Chase Case #10

[Leah Robertson]

*Looks at the 21Z data.*
After glancing over the surface observations, I'm going to go ahead and head south from Amarillo to Happy, TX on I-27 which is less than an hour's drive from my current location. The 27F dewpoint in Clovis is indicating to me that the dryline is bulging south of Amarillo and progressing eastward quite nicely (18Z in Clovis had 61F dewpoint.) I am also pleased with the pressure falls over the region (AMA 18Z: 990mb, AMA 21Z: 982mb; LBB 18Z: 987mb, LBB 21Z: 981mb) which should further aid thunderstorm development. Even though storms have initiated south of Amarillo, I do believe I will be able to intercept these as the storm motions should be to the NE around 30kts (if I did my crash course calculation correctly).

 

[Michael O'Keeffe]

After getting to Amarillo we are heading NE on highway 60 just like Brian and Mike to stay ahead of the precip cores of the supercells moving NE. If there are any tornadoes we should be seeing them shortly.

 

[Jim Cross]

After leaving Dumas an hour ago now sitting in White Deer waiting on the storms and the chaser parade heading up hwy 60

 

[Corey Sloan]

Moving from near Liberal, KS into the OK Panhandle...will find me a good cell reception location near ther intersectons of US 64 and US 34 (just west of Plainview, OK)and watch radar trends from here....be ready to jump on any supercell that forms and chase it to the NNE.....

 

[Jason Branz]

Drum roll please...

29 May 2001

• Storm Reports

The two areas to be were southeastern CO and the TX Panhandle. There were multiple tornado reports near Lamar early on, and two distinct supercell areas in the TX Panhandle, with the most tornado activity occurring along Highway 60 near White Deer and Panhandle.

• Central & Southern Plains Satellite from 2345Z

By 00Z, the CO/KS activity became more linear and pushed ESE...

• Central Plains Radar from 00Z 30 May

...while the TX Panhandle storms were maintaining their supercellular characteristics:

• Southern Plains Radar from 00Z 30 May

The linear storms continued to congeal and push through KS/OK through the night...

• Central Plains Radar from 02Z 30 May
• Central Plains Radar from 04Z 30 May
• Central Plains Radar from 06Z 30 May

...while the supercells to the south kept truckin' along before eventually merging into the line:

• Southern Plains Radar from 02Z 30 May
• Southern Plains Radar from 04Z 30 May
• Southern Plains Radar from 06Z 30 May

My chase day started in LBB, getting to Dimmit just before initiation. The first development was a bit disorganized, but the southern of the two cells took over and really got its act together east of Kress. We stayed with this storm until our bad road decision near Caprock Canyons, then could never catch back up to the storm after that.

Thanks for the participation...based on the posts, a number of you scored the big one near White Deer. The mothership to the south was a good consolation prize though.

 

[Mike Peregrine]

boom chicka wow wow ....

Thanks for putting it together, Jason ... this was a good one!

 

[Jared Orr]

Score!!! After noticing how nicely the cell to the SSE of me (I was in Dumas TX) was getting its act together, I got in position and intercepted the "White Deer" storm. Much better than my last chase.

 

[Jared Orr]

And I agree with what Mike said.. Thanks for putting so much work into this Jason! 'Twas fun

 

[Dick McGowan]

Thanks for putting this together! Gregory Thompson has some amazing photographs of the Lamar, Colorado tornado on this date here.

There is also a great case study I found by Steve Hodanish and Jon Davies concerning tornadoes that are boundary driven in a high CAPE/low shear environment.

Talk about a DREAM chase!!!!

 

[Buddy W Bradley]

Ditto that! I too feel that from Shamrock TX, I too could have intercepted the White Deer storm. Great work Jason on putting this together. I cant wait for the "real chase". Til then...... chase case 11?

 

[Ted Keller]

I consider this a "hit"; I should stop while I'm ahead!

 

[Paul Townsend]

Thanks for putting this together, Jason. I caught the mothership all the way back east on TX 86 to Childress. Happy, and bummed that I may not have seen any vortex, at the same time. Looks like I had about 5 opportunities to see tubes from the edge of the caprock to east of Childress. I'm sure I must have seen at least one, right?

 

[Andrea Griffa]

Very nice case! I enjoyed so much! Thanks a lot!
Let's go with another one guys: who's the next?

 

[Jason Branz]

Paul...at least one of those reports was made by the DOW, and it was wrapped in rain I think (DOW people correct me if I'm wrong). So it would've been hard to see, and the storm was in no-man's land as far as roads go at that time.

Dick...thanks for posting that link to the Lamar tornado photos. Those are fantastic!

 

[Wesley Luginbyhl]

This was actually one of the first times I had ever chased. I caught the White Deer storm just north of Amarillo, but ended up getting too far behind when I stopped for gas in Ama. If a smaller cell would not have got into the inflow on this storm there would have been atleast a couple reports north of Ama as well. Here is a link to Sam Barricklow's page for this day with some pictures of the White Deer tornado.

Couple pictures I got this day before I screwed up and missed the WD tornado.
pic 1
pic 2