6/13/07 REPORTS: KS / OK / TX

[edward oneal]

Chased tornado warned storm in Clark Co., Kansas. Got a late start, after the storm was tornado warned doppler indicated. Headed towards Bucklin Ks. wanted to get southeast of the storm. From Bucklin went south on Ks 34 went south for several miles, found myself under strong rotation over the highway had to retreat several times to the north to not be directly under rotation. Rotation was very strong at times and spun several brief funnels, but none never reached the ground. Here are a few pictures, sorry for the poor quality on some of them.
http://spotted.dodgeglobe.com/pages/gallery.php?gallery=316298

 

[Justin Teague]

Steve Bluford and I were on the storm near Red Mesa or West of Orienta. It produced several tornadoes right on Red Mesa before going completely rain-wrapped. We then moved south and intercepted 2 more nice tornadoes on seperate meso-cylcones. Saw quite a few other chasers out. Jeff Snyder pulled up behind us at one point (we were in the blue Toyota Tacoma Jeff), and we saw Jeff Piotrowski a couple of times, so I'm sure that they will have some nice photos and chase reports.

Here is a link to a short video clip of the tornado at Red Mesa.

http://stormguy.com/images/Orienta_Tornado.wmv

Edit: Here are some poor quality You Tube videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-7hfFdn1fk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsDTKtDzNxU

 

[Jeff Snyder]

Dan Dawson, Gabe Garfield, Nick Bierman, my wife, and I chased the tornadic supercell NNW of Fairview OK this afternoon and evening. Though our expectations were relatively limited, it ended up being an awesome chase. The motions at cloud base (both in the horizontal and vertical) were quite impressive. The first attempt we saw at tornadogenesis occurred just N of Hwy 412 W of Orienta late afternoon, with a decent funnel that excellent wall-cloud. A new storm developed to the south of that first cell, which promptly "killed" that first one. Fortunately, the second cell rapidly developed a wall-cloud, with excellent cloudbase motions again. At this time we noted 1.5" hail on the ground about 2 mi SSW of Orienta. A nice wallcloud developed, with funnel and all. Despite looking like an imminent tornado, it quickly occluded. So, we hopped back to 412, and made it a couple of miles W of Orienta before tornado-mania began. Over the next 10- 15 minutes (guessing -- haven't looked at tape yet), we observed at least 4 tornadoes. Most were relatively small and short-lived, but there was a "fat stovepipe" (tornado #3 I think). All tornadoes were from the same mesocyclone, but they were certainly different funnels and from different areas of "enhanced" rotation. Interestingly, before the last tornado from this sequence, I noted a very rapid sinking motion filled with "ribbons" of precip, something that looked an awful amount like a DRC. The tornado that followed seemed to be the longest-lasting, but it also became enshrouded in heavy precip, which completely obscured it for a while. That tornado looked to move southward too.

After that sequence, we meandered back southward to see what would happen with the next storm the was developing farther south. Supercell structure improved at this time, with nice curved bands feeding into the updraft/meso. Despite wanting to play the tail-end charlie farther south, we opted to stick with this one since it had pretty good structure and it was relatively mature. Given a very slow northwestward motion, we headed back north to 412, before working west into the Glass Mtns. We found a small area in which we could view the meso, and it was at this time that we saw tornado #5 to our SSW. It quickly became a lost cause as extremely heavy precip completely obscured the meso. With the supercell appearing to be a lost cause owing to a very HP nature at this time, we decided to hop southward to see what was next. Well, we didn't really get anything else meaningful, despite fears of very strong winds and large hail as we drove by Canton.

Overall, there is very little to be disappointed about with this chase! Our expectations were low, which may have helped, but I'd still consider this a great chase. And heck, it was even in Oklahoma! Despite 20-25kts at 500mb and 250mb (per 00z NAM initialization), strong instability, good moisture, good directional shear, and an old outflow boundary made for an excellent supercell that was essentially stationary for quite some time. In addition, it was great to FINALLY get my wife on a "good" chase (I like split infinitives).

Edit: Justin's comment made me think... I think we should make a thread for us to post a picture of our vehicle(s)! It's easier for me to learn "who's who" if I can put car/vehicle to name. I saw a couple of folks that I recognized, Justin and Jeff P. included, but I think it'd be fun anyway.

