• After witnessing the continued decrease of involvement in the SpotterNetwork staff in serving SN members with troubleshooting issues recently, I have unilaterally decided to terminate the relationship between SpotterNetwork's support and Stormtrack. I have witnessed multiple users unable to receive support weeks after initiating help threads on the forum. I find this lack of response from SpotterNetwork officials disappointing and a failure to hold up their end of the agreement that was made years ago, before I took over management of this site. In my opinion, having Stormtrack users sit and wait for so long to receive help on SpotterNetwork issues on the Stormtrack forums reflects poorly not only on SpotterNetwork, but on Stormtrack and (by association) me as well. Since the issue has not been satisfactorily addressed, I no longer wish for the Stormtrack forum to be associated with SpotterNetwork.

    I apologize to those who continue to have issues with the service and continue to see their issues left unaddressed. Please understand that the connection between ST and SN was put in place long before I had any say over it. But now that I am the "captain of this ship," it is within my right (nay, duty) to make adjustments as I see necessary. Ending this relationship is such an adjustment.

    For those who continue to need help, I recommend navigating a web browswer to SpotterNetwork's About page, and seeking the individuals listed on that page for all further inquiries about SpotterNetwork.

    From this moment forward, the SpotterNetwork sub-forum has been hidden/deleted and there will be no assurance that any SpotterNetwork issues brought up in any of Stormtrack's other sub-forums will be addressed. Do not rely on Stormtrack for help with SpotterNetwork issues.

    Sincerely, Jeff D.

6/19/07 REPORTS: KS / CO / OK / TX

6/19/2007 REPORTS: CO

Well, today was very interesting.... Coming back from vacation in Colorado Springs, Co heading back to Austin, TX a mini supercell sprung up around Springfield, Co. After watching this storm develop while waiting in a construction zone for the pilot car to pick us up I seemed to realize that conditions were becoming more favorable. roughly 25 min later a funnel formed, and at about 2:03pm mountain time the funnel touched the ground.... With it being a vacation rather than a chase trip, i only have pictures from my phone (35mm film not developed yet). I didn't get to bring the digital along...

-Shawn


 
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Today was a BIG surprise - I chased the Hoxie, KS Supercell from the very first towers to the very windy gust out over Dodge City - this was an 8 hour chase!
A tornado was reported 10 Miles East of Hoxie which I think is false - I have HD video footage of the wall cloud all the time and no tornado formed - perhaps i missed it?

At this stage the Supercell was a classic and had awesome structure. The cell eventually went HP but devloped a huge hook echo West of Ness city- the size of which I have never seen before - perhaps there was a large rain wrapped tornado in there?

There was NOT a tornado warning on this cell West of Ness City - I dont know quite what is required to issue a "radar indicated tornado" warning but this one seemed to have all the hallmarks and just looked great on radar.

Eventually we set up in Cimarron, KS and allowed the core to pass over us - we had high hopes of seeing some large hail (4.25 inch reported in the town to our North - cell moving due south) but all we got was rain.
Tomorrow will be another chase day - this time back in South Dakota - long drive ahead.
 
Western KS HP Supercell

What a way to christen the new 12-24 Nikkor lens! I rode the Alamota-Kalvesta, KS HP beast after it organized from the earlier HP supercell in the Quinter area. This was probably one of the most impressive HP supercells I've photographed... banded structure of like 6 or 7 tiers way up into the upper reaches of the troposphere... what structure! Some of the aquamarine-green color in the wet RFD area was just ominous as you could imagine. Constant grumbling, all sorts of electrical discharge of all types -- zits, crawlers, cg's (stacatto and return strokes)... the works. This HP was the entire package minus the tornado. The circulation was extremely strong and I had 40-50 mph *inflow* winds in the inflow notch of that thing near somewhere south of Alamota. You just couldn't see in there it was so wet... It's a good thing this didn't go through Garden City, there would be quite a bit of RFD wind damage along with softball hail I would imagine.

I was sitting at 12mm focal length most of the time... probably 95% of my shots were at the ultra wide angle... and it still wasn't enough at times!

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Chased the Lahoma, OK Cell yesterday. Sorry, no pics.

Started out about 5:30 in Ponca and arrived as the wall cloud was moving over Lahoma. Nice rotation on this storm. I moved south via Red Clay road (praying that I could stay out of the precip!) to OK 51 outside of Ames, them moved down through Hennessy where everything went pretty much Linear. Only saw the good rotation near Lahoma and a few small very short lived funnels. There was one report of a Tornado and damage south of Ames though I never saw it.

Treated to a spectacular lightning show on the way back home though. No tornadoes, but some very strong circulation. Not a bad after work chase.

John Diel
 
wrong place...

Sorry.. we got in late. We were on the cell from the begining. Just dumb luck I guess. Popped all by itself. It was a no brainer.
Very interesting storm. We'll be moving north from Colby soon so I'll just post a few pics.
These were near Tasco/Hoxie. The storm reports were ours. We were looking at 2 mesos and thinking the northern one wouldn't do anything and then 3 minutes later it dropped a tube that lasted for about 10 mintues but of course it was somewhat rainwrapped. Still beats a sharp stick in the eye.
Laura

This post needs to be moved.... sorry..... trying to do too many things this morning...
 

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Ariel Cohen and I chased a supercell thunderstorm in northern Oklahoma on Tuesday. Originally, the plan was to head to Woodward from Norman via the NW Passage, but our plans changed as we learned of storms developing near Enid. Since we left late (~3:45 p.m.), we were able to adjust well and headed north from Watonga to the new storms.

Near Goltry, OK, we observed two weakly rotating wall clouds. The first circulation occluded and the next circulation became very well-structured. We repositioned south to HW 412 and went east toward Meno/Lahoma. For the next 45 minutes or so, we observed moderate to occasionally strong rotation. Shortly after 6 p.m. (will have to check video later to verify), a rear-flank downdraft began to develop and tightened the rotation. A weak funnel cloud materialized ~3 NW of Lahoma and appeared poised to make contact with the ground. However close, a tornado never developed with this occlusion. Shortly after this occlusion, the supercell storm became outflow dominant and an MCS developed shortly thereafter.

All in all, not bad, for a spur-of-the-moment chase.

Gabe
 
I've finally had time to download some more pics. This one shows ground. THe Hoxie/Tasco tornado was on the ground from at least from 1935Z- 1953Z.
Still waiting for "that" tornado footage.
Laura
 

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Although we got a way late start today, we caught up with the outflow-dominant supercell to the north and west of Hennessey. After jogging back and forth along HWY51, trying to stay clear of the precip, we found a perfect vantage point in a cemetery just north of town. We snapped some photos as the sun was setting, and headed back in the direction of Norman. The lightning associated with the developing MCS was pretty incredible, and it was a very enjoyable drive home.



Near Guthrie we stopped to watch a new storm that appeared to have formed just ahead of the main line, and observed several interesting features (no discernable rotation, though it was definitely suspicious looking) between lightning flashes. Among the most interesting aspects of today's chase were the observed temperature changes of >15F in BOTH directions, as we passed ahead of, and were overtaken by, the gust front south of Guthrie, and again near the Edmond area.
 
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