Shane Adams
Another "backyard" type chase in and around the DFW metroplex today. I knew the show would be further southwest earlier on, but I decided to work and worry about things later in the day as they neared DFW. I left Irving around 3:15pm, and found myself near Crassen as a cell developed ahead of the line (at least that's what it looked like, I was visual today). It looked really interesting for about 2 minutes, with a nice pronounced wallcloud, with southeast feeder bands and nice rising motion on the northern flank.....but it was on the wrong side of the core......line bow. So rather quikcly, it gusted out and I decided to head southeast on 171 towards Godley to punch the core and get on the inflow side of the cell.....which by now was turning into a line. West of Godley, I saw a loweirng in the base of the storm that seemed to be the last one in line....I shot video in bits as I negotiated the town, trees, and hills. It briefly lowered into a fat funnel-shaped lowering, but I couldn't discern any rotation, as I was too far away. I kept shooting it until I cleared town to the southeast, and of course by then it was disappearing in rain. Reports started coming in near Burlson of possible funnels, and one guy said he had a confirmed funnel halfway down, while I moved east on 67 out of Cleburne. I could see what looked like possible inflow bands at mid levels, maybe as low as 5K, but the lowering underneath it looked ragged and I couldn't see rotation....though I was well south. A few minutes later, I heard a third-hand report via the scanner of a reported tornado in Godley, but it sounded like a bogus report. I thought of the lowering I'd seen, and was planning on doing a review of video to see if time stamps matched the report.....but there is no report listed, so I assume it was bogus. I may look at the video anyway just for grins, but I didn't see ANYTHING rotating all day. Lots of cloud motions on a gustfront, but nothing spinning....at least everywhere I was that I was close enough to see movement. Jumped on US287 and near Mansfield, pulled over and let the line overtake me, with winds around 50-60mph, with a few gusts to maybe 70mph. Turned back north in Waxahachie, then west on 20, north on loop 12, and 114 home. Saw a tractor trailer overturned on Spur 408, and from the way it was lying, it looked as if he'd stopped and was blown over by winds. This was another extremely difficult chase, going pure visual, working with paper maps, manually switching between RACES nets and NWS radio via scanner, shooting video, driving a stick, and negotiating rush hour traffic in heavy rain/wind. Not to mention crap storms....again. DFW should hire me to protect them, everytime I'm somewhere else it's a tornado....when I'm here, it's rain.
Man, I miss the days of clear blue skies, nuclear bomb sups, and you can see it from 100 miles away.
Man, I miss the days of clear blue skies, nuclear bomb sups, and you can see it from 100 miles away.