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5/10/10 REPORTS: OK/KS/TX
- Thread starter Scott Weberpal
- Start date
John Lavin
After leaving a gloomy cool morning in Lawrence, KS Andrew Stevens, fellow KU ATMO classmates, and I arrived in Enid, Oklahoma by 1:30 pm. Glad I took a look at RUC and NAM runs as the dry line and moist axis was being shifted more to the west.
At first we felt we may not reach the storms initiating north of Enid, and decided to head south for the small returns that struggled to get going. Saw on radar that the storm to the north was splitting and decided to turn around quickly.
We made it in time to see several of the same multiple vortexes and short lived tornadoes near Medford. Storm motion was awful for this event, and struggled to keep up after that.
We decided to head to Ponca City as there appeared to be some type of supercell near, although we saw nothing worthy. Called it quits and enjoyed a nice long drive through eastern Kansas!
One of the better pic here:
More found here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Storm...f=ts#!/album.php?aid=22513&id=120109444669252
quick write up here (more to come later in the week): http://www.storminskies.com
At first we felt we may not reach the storms initiating north of Enid, and decided to head south for the small returns that struggled to get going. Saw on radar that the storm to the north was splitting and decided to turn around quickly.
We made it in time to see several of the same multiple vortexes and short lived tornadoes near Medford. Storm motion was awful for this event, and struggled to keep up after that.
We decided to head to Ponca City as there appeared to be some type of supercell near, although we saw nothing worthy. Called it quits and enjoyed a nice long drive through eastern Kansas!
One of the better pic here:
More found here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Storm...f=ts#!/album.php?aid=22513&id=120109444669252
quick write up here (more to come later in the week): http://www.storminskies.com
Jason A.C. Brock
Day after mothers day chase
Chased today but got a late 2pm start. I figured I would catch near Anadarko (which I did) just wish I could of left earlier for the Kansas border storm. Got a nice side ways looking funnel and brief touchdown near Gracemont area. Just general rush hour traffic and school buses and trash trucks kept me from being able to catch back up to the storm so headed back through Duncan hoping to catch on the way back home. Did do some timelapse and stills of TCU from the red river storms. It was about what I expectewd. You would have one shot and ya better get it. Also the Gainesville Tx half of our group caught the same stom on the other side of Norman and got very close and filmed alot of damage. Ben Chased the Waurika storm and almost caught a freakin water spout on Lake Waurika. I am kinda liking this team spreading out tactic better and better. If anyone has an HP that runs windows vista I was wondering if your GPS on your wxworx is working ok? Just curious. I will be headed for Childress I think tomorrow. Slower storm motions and maybe some better structure and who knows what other day after surprises we might get. May stay the night in OKC as well to set upfor Wednesday
Me 2 large chasers from Stephenville Tx today. Extremely nice and BIG guys
Chased today but got a late 2pm start. I figured I would catch near Anadarko (which I did) just wish I could of left earlier for the Kansas border storm. Got a nice side ways looking funnel and brief touchdown near Gracemont area. Just general rush hour traffic and school buses and trash trucks kept me from being able to catch back up to the storm so headed back through Duncan hoping to catch on the way back home. Did do some timelapse and stills of TCU from the red river storms. It was about what I expectewd. You would have one shot and ya better get it. Also the Gainesville Tx half of our group caught the same stom on the other side of Norman and got very close and filmed alot of damage. Ben Chased the Waurika storm and almost caught a freakin water spout on Lake Waurika. I am kinda liking this team spreading out tactic better and better. If anyone has an HP that runs windows vista I was wondering if your GPS on your wxworx is working ok? Just curious. I will be headed for Childress I think tomorrow. Slower storm motions and maybe some better structure and who knows what other day after surprises we might get. May stay the night in OKC as well to set upfor Wednesday
Me 2 large chasers from Stephenville Tx today. Extremely nice and BIG guys
cstrunk
EF3
Scott Bell and I had a similar experience as Jeff Duda, except we were even more late than them. By the time we dropped into position, the storm was crossing the warm front and ingested cool air and pretty much died. Crappy terrain, bad data connections, no view of the storm will all of the low clouds north/east of the warm front.
