Chase Case #10

[Tom Dulong]

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!!!!

Steve Hodanish and I actually chased this day, but were on the activity in the TX Panhandle. If memory serves, we followed the big storm that went through Briscoe County. Missed the tornadoes, but saw great structure and lightning show.

Two days later, we went through Lamar and Steve took some photos for the NWS damage survey.

Thanks, Jason. It was loads of fun to revisit this chase day.

 

[Andrea Griffa]

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

Thanks, Wesley! Sam's tornado pictures are just amazing! I think this could be one of the most photogenic tornado I'ver ever seen on the web.

 

[Derek Weston]

Ack, knew I should have been further south.

Oh well. Perhaps I caught some nice structure in the Panhandle... doubt I would have made it to the northernmost tornadic cell in TX. Had a fun to time wi.. in Hooker anyway.

 

[Matt Gingery]

I had multiple intercepts! Steak dinner for me! Hey Ted, this is only the beginning.... Meet me at the Big Texan for Steak!!!!

 

[Verne Carlson]

Was in Amarillo on the last update and an easy drive 20 mins up hw60 to catch the Panhandle and White Deer tornadoes - steak dinner!

 

[Jeremy Perez]

I chose poorly. Maybe I got to see some interesting structure, but more likely not.

Thanks very much for posting this, Jason!

No 'steak dinner' here. Although there's a mighty fine piece of armadillo I passed on Hwy 54, just north of Hooker, OK...

 

[Bob Hartig]

I scored with the White Deer contingent. If I do a quarter as well in real life as I've been doing on these virtual chases, I'll be one happy little doobee. I appreciate your doing the legwork on this one, Jason!

One thought: I wonder if it wouldn't add a bit of realism to seed these scenarios with a couple of null chases where nothing happens, or where just a couple isolated tornadoes occur.

 

[Brian Stertz]

See you at the Big Texan Verne. In RL this day was a frustrating chase from Kress to Quitaque and then on into Childress and points beyond with Rich and Ryan Thies. Bad road network and other issues made things pretty frustrating.The structure on this beasty supercell was something else...but meanwhile a F3 was on the ground up towards White Deer TX. So it was a bittersweet chase. I can tell you that there was a mega caravan on the Caprock supercell that ended up showing dramatic mid-level rotation but just modest low level spin. It just seemed to never get anything substantial organized even though it appeared to be THE mothership...an alien spacecraft quite similar to the Limon-Arriba Colorado I-70 beauty. After seeing the incredible shear on the WF on a post chase dissection, it was NO wonder the White Deer supercell (complete with F3) got after it.

 

[Greg McLaughlin]

I'm suprised I didn't recognize this event. I chased this with Dave Crowley and saw the Panhandle. TX bell-shaped LP. The anvil from that storm seeded the White Deer, TX storm which led to that cell having a lot of precip around it.

My forecast for this chase case had me in position to see the mothership supercell down to the south. Honestly, after seeing Keith Brown's photos of the mothership supercell that is the one I would want to see the most, even over the White Deer tornado.

Great chase case.

 

[Brian Stertz]

I've got just the one in mind planned Bob...I'll post this chase exercise this weekend if time allows.

 

[nickgrillo]

Looks like convection is beginning to develop in the warm sector ahead of the dryline between AMA and LBB. I'll stay in Pampa (closer to the warm front). The 18z AMA sounding showed very little CINH remaining (with an associated low LFC height) and the continued surface heating / moist advection should allow for surface-based convection to fire across the warm sector. Nice deep-layer kinematic profiles and a deep low-level moist layer should favor strong supercells in the TX panhandle.

Looks like all I had to do was drive ~ 15 miles to my southwest to catch the White Deer tornado:

 

[Michael O'Keeffe]

Winner winner steak dinner!! Nailed the White Deer, TX tornado! Great case.

 

[Dann Cianca]

Montana chase fail.

 

[Corey Sloan]

BUSTED Oh well...better luck next time!

 

[Matt Gingery]

I think we need an out of the ordinary chase for case 11. Maybe upper midwest, or even a Montana outbreak.