of Emporia, Kansas. As we were returning, we had a choice to continue on the Kansas Turnpike and avoid the storms, or return to chase mode and intercept a severe-warned cell north of Emporia on Interstate 35. We chose the latter, and reached the target in time to at least grab a view of a lightning show in the gorgeous flat area north of the Flint Hills/Matfield Green park. The sight was incredible, and managing our speed in this night chase allowed us to avoid a hail core situation. Although our video camera was inactive due to a power converter failure, we managed to take some snapshots of the beautiful and close lightning, and will post the pictures if any of them turn out worthy upon review.
Conclusion. All in all, this was a busted chase, in that our positioning prevented us from (in our opinion at the time) safely intercepting the Wichita County cell from north of the Red River, and also of witnessing the interesting structures from the better side of the setting sun. Save an arrival that was a tad late, there was nothing much more that we could have done to salvage the disintegrating weather situation at the time.
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Jay McCoy
EF5
I and Steve Miller (tx) once again hooked up and chased together. It almost seems a requirement these days due to gas costs to carpool. Steve has been working hard the past week or so on getting our streaming dash video working and a whole new style live chase page with google/GPS/Radar overaly and the live streaming.
We originally targeted SW oklahoma around Altus but watching the GR3 radar loop you could clearly see some sort of mesolow and triple point near Childress with towers exploding to the SE of it. We rapidly dropped south through Quanah and was able to maneuver around the back of the westmost storm. We did at one point have to drive gthrough the back of the hook and ended up within 1/4-1/2 mile of a violently rotating wallcloud WSW of Electra. It had a numer of funnels but no touchdowns. We slowly followed this storm into electra and setup about a mile south of Electra on hwy25. We were using Spotternet at the time and I guess the guys at OUN noticed and called Steve for a report. While steve filmed and gave live reports to OUN I concentrated on the live stream and some video of my own. After a number of truncated funnels it finally dropped a snaky tube just to the NW of Electra that lasted about 20 seconds or so. I cant be sure and I am sure others will correct me if I am wrong but I believe this is the 1st time a tornado has been livestreamed by a chaser on a dashcam. I know number of people here on ST were watching and saw it by reading the now thread (thank you for watching). OUN had also loaded up Steves page and was also watching it live. Talk about instant report verification..lol. The storm seemd to cycle about this time and a new area of rotation began as it moved towards BurkBurnett. It never really became that organized again and died as it got close to the red river.
We then like many others saw towers exploding SW back towards Seymore and also NW into Oklahima where parameters seemd more favorable so we busted north and got suckered like many others. These storms rapidly died so we had to bite the bullet and bust back south wasting a good hour or more. we headed south through Wichta Falls and south on 183 barely beating the main core even though we did pick up some half dollars and 1 maybe tennisball hit as we broke into the clear to see one of the most amazing wedding cake structures I have seen in years. We set up east of Windthorst on hwy25 to look back west at this beast. The entire storm was a picture perfect barber pole with midlevel inflow banding as well as low level. The base was a bit high so a tornado was never really a threat but I wish we had another hour of sunlight so we could have moved a bit more east and set up for a timelapse of this thing. The roation all the way up was insane.
All in all a great chase with a number of funnels and 1 tornado live on the internet. We were able to stream over 90% of the time only losing connection for a few minutes nmear Altus (as usual) and also south fo SPS. We had Steves Sprint card but I am testing the Autonet system so thats what we used yesterday and it worked quite well. Better than my Cingular card but not quite as well as a sprint card. Being able to live feed at 15 frames a second plus run GR3 downloading 5 pages BR1,BR2, SRV1, VIL, etc..and Spotternet the speed and connection was good.
Stweve took most of the pictures being a much better photog than me so hopefully he will post some photos of the tornado and the last storm near Windthorst.
Thanks to all who watched our livefeed. hopefully we wil have it clearer and smoother soon. I am getting a new windshield installed as I type this so no more cracks in the view.
We originally targeted SW oklahoma around Altus but watching the GR3 radar loop you could clearly see some sort of mesolow and triple point near Childress with towers exploding to the SE of it. We rapidly dropped south through Quanah and was able to maneuver around the back of the westmost storm. We did at one point have to drive gthrough the back of the hook and ended up within 1/4-1/2 mile of a violently rotating wallcloud WSW of Electra. It had a numer of funnels but no touchdowns. We slowly followed this storm into electra and setup about a mile south of Electra on hwy25. We were using Spotternet at the time and I guess the guys at OUN noticed and called Steve for a report. While steve filmed and gave live reports to OUN I concentrated on the live stream and some video of my own. After a number of truncated funnels it finally dropped a snaky tube just to the NW of Electra that lasted about 20 seconds or so. I cant be sure and I am sure others will correct me if I am wrong but I believe this is the 1st time a tornado has been livestreamed by a chaser on a dashcam. I know number of people here on ST were watching and saw it by reading the now thread (thank you for watching). OUN had also loaded up Steves page and was also watching it live. Talk about instant report verification..lol. The storm seemd to cycle about this time and a new area of rotation began as it moved towards BurkBurnett. It never really became that organized again and died as it got close to the red river.
