5/22/05 REPORTS: S Plains

[Shane Adams]

Not much to speak of today. Eric Collins, Mickay Ptak, and myself drove to Ponca City, OK. Found a nice open field NE of town with a great view, and sat there for about an hour, watching the clouds, throwing rocks at a large wooden sign pole (which I never hit once), and videotaping some conceptual/arty-farty stuff for a future DVD production. One particular cloud tried and tried to become a storm, albeit high-based. We watched it for a while, then called Dwain Warner, who suggested we stay with it as it was actually throwing echos that were discernable on both TUL and ICT radar. We followed the cloud to Pawhuska, where we saw several other chasers, including Todd Thorn and Stormchase Adventure Tours. Stopped in town for another data call and were informed that a secondary boundary was floating northward towards the main one, and this collision would take place in Grant/Garfield counties, west of I-35. So, we simply took US60 back west to the interstate, where we saw one last attempt at a storm, that eventually fizzled into twilight. Stopped just west of I-35 on US412 and did some more arty-farty stuff, including a zoomed-in, timelapsed sunset. After we began heading home, we noticed what appeared to be a legitimate tower well west of the interstate, right where Dwain said the two boundaries would collide (damn Dwain is good). Of course by then it was nearly dark, so we ignored it, despite one particular part of the tower which was higher than the rest, which seemed to be a finger flipping us the bird, as if the storm/tower was saying "f-you guys!" Stopped in Guthrie for Mickey D's, and headed home. Cap won again today, but we got further than yesterday with the cu congestus for about an hour.

Thanks for Dwain for the nowcasting
Thanks to Mickey for dinner

 

[Jeff Snyder]

Originally posted by Shane Adams
Of course by then it was nearly dark, so we ignored it, despite one particular part of the tower which was higher than the rest, which seemed to be a finger flipping us the bird, as if the storm/tower was saying \"f-you guys!\" Stopped in Guthrie for Mickey D's, and headed home. Cap won again today, but we got further than yesterday with the cu congestus for about an hour.

Similar story as Shane. I was on the fence through the morning and early afternoon, though thought to myself, "eh, what the heck"... I put a very small probability of a tornado, though a better probability of a supercell given initiation. Since it was the weekend, I figured that, given nothing much else to do, I might as well go out and hope that the small probability of something good would play in my favor.

Made it not far south of the KS/OK border, and saw some towers to the east of Ponca City. Watched for a while, then opted to try to hit 'em up given increasing dBz. By the time we made it through PNC, realized that the storm was dying, so headed back west to I35. SPC mesoanalysis was showing weak cap (pffff), extreme instability (4000-5000), strong low-level shear dropping south from the KS/OK border (200-300 0-3km SRH north of Enid), and strong convergence near a boundary intersection near Enid. Obviously, the RUC analysis was not good, since the cap was very evident (and quite strong), regardless of what it was showing. At any rate, a few TCU associated with the moisture convergence bullseye near and west of Enid, but those failed as well. Started heading home 7:45pm-ish.

Shane, we also noticed and joked about the cloud that looked to be giving us 'the bird'. LOL. Awesome that you guys saw that and thought the same thing.

EDIT: Crap. Just saw the 0z Lamont sounding... So close. 3200 j/kg CAPE, 370 0-3km SRH, awesome veering profile (though weak wind speeds), and -76 j/kg CINH. I think we MAY have been able to break the cap if the CINH had been a tad lower -- in the -50 range. -76 is doable given strong forcing... I think the cap BARELY won out today. Ugh.

 

[David Schuttler]

These cows south of Chetopa,Ks. summed it up best.

[Broken External Image]:http://stormdriven.web.aplus.net/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/22cows.jpg

After making it as far east as Chetopa I read the MD issued around 5:29 on the cell phone. Turned around and headed west on 166 , by the time I went as far as the 99 & 60 split in Osage county I was done and headed home.

[Broken External Image]:http://stormdriven.web.aplus.net/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/img8371.jpg

Stuff in NE Oklahoma [Broken External Image]:http://stormdriven.web.aplus.net/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/img8374.jpg

 

[David Wolfson]

We followed the max parameter nose west and south to near Woodward, OK, around 7 p.m. There we watched towers go up and down. One with a nice base really looked ready to bust it, dragged out the camera, got it all set up and aimed... and pffft! cloud sees this and chokes.

Three consecutive days of busts with numbers to die for, in perfect spots. Geez. Chasing just doesn't get any better than this! :roll:

 

[Jeff Wear]

The year of the orphan anvil continues. Watched the stuff near Pawhuska go up and fizzle, then went home.

 

[Chris Hayes]

initially didnt go chasing. About 11-1130, I was told by a chaser in chat that storms were forming east of ICT. We went to get ahead of them to try lightning photography. As storms started to explode around us we got into a hail core and were bombared by hail from golfball to baseball size. We got a dent in the truck that was from a baseball. No windows broken. We kept going to watch the incredible lightning display. On the way back to ICT we encountered another hailstorm of quarters and dimes. We were under a bridge that time. I didnt have my cell phone so was unable to make any reports.

 

[Joey Ketcham]

I stayed in Miami for a while watching the weather to see what would happen using the WiFi at McDee's, after about 2 hours sitting underneath some CU's not seeing anything go up, plus with the end of daylight nearing, decided to head back home and call it a day.

 

[John Diel]

I started the afternoon at home and took some data in. All kinds of great numbers in the different models. I did watch the small cell go up on the KS/OK border and then move into Osage County (OK). After watching the top get fuzzy decided to ignore that in favor of the better numbers north of Enid. Went to Lamont and finally set south of there by about 6 miles. Watched several small towers make a stab at the cap, but ultimately, took a few pictures of a great sunset and one stubborn bird.

Ended up getting called into work as I was heading home, so got things going there, before getting home. 11:00 p.m. got yet another call from work and got out about midnight. Noticed the lightning activity to the north and called up the station to see what was happening. Lo and behold, there were some serious cells! I ended up north of Gueda Springs, Ks. watching some serious SLC's and decided I didn't want to get in too close. Lots of dancing scud a few miles to the north. A great big cell to the east moving into the Shidler/Pawhuska/Bartlesville area. As these storms were known hail producers, and I was out in the middle of nowhere, I decided to stay well south of them. Cell Phone service was spotty at best. I think Cingular lost a tower at some point as I was talking to the station and then I wasn't. Finally ended up watching another series of cells move into Oklahoma just east of Arkansas City. Lots of lowerings, but distance and low visibility (rain and darkness) prevented us from actually identifying a true wall cloud

These storms were really active, lightning wise. I wish I had taken my camera along! There would have been some very nice lightning shots. I may try to frame grabs as I did have the video running for a lot of this. I never did get over to Eastern Osage County and it was about 3:30 a.m. when I finally crawled home. Had to get up at 5:30 this morning just to make the morning show. Dang, I wish I'd slept in! :roll:

John

 

[Joey Ketcham]

I'm writing an article for my website about the storms, does anyone have any pictures of any of the hail that fell last night that I could link to?