5/31/07 REPORTS: CO / TX / OK / KS

[Michael Carlson]

Here are the pictures from the storm that just went through Guymon, OK. Chased with my Dad, and Tony Laubach. What an awesome day got two tornadoes and sweet structure shots also some really good lightning after dark.

 

[Stuart Robinson]

Target was Johnson City, KS. Arrived there and had to make a decision to either go north to Oakley, KS or southwest to Springfield, CO. Decided to head southwest and watched multiple cells compete with each other until a dominant cell took over and began drifting southeast toward Elkhart KS. The storm was HP by that time. We followed the storm east to near Guymon,OK where we saw a tornado emerge from the rain just to our northwest. Nice lightning show on the way back to Amarillo. TM

 

[Jody Radzik]

After leaving at about 11am from Santa Fe, I was able to make it to Boise City, OK just as the SE CO storms were hitting the good stuff. I followed them to Guymon along with everyone else and was able to shoot some 1080p of the brief touchdown.

Props to Bob Schaefer for keeping me on the straight and narrow, which was highway 412 today.

 

[Bill Hark]

May 31, 2007 Tornado


Thursday was an unexpectedly good chase day. I had considered blowing off the day until I checked more data. There was the potential for tornadic supercells in western Kansas and Eastern Colorado. I liked the stronger jet and the increase in the lower level jet by evening. Surface winds would be from the southeast. I was still worried about the cap and higher dewpoint depressions.

I left Garden City with Jason and Robert. We drove to Liberal and checked data before heading west. The favored area for development was to the west along a boundary. We drove west and met up with Charles Edwards of Cloud 9 Tours. We watched three small storm cells slowly develop. The one in the middle developed impressive mid level rotation but it was high-based and eventually died as the more southerly storm took over. We drove west into Colorado along gravel roads and watched the southerly storms slowly intensify. Eventually, there was a nice wall cloud and funnel but no tornado. Rain wrapped around the meso and our storm became an HP beast. Thanks to Charles for finding a route away from the storm before we got munched by hail. We followed the slow moving HP and became separated while stopping to take pictures in different areas. As I was moving east on 412/64, the storm to the north was strengthening. I stopped to observe the storm. I watched a brief brush fire and a smoke column that was moving into the storm. About 4 to 5 miles northwest of Guymon, I stopped again for a better look and noticed a long slender tornado. It was becoming more visible between the rain curtains. The tornado lasted for a couple of minutes around 8:15PM. I continued east as the storm took a right turn prompting tornado warnings for Guymon. I am now in Enid, Oklahoma.

Funnels that formed but no tornado

http://www.harkphoto.com/053107funnell.jpg


http://www.harkphoto.com/053107funnellast.jpg

The storm is now an HP supercell

http://www.harkphoto.com/053107HPbomb.jpg


Smoke started by lightning

http://www.harkphoto.com/053107stormsmoke.jpg

Tornado images

http://www.harkphoto.com/053107tornado.jpg


http://www.harkphoto.com/053107tornado1.jpg

http://www.harkphoto.com/053107tornado.jpg

Bill Hark

 

[Eugene Thieszen]

OK Panhandle Chase

Walt Gish and I, together with John Hall picked up the OK panhandle supercell at around 5:30pm shortly before it was tornado warned just N of the Oklahoma/Colorado border along HWY 287. Here are a few of my digital photos. I am still pondering why we did not see the rope tor near Unity. We were right on the meso and I clearly recollect the smoke in Bill's picture--perhaps our angle was different and the rain blocked our view.

The first funnel we observed at 5:51 CDT just E of HWY 287.

Another funnel at 7:40pm near Eva on SR 95.

Two more views from the same position at 7:49 looking NE of a large, bulbous funnel and a possible tornado (?) a minute or so later. Not sure enough to call this one.

Very large wall cloud along HWy 412 near Unity at 8:08pm looking East.

Website updates to follow (when I get time).

Gene
WXtreme 2007 Storm Chases
www.geocities.com/genet_99/wxtreme_2007_029.htm

 

[Melanie Metz]

Here is a link to our photos from the Guymon, OK storm. We saw a few funnels but not an actual touchdown.

http://www.twistersisters.com/053107.htm

 

[Charles Kuster]

We also chased the Guymon storm. We checked data in Liberal and then moved west to near Elkhart, Kansas at around 4:30pm CDT. We sat north of Elkhart for almost two hours watching the storm that formed in Colorado and eventually moved into the Oklahoma panhandle. We moved south of Elkhart to stay ahead of the storm and saw some very nice structure with the massive HP supercell. We also saw the rope tornado between about 8:12-8:15pm CDT. Overall, it turned out to be a much better day than we expected. Congratulations to all who were there!