We then like many others saw towers exploding SW back towards Seymore and also NW into Oklahima where parameters seemd more favorable so we busted north and got suckered like many others. These storms rapidly died so we had to bite the bullet and bust back south wasting a good hour or more. we headed south through Wichta Falls and south on 183 barely beating the main core even though we did pick up some half dollars and 1 maybe tennisball hit as we broke into the clear to see one of the most amazing wedding cake structures I have seen in years. We set up east of Windthorst on hwy25 to look back west at this beast. The entire storm was a picture perfect barber pole with midlevel inflow banding as well as low level. The base was a bit high so a tornado was never really a threat but I wish we had another hour of sunlight so we could have moved a bit more east and set up for a timelapse of this thing. The roation all the way up was insane.
All in all a great chase with a number of funnels and 1 tornado live on the internet. We were able to stream over 90% of the time only losing connection for a few minutes nmear Altus (as usual) and also south fo SPS. We had Steves Sprint card but I am testing the Autonet system so thats what we used yesterday and it worked quite well. Better than my Cingular card but not quite as well as a sprint card. Being able to live feed at 15 frames a second plus run GR3 downloading 5 pages BR1,BR2, SRV1, VIL, etc..and Spotternet the speed and connection was good.
Stweve took most of the pictures being a much better photog than me so hopefully he will post some photos of the tornado and the last storm near Windthorst.
Thanks to all who watched our livefeed. hopefully we wil have it clearer and smoother soon. I am getting a new windshield installed as I type this so no more cracks in the view.
Dustin Wilcox
EF5
Somewhat of another let down, decent storm but likely not worth another marathon one day chase. We were on the storm while it was producing the tornado but were too far East positioning south of the red river and missed the tube, storm did have pretty sweet structure for a good portion of it's life, and we got into some golf ball sized hail near Clara. It's quite discouraging to just get home, and see a Day 2 Mod, for the same area, though I can't miss any more class in this one week period. I didn't take a whole lot of pictures, as I kept thinking things were going to get better so I wasn't to excited about what I was seeing, though here are a couple, will likely put more up on my site once I catch up with school work. Boy was there a lot of chasers in the area, we managed to avoid the hordes while on the storm, taking back roads, but seems like every car we seen on the turnpike was a chaser.
View from Hwy 368
While not too threatening, this appendage was actually spinning quite hard.
Actually some of the most severe weather we encountered was on the way home last night, some time around midnight I'm guessing; we ran into storms just North of Wichita, with at least 65 mph winds, and enough hail to cover the interstate with 2+ inches, the hail biggest about the size of quarters was relentless and lasted for a good 20 miles, and we weren't moving with the storm.
View from Hwy 368
While not too threatening, this appendage was actually spinning quite hard.
Actually some of the most severe weather we encountered was on the way home last night, some time around midnight I'm guessing; we ran into storms just North of Wichita, with at least 65 mph winds, and enough hail to cover the interstate with 2+ inches, the hail biggest about the size of quarters was relentless and lasted for a good 20 miles, and we weren't moving with the storm.
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Verne Carlson
EF5
"Go across the River it's a right mover!! - Michael"
Missed the Electra, TX tornado as I was sitting across the Red River waiting for the cell to move northeast - which it never did and luckily Michael was nowcasting for me and got me to move in time.
I was able to get two of my best flights to date with the Wicked Witch3 and had a second tornado formed on any of the cells - I would have had my first successful intercept of a tornado from the air!
Full report and pics here: http://stormchaserco.blogspot.com/2008/04/best-ww3-flights-yet.html
Missed the Electra, TX tornado as I was sitting across the Red River waiting for the cell to move northeast - which it never did and luckily Michael was nowcasting for me and got me to move in time.
I was able to get two of my best flights to date with the Wicked Witch3 and had a second tornado formed on any of the cells - I would have had my first successful intercept of a tornado from the air!
Full report and pics here: http://stormchaserco.blogspot.com/2008/04/best-ww3-flights-yet.html
John Cameron
EF2
Yesterday was a special day for me. The only box I couldn't check was the one marked "Tornado". First of all, Its nice to have spotting/chasing as an option again. For the last 3 years, every time severe weather threatened, I had to rush to work. Now, I get excited about being able to observe and be inspired by thunderstorms again.
