5/1/08 REPORTS: IA/SD/NE/KS/MO/OK

[Brandon Goforth]

Got home from work around 3pm. Loaded radar/satellite loops, OK mesonet, and took a shower. Got my vidcam out and charged the batteries. Sat there thinking we might have something, then when the initial cu field disappeared thought "screw it." Put vidcam up. A while later noticed the retreating dryline had seemingly settled into a spot just west of I-35. Then noticed a brand new cu field pop up instantly. That was all I needed. Grabbed my gear and headed west to OK9, where I sat across from the Riverwind watching this storm blow-up over a matter of a few minutes. Met up with Chad and his woman in Moore, and started north and east, stopping every so often to get a look at this incredible striated supercell.

Got separated from Chad northbound on Anderson road, north of I-40. I don;t know what roads I took, as today I wasn't even using a map, just picking roads that went the direction I wanted. There were repeated cycles, with many attempts at TG. However one in particular wrapped up extremely tight, and was the most pronounced and violent rotation of the evening. I was going up and down hills with trees lining each side, watching this lowered area spinning rapidly. A funnel formed, and TG looked imminent, and I commented on my video "damn, this looks like we're getting ready to have a tornado here." Time was around 7:23-7:24pmCDT by my timestamp. Not long after this area of concentrated, violent rotation ended, a white cone funnel developed, rotating around the southern periphery of the wall cloud. As I pulled over after this funnel, Mickey appeared behind me.

Chad called a bit later asking me if I'd seen the tornado, to which I replied "what tornado?" He explained he'd been sitting at NE23rd and Henney road, and saw a tree rip up out of the ground below the violently-rotating lowered area I'd seen earlier. So I guess I didn't and did see the tornado LOL.

I was getting very low on gas, and we were in BFE nearing dark northeast of Harrah. I caught up to Chad, and then Mick caught up to us. We wanted to keep going after the sup, so we ditched my car on a backroad at a gate entrance and took off in Chad's car. Mick had to turn back because of family commitments, so Chad, his woman, and I trudged on a bit longer. We gave up north of Agra, after the lightning ceased and the base raised. It took us 30 minutes to find my car, then Chad let me out, I put some gas in at I-44/US66, and headed home.

A great backyard chase, and a great example of how not to let your guard down on iffy days. An awesome supercell, brief tornado, and home before midnight. Not a bad way to start the month of May.

Your story seems similar to mine. I started off in south-central OK where the initial Cu field had developed, but didn't last too long. Saw the new Cu developing rapidly to my WNW, so I hauled north on I-35 and intercepted the storm in Moore. Drove into the southern edge of the hail core near Crossroads Mall (I-35 and 240), there were a few that were near golf ball size, and from there I went east to get a better look at the meso. Fast forward to NE of Midwest City, I was listening to the radio whenever a few storm spotters were reporting a tornado on the ground, I had a pretty good view at this time, but I never saw a condensation funnel that extended all the way to the ground. The best I saw was maybe half way, but the rotation at times was VERY intense, so I wouldn't be surprised at all if there were several spin-ups under those funnels. Anyway, I was on this thing until sunset, and I'd say it was a pretty good day. Very nice structure with this storm and some very intense motion at times.

 

[Jeff Piotrowski]

Tornado's OK

Kathryn & I filmed over five different tornados in Pawnee & Osage counties in Oklahoma Video and Pics ASAP. Here is a teaser from one of the tornados closing in on my location after sun down it decides to stove pipe in front of me about 100 yards away with clear skies behind it.
It moves NNE about 10 MPH unbelievable. Twice i filmed twin tornado's on the ground about two mile apart at the same time.

 

[Darrin Rasberry]

Setup: Craig and I went to chase the northwestern portion of Iowa today. Our expectation was severe hail and structure. We drove all the way to Storm Lake, where we arrived at 5:30 and watched stuff go up and track north.

Description: Storm Lake's area itself could not break the cap, although north was looking promising. In a perfect world, we'd have continued north to intercept some of the eventually warned storms in time, but this isn't a perfect world.

At 6 PM in Storm Lake, I got ill, and we drove back with our hands empty. We had an opportunity to intercept some cells south of Des Moines that were SVR warned, but I opted for home.

