5/15/09 REPORTS: TX/OK/KS/MO/IL

[sdienst]

Awesome chase day! Chase with Kiel Ortega and Tiffany Meyer and we were on the Roberts/Gray Co. TX cell for most all of its life. Initially got a good view on HWY 60 southwest of Miami where a nice meso was cranking. Viewed a brief tornado off to the west a few miles with a high based funnel and associated ground circulation. Moved southwest and watched a rapidly rotating wall cloud produce another short lived elephant trunk type tornado somewhere just east of Hoover. Rain began wrapping around the meso and obscuring the view but another funnel/possible tornado was seen somehwere near 60 south of Hoover. I was only shooting with the video camera when the tornadoes touched down so I'll get some vid grabs up later. Here are some of the structure shots I took though.

 

[Brian Stertz]

Osage Co. Kansas

Chased with Mike Peregrine today and targeted the area between Lawrence and Emporia KS. Although the supercell appeared to be in a prime convergence area, it seemed to lack the torque to get a good sustained low level circulation to organize. Pic below is looking south towards Pomona Lake (Osage Co. KS). The rotation was there but fairly slow so no tornado. Looked interesting for a while, but no cigar. Encountered some sporadic quarter to golfball sized hail west of Baldwin City. Headed back in to KC in time for supper. Sigh

 

[Bill Schintler]

Texas Panhandle Chase

I targeted Spearman, TX today. Looking at data in the morning, it was becoming apparent that surface moisture was verifying less then forecast, and by late morning LCL levels were over 2km AGL in much of the TX panhandle. I decided to go for it anyway and we arrived in the area about an hour after initiation. Several brief funnels and two brief ground circulations were observed. The storm had excellent structure and I'll post some photos at an early convenience. bill

 

[Adam Lucio]

A very long and challenging day here in Illinois.

Got on the todnado warned storm west of Jacksonville, storm had very evil pitch black skies with the most intense lightning Ive seen this year. Got some decent strikes on video. Also encountered penny size hail.

Storm was moving ENE and a good highway road was just not to be had so I gambled with county roads and whatever I could find that went in that direction. Lets just say im glad I drive what I drive because anything less would have been ripped to shreds. I had no idea roads could get so trecherous in Illinois. My truck even bottomed while i was only going 10mph thats how bad these roads were.

Once I got into a better road network a different problem emerged. Serious flooding which greatly slowed me down as I had to constantly slow down to 10mph to crawl though the flooded roads.

The whole time I would get to within 2 mile of the storm, hit an obstacle and then fall back to about 15. The storm was tornado warned for hours and GR3 kept showing hail over 2.5" which is what kept me on pursuit. I was determined.

FINALLY caught it just west of Champaign with the largest hail being nickel size and the tornado warning being dropped. Called the chase there and here I sit in a pizza hut awaiting my meat lovers pizza.

Nothing too special...but I had to take the chance knowing the pattern ahead is a bad one.

 

[Andrew Pritchard]

Followed the central IL HP supercell from Jacksonville to Champaign. Managed to stay ahead of it the entire time thanks to some good east-west highways and Interstate 72. Unfortunately I think this supercell stayed on the cold side of the boundary much of it's life. We had several instances of very tight rotation, but nothing seemed to be able to get surface based.

Got hit by a Stormtrack-Nado east of Riverton, as the mesocyclone passed overhead and we were slammed by rapidly shifting winds which engulfed us in dirt/small debris. Might post a short video clip of that if it turned out decent; otherwise nothing special to report from this grungy chase.

At least I only used 3/4 tank of gas, and ended the chase at home.

 

[Michael O'Keeffe]

I intercepted a nice supercell NW and N of Ottawa, KS. The storm quickly became a nice supercell and produced a nice fairly elongated funnel that lasted several minutes. Continued to follow the storm only to see it get pulled into the line, decided to watch the beautiful shelf come into Ottawa. After watching that and had it pass over me, I decided to head west towards the nice looking bow near Pamona, KS. I let it overtake me, just east of town and experienced some fairly strong wind gusts, at least strong enough to rock the car a bit and wobble some powerlines. I was hoping for maybe some large hail, but got nothing more than dimes at most. Went back to Ottawa for some dinner before heading home being treating to a pretty neat lightning display. I will post some video a bit later.

 

[Mikey Gribble]

I'm too lazy to upload any video grabs right now, but we were on the tornado warned storm that went from Hutchinson all the way down through Wichita. It really started to fall apart as it reached Wichita though.
There were a few times where it started to get organized and had a nice striated meso with a feeder band coming into, but it couldn't ever get the job done. There were also a couple lowering with decent rotation and vertical motion, but it looked awfully high based. I didn't think LCL's were supposed to be high, but the updraft base was a little higher than what you'd expect to see on a tornadic storm.
All in all not a bad chase. It was close to home and we got the only tornado warned storm in the area, so it couldn't have gotten a whole lot better.
I had a lot of equipment problems dropping my video stream to the station which was infuriating, but I'll try to get that figured out before the next time. I think it is just a problem with the air card.
Congratulations to everybody else who had a good day. Now lets start praying for a good typical spring tornado outbreak.