The most rewarding thing about yesterday is I was able to take a young weather enthusiast new to the chase and drive him to an action area without punching a core or otherwise doing something unsafe. I felt good about how we were able to remain calm, report to net control as needed and enjoy the hunt.
The highlight of the day was when we found ourselves about a mile north of US 287 on FM 369 (very near the Allred prison). The storm that produced the Electra tornado re-gathered its definition just to our northwest and displayed a textbook supercell structure. I could have not asked for a better storm to observe with my new spotter/chaser by my side. Incredible beaver tail, we'll defined wall cloud, we waited a few minutes before RFD punched in and it was classic!. I though for sure we would have a tornado, but that was the only thing this storm didn't give us. The corkscrew mesocyclone from wall to anvil was awe-inspiring!
But you know what? I was never compelled to get my camera while we were there. my thinking was 'what I'm witnessing now could never translate properly to video'. I simply cherished the moment...a moment I had been looking forward to for many years. I was also happy to have all these great chasers populating the streets of my neighborhood for the second time in a week. I went home satisfied.
EDIT: There's a chance my chase partner may have some footage.
By the way, if our storm had produced a tornado it would have done so in a fairly densely populated area of north Wichita Falls/Sheppard AFB, that would have ruined my/our day.
The most rewarding thing about yesterday is I was able to take a young weather enthusiast new to the chase and drive him to an action area without punching a core or otherwise doing something unsafe. I felt good about how we were able to remain calm, report to net control as needed and enjoy the hunt.
The highlight of the day was when we found ourselves about a mile north of US 287 on FM 369 (very near the Allred prison). The storm that produced the Electra tornado re-gathered its definition just to our northwest and displayed a textbook supercell structure. I could have not asked for a better storm to observe with my new spotter/chaser by my side. Incredible beaver tail, we'll defined wall cloud, we waited a few minutes before RFD punched in and it was classic!. I though for sure we would have a tornado, but that was the only thing this storm didn't give us. The corkscrew mesocyclone from wall to anvil was awe-inspiring!
But you know what? I was never compelled to get my camera while we were there. my thinking was 'what I'm witnessing now could never translate properly to video'. I simply cherished the moment...a moment I had been looking forward to for many years. I was also happy to have all these great chasers populating the streets of my neighborhood for the second time in a week. I went home satisfied.
EDIT: There's a chance my chase partner may have some footage.
By the way, if our storm had produced a tornado it would have done so in a fairly densely populated area of north Wichita Falls/Sheppard AFB, that would have ruined my/our day.
Bill Tabor
EF5
Not much time for my full report right now. Will review photos and video. I'm annoyed that I was late to my target -which WAS Vernon primarily and Wichita Falls secondarily and a bit across the Red! My planned departure was 10am and I left at 12! Arghh!! 
So, I drove right there but was late for the first tornado by minutes. Caught the last good wallcloud cycle on that storm. Had trouble getting my streaming video to work at that point so no view for the rest of you..and stupid me I forgot to press Rec on my camcorder cause I was messing with the streaming. So, I didn't manage to record that first wallcloud. I briefly watched it when I didn't have my head down. It was cool looking. Appears I may have captured a tornado WSW of Wichita Falls near or just after sundown. Unable to call it in because I was streaming video at that time using the cell. (Hmm...not sure what to do with that scenario.) The funnel was 3/4 to 2/3 of way to ground on a wet field and I could see brief condensation jumping up from the ground directly underneath - so appears to be tornado. I may have some footage of that on the dashcam. I managed to kill the streaming feed right when it was building. More on that later. Then I narrowly avoided the big hail from the storm to my sw as I escaped. Did get a few hits from +2 inchers though. All in all a great chase 
even considering my bone head departure time!!
So, I drove right there but was late for the first tornado by minutes. Caught the last good wallcloud cycle on that storm. Had trouble getting my streaming video to work at that point so no view for the rest of you..and stupid me I forgot to press Rec on my camcorder cause I was messing with the streaming. So, I didn't manage to record that first wallcloud. I briefly watched it when I didn't have my head down. It was cool looking. Appears I may have captured a tornado WSW of Wichita Falls near or just after sundown. Unable to call it in because I was streaming video at that time using the cell. (Hmm...not sure what to do with that scenario.) The funnel was 3/4 to 2/3 of way to ground on a wet field and I could see brief condensation jumping up from the ground directly underneath - so appears to be tornado. I may have some footage of that on the dashcam. I managed to kill the streaming feed right when it was building. More on that later. Then I narrowly avoided the big hail from the storm to my sw as I escaped. Did get a few hits from +2 inchers though. All in all a great chase even considering my bone head departure time!!
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