On the way back north, we stopped and admired the "last hoo-rah" storm that passed a bit north of Emporia, KS. It had some neat-looking structure but was not a tornado threat. At least it was something cool to look at near sunset. I might throw a pic or two in later.
If only we'd been to our original target of Wichita a few hours earlier... Oh well!
On the way back north, we stopped and admired the "last hoo-rah" storm that passed a bit north of Emporia, KS. It had some neat-looking structure but was not a tornado threat. At least it was something cool to look at near sunset. I might throw a pic or two in later.
If only we'd been to our original target of Wichita a few hours earlier... Oh well!
Joel Wright
EF5
Chased with Jeremy Ludin today. We played the northern edge of the best instability over far southern Kansas. Almost made a break for the northern Oklahoma supercell, near Wakita, but decided to commit to the supercell that was approaching Medicine Lodge. It ended up being a pretty good decision for us, as we were in much better postion to intercept the Kansas cell.
Chase convergence was absolutely not an issue for us today. In fact, it was almost like we were chasing back in Illinois. The string of supercells really helped to distribute the chasers/locals I think. I'm sure there were areas where it was pretty crazy, but I guess we lucked out in that department.
Congrats to all you guys who intercepted today! The pics in this thread are already very impressive, and I'm sure there's more on the way...
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Chase convergence was absolutely not an issue for us today. In fact, it was almost like we were chasing back in Illinois. The string of supercells really helped to distribute the chasers/locals I think. I'm sure there were areas where it was pretty crazy, but I guess we lucked out in that department.
Congrats to all you guys who intercepted today! The pics in this thread are already very impressive, and I'm sure there's more on the way...
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Brian Stertz
EF5
Back from a frustrating chase day with Rich and Ryan Thies but finally a rewarding chase. Was a day late and a dollar short in reaching the Wakita-Medford show...this because of a few setbacks and the rapid storm motion. Then realizing that the next supercell south was also going to produce, we dropped south on I-35 and got cutoff by the destructive baseball-softball sized hailcore near Billings. The number of big-giant hailbombs after it went through was staggering. Luckliy did not lose a windshield. Tried to catch it before it slipped into the valley past Red Rock and point of no return...akin to the 4/26/91 F4 tornado which took a similar path. So what next....??
Hearing about the new confirmed tornadoes in Norman (yikes) we started our long trek down to an intercept down on I-40. In a normal chase mode, we could have nailed these easy...but had to work for this tornado and my first of 2010. We reached Prague and then I-40 at same time a large tornado was moving towards Weleetka and then Henryetta. We cruised east on I-40 quite a ways...encountering some pretty nasty RFD winds and occasional spots of tree damage. Then thar she blows...a BIG wall cloud with tornado off to our east about 5 miles...and a little east of Hoffman. One of the strongest cascading RFD's I have ever witnessed followed the tornado as it moved roughly parallel to I-40 and into N. McIntosh Co. We saw a pair of truncated funnels (and likely tornadoes) as the RFD spun things up once again. The supercell seemed to reorganize/reload with a fresh meso between Checotah and Oktaha. This was also a very impressive area of rotation but could not confirm any tornado with it. With sunset happening, we called it a chase near Warner and headed back.
Key learning points of fast moving supercell days...room for error and delay is very small and positioning is certainly paramount. Hopefully the jet will simmer down soon and move away from March storm speeds. Things today would have been a lot more managable at 30mph than the 50-60mph these fleeting supercells had.
Thanks to Jeff Piotrowski and Kevin Polston for the help with nowcasting today. Missing the Wakita egg-beater was a bummer but nailing our first tornado of 2010 and the 3-3.5" hail near Billlings made this chase a success. Now time for sleep.
