5/12/10 REPORTS: KS/OK/TX

[Mike Peregrine]

Worst chase in four years ... won't go into detail. Terrific looking storms on radar for two hours. I literally drove up to the northern storm in Dickinson Co., only to watch it die in front of me, followed by the rest crapping out one-by-one. Screwed up pretty much all the photos too. These are the least sucky photos of all the sucky photos.

 

[Bill Schintler]

We left Woodward and targeted Elk City, OK. We were on the storm southwest of Elk City: observed numerious funnels and a "ground hugging" meso persisting over 30 minutes from this HP supercell. A crew from KCRG TV9 in Iowa is with us, and is documenting our chase this week. We should have video by tomorrow here: http://www.kcrg.com/weather/chase

- Bill Schintler

 

[Eugene Thieszen]

Western Oklahoma Chase

After intercepting a storm near Harmon (which quickly weakened) and another near Strong City, the WXtreme Chase Team hit paydirt in our own backyard. Witnessed a very large cone funnel NNW of Dill City at about 8:00 pm and a tornado SE of Clinton at about 8:25 pm. The Clinton tornado never condensed fully but some debris was visible (from an alfalfa field according to spotters) and a barn was reported destroyed S of I-40.

Here are links to several quick video captures:

Large cone funnel near Dill City before it wrapped in rain:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=351727&l=80892210a1&id=1795142262

Developing tornado E of HWY 183 3 miles S of Clinton:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=351725&l=92aa8cd878&id=1795142262

Another capture of the same tornado:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=351726&l=4c723edc48&id=1795142262

Contrast adjusted capture after the tornado wrapped in rain:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=351972&l=28df606e51&id=1795142262

 

[Gene Moore]

Eugene, great that you caught that funnel, soon to be tornado. The wall cloud tail cloud had spectacular motion and I thought it would tornado over Clinton, but it did not. I was at a truck stop about 3 east of Clinton. The wall cloud started to rain wrap just before it got there. A fellow chaser pointed out an area in the rain where I could see violent motion on the ground, occasional condensation, but no tornado aloft. Our view was nothing like yours. It appears Bill Tabor also got the developing tornado from the south. A rotating rain band came out just south of our location and the winds got very strong, so I bailed out to the north. I thought there was a chance the truck stop would get hit, but there was no damage. I could see the tornado planted with a debris column to cloud base, then it got much wider aloft and turned into more of a suction spot event. I only got brief video and it's pretty noisy in the darkness. I guess some of the other chasers held their ground, so there may be some very good video coming in if they were not rain obscured.

 

[John Farley]

Pretty much a bust for me in the Marshall, MO area. I thought that if something went up near the warm front, the chances were good given the combination of instability and shear. But although the storm I was on northwest of Marshall eventually up into Slater was isolated, persistent, and strong, it just couldn't get its act together - too cool and outflowish. Although it did not look elevated, I think it was just enough on the cool side of the warm front to ingest enough cool air to waste the potential. Eventually after I broke off from it around 7:30, it got its act together a little more and got a tornado warning (but no tornado) after dark around 9, and the hail size up into the Keokuk, IA area increased to 1.5" from half that when I broke off. But mostly it was a huge rain producer, generating flood advisories and warnings up from Carrol Co. through the NE corner of MO where it dumped 4 inches of rain. If only it had formed south of the warm front and moved across, I think the results would have been better. It was a very sharp front, stalled out near I-70 for a long time. At one point you could actually see a difference in the wind direction north and south of the freeway, and when I turned northwest from Booneville to go after the storm, I got a 7 degree temperature drop in about 10 miles - not encouraging when the storm is to the northwest! At one point there was a 30-degree temperature difference between COU and IRK, a difference of about 100 miles.

