May 13 2005 supercell and Rotate 2005...

[Andrea Griffa]

May 13 was one of the best day for 2005 storm chasing; I and an incredible number of chasers intercepted an amazing monster HP near Truscot-Paducha in NW TX close to Childress.
The monster HP was very big and in more than a half of his life cycle the supercell spawned some brief tornadoes and one a bit stronger than others near Truscott.
I followed the supercell togther with the other numerous storm chasers (I don't know how many they were but I think I saw more than 50 vehicles). Besides I remember the DOW stopped and scanning the storm and the "crazy tornado-attack school bus" full of children as well..what a strange world...

This is the first lowering/probable tornado we saw...I read in other sites that chasers closer to it more than me reported a brief touch down. Does someone confirm?

And this is my most important question: I, the Dow and the other storm chasers came near Truscott and the supercell took amazing HP features. Under the meso you could see a lot of dark that didn't make you see the wall cloud in a correct way. I saw the wall cloud and I saw something rotating with a lot of brown dust but I couldn't say that there was a tornado. Only after I modified this pic with more saturation and more contrast it appears a probable funnel.

This is the pic I told you before taken near Truscott. That is the probable tornado...It could be interesting to see DOW radar images coming from ROTATE 2005. If someone has got'em I hope he'll post here.

I wait for some considerations and pics to verify guys :wink: Anyone of you remember ?( I belive so )

 

[Jimmy Deguara]

Hi Andrea,

Yes that was an awesome event! Nice positioning ans thanks for posting. I will have to check my videos/pics of the second funnel ...hmmm

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

 

[Steve Miller TX]

Andrea,

Can you give us more specific information such as where you were and what time you snapped the picture as well as which direction you are looking and about how far off you think this feature was?

 

[Andrea Griffa]

Yes that was an awesome event! Nice positioning ans thanks for posting. I will have to check my videos/pics of the second funnel ...hmmm

Thank you Jimmy...Lemme know something :wink:

Andrea,

Can you give us more specific information such as where you were and what time you snapped the picture as well as which direction you are looking and about how far off you think this feature was?

These are good questions Steve...But actually it's difficult for me to answer correctly. I was excited and I didn't consider a lot my position, I think I was not far from Gilliand if I'm not wrong...Anyway if could be useful for you, the DOW and a million of other storm chasers made the same road of me. About the time I can't give you a perfect answer but I think it was 6 or 6.30 pm. I'm looking north-north-west, the meso is heading toward me because the supercell is moving southward. I think the funnel was at least 2 kilometers away from me.

 

[Steve Miller TX]

Hey, I know how you feel. I get the details mixed up too in the heat of the chase. I've come to appreciate the GPS logs and my SLR camera's timestamps this year as valuable tools in jogging my memory.

I too took FM1756 east out of Truscott to Gillian and then south on 267 to Vera. I was watching the meso to my NW and NNW very carefully and I was out of position to see the tornado that was produced...too much rain wrapped stuff between me and the tornado. I'm not sure of the exact times versus my location because I didn't save the GPS logs. I never saw what you have pics of though...it looks completely different. So, it could be a time difference.

I did head towards Benjamin as I could see new, rapid updraft development along the dryline and what was the outflow boundary from the first storm. I sae everybody and their brother turn around and head the other direction, but I headed west to about 1 mile west of Benjamin.

I did see something similar to what you were talking about though at that time to my NNE and I was suspicious of it. The contrast was poor so I couldn't make out what it might be. This would have been on the southern side of the meso itself. I watched the outflow surge southward towards me and as it encountered the new, rapidly developing updraft, a brief mutli-vortex spinup/tornado formed and persisted for about 60 seconds just to my west. It was impressive while it lasted and I seriously thought a good tornado was getting cranked up...video showed this pretty well. But, the outflow was too strong and undercut it. I spent the rest of the day playing with some pretty impressive gustnadoes.

So, as crazy as everything was that day, if you saw any kind of rotation in what you saw, I'd have to go with a funnel for sure. I was just trying to figure out if this might have been the same feature I saw to my NNE.

The first picture you have is what I believe is the tornado that touched down. The Twister Sisters and one other chaser whose name escapes me at the moment got some really great shots of this tornado and the overall structure looks quite similar.

Your second picture looks quite similar to the one I took near Gilliland. I can't seem to find that darned picture right now on my website, but it looks like we were in the same general area at the same time.....tough to tell though for sure.

Overall, what a freaky storm, eh? I see that your profile has you living in Italy. Were you here chasing solo or with a group? If you remember seeing a blue Honda Element going by, that would have been me.

 

[Andrea Griffa]

Hey, I know how you feel. I get the details mixed up too in the heat of the chase. I've come to appreciate the GPS logs and my SLR camera's timestamps this year as valuable tools in jogging my memory.

I too took FM1756 east out of Truscott to Gillian and then south on 267 to Vera. I was watching the meso to my NW and NNW very carefully and I was out of position to see the tornado that was produced...too much rain wrapped stuff between me and the tornado. I'm not sure of the exact times versus my location because I didn't save the GPS logs. I never saw what you have pics of though...it looks completely different. So, it could be a time difference.

I did head towards Benjamin as I could see new, rapid updraft development along the dryline and what was the outflow boundary from the first storm. I sae everybody and their brother turn around and head the other direction, but I headed west to about 1 mile west of Benjamin.

I did see something similar to what you were talking about though at that time to my NNE and I was suspicious of it. The contrast was poor so I couldn't make out what it might be. This would have been on the southern side of the meso itself. I watched the outflow surge southward towards me and as it encountered the new, rapidly developing updraft, a brief mutli-vortex spinup/tornado formed and persisted for about 60 seconds just to my west. It was impressive while it lasted and I seriously thought a good tornado was getting cranked up...video showed this pretty well. But, the outflow was too strong and undercut it. I spent the rest of the day playing with some pretty impressive gustnadoes.

So, as crazy as everything was that day, if you saw any kind of rotation in what you saw, I'd have to go with a funnel for sure. I was just trying to figure out if this might have been the same feature I saw to my NNE.

The first picture you have is what I believe is the tornado that touched down. The Twister Sisters and one other chaser whose name escapes me at the moment got some really great shots of this tornado and the overall structure looks quite similar.

Your second picture looks quite similar to the one I took near Gilliland. I can't seem to find that darned picture right now on my website, but it looks like we were in the same general area at the same time.....tough to tell though for sure.

Overall, what a freaky storm, eh? I see that your profile has you living in Italy. Were you here chasing solo or with a group? If you remember seeing a blue Honda Element going by, that would have been me.

Ehi Steve these are very very nice informations for me, and those make me understand a lot of things. From the things you're saying I think that for a while you were on the same road with me. To understand this completely: do you remember the DOW on the road? Howewer if you remember the shot that you think is taken close to Gillian, there are no doubts.

About the first picture: before you told me that the first probable tornado I took is the same taken from the Twister sisters, I belived that this was the second funnel I took not far from gillian...What to think now? It could be interesting if Peggy or Melanie said their opinions and overall where and when did they take the pic of the rainwrapped tornado.

All it remains to say is that this HP was vwry impressive and very funny to chase beacause the storm motion wasn't crazy.
About me, Steve, I came in tornado alley with my chase partner and as usual we chased by ourself.
Blue Honda Element? Who knows, maybe I saw you but that day there were an incredible number of cars...During the day I met some english chasers and at the end of the day I met Jimmy de Guara and his group at Dairy Queen :wink: