Here is the Stormgasm chase account:
I was hugging very close to the meso on the Hereford supercell for most
of its super cellular life-span and I did not see a tornado at the time
specified in the report. The best tornado chances for that particular
supercell were near Hereford and to its southeast a position
approximately 10miles north of Nazareth, or according to the report “10miles northeast of Dimmitâ€, but no tornado was observed. By that time there was incredible mid-level/low-level rotation, but not in the “very low levels†at least concerning the possibility of a tornado vortex stretching from cloud base to ground. This was very evident by the strong and very cold outflow felt anywhere near the meso, which should be very warm moist inflow especially in the inflow notch in very close proximity to the wall cloud. I saw lots of “tornado†look-a-likes; gustnadoes under moderate low-level outflow-dominant meso rotation , large areas of dust kicked up by strong outflow from the RFD, FFD, or a combination of both, but never did I see persistent RAPID rotation at the cloud base, let alone rapid rotation at both the cloud base and the surface.
I then jumped on the “Oklahoma Lane/Earth/Amherst/Anton/Wolfforth, TX†supercell. A very similar situation with this supercell, but with a
few differences; this storm was riding a NW to SE orientated outflow
boundary, which was moving at a rather rapid pace in a southward
direction, the supercell rode this boundary in a SE/SSE fashion, but it “riding†or in more proper terminology “rooting itself within the boundary layer and propagating along the outflow boundary†did not really occur, and this seems to be verified according to two successful
chasers/meteorology grad students, studying for their PHD respectively, who did a superb job now casting for me yesterday; they analyzed the radar in combination with my visual and determined the struggle between the supercell and the outflow boundary.
The outflow boundary was driving the supercell southeastward, but it
was “almost†constantly undercutting the meso, which was easily
discernable by the very cold outflow anywhere in close proximity to the wall cloud.
The reported tornado near Amherst was clearly a gustnado, which I had
clear visual, and I was within 100-200 meters of the “Anton tornado
reportâ€, which was clearly a gustnado. I saw weak rotation at cloud base
above a gustnado driven by outflow at the surface, and if it that was
actually a tornado then it was a gustnado look-alike, and throughout
“chasing history“ tornadoes usually don‘t imitate gustnadoes, but vise
versa, but the meso was clearly undercut by cold outflow at that particular
time in the vicinity of the tornado report, which was detected by my
body when shivering began before the formation of this feature. I also
was in very close proximity to the SW Lubbock area in the town of
Wolfforth, and I saw many gustnadoes and dirt kicked up by outflow, but no tornadoes.
NOTE: I want to see a tornado as bad as everyone else, but there has
been a disturbing number of gustnadoes or just plain dirt kicked up by
FFD outflow or RFD outflow reported as tornadoes this year. I have been
in close proximity to quite of few of these “brief spin-upsâ€/gustnadoes
in Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas (quite a few days in TX) this
year and many cases have been very classic gustnadoes. Also, if I see
a funnel halfway to the ground in the distance or even nearby, but for
some reason my view of the ground is blocked I do not assume a tornado
is on the ground, because it must be verified by visible debris or
damage after the fact, because there are many occurrences every year of funnel clouds that do not have associated tornado wind speeds at the
earth‘s surface, so it is completely possible to have a large funnel hanging
down and it not be a tornado. This year has been very slow with
regards to the number of tornadoes, but I believe that number is much
lower than the number of reports due to many false reports.
Simon Brewer
www.stormgasm.com
