5/12/05 REPORTS: Plains

[Mickey Ptak]

Originally posted by Shane Adams
the hail finally, mercifully began to shrink in size. We'd gotten seperated from JR and Mickey/Chad, but they came back from the east (they'd been among the chasers who chose to drive through the developing tornado to escape the hail - opposite of us).
Ok, the stats:

On Chads and my behalf we did not drive under the circulation however it was real close to the east of us. I made sure of that despite Chad yelling at me to keep going. I opted to stay back. I would rather get the car destroyed then my life taken and if we would have gone any further east we may not be here today. So for the correction we were not under or in the tornadic circulation

Edit:I had really messed up on my video though. Somehow I had pushed my night shot button and now my video is green. I could kick myself in the ass for this. I have no idea how I did this. I am hoping I can adjust the color using the computer. Great footage piss poor video quality. Damn...

Mick

 

[Kurt Hulst]

Started in Garden city and looked at data Had a good feeling about the Childress area or the west of it. BUt i was torn b/w SC KS and TX panhandel well We wound up in Seeing the South Plains tornadoe, and one prior to that. Then a second wedge after The initial South Plains tornadoe.

Hooked up with the May 12 crew from last May 12, 2004. Amos, Tony L, Scott Eubanks. Newbies to the crew Nick Grillo and Jason Montano, But not newbies to chasing. Lots of Chasers on this storm. Very Majestic all around. Wonderful Lightning, Large tornadoes, Gracious Structure, and of course large hail that i thankfully did not run into. Thank God for helping me find the rare paved roads there were at times.

I only have a vid posted right now pics will be up proabably tomorrow as it looks to be a down day.

Warning this is a 4.88Mb file close to 5 minutes long.

http://midwestchasers.com/2005/May/Southpl...insMWC_0001.wmv

 

[Dave Chapman]

Managed to get a close-up view of the South Plains tornado without losing a windshield. Not the best contrast, but I suppose that's the price you sometimes pay for keeping a clear exit route.

Here's a view from just southeast of the developing cone (taken at 6:30):



Then a close-up shot (taken at 6:33), before I retreated south (that's the lowest part of a fairly large tornado):



This was my first experience with the intense roar of a strong tornado...best described as a jet engine. Very loud and quite amazing.

 

[Shane Adams]

Originally posted by Mickey Ptak

On Chads and my behalf we did not drive under the circulation however it was real close to the east of us. I made sure of that despite Chad yelling at me to keep going. I opted to stay back. I would rather get the car destroyed then my life taken and if we would have gone any further east we may not be here today. So for the correction we were not under or in the tornadic circulation

Apologies to my bros Mick and Chad for my incorrect assumption. I saw them head east with a string of others and I never saw them again until after our little hail encounter. I wasn't suggesting they were irresponsible for (alledgedly) driving under the developing tornado, I was just mentioning it in passing as a part of my report. SEVERAL chasers drove into the developing tornado, I'm guessing to escape the large hail. It was a choice between two evils, each individual chaser's opinion on which was the lesser. Again, apologies for any confusion or misunderstanding.

 

[Nic Wilson]

FULL REPORT and PICS http://weather.ou.edu/~nwilson/chase6.html

Went out yesterday with a posse of OU grad students yesterday including Aaron Kennedy, Kenny Tapp, Ben Baranowski and others. We departed Norman around noon and didn't initially target the CDS area so we were late arriving to the show. Missed out on the last tornado report by about 20 minutes, but the scenery was spectacular as the HP beast passed over the Caprock and had 4 different wall clouds at one point. Highlights of the trip included Kenny leading us on an offroad adventure through overgrown fields, bobcat sightings and the blessing in disguise that we weren't there to get baseballs thrown through our windshields. Congrats to those that nabbed some nice looking tornadoes. I have some cool shots of the Lubbock area storm breaking the cap and going crazy for those of you that targeted those storms further south. Also saw a nice funnel cloud at 7:28 pm on our storm, but it quickly hid back up in the base and hauled its way northeast. We also realized its a lot easier to drive home 4 hours when treated to a lightning show of that magnitude!