 

[Rob Satkus]

Tom Pastrano and I got a late start on the day, heading out around 4pm, initially targeted storms in southwest Ok, saw a nice microburst southwest of Hobart. New cell developed rapidly over Hobart, encountered 0.75" hail and 50mph winds along Hwy 283 about 4 miles south of Rocky. Got out ahead of the storm and followed it to Clinton, where we core punched on I-40 as it went severe. We had 50-60mph winds with it an lots of small hail, with a few nickles the largest size. Saw an RV blown over in the west bound lanes. Headed north from Weatherford, large wall cloud formed south of Thomas, but we soon lost it in the rain. Came out of the core near the Hwy 54/33 intersection, where we saw some wind damage, a few large branches down and a street sign blown down. Headed up 33 towards Fay, came thru a small clearing along the curvy tree lined road..saw what looked like a funnel coming down to our north from what looked to be an occluded meso/updraft...sure enough, condensation formed to the ground and at 8:06pm, tornado...it was a small cone, lasted for about a minute, hard to pinpoint an exact location, but best guess was between Eagle City and Oakwood. Headed north on Hwy 58, came across substantial tree damage about 4 miles south of Canton, very large trees snapped and blocking the road, narrow path of damage. I don't think it was associated with the tornado we saw. Just north of there we encountered 60-70mph winds and blinding rain, with more large tree limbs down...pretty much called it a night after hitting Hwy 51 and heading east...

Rob

 

[Reed Timmer]

Here are some pictures and video from the Geary, OK supercell yesterday (June 13, 2007) evening. The storm had incredible structure, with a well-developed clear slot and rapid cascading motion on the west side of the wall cloud. A very low-hanging cone-shaped funnel developed at around 8:45-9:00 pm just south of Greenfield, OK. This supercell came VERY close to producing a tornado. It developed along the outflow boundary just southwest of El Reno, and I thought the intensifying LLJ would get the job done...This storm likely would have produced had the MCS not ingested it.

http://tornadovideos.decadehost.com...s/chaseid/295B66D0-1AA0-0548-B682579996A08E46

 

[Rocky Rascovich]

Arrrgh!!

Despite that feeling I had that this day would be my lucky day... this was one of my more disappointing chases in a while. I got on the storms near Fairview early on, this cell exhibited a couple of nice corkscrewed updrafts including one which the whole updraft going into the main cell which was north of Fairview was rotating, that did'nt last long.. I made it to just north of Seiling around 1600cdt (estimated time), I watched that cell as it slid slowly off to the northeast, it pulsed, then after several minutes, looked as though it was losing its supercelluar characteristics.

Meanwhile, remembering what the 15Z RUC had suggested, the best upper level support plus the nose of the low level jet that was progged to affect areas below I-40 and west of I-44 beckoned me to head south.
That... was a mistake, the cells which looked promising around SPS and the LAW areas fizzled, I did manage to intercept a gusty OFD cell south of Elk City, no hail but had some decent cg's. I did notice a concentrated area of dust about 10mi. west of Sentinel, this was around 1845cdt (est.) That could have been the result of a microburst, just south of that, there was some minor to moderate tree damage, so who knows. Then... I heard about the Major County storm finally tornadoing. I was glad for everyone else, but I... was gnashing my teeth.

I did backtrack up north of Clinton after 1945cdt, got to near Thomas where and on northeast on Hwy 33, where I saw the wind damage Mr. Satkus talked about, to my northeast, a vicious looking storm was taking shape with a low ominous wall cloud illuminated by considerable lightning. I got out of the car to check it out further when I was assaulted by the most ferocious swarm of mosquitoes I've EVER seen here in Oklahoma, anyway, It was getting too dark for me to pursue that, so I backtracked on down to Weatherford where the flanking line exhibited nuclear like convection. I cautiously pierced through that with little consequence on I-40, I did see one very suspicious area close to Geary, probably was the feature that Reed saw. Other than that... came away with 20 dollars in gas that yielded me around 375 miles of chasing... how 'bout those Honda Civic's!!

Now, I'm desperately trying to talk myself out of a Dakota's chase this weekend... that will be for another thread.

Edit: I can't forget my good friends who despite my poor decision making, did some excellent nowcasting. Thanks to Jim Leonard, Bobby Prentice and Dave Ewoldt.

 

[Brett Roberts]

Bryan Putnam and I went after the Canadian Co. storm as soon as the first echoes appeared on radar. We were bummed about missing the real show in Fairview, but figured we'd cut our losses by heading after anything that went up farther SE on the boundary. Well, a combination of not leaving OUN before first echoes on radar and lack of data prevented us from seeing the storm at its most impressive (judging by Reed's video and photos); we decided to get off I-40 at El Reno and meander northwest from there on backroads, whereas we should've continued west and exited at US-281 towards Geary. Contrast was VERY poor owing to the nasty haze and lack of sunlight, and I swear the mosquitoes were so dense they probably weren't helping either !

Structure on the storm as viewed from the SE near Calumet during the 8:30-9:00 timeframe was pretty nice, though we didn't get as good a look as one would hope for being only ~10 miles away. During a few lightning flashes around 9:00-9:15 there appeared to be a fairly substantial wall cloud, which then dissipated as we made our way up to US-281 near Geary.
None of my long-exposure shots of the Geary storm turned out well, but we also observed a nice-looking LP to our south (between Concho and Calumet) which is shown below.

 

[Jeff Snyder]

I've uploaded a dozen or so video stills of the 6-7 tornadoes we saw west of Orienta, OK... See: June 13th, 2007 Chase Log