Hearing about the new confirmed tornadoes in Norman (yikes) we started our long trek down to an intercept down on I-40. In a normal chase mode, we could have nailed these easy...but had to work for this tornado and my first of 2010. We reached Prague and then I-40 at same time a large tornado was moving towards Weleetka and then Henryetta. We cruised east on I-40 quite a ways...encountering some pretty nasty RFD winds and occasional spots of tree damage. Then thar she blows...a BIG wall cloud with tornado off to our east about 5 miles...and a little east of Hoffman. One of the strongest cascading RFD's I have ever witnessed followed the tornado as it moved roughly parallel to I-40 and into N. McIntosh Co. We saw a pair of truncated funnels (and likely tornadoes) as the RFD spun things up once again. The supercell seemed to reorganize/reload with a fresh meso between Checotah and Oktaha. This was also a very impressive area of rotation but could not confirm any tornado with it. With sunset happening, we called it a chase near Warner and headed back.
Key learning points of fast moving supercell days...room for error and delay is very small and positioning is certainly paramount. Hopefully the jet will simmer down soon and move away from March storm speeds. Things today would have been a lot more managable at 30mph than the 50-60mph these fleeting supercells had.
Thanks to Jeff Piotrowski and Kevin Polston for the help with nowcasting today. Missing the Wakita egg-beater was a bummer but nailing our first tornado of 2010 and the 3-3.5" hail near Billlings made this chase a success. Now time for sleep.
Paul Sherman
EF2
Very Hard Chase Today, roads were not the problem near to Medford but the Storm Speed was crazy. Managed to Bag 3 Tornadoes in the end, but after getting frustrated East of I-35 Gave up and headed back to Norman. Could have been worse I suppose. Photo's later need sleep!
Paul S
Paul S
Tyler Burg
EF2
Chased with Chris Allington and Evan Ludes. Great day! ended up seeing 4 tornadoes and too many funnels to count. First saw two tornadoes on the storm SW of Wakita, missed the multivortex though. Encountered crazy chaser convergence and damage on hwy 11 and ended up losing that storm. Then got on the next storm to the south and experienced 50-60mph rfd winds and incredible rotation all around us, it was actually quite frightening for a bit. Saw a nice cone tornado 18 miles SW of Pawhuska, then a beautiful rope 10 miles W of Pawhuska, here's a shot of that one. Will have a full account up on my website tomorrow night.
Brandon Jenkins
EF3
Got a late start out of DFW and made it to OKC around 4pm and awaited initiation to the west. After the cell fired to the SW of OKC we made the decision to blast east on 40 and then turn north on 177 and intercept near 44 (the storm was moving NE). Shortly after the storm passed into the OKC area it began to make a right turn and it became obvious that the rotation was going to pass very near I-40 so we made our way back in time to catch the same tornado Vortex2 happened to be chasing but from a slightly different vantage point.
As we were watching this tornado a couple of locals in front of us got into a head on collision and chaos ensued with emergency vehicles creating a traffic jam while the tornado was headed directly toward the intersection and almost completly obscured by trees. About as fast as it came, the rotation ceased and the funnel lifted as it came back into view. At the same time a new area of rotation had formed to the south and we soon found ourselves almost directly under it. As we passed through the area of rotation we began to encounter debris and soon realized that a violent tornado had formed about half a mile behind us. It came into view about 200 yards to our NE and was again, almost completely obscured by trees.
As we pathed along side the tornado we could see the debris but lost visual of the tornado when it became temporarily rain wrapped. We then followed its damage path to the N/NE through Shawnee and ran into the Vortex2 armada. It appeared as though they had a successful pod deployment but I was more focused on the damage.
We eneded up getting turned around by police as vortex teams streamed into the Shawnee area and decided to make our way back to DFW.
As we were watching this tornado a couple of locals in front of us got into a head on collision and chaos ensued with emergency vehicles creating a traffic jam while the tornado was headed directly toward the intersection and almost completly obscured by trees. About as fast as it came, the rotation ceased and the funnel lifted as it came back into view. At the same time a new area of rotation had formed to the south and we soon found ourselves almost directly under it. As we passed through the area of rotation we began to encounter debris and soon realized that a violent tornado had formed about half a mile behind us. It came into view about 200 yards to our NE and was again, almost completely obscured by trees.