 

[Jason Persoff]

Great chase day IMHO. Started in Garden City with Robert Balogh and Bill Hark. We leisurely took a tour through wildflower country en route to Liberal. There I downloaded data (after bumping into Silver Lining tours and joking around with Stuart, TM, and Revering). Two boundaries were evident on satellite: one was WNW/ESE oriented from Lamar into Childress, the other was a NNE/SSW oriented boundary hung up around Holly, CO. Where these two boundaries intersected there was vigorous Cu development in a narrow band oriented N/S. Winds gradually backed at Springfield so convergence became locally enhanced and the chase was on. Ran into Cloud 9 at a random donut shop in Hugoton (which was closed) that happened to have, of all things, strong free WiFi. Weird (thw WiFi thing, not Cloud 9--though they're weird in their own right ). Satellite confirmed that cells had hit the LFC and I repositioned west.

Initially cells exploded simultaneously and it was a question of which one would canibalize the others. And while that theory, that one would rule them all, was nice, it wasn't reality: the storms more or less decided to throw a party and coalesced. Morphing gradually occurred into an MCS, but the leading southern flank offered an impressive, nearly-stationary rotating updraft with midlevel feeders. Eventually it produced repeated funnels, including perhaps the most stout one I've ever seen (it looked almost as if we were looking at the top part of a cone tornado that someone had sawed in half leaving only the funnel there). The storm became completely occluded prompting me to hustle south.

At that point (on the CO/OK border), while the storm had become a spectacular HP, it had several features that scientifically (for me anyway) were not typical of other chases I've had. A large midlevel wrapping band of inflow (originating SW of the main core and slowly wrapping N and then NW into the core) appeared to "pull in" new rotating updrafts (I won't use the term mesocyclone given the fact that that definition still controversially refers to a radar event). The updrafts appeared to originate to the W of the main core, and then they would rotate along this inflow feature until merging with the main HP cores. What happened in this case was that many new cells appeared almost to be "conveyor belted" into the main circulation. As they would close in on the main core, visually their rotation would abruptly enhance, and LCLs would drop with lots of low-level vertical motion. This repeated itself at least 5-10 times and was spectacular in its own right. Repeated "Pseudonadoes" developed where scud would rise only short distances off the ground as a lowering would form. I have a great couple of photos for VOF Doswell's collection of foolers, in fact. But I digress...

Several comments about that point above. As the storm approached Guymon, the storm was in the process of evolving. One of the "mesos" that was being entrained into the HP cells was actually due west of Guymon and gave incredible wrapping RFD and low level vertical motion. But, before that cell directly to Guymon's west did this, the main cell (to the NW of Guymon) did produce a very elongated rope that must have hovered only feet above the ground (I could not confirm ground circulation). Whether that was the rope out of the cone others reported, I don't know. The location of the funnel was a bid odd. It was located very high in the clear slot on the back of the storm suggesting it had rotated around the meso into the wrapping RFD. No question that it was being undercut by fierce NE winds from the front flank precip. It was very pretty spectacular motion made more ominous by the occasional outflow-dominated storms to the north which formed "boiling sky" shelf clouds and wicked appearing motion.

I will post seperately with my photo links for this day. I filled 2 memory cards with images and shot 2 hours of video. Both of these are, in short, records for me personally attesting to the sheer unparalleled beauty of the storm. Admittedly, it's been years since I've been on a storm like this (given the fabulous "skunking" delivered to me in '05 and '06).

Bottom line: good forecasting as the day went on allowed for good positioning. I saw things I've never seen in storms before (and would be curious if others could account for the features I had seen and mentioned above) and had the luxury due to slow storm movement and backbuilding of leisurely sampling all aspects of this storm. It was damned near perfect. A more visible cone earlier would have been icing on the cake.

 

[edward oneal]

Chased storms North of Dodge City, saw a lot of scud action under updraft base on storm in Ness Co. When I got close outflow took over. Storm was later tornado warned but I did not see anything. Link to pictures here

http://spotted.dodgeglobe.com/pages/gallery.php?gallery=315928

 

[Eric Treece]

I chased the northern action that fired up west of Oakley. It was actually a really enjoyable chase as I didn't see a single chaser until after I was done chasing for the day for the most part. Shot some time lapse stuff of the towers going up near Wallace from Cheyenne Wells when I was pondering whether to head to the southern target near Springfield/Lamar and opted to just go after what I was currently shooting. Had to punch through near Oakley and jumped on I-70 and headed south from Collyer. Looked for a while that two meso's were forming. The one to the southwest had a nice rain free base with scud dancing wildly about while the one to the northwest of my location was going to occlude in rain. Then it just turned into a huge MCS line of gaga before I knew it. I just kept far enough ahead of it to get some pretty decent pictures and video. Here are a couple shots I took along the way.

Taken just south of Collyer, KS.

The Church in Trego Center.

Taken from the East Side of Cedar Bluffs Reservoir.

 

[Laura Duchesne]

Beautiful storm, great chase day without seeing an actual tornado. We were on the Guymon storm. We caught a nice meaty looking funnel cloud that I seriously thought was going to drop one down. The swirling action going on underneath this wall cloud was just incredible. It reminded me of a cinnamon roll. We saw a few other wall clouds and brief funnel clouds... one of them being when we pulled over near a small town with the tornado sirens blaring.... the motion in the wall cloud was just incredible! A tornado would have topped it off like icing on a cake... this was a very nice storm with great motion. Also saw a nice vibrant green core and one inch hail. Lots of chasers were on this one, but everything went very smoothly from what I saw given being in the heat of the moment.