Eventually I'll put a report and a few pics on my Web page, but it won't be anything exciting.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Worst chase in four years ... won't go into detail. Terrific looking storms on radar for two hours. I literally drove up to the northern storm in Dickinson Co., only to watch it die in front of me, followed by the rest crapping out one-by-one. Screwed up pretty much all the photos too. These are the least sucky photos of all the sucky photos.

lol sounds like you must have been near me. I was all excited this morning that I'd finally have a chase day that I got sleep the night before. That was only because the last 2 nights had about 3 hours each. Thought I left with plenty of time, but was thinking KC. Crapvection took care of that thought. I saw the stuff fire west of ICT as I was heading sw out of KC. I thought right then, well I blew this day. Heck by St Joe I had already been tempted to head back home. But I did the same thing. Drove to Emporia then up to Council Grove and west. On my way north to Council Grove I could see the first signs of shrinkage. I was like, yeah that one is going to die but I had to keep going to make sure. I couldn't even see the thing as I was starting to get closer. I then just flipped around and started back home lol. It was obvious on radar then there was not going to be much to see. I kept thinking all day, "I guess this is what I get for sleeping for once." When I went to bed the night before I never even set my alarm. I was just like, I wake up when I wake up. Wasn't even sure I was chasing. Then thought I had plenty of time for a KC target and even south of there. Never thought the day would be over by 5 for the storms though.

 

[Matthew Crowther]

Caught the tornado near Mayfield, OK in Harmon county with Mike Umscheid. Only saw it for a couple of minutes, had to get out of its way. This is about 1 mile or less away, the pic is wide angle.

http://img153.imageshack.us/i/dsc7408wtmk.jpg/

 

[Dennis Oswald]

Clinton,OK picture taken near I-40 east of Clinton

 

[Nathan Edwards]

Caught the same tornado as Matt and Mike, albeit from much closer... (about 100 yards at one point!) Only took some brief video given my location in relation to the tornado.. and it's path right towards me...


Nice Cone a few seconds after I first witnessed it. I was actually ahead of this storm, trying to get a couple of shots of the lead storm which was showing a nice wall cloud with an inflow tail forming, and had been tor warned. I was out of data coverage and am glad I kept an eye behind on this storm as it ramped up quick!

Fatter, but starting to lose condensation at the base. It's real close at this point, and a few seconds later, I have to stop filming and concentrate on driving south out of the path. Even if it had lifted at this point, the winds in the RFD/outer bands really buffeted the car about. (eyes fixed firmly ahead and not out the side window at this point!)

Only regret was not getting any stills, but I didn't have long before I'd have been run over...

 

[Brett Roberts]

Brandon Lawson and I observed the tornado pictured below from 2 E Texola between 2235-2240 UTC before it became wrapped in rain from our vantage point. It appeared to be a couple miles N of I-40 and just a hair W of the OK-TX state line, and may not have been on the ground continuously for the whole period (haze and rain made our view difficult even before it became completely wrapped). Would be interested to hear a more precise location from anyone who saw this from a different location so I know whether to count it as my first daylight OK tornado in over four years (sad, I know).

Afterwards, we followed this too far N past Sweetwater and never really caught up with the later tornado-warned storm that went through Clinton as a result. Still a better day than I was expecting, and my only tornado of the week.

 

[Jason Boggs]

I got a late start to the day and tried to catch the cells coming from the Paducah Quanah TX area heading into Altus, OK. I wasn't able to succeed in that attempt and headed back west to get on the cells in the SE TX Panhandle near Memphis. Got a pretty good wall cloud with some rotation which tried to produce a tornado a couple of times and failed.

Saw Steve Miller TX in his new vehicle and we talked a few minutes. We headed towards Hollis, OK after a tornado warned cell. I headed north of Hollis and had a few attempts at wall clouds, but the storm just never did it for me. It looked really good nonetheless. Piddled around taking a few photos and saw some vortex2 equipment on the side of the road and decided to take some stills of the equipment with the storms in the background. Headed to Sayre and made the trek back home. No tornadoes today, but it was still a great day of chasing! Now to the photos:

Storm south of Memphis, TX

Broad wall cloud with some rotation, but never produced. 13 miles north of Childress, TX looking west.

Small wall cloud northwest of Mangum, OK

Vortex2 equipment with storm in the background southeast of Sayre, OK

Looking east towards Cordell, OK

 

[Mike Umscheid]

A quick correction to Matt C's post. He got the county right, but not the town. Mayfield is farther north on SH-30 just north of I-40. That was the northern supercell of the two in that area, which apparently produced a tornado as well near or along SH-30. We were on the southern one, which produced the cone tornado about 4 or 5 miles northwest of Vinson. Below is another image of it from my camera.. Matt C and I have the same shots since we were chasing together...

 

[Bill Tabor]

Short: Kiowa, KS to Cordell / Clinton, TX intercepted funnel / tornado near dark.

