5/25/09 Reports: Central U.S.

[Andrew Pritchard]

Figured I'd just open up a thread for the entire central section of the country for whatever sporadic reports people may have for the day.

I nabbed a couple brief supercells in the northeast quadrant of the tropical low remnants in southwest Illinois, along Interstate 55. One of which took on a beastly striated appearance and occasionally took on the tornado "look" but never quite got it done as it was often interfered with by nearby storms.

Here are a couple photos of the storm near Edwardsville, IL.

I'll probably throw a couple timelapses of the storms from the video that I shot later on tonight.

 

[Angie Norris]

TX Panhandle

I targeted Pampa this morning based on the best winds and "best" moisture (dewpoint depression of 20 at about initiation time), and left Norman this morning with low expectations of seeing anything given the marginal conditions. However, Panhandle Magic took over, and we got a sweet Memorial Day surprise.
Going northeast out of Pampa towards Canadian, we (my former geog instructor Justin and myself) saw a large,very high based storm to the NW of Canadian, and I knew that was our storm. We headed on into Canadian and pulled over into a little turnoff just north of Canadian on Hwy 83 and watched as the storm approached, and went SVR warned for nickel sized hail. A few minutes later a second storm formed to the west of the first storm and put down an elongated lowered feature (I didn't see any rotation with it, so I can't say it was a funnel) that really caught my interest. We repositioned a couple of miles north on Hwy 83, and ran into Jason Boggs, Warren Faidley, and some other chasers. We watched this second storm, which appeared to merge with the first storm. The storm produced a couple of brief funnels. We then moved back south as the storm began to move southeast.
I'd call this one of my best chases (totally visual, thank you ), with one of the (if not THE) most awesome storms I have ever seen. Not bad at all for see text and very marginal conditions. Panhandle Magic rules.

 

[Brandon McClung]

It sounds like I was on the same storm as Angie. I would agree that the See Text was not very accurate as my weather radio mentioned softball sized hail at one point. There are some pics below.



http://servimg.com/image_preview.php?i=11&u=13223072

 

[Jason Boggs]

I was also on the Canadian, TX cell. I initially started off in Shamrock thinking the CAPE and better moisture may do it's thing. Nothing happened, and I saw the storm near Canadian remain very persistent, so off I went. I got to Canadian, and the storm wasn't looking too bad. I pulled over and got some shots. I then see Warren, Randy and Russ drive by and pull over, so I went and chatted with them. We saw 2 brief funnels, but never a tornado. Warren called it in to the NWS, and we continued taking stills. We then began going south out of Canadian to take Hwy. 33 east. We pulled over just south of town, and that's when I met Angie and Justin. We chatted a few minutes and I made my way east on 33. The storm looked pretty good but eventually became outflow dominant. I played in the rain and small hail for a while, and then made my way back west. I saw a developing wall cloud with a developing cell W/NW of Canadian. It eventually died off, and I met Warren and gang along with Steve Miller (TX) SW of Miami to take in the last few gasps of the storms. All in all, probably my best chase of the year. Just ask Steve...we had a honking good time!!! Now for the photos:

 

[edward oneal]

Kansas 5/25/09

Chased line of storms moving into SW Kansas. Hoping to see at least a decent shelf cloud, knew the chances for much more were small. Well the shelf part did not disappoint, Pictures of shelf between Dodge and Garden below.

 

[Kevin Myatt]

The Virginia Tech storm chase team unintentionally ended up playing tag with VORTEX2 on 2 cells, the first along the TX/OK border just north of Childress and the second sliding southeast across Wash-ita County, OK. The second cell in particular showed some transient supercell characteristics ... a pronounced wall cloud for a bit ... but upper-level support, as expected, wasn't enough to keep either cell rolling for very long. So we had to be content with a dying storm base and a rainbow near Rocky, OK. A pretty good forecasting day for the students, some pretty scenes, and some amusement watching the VORTEX2 parade march down the street in Hollis, OK.

 

[Brian A. Morganti]

NE TX Panhandle

Yet another marginal day, but awesome shelf cloud views were found along SR15 just east of Perryton as a line of storms intensified and began to bow out just to our north.

http://www.stormeffects.com/recent_events.htm

 

[Nick Hartley]

Went out chasing with Scott Olson and traveled to a few 20 miles to De Smet and Bancroft ended up with some shelf cloud pics. Tried out a camera from the newsroom, since I am a part time sportswriter. The Rebel XT took better pictures than I am used to seeing. I learned a few tricks this 'chase'.
Nothing to special for the first chase of the year, but a good experience to play with the work camera.

The Metropolis of Bancroft

De Smet

South of DeSmet. Decided to take out the natural light lens.... Oops.

Perfect end to the chase. Breeding season. MOOOOO

 

[Andrew Pritchard]

Added some weird music to try and make a slow timelapse of the southwestern IL supercell a little more interesting.

The timelapse makes clear the problem that this storm often faced with nearby interfering convection. In the first half you can see the nice clear view of the rain free base dissolve away into a gray haze as a nearby cell is absorbed into it.



Watch in HD here.

 

[Jane Herbert]

Stormchase 25th May 2009: 4 states & a mad last day - did we get storms? You betcha!

We set off from Scottsbluff with 2 plans - 1 was to catch early afternoon convection in central and southeast Colorado, and the other was to line up later convection in the Texas panhandle. In reality, it was stretching the possibilities..... This was to be our last American weather chase day - we were determined to get as many storms as we could.
.......
What we encountered was nothing short of awe inspiring!! East of Spearman, this line stepped up in strength so quickly you could literally see the tops bounce through the tropopause! We'd got ourselves into storm heaven.....

http://www.stormchasers.au.com/usa250509.htm

 

[Steve Miller TX]

Caught the Hemphill County, TX storm. Ran into Warren Faidley and crew as well as Jason Boggs...who made me jump out of my skin when his car alarm went off next to my ear. LOL!! Some of the pics have abit too much blue hue to them for some reason...too tired and busy to tweak them too much right now.

 

[Mike Krzywonski]

We began in Childress, TX, & caught up w/ the supercell by the time it made its way into OK.