 

[Olivier Staiger]

I had the privilege to drive with Gene Moore to the OK panhandle to see this :

http://klipsi.blog.tdg.ch/general/soupe-du-jour.html


and these here, too :

http://klipsi.blog.tdg.ch/general/im-lovin-it-.html


the lightning inside the whale mouth was an awesome sight

 

[Tony Laubach]

COMPLETE MAY 31, 2007 STORM CHASE LOG CAN BE FOUND HERE!!!

This was one of those chases that a bit of everything; waiting, good storms, tornadoes, and amazing lightning! Anytime one of these chases presents itself, its a wonderful thing! Today certainly did!

We kicked off the day in Amarillo, TX figuring on positioning in the Texas Panhandle for the day. We ended up back-tracking into Southeast Colorado where we got on a couple of young storms. One blossomed into a large HP which went on to produce a pair of tornadoes in the Oklahoma Panhandle; both in Texas County. Once darkness fell, we headed north into Garden City, but not before stopping to enjoy the amazing light show outside of Liberal.

COMPLETE MAY 31, 2007 STORM CHASE LOG CAN BE FOUND HERE!!!

COMPLETE MAY 31, 2007 STORM CHASE LOG CAN BE FOUND HERE!!!

 

[Jimmy Deguara]

Final set of photographs from the 31st May 2007 event.
Beginning in Amarillo, we made out way to Dumas where we checked more data. It became apparent that a dryline bulge was setting up in the northern Texas panhandle. However, we only made our move when the first echos showed in extreme southeast Colorado. Making our way north, although the storms were severe warned, and echos looked decent, the updrafts indicated otherwise.
Mammatus

Proceeding to a vantage point under the anvil in the Oklahoma panhandle, we simply enjoyed the surroundings. Occasional bolts and brief periods of active phases attracted our interest. A couple of farmers came past for a chat almost unaware of the storms nearby.

The lightning activity in particular cell the northwest became more frequent. Suddenly in the haze, the appearance of an high precipitation supercell structure emerged. Just as I reminded Brad that this is what it looked like way back on 27th May 2001, a tornado warning was issued for the cell. What surprised me was the doppler indications of rapid rotation!

It merely took 10 minutes or so to be near the storm and in a position to film timelapse - across the border into extreme southeast Colorado. This was the start of a transition to a skeletal HP supercell phase to wet HP supercell. The structure consisted of a donut shape with precipitation core in the centre. But the funnel cloud persisted throughout with variations in shape and behaviour.

Finally as we made our way southeast and south, other chasers emerged from the north. I admit we did remain a little too long only to find out that our escape route was a muddy slick road. No option now except head into the rear flank downdraught and the core. This seemed endless despite the sunlight. The hailstones smacking the vehicle with ferocious winds did not make things comfortable.
Yes we were in this:

Once out of harms way, we were in chase mode once again. The storm had attained incredible structure - our aim to maintain an easterly vantage point with respect to the supercell.

At one point, even the smoke from a grass fire was sucked into the inflow notch. And the lightning - it randomly pierced the earth from anywhere near the core to many miles out of the anvil - certainly kept us on alert with one eye on roaming.

Finally, as we stepped with the storm east and on approach to Guyman, we noticed rapid inflow into the wall cloud region. Then, as we were concentrating on the wall cloud to our west, a cone within the precipitation was observed that began to take on a snake - funnel appearance. Our last day and another tornado! This tornado finally roped out after a few minutes.

This phase may have been over, but I was shocked to note a warning was re-issued - this time an extremely dangerous and life threatening situation - the possibility of strong to violent tornadoes! And this was near Guyman - the circulation with few hundred metres. A funnel was observed but a ground circulation was difficult to confirm from our perspective.

Once the storm became outflow dominant, we made our way easy towards Canadian and then Shamrock for an easy trip to Dallas.
Regards,
Jimmy Deguara

 

[Mike Kruze]

Finally getting a chance to post this after returning home after this year's chase trip. I chased on Thursday with Geoff Fink in western Kansas. We had a prior commitment to be at the DEN airport around noon. It was a tough decision whether to head east on I-70 toward the storms already going up near the CO/KS border, or to head farther south to the better moisture in the OK panhandle. Given that storms were already firing on the northern target, we decided it wasn't worth the risk of a long drive down to the OK panhandle only to arrive after a MCS had formed. So we headed east to follow the storm moving through Logan, Gove, and Trego counties in KS.

By the time we arrived on the cell, it was already beginning to go outflow-dominant. We parked the car a few miles south of Brownell and took video and stills. The sun was still out a few miles south of the outflow boundary, so it made for some pretty spectacular contrast with the dark clouds to the north.

All in all not a bad chase considering we couldn't have made it down to the OK panhandle in time anyway.