Chase Case #10

[Brandon Ivey]

Well I ended the day with some good structure and hail video but that was about all I was able to salvage with this chase case. No steak dinner for me so I will stop at Love's in Pratt for some more junk food and coffee to get me back to Wichita.

If this would have been a real chase on a Monday-Friday (work day) this is about as far as I would have made it. It doesn't look like a big enough outbreak day for me to use a whole day's worth of vacation, so I would have left 3 or 4 hours early, like I did. I think I played this set-up the best I could for what I had to work with.

What time did the torandoes occur in Colorado? That would have been at least a 4-5 hours drive, and I am wondering if I could have even made it out there in time.

 

[Patrick Martin]

Would have made an intercept on the White Dear storm, woo hoo!

Thank for putting this together Jason!

 

[Bob Gould]

Jason thanks for putting this together.

Found this YouTube video of the White Deer Tornado for those that caught it here is what you would have seen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4QhN9hAaas

(NOT MY VIDEO)

I busted but maybe I would have seen some radar activity that would have caused me to slide up north from Seymour to Vernon and seen the tornado reported there although it might have been to late/dark to see ( I assume these reports are Ztime).

SPC report
0330 UNK 5 E QUANAH HARDEMAN TX 3431 9963 AMATEUR RADIO REPORT (OKC)
0355 UNK 5 NW VERNON WILBARGER TX 3420 9935 REPORTED BY VERNON FD (OKC)

All in all, learned a lot about decision process. Thanks to all for thinking out loud for a new guy like me to hear.

 

[David Wolfson]

I was virtually too late to the Lamar area which reported tornadoes in the 18-19Z period. I think I did, however, join and follow by 20Z the storm which continued to have a very interesting radar presentation at 21Z. Although tornadoes sometimes escape reporting in this sparsely populated area, none were reported in the area south of Holly, where I caught up with the storm. So no steak for me.

The lesson of this case, reinforced by several RL chase experiences, is to get to your target and then have lunch, if it's only a few hours away. Good storms sometimes fire quite early with favorable conditions, especially on higher terrain.

 

[Paul Austin]

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!

Name the place, and I'll meet you there. I can't be certain which storm I would have decided on in rl, but I'll take virtual credit, since, as noted in my 21z post, the northern cell was easier to intercept from my position. Nice video on Sam's site, btw. If you didn't see it, here is a link to a shorter youtube version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuEY9edcPaw&feature=related

 

[Andrea Griffa]

I think this is the ideal chase case for Tx Panhandle: a dry line perfectly defined, a huge bulging segment, moisture "a go go", nice shear not disproportionate, and that's it. It wouldn't be difficult choosing the right target in this case: mantaining this target is another matter
This was the map I drew down; if you did the same guys, let's post your maps! It would be interesting how did you draw boundaries.