As we pathed along side the tornado we could see the debris but lost visual of the tornado when it became temporarily rain wrapped. We then followed its damage path to the N/NE through Shawnee and ran into the Vortex2 armada. It appeared as though they had a successful pod deployment but I was more focused on the damage.
We eneded up getting turned around by police as vortex teams streamed into the Shawnee area and decided to make our way back to DFW.
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Jason Blum
EF0
David Toner, Cody Hudson, and myself all departed Springfield, MO with an initial target in the general area north of Enid, OK. We ultimately ended up closing on a cell just NE of Arkansas City, KS. We allowed ourselves plenty of distance to intercept, carefully planned our approach, and despite some moderately heavy foliage, we managed to find a relatively clear hilltop from which we could spot the approaching (tornado warned) storm. It looked absolutely fantastic on radar. It had an extremely tight BV couplet, and a classic hook... so despite the lack of on-the-ground reports, we were confident that it was tornadic. We had been stalking it for about 45 minutes, looking for the right place to safely view/photograph it.
Everything was going according to plan, until our truck slid off the road and down a very steep embankment. :/
We knew immediately that there was no chance we were getting it out, even with four-wheel drive. It was tightly wedged against a sheet of rock, and a thick wall of trees.
We also knew that this had occurred in a bad spot and at an even worse time, because the presumably tornadic storm was barreling toward us. We had intended to turn around and back down the road a few hundred yards, but now we had no choice but to ride out the tornado as it bore down on us. Since the truck was actually standing nose-down at a 45 degree angle, and tightly wedged between rocks and the trees, we felt relatively safe staying in the vehicle. (key word: relatively). Besides, with the storm's 45 knot movement, there was really no time to seek better shelter, anyway.
So we ended up taking what I believe to be a fairly direct-hit from the tornado. I have the exact GPS coordinates, and tomorrow I'll check it against the archived level 2 data to confirm. Here's the video. Be sure to look closely at the tree beside the white car at around 2:40min. Yikes!
(edited just to say that after overlaying the GPS coordinates on the level 2 radar data, we most definitely took a direct hit. Glad there was a deep ditch!)
Everything was going according to plan, until our truck slid off the road and down a very steep embankment. :/
We knew immediately that there was no chance we were getting it out, even with four-wheel drive. It was tightly wedged against a sheet of rock, and a thick wall of trees.
We also knew that this had occurred in a bad spot and at an even worse time, because the presumably tornadic storm was barreling toward us. We had intended to turn around and back down the road a few hundred yards, but now we had no choice but to ride out the tornado as it bore down on us. Since the truck was actually standing nose-down at a 45 degree angle, and tightly wedged between rocks and the trees, we felt relatively safe staying in the vehicle. (key word: relatively). Besides, with the storm's 45 knot movement, there was really no time to seek better shelter, anyway.
So we ended up taking what I believe to be a fairly direct-hit from the tornado. I have the exact GPS coordinates, and tomorrow I'll check it against the archived level 2 data to confirm. Here's the video. Be sure to look closely at the tree beside the white car at around 2:40min. Yikes!
(edited just to say that after overlaying the GPS coordinates on the level 2 radar data, we most definitely took a direct hit. Glad there was a deep ditch!)
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Mike Umscheid
EF4
Shallow Water, Kansas briefly supercell storm.
My target was Dighton, KS, hoping to catch some magic early in the afternoon with the first storms of the day way out west. I was on a leash since I had to work at 10:00pm, but in retrospect, I could have easily made the northern Oklahoma stuff and got back in time. Clearing occurred north and northwest of Garden City shortly after noon, and GCK's ob looked pretty good with southeast wind and a 61 dewpoint. My car thermometer was warming into the lower 70s, and I thought that there would be a wide enough zone for perhaps brief magic. Well, I got a nice supercell with excellent mesocyclone, but it never tightened and the RFD surge was too much. Nice tiered structure in the rear-flank gust front, and the bent back area to the southwest looking into the inflow notch area was interesting with a nice big lowered area. Several big plumes of dust contrasted well with the dark, cool hues of the storm. The RFD caused some damage in Shallow Water and overturned 3 semis on Hwy 83 not too long after the image below was taken. The storm choked on cooler air later on, and the excitement of the day was pretty much done with. There was a tornado very near where I was chasing later on in Ness County, of which there is photographic evidence from one of our co-op observers... kind of a truncated serpentine funnel with a dust debris beneath near the Lane-Ness county line... but I never saw this unfortunately.