Conclusion: Unfortunately, this is the second straight Iowa chase I've had to call because of an ongoing illness, with the first being last week at this illness' onset. Unfortunately I had a chase partner with me this time (who wasn't my roommate) and I hated to have to put him through not being able to see our goals, and eventually see some twisters in NW Iowa, because I was ill and pressured to turn back toward home. Even if the cap broke further south, I would have had to abandon the chase anyway - this week's unfortunate health-strike was worse than last week's one. With a good night's sleep, tomorrow in Eastern Iowa should be a better day both for chasing and for my health.

"I get knocked down, but I get up again ... "

 

[BrandonWhittington]

Chased an awsome supercell that started off around Stillwater and moved north to around pawnee. Witnessed 6 different tornado touchdowns which one of them was an photogenic cone that was less than 300 yards away. 3 different tornadoes after sunset, working on the videos and photos right now...Should have them up shortly..

 

[Jeff Snyder]

Howie B., Dan D., Robin T., Mike F. and I sat in Guthrie most of the afternoon as a hedge between an KS/OK border target and a central/southcentral OK play. By the time we saw convection go up SE of ICT, we determined that it was probably too late to try to catch up with it (figuring that the storms would be near Coffeyville by the time we got w/in view of it). So, we waited in hopes of initiation as much better low-level moisture (Tds 64-67F) worked northwestward across southern OK towards the OKC metro area. Convective initiation attempts first occurred right on the back side of the cirrus that moved through, and we jetted eastward from Guthrie to play the middle ground between the OKC supercell and the Stillwater supercell. Since the phased array truck takes a little while to setup during deployment, we knew we had to get as far ahead of the storms as possible. There seemed to be some left-splits, however, that played a little havoc on the Stillwater cell and the cell "middle" cell between OKC and SWO. At any rate, we jogged northward a tad since the Stillwater cell was looking very good on radar (larger than the OKC cell), and we quickly came into view of a rotating wall-cloud (this would be ENE of Stillwater). A few small needle funnels developed, and at least one of them touched down.... The condensation made it nearly half way to the ground, connected to a visible tube of dust rising from the surface. The low-level cloud structure was quite impressive at this time, but convection to the SW was creating problems. Shortly after the tornado and funnels, the low-level storm structure fell apart a bit as we found a spot to deploy S of 412 on Hwy 18 (S of Pawnee and E of Glencoe). A rather large wall-cloud spun away to our NNW, and at least one other somewhat organized lowering develop to its WSW (this W lowering had a funnel w/ it at one point). Darkness was setting in, and we let the storm slide away from us.

Overall, it was a pretty good day. I'll take any tornado in Oklahoma these days, so I can't complain too much. Congrats to those who played and won in KS.

For what it's worth, I think everyone should gaze at the 00z OUN sounding ( http://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/soundings/08050200_OBS/OUN.gif ), which is quite impressive: 4200 j/kg MLCAPE, 55kts 0-6km shear, an impressively deep moist layer (considering the W winds at 500m AGL earlier today), and a "sickle"-shaped hodograph. Quite impressive!

 

[cdcollura]

Good day all,

I targeted the southern portion and did catch a tornado off the storm in Wilson county, Kansas.

Above: Slender tornado in HP "bear's cage" (intersection of highway 75 and highway 39 NE of Chenute, KS).

Above: Overall view of the HP storm's "notch" before the above tornado was intercepted.

Above: Other possible funnels on the same storm earlier.

Above: Barber pole striated updraft!

Full chase log coming soon...

 

[Matt Chatelain]

Osage CO Tornado

We, Matt Van Every, Curtis McDonald, Daniel Betten, and I, were very fortunate to dive south from the KS storm when the flank kept developing new cells. We intercepted the cyclic tornadic cell as it crossed the Osage/Pawnee county line! Check out our video at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv8PciVvYEo&eurl=http://tornadovideos.net/

Here is an unedited still!

 

[Van DeWald]

OK, here are a couple of screen video caps of the Rock Valley, IA Tornado.

Full 4+ minute video can be seen on YouTube here:

$350 for car repairs which didn't put me on the road until 4pm. 425 miles driving round trip. $50 in gas. 152 megs of data downloaded on my cell phone. Losing my favorite hat in the inflow. Catching this hybrid landspout/tornado with a lot of daylight left, unbelievable.

*** Edit website will full account:
Van

 

[Kevin Ash]

Headed out with Glenn Rasmussen and Michelle Myers from Weathernews and intercepted the central OK LP supercell as it exited Midwest City.