 

[nickgrillo]

Excellent day yesterday with at least 4 tornadoes, including a absolute beauty...

I have a MAJOR update to do to my site, and ALOT of photos to upload... But here's just a couple from yesterday of tornado #1:

[Broken External Image]:http://midwestchase.com/12-May-2005/tn_may12tornado2.jpg
[Broken External Image]:http://midwestchase.com/12-May-2005/tn_may12tornado.jpg

Texas is back in the game, baby! 8)

 

[Chris Kridler]

5/12 report: Tornado and big hail

Like many other chasers, our group made the choice on TX 207 to hang north of the developing tornado, and we got munched by hail. I won't repeat what others have said here, but the report/pictures are here:
http://skydiary.com/gallery/chase2005/chase2005i.html

...and for those who like reading trivia and description, my chase diary is also linked from there.

Thus endeth my Plains chase vacation for the year. Other reports are here... and hopefully I'll have more to add from Florida as the summer progresses.
http://skydiary.com/gallery/chase2005/chase2005.html

~ Chris Kridler

 

[JHadorn]

A surprise chase that landed me my first funnel cloud in a long time. I had laundry to do, so I did that, and while the laundry was getting dry I decided to run east of town just to waste some time.

Drove maybe ten miles east and decided to head down a trusty dirt road I always seem to take because I get a pretty unobstructed view east. I hadn't gone 100 feet down the road when something caught my eye to the northeast.

A thin white rope dangling from the base of a storm.

I pulled off the road to watch it for a moment just to be sure. It began to condense groundward, then it would retreat. It changed shape every now and then. I never saw any ground circulation, but it was too far away for me to tell anyway. This thing was racing away from me. It was embeded in a line of storms coming up from Kansas at a fairly good clip.

What I was feeling as I watched its brief life was just amazing. A rush of adrenaline. I felt so alive. It was damn near spiritual.

I managed to snag one really blurry as all hell picture of the funnel and storm. If you look hard enough you can make out the funnel (to the right of the treeline and up), what might have been the clear slot (the really bright area on the left), and possibly a weak meso up at the top. I'm sorry the picture looks so bad, but I'm no Mike H. and I didn't have time to really monkey with my crappy digital camera.

http://www.thespiralingshape.org/img/wx/funnel.jpg

You have to view it full-sized in order to make anything out. Scaled down and things get even uglier.

 

[Aaron Kennedy]

Nic summed up my chase... headed to Watonga to hit the clear slot along the CF... that vanished so we hauled butt to the Silverton cell. Got there just a bit too late for the tornadoes.

Pictures:
http://www.convectionconnection.com/CHASE-051205/

Aaron

 

[Tony Laubach]

A fun chase on May 12 which I have posted on my site!

http://www.tornadoeskick.com/log050512.html

Enjoy!

 

[Jeff Snyder]

In continuation of Rocky's log from May 11-13.