 

[Kyle Soldani]

I intercepted a nice supercell NW and N of Ottawa, KS. The storm quickly became a nice supercell and produced a nice fairly elongated funnel that lasted several minutes. Continued to follow the storm only to see it get pulled into the line, decided to watch the beautiful shelf come into Ottawa. After watching that and had it pass over me, I decided to head west towards the nice looking bow near Pamona, KS. I let it overtake me, just east of town and experienced some fairly strong wind gusts, at least strong enough to rock the car a bit and wobble some powerlines. I was hoping for maybe some large hail, but got nothing more than dimes at most. Went back to Ottawa for some dinner before heading home being treating to a pretty neat lightning display. I will post some video a bit later.

I was on the same storm. KC news chopper was flying covering the funnel cloud, ran into Jason Blum and the Discovery crew. Cell looked so promising, but squall overtook it..

 

[John Gnuechtel]

I played the squall line--hoping things would stay somewhat discreet for at least a little bit--and targeted just northwest of Wichita. I was not disappointed. Everything was almost instantly outflow dominant, but it was fun anyway, with plenty of hail and more of those instantaneous super-CGs than I've seen in a very long time. I managed to get shots of the first tornado-warned storm in the area.

www.amazingcheese.com/Storms/nw_of_wichita.jpg (photo stitch)

I've seen supercells like this before...full of their own hail right quick. It's been a long time since I've been able to get all the way out to Kansas and chase something like this, so I was pretty happy. Hopefully the video will show some cool movement once I speed it up about 10x.

 

[Jim Saueressig]

10 miles NNW of Emporia I focused on a hook in the bow echo for some structure shots with my Super wide angle lens (10mm) and I wasn't disappointed. As the line rolled my way a rapidly rotating updraft because readily visible.



I shot photos of that letting it get pretty much on top of me for the wide angle shot. As it did I noticed an area of circulation on the ground below it so I kept shooting though the wind was about to knock me over.








I bailed as the storm wall hit me and it took until South of Lebo to get out in front of the storm by more than a mile where I shot a gustnado through my window that spun up beside me. Its not the greatest shot through a dirty window.



EDIT: Just found out that Topeka had just drafted up a Tornado Warning for that when the circulation weakened and it was swallowed back up into the rain.

More Shots on my Flickr

 

[MikeWeingand]

Not a bad chase day for the amount of driving I had to do. Got off work at 2:30, came home (Bloomington,IL) and checked the radar and saw the long lived tornado warned cell that made its way pretty much all the way across illinois. Decided on Moroa, IL but ended up going a little more south to Forsyth and noticed some nice inflow bands upon arrival. About 10 minutes after arriving in Forsyth the sirens went off, I decided to head about a mile north of town to an open field to get the best view. Met up with some other local spotters and basically just waited for the storm to show itself. Storm showed some good rotation but never put anything down, just ended up waiting and let the meso pass overhead. Got a few decent pictures but nothing outstanding, overall a good chase for less than 70 miles and a 1/4 tank of gas!

 

[Jason A.C. Brock]

Panhandle Magic

Was on Pampa Texas storm from Near Pampa till it got to I-40. Brief tornado touchdown Just NE of Pampa but this storm had some of the best structure ive seen this year. Amazing storm with tons of rapid rotation along the leading edge. Also had some amazing bright green colors with massive hail. Got into RFD along I-40 which blew 2 semis off the interstate & a white van pulling a trailer. Will post pics and video later. Have chased everyday this week except one I think so have tons of Video to go over. From Anadarko EF-2 to this amazing beast.
Maybe heading WAY north middle of ext week?

 

[Chad Cowan]

I got on the Ottawa storm before it crossed to the cool side of the outflow boundary. If only it could have deviated right and rode that boundary, probably would have been a tornado machine. Oh well, at least I got some good whales mouth shots and tower lightning after dark. There are a few more pictures at: chasethestorms.com

 

[Chris Hovanic]

Chased the monster HP beast between Pampa and Miami...observed a brief elephant trunk tornado that was almost entirely rain-wrapped just west of Hoover, looking northward from Highway 60. Shortly after observing the tornado we unfortunately were caught in baseball sized hail just east of the 60/171 intersection and also encountered 80-90 mph RFD winds (may have been higher). Amazingly enough, we suffered no damage to our car other than some minor dents.

Incredible day with awesome structure...pictures forthcoming shortly.

 

[David Toner]

Seems a bunch of us were on the Ottawa Storm. Nice pics by the way Chad! We intercepted the the Ottawa supercell north of Lyndon and stayed with it until it was absorbed into the squall line north of Ottawa. Had a well defined wall clound north of Lyndon and seemed to try to form a funnel around Michigan Valley. It just never really had the energy to spawn anything more although it sure acted like it wanted to. Sort of surprised it never went tornado warned. After it was absorbed by the squall line we took the time to watch an impressive shelf cloud move through. South of Richmond, KS ran into 60+ mph straightline winds but what was more impressive was the dust it kicked up. All in all, not a bad day.