Here are some of the highlights:

Looking west from McLoud:

WNW from Luther Rd just north of NE 23rd at about 730pm near the time when brief tornado occurred near NE 36th and Henney Rd.

We could see another tornadic supercell to the north of our storm, in the distance behind the striated updraft:

There was a rapid succession of funnels, intense upward motion and cloud base rotation as the storm made several attempts to tornado over about a five to ten minute span:

Fun chase with great structure. Saw baseball to softball size hailstones along Highway 102 south of Wellston and then dropped off the storm north of Chandler after sunset.

 

[David Schuttler]

Starting May off right!!!

Couple of pics from Pawnee/Osage County in Oklahoma.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3087/2458296285_8dd28bffa9.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2132/2458296215_5e3e790172.jpg

Hopefully the video turned out better

 

[Michael O'Keeffe]

WOW jealous of the people in Oklahoma!!! Anyway had a pretty good chase in SE Kansas and saw our first tornado! Got on the supercell near Sedan and got in the hailcore which was alright. Then saw INCREDIBLE structure near Elk Falls. Watched as the first TOR warned storm moved right at us with very intense rotation. Moved east and watched as extreme rotation occured in the field next to us as rain curtains wrapped in front of us, a quick debris cloud spun up under the extreme rotation/funnel just 200 yards away!! Sort of got caught behind the storm and watched it go HP and sort of outflow. As night fell got on two different Tor-warned cells that looked nice, but didn't produce tornadoes at least from a visual standpoint I need to look over the video again, but I doubt it. All in all not bad but seeing those Oklahoma tornadoes makes me sick with disgust. Congrats to all of you chasers that were smart to go to Oklahoma!!

EDITics and Video this afternoon

 

[Shane Adams]

Congrats to all of you chasers that were smart to go to Oklahoma!!

Smart had nothing to do with it, at least in my case (and several others' I'd imagine). Unfortunately I have to pay rent so taking a day off this week was not an option, so my plan all week was to work, and hope like crazy something popped the cap near home. My "plan" worked perfectly, but I'd be lying to say I'd have done the same thing had I been able to take the day off. I probably would've been further north into Kansas.

 

[Brian Stertz]

Back in time for a little sleep and then time for work. Chased the supercells across Chautauqua/Elk/Wilson KS Counties. Saw some brief suggestions of good supercell structures before realizing that was we were watching a pair of cold front supercells. The OK supercell could be seen exploding way to the southwest, and by time we could reposition, this very strong cyclic tornadic supercell did it's final bow as it moved towards us in Pawhuska OK area (Osage Co. OK). We busted pretty majorly in regards to missing the earlier very good show in Pawnee & SW Osage OK Counties... but did have some good shows of structure from the supercells we were on plus the added treat of finding a nice swath of 2-2.5" hail in the Moline/Elk Falls aea in S. Elk Co. KS. Saw quite a few chasers in Wilson Co. We probably should have stayed with the storm as it became tornado warned across Allen, Neosho, and Bourbon Counties, and saw some reports of funnels and tornadoes in these counties later in the evening.
Hindsight always 20/20 it seems.....

 

[BrandonWhittington]

Finnally Got the You Tube video of the tornado that was North of Stillwater. Here is the link...View all of my Videos to see the Tornadoes at Night. Video is real jumpy and stuff, I was in a new vehicle and did not have time to get real oraganized..

Large Torado, less than a half a mile away.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSVVZrFSykE

Night Time Tornadoes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObhL7abEWEk

 

[Kathryn Piotrowski]

May 1, 2008 Near Ralston, OK

Jeff and I were chasing independently of one another, he went out earlier in the day to check out storms near Sedan, KS then decided to head back to Oklahoma. I left the house around 6:00pm when I could see that the line was going to fire in OK. I headed west on Hwy 20 and intercepted the northern storm near Ralston, Ok. I was having TONS of technical difficulties! No data...no cell phone coverage...and my Ham radio was fritzing out....and it was getting black as hell all around me. I decided to head back east...something told me that I was probably in the direct path of the tornado...there were lots of hills with trees around and it was difficult to see to my south, so back into the Osage Indian Reservation I found a hill, no trees, and had a clear and distinct view of the wall cloud. I have posted both of our video clips on my web site http://www.twisterchasers.com/2008_may_storm_chasing.htm#Ralston Tornado All in all it was a great beginning for May...just wish I had a better vantage point to view the tornado.