My target was Dighton, KS, hoping to catch some magic early in the afternoon with the first storms of the day way out west. I was on a leash since I had to work at 10:00pm, but in retrospect, I could have easily made the northern Oklahoma stuff and got back in time. Clearing occurred north and northwest of Garden City shortly after noon, and GCK's ob looked pretty good with southeast wind and a 61 dewpoint. My car thermometer was warming into the lower 70s, and I thought that there would be a wide enough zone for perhaps brief magic. Well, I got a nice supercell with excellent mesocyclone, but it never tightened and the RFD surge was too much. Nice tiered structure in the rear-flank gust front, and the bent back area to the southwest looking into the inflow notch area was interesting with a nice big lowered area. Several big plumes of dust contrasted well with the dark, cool hues of the storm. The RFD caused some damage in Shallow Water and overturned 3 semis on Hwy 83 not too long after the image below was taken. The storm choked on cooler air later on, and the excitement of the day was pretty much done with. There was a tornado very near where I was chasing later on in Ness County, of which there is photographic evidence from one of our co-op observers... kind of a truncated serpentine funnel with a dust debris beneath near the Lane-Ness county line... but I never saw this unfortunately.
edward oneal
EF2
5-10-10 Ford Co. KS. and Trego Co. storms
Had to leave work early to catch storms going up fast just south of Dodge city, around 1pm. Storm started to show strong rotation just south of the city of Ford, and was tornado warned shortly after that. Never saw any ground contact, but several spin ups at the cloud base. Gave up on that cell as it weakened, and headed north for Ness Co. storm got to it in Trego Co. Watched it try to spin up, but just never could put down another tornado.
Had to leave work early to catch storms going up fast just south of Dodge city, around 1pm. Storm started to show strong rotation just south of the city of Ford, and was tornado warned shortly after that. Never saw any ground contact, but several spin ups at the cloud base. Gave up on that cell as it weakened, and headed north for Ness Co. storm got to it in Trego Co. Watched it try to spin up, but just never could put down another tornado.
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Brian Emfinger
EF4
I got out later than I meant to so I basically drove right to the Medford/Wakita wedge. I knew it was probably going to cause me problems going after that storm but I couldnt resist and sure enough most of the rest of the chase involved lots of being on the wrong side of the storm. After skirting around the backside of the next tornado warned storm down I decided to head SE to try and get ahead of that big storm coming out of OKC. I was hoping to get ahead at Henryetta but in the end I had to go all the way out to Muskogee to get in front. Once I got to I-40 I headed back west and saw a very nice supercell. I dont think a tornado was on the ground at the time (the last tornado report was just a few minutes earlier).
Heres the rain wrapped wedge..
Approaching the Medford/Wakita storm
developing wedge
inflow into the next tornado warned storm down
lightning from Okc-I40 storm (wall cloud is on the extreme left)
nice wall cloud on I-40 storm near Warner, OK
Heres the rain wrapped wedge..