I was out yesterday as well starting off from Woodward at the Days Inn. I was here from Tuesday night after the chase ended there. At the motel were Randy Denzer, Tony Cook, Gene Moore, Randy's co-worker Steve. There we ran into Bart Comstock and Tyler Constantini. (Bart / Tyler it was really nice meeting / talking with you guys.

Anyway, Gene and I left (separate vehicles) there sometime around 1 or 2. Initially thoughts were to go to Childress. This was initially Gene Moore's brain child as we awoke. Instead because of cirrus concerns we opted to go north and then east to Kiowa, KS where the storms developed. We monitored for an hour or so but it appeared mostly cold outflow dominant crap. We hated freezing on a chase so broke south. Turns out it was a good thing as I left my HD cam charger at the motel in Woodward. Most of the storms looked like crap going south but nearing Woodward things started looking up. East of Woodward (25 miles) I broke west to get my charger. Gene continued south to the southern storm in the line. A bit later I continued south as well. I got to Cordell as the rotation area was about 10 miles west of town. By the time I got there the area of rotation and wallcloud was just north of the road. I shot some photos / video. As I stood there the town's tornado siren was going off in the distance. I broke east back through town, and headed north to catch up to the area of interest. There I streamed much of the action. I was trying to debate whether I should go all the way up to I40. I was already almost there under the whole base area (which was large). As I was videotaping around 8:25 I finally saw a laminar cone shaped (whitish) funnel to my northeast on the southeast side of the wall cloud. I couldn't tell through the viewfinder if there was debris beneath.

Later I catch up to Gene. Apparently what I taped was either the tornado or the funnel before or after. He as east of the intersection on I40's access road in the path. The tornado was obscured until the last minute, but pretty much over ran him. He tried to get back on the ramp to go east, but the ramp was contorting. Only seconds in the very intense wind field he broke north to the safety of the core. He did manage to grab a quick video shot of the tornado.

Later at Jerry's in Weatherford (while eating steak and ribs) we ran into other successful chaser's Matt Crowther and Mike Umscheid. We all talked of the days events. Nice talking with you guys!

Certainly a good / exciting day. Wished we had gone to Childress originally as planned.

 

[Shane Adams]

Started in Enid, drove around for hours seeing nothing in NW OK/SW KS, finally said "f*ck this" and just headed southwest towards the megastorm in Harmon county. Ended up soputh of Clinton on 183, then went east on the unmarked road to Corn. From there, witnessed a smooth, white, low-contrast cone/banana-shaped tornado not fully-condensed to the ground. It seemed to be in a kinda weird place in the storm from our position, so I wasn't quite believing what I was seeing (after a full day of failure). It morphed into a truncated cone, widening at the top, then began to shrink into a skinny cone, as we lost it in precip and darkness. I called it in to OUN as a "possible tornado" because I wasn't convinced we'd just been that fortunate after the day we'd had. What solidified it for me was the report over NOAA radio a few mins later of "research meteorologists" reporting a developing tornado that matched our time frame/location (we'd seen some "stick people" from V2 planting probes and then sitting a quarter-mile north of us watching the tornado while we did).

Got back at 2am, got up for work at 7am, so haven't had time to post images/video. Check FB tonight or tomorrow for that.

 

[James Siler]

Started my day heading north on highway 81 to Hennessey, then cutting over towards Fairview to get on the line that was over Woodward, that was showing some breaks in the line so i thought it my stand a chance. Since that eventually crapped out I decided to head down towards Clinton. My air card crapped out north of Seiling, so i pulled over and got it working again. It stayed working till just north of Clinton before it crapped out again. So i sit in Clinton on the phone with technical support from Sprint only for them to transfer me to the manufacturer. After they have my try this and that, they advise me the card is defective and take it back to Sprint, since i just got it on this day. The funny thing is I hauled it to Weatherford cause I couldn't get my bearings on were the hail core of the storm was and didn't want to get into what i had been hearing as baseball up to softball sized hail. So i hung around Weatherford as me and my chase partner kept screwing with the air card, before finally deciding to use Radar Scope on my iPhone. I wasn't confident with it as I am with GRLevel3 but decided to take a chance. Just west of Weatherford, me and my chase partner witnessed what we believe to be a funnel forming quickly but just never made it. Watched the wall cloud from Clinton becoming very ragged and not as organized. All and all missed the tornado in Clinton but oh well, still was nice to get out and chase anything at this point. Will try to get what few pics i got, posted later.