Originally posted by Rocky Rascovich
The next day was far more exciting...which actually I did'nt expect it to be...especially once we left GLD and noticing cb's already exploding on the southern horizon at 1100cdt...I thought, this was already done for as the atmosphere would have been too worked over by late in the day...plus, going thru Perryton...temps only in the low 50's...which I loved...but not for chasing...Anyway, Rick and I crossed that magical boundary just south of Shamrock around 1330cdt where temps jumped from 60F to 76F with a moderate south breeze and dews around 62...I was enthused when the T-strm watch box was relaced with a T Box...and no PDS either!...another ray of hope. Once we established a trustworthy connection, we looked at rapidly developing cells near Silverton and backing toward Plainview which already had a reported TOR at around 1400cdt...we eventually got down there after jogging thru some FM roads...we met up Gene and Karen Rhoden, Jimmy Degaura and fellow Aussie mates somewhere near South Plains...I think. We viewed the supercell just west of us that should've, could've, would've, but did'nt...at that time, I thought the cell became outflow dominant and I *almost* wrote it off, ontil I got a little north of Lockney and noticed some strong circulations in the forward flank of what I thought was the decaying meso...one gustnado after another formed on the leading edge of the OFB, then a huge dust swirl ensued, rather large for a gustnado, it was at this time that I noticed the circulation of the cloud tags at cloud base..I saw several of these, none were any stronger than a high end F0...the one north of Locknet at around 1700cdt (estimated time) was possibly a couple hundred yards across, I got some good relatively steady video of this...A highlight of the day was when Jeff Piotrowski along with a couple of his chase partners showed up in Lockney with his car caked in mud, not to mention himself...he went into hyper overdrive about his harrowing adventures!..A short time later, we jogged back north toward Quitaque..which was almost a very bad mistake, as a seething dark and forboding malestrom was about to be unleashed upon those residents..we narrowly escaped the window cracking hail..got about 1\" diameter going thru Quitaque...and probably was way bigger as the storm descended upon them. After 1830..we basically stayed just ahead of this system...hearing the horror stories thru phone calls with Jim Leonard and Charles Edwards...made me a little edgy in not getting caught up in its fury...Hank Baker tagged along and we stopped several times to take video...at around 1930-2000 as we trekked thru Northfield and finally on to Childress...inflow winds west of Northfield were at times sustained at least 40kts...a true supercell beast! Rick and I made it home at around 0130 after 1300mi. ...overall a great chase!

 

[bvassmer]

My pictures from the day are here:

http://www.vassmer.com/stormchasing/photo-...ges/2005/05-12/

Damage to the car is here:

http://www.vassmer.com/stormchasing/photo-...ges/2005/05-13/

Headed out from Norman @ around 1030a. Headed to Clinton, where we were going to make the decision to head north to NW OK, or head west to TX. Tried to get internet @ Clinton Public Library, but they were upgrading their computers, and none of them had internet. The person there was very helpful in giving us the best routes north or west, whichever we wanted.

From there, headed to Elk City, OK, and talked to Jarrod Cook (my nowcaster from Illinois KC9CJY) - he told us about the development SSE of us (the South Plains Storms). We jetted south on 70 of off I40 after using the internet.

I have to say, that drive was beautiful! The caprock is a wonderful place, and I will be visiting soon!

Went all the way to Turkey, TX before heading west, as to not drive into the hail core. We arrived around 330p~~~, just in time for some nice wall clouds. We stuck around the FM 689 / 207 area, seeing numerous tornadoes, funnels and wall clouds, and a TON of hail on the ground.

Then the show started. The tornado formed to our SW, and was heading E. We watched it from start to finish, and got pictures/video of the eintire thing!

After that... as many people know, the hail started, and then the windows ended.

After limping out of the storm, we came across the tornado's path where some nice people were slowing traffic down (as the power lines were almost invisable if you didnt know they were there). They saw our condition, and offered help. We went to their house down the road about 5 miles, and there they helped tape the windows, vacuum glass, and give us wx updates. The next storm was about to produce, and we did NOT want to be there (to many holes for leaks, and there was a 6 hr drive home ahead of us).

We jetted East toward home, on the way meeting Shane while I was retaping one of the windows. He offered to let us follow him (it was a lot easier following taillights through a broken windshield, then trying to find the road). Many thanks to him and Jo!

Over all, a nice chase with NICE tornado(es), and bad hail, but nearly everyone that saw the nice tornado learned the lesson of the core. :wink:

 

[Mike Mezeul II]

Just wanted to let everyone now that we now have a full chase account up at http://www.stormphoto.net/May_12_05.htm Also, fellow friend and chaser Clint Perkins has some pretty nice pics of the tornadoes near Ralls, TX after dark. Check em out at www.mesopursuers.com

~ I posted this for Clint as he doesn't have a Stormtrack account.[/url]