Approaching the Medford/Wakita storm
developing wedge
inflow into the next tornado warned storm down
lightning from Okc-I40 storm (wall cloud is on the extreme left)
nice wall cloud on I-40 storm near Warner, OK
afischer
EF4
Left KC a little later than I wanted (i.e. following a cash withdrawal at US Bank in KC North at 1140AM), but then again I was not particularly counting on tornadoes on the ground by 330PM in OK. Getting data immediately upon arriving in Blackwell OK, it was hard to resist dashing west to see what the Alfalfa co. beast looked like. I arrived 25-minutes-post-tornado to a mildly interesting looking supercell with moderate rising motion on its RFB. Immediately let the storm go and did the east-south-east zig zag to get in front of the storm that was intensifying over Red Rock. Intercepted this near the town of Burbank OK at 530PM, seeing a low-based sloped wall cloud with weak rotation on its inside (north) edge. Soon after, new RFBs with heavy rain were developing immediately southeast; this was either a newly cycled meso or a brand new updraft. Headed east leaving the initial meso behind, and not five minutes later (542PM) a beautiful fully condensed cone tornado appeared rapidly (and very surprisingly) to my right (just south of Highway 60). The tornado lasted <10 seconds and fully evaporated before I could turn my video camera back on to document it... a bit weird as it had the look of a tornado that might last a decent duration. In a minute or two, two low-level mesocyclones (apparently stemming from the new large scale meso/updraft) crossed the highway in front of me. The leading (ESE) meso filled the sky with spectacularly wild cascading/rotating motions... this was the meso that had produced the tornado. The trailing (WNW) meso was larger and beefier, with condensing inflow on its forward edge. As the stubby, frontlit leading meso continued across the highway, it produced a second tornado north of the highway at 550PM. This one was a rope which lasted about a minute (see Tyler Burg's post... looks like they caught the same two tors from the storm as I did). On my way home, I did dash west briefly to see a loooooong, linear looking tornado-warned supercell updraft near Sedan KS.
Not a bad chase, I suppose, given I stupidly played the immediate cool side of the surface warm front (where I didn't particularly expect a substantial tornado threat) when I had fully intended to try and play the narrow warm sector for days on end. This I guess was a result of leaving a bit too late/earlier initiation than I banked on, giving storms longer to mature than they needed (a gamble given the restricted warm sector), and the fact that the storms that did form were on the far northern envelope of my initial target area (near Perry OK)--where the warm sector was successively narrower (I noticed a relative minimum in convective initiation near the latitude of Perry, corresponding nicely with a minimum in tornado reports at that latitude on the SPC reports page.)
Not a bad chase, I suppose, given I stupidly played the immediate cool side of the surface warm front (where I didn't particularly expect a substantial tornado threat) when I had fully intended to try and play the narrow warm sector for days on end. This I guess was a result of leaving a bit too late/earlier initiation than I banked on, giving storms longer to mature than they needed (a gamble given the restricted warm sector), and the fact that the storms that did form were on the far northern envelope of my initial target area (near Perry OK)--where the warm sector was successively narrower (I noticed a relative minimum in convective initiation near the latitude of Perry, corresponding nicely with a minimum in tornado reports at that latitude on the SPC reports page.)
James Hilger
EF4
I targeted Bartelsville Ok originally so i wouldn't risk getting stuck in the hotspots everyone else was at. I waited for about an hour watching the cells WSW of fire up and going warned but decided to wait and see if anything further South materialized as these were showing to go well North of me. They started shifting East more and more towards me and i couldn't resist trying to intercept them so i jetted West towards Pawhuska. I got about 10-15 miles West of Bartelsville stopping several times to take pics and trying to find a clear, flat, straight stretch (there was hills everywhere) to get myself out of trouble if needed. I got in and under the path according to radar with 4 TV's on me and started watching where all the clouds was being fed into for a few minutes then noticed just beside me clouds rolling and being sucked up and started filming that. Within a few seconds i could see the hail coming and told my buddy lets go so we can try to follow what i thought was the area about to produce and turned around and a tornado dropped for few seconds right behind us. The TIV came flying by about 10 seconds after that. I bet Sean was cussing up a storm, lol. I started hauling East and lost radar and couldn't see anything structure wise and caught up with the TIV within a few minutes. It then dawned on me that this wasn't very smart since he's actually trying to get hit and backed off for a few minutes. Surprisingly i caught a couple funnels immediately after. Not a very good day for me photo wise but im pretty happy about it. I'll try to get pics up later.
