5/9/08 REPORTS: TX/NE

[Randy Denzer]

David Douglas and I left Austin at 3 to try and catch up to Aaron Dooley who was heading to Florence. After we started heading north we changed our minds and started heading west to Burnet to sit and wait for initiation. Aaron started to head our way as we watched the cell develop south of Llano. We decided to head to the Llano cell since it was the only thing on the radar in all of Texas. We eventually got in front of the cell on hwy 16 about 20 miles south of Llano. Aaron Dooley set up in the Kingsland area to stay far enough ahead of the cell to run with it. To our surprise, the cell actually tightened up and developed rotation. We were able to video a decent lowering and what appeared to be a long funnel (video tomorrow). We sat and watched the cell split with the south cell going directly overhead. We shot north to catch up with Dooley when we came across a major damage area about 14 miles south of Llano. We had power lines and many trees down in the road making it almost impassible. We were very shocked at the amount of damage that would have happened in the area where the cell split. The damage appearded to be straight line winds. We called in the damage and continued to run with the cell. Our chase ended in Burnet with sundown as Aaron continued to chase the cell into Lampasas.

Hats off to Aaron Dooley for calling this setup early last night!

OK, Karen, spelling?

 

[Willoughby Owen]

Headed south from Greenville at around 12pm after we did our laundry and applied some rain x. Wasn't suprising at all to see the SPC upgrade the risk to a SLGT.. with such steep lapse rates progged over around Austin area and all the abundant moisture. Around 5pm we were wondering if the cap was ever going to break after seeing clear skies for miles and punchy cumulus breaking up within minutes. Finally a discrete cell developed out of view while we were having a feed at macca's towards Fredericksburg. Took a road and headed NW from Red Rock. Got to the storm pretty quickly with lightning flaring up everywhere.. northern cell looked much stronger so chased after that one, but then they started to split so went after the southern storm whilst letting the nickel sized hail pelt down watching winds wreck havoc around the area. Incredible view from behind with stacked convection firing to the south. When we got around to Marble Falls we had a very photogenic position so let it go.. it died down pretty quickly while the northern split cell headed NNE and kept firing in a favourable environment. (Saw some routine damage in Gatesville)

 

[Dean L. Cosgrove]

5/9/08 REPORTS : NE

Tornado warned storm near Grant , NE

Dean Cosgrove
http://chasetours.com/