I guess I'll start with the most recent chase and then work backwards if I have the time to do other chase event right ups.
This was day two of a two day chasing marathon. God in his grace allowed us to see some amazing stuff. Just glimpses of his power and glory that he has placed in creation. It really is a wonder that things worked out so well given the difficulties that come with trying to forecast thunderstorms. Every photograph is a gift from the creator and we should be so thankful that we walked away with such awesome photographs. Many would say we should be thankful that we even walked away. ;) And I really should agree given the dangers of the road. Actually, in reality, we should be thankful for every moment of everyday as it is a gift from the creator. And we should be thankful that the storms didn't cause anymore damage than they did. Both the 29th and 30th yielded some EXTREMELY severe storms.
While the previous day's forecast (the 29th) was spot on with storm initiation and progression almost as expected, this days forecast (the 30th) was garbage. Part of the problem was not looking over model data before heading out. I didn't think we would actually be heading out since Justin was suffering from suspected food poisoning. He woke up and insisted that he felt alright enough to chase and so we did. But, I didn't bother looking over model data beforehand and just ran with the SPC's forecast figuring that this day would wind up much like the previous day.
The Storm Prediction Center had issued a Moderate Risk for a large portion of Oklahoma. It looked as if a cluster of supercell thunderstorms would erupt north west of Oklahoma City (much like the previous day) and then progress southeast while transitioning to a mesoscale convective system capable of producing widespread wind damage.
1. The dry line was much further west than I originally thought (models had started showing that way earlier) and the cold front was stretched east to west in Northern Kansas (something else the models had certainly picked up on that morning).
2. Instability was weak and declining near my target area, but very high in the Eastern Texas Panhandle, Southwest Oklahoma, and down into Northwest Texas.
3. A very sharp boundary existed in Northwest Texas near Childress/Vernon where nearly 6,000 j/kg of CAPE had pooled along with some very strong wind shear.
Perhaps we needed to change target areas?
However, in the past we have often come to the conclusion that one should never be quick to give up their original target area. Given that SPC kept the moderate risk over Oklahoma surely meant that at some point things were going to get interesting right?
I simply hoped that we could get storms to initiate somewhere near Nokona or Woodward Oklahoma along what seemed to be some outflow boundaries. That and that alone would likely be our only play.
Well once we got going west on I 40 out of OKC things were becoming pretty clear that we had just made a big mistake.
This outlook is only slightly different than the original. If anything it is simply bigger. The real difference was in the text. And it wasn't too terribly different.
Well... what to do now?
Turns out that there was a sharp boundary likely set down by the previous day's MCS running from the dry line in the Eastern Texas Panhandle through Childress towards Wichita Falls. Shear was quite high down there as a fairly decent jet streak sat over the Red River valley region. The cap was not much of an issue in Texas thanks to the fact that the mid-level shortwave was pretty strong. (Or it seemed to be fairly strong and far south). Nearly 6,000 j/kg of CAPE had pooled along that outflow boundary.
This is where the show would wind up being. And I had been ignoring it all day thanks to my stubborn SPC watching and not taking the time to carefully evaluate things in Texas.
Thunderstorms quickly erupted in the Eastern Texas Panhandle down the dry line to about Childress Texas. At that point I had considered simply heading home since we were so far out of position. However, the storms in Texas were tempting and if we kept west on I 40 we would gradually approach them.
James Langford called and seemed to think we should try and make a move towards the storms in Northwest Texas near Childress. Seemed like it would be worth a shot given how far we had already come. The cell on the southern end of the line near Childress looked like it would be the most healthy given it had unobstructed inflow and did not have to deal with splitting cell collisions that cells within the line did. The general easterly motion to the storms would make things easier given how far west they were from us.
The tricky part would be how to get south to the ones near the Red River. We decided to take Highway 6 south out of Elk City Oklahoma to get into the path of the storm near Childress. Things looked promising. And then a couple of things happened with the storm of interest. It began to dive south-southeast rather than moving more east, and a new storm formed to its southeast potentially causing some inflow problems. Our new target would have to be this new cell that was now at the southern end and it was now diving south-southeast as well. The only good thing seemed to be how slow the storms were moving.
In addition we encountered some high based storms in Southwest Oklahoma that were very poorly organized but produced some incredible cloud to ground lightning. We had a number of close strikes. It made the drive much more interesting. Once we got south of those storms we were treated to an incredible atmospheric display in the anvil blow off from the storms we were trying to pursue. Contrast was high and the atmosphere clear and the mammatus/virga combination was really pretty. Large positive cloud to ground strikes were randomly hitting all around us. It was very surreal. The fires that we drove past added to the affect. They were likely set off by the lightning.
The storm of interest was very near Crowell Texas once we got to the Red River which must've been around 6pm. At that time it was a gigantic supercell with a gigantic mesocyclone. The storm itself wouldn't have quite fit into Collin County! The mesocyclone itself must've been 5-6 miles across or more.
I had a difficult time picking the roads to get us in its path. There were not as many highways as I would've liked down there and we needed to be far enough ahead of the storm that we would have time to escape to the south and east if we needed to.
Wound up staying on 283 south out of Vernon Texas and then taking 277 southwest out of Symour to get us into the storms path. When we reached Goree Texas we took FM 266 about a mile or so north of town.
At this point we were in the middle of the supercells inflow jet. I thought winds were sustained at around 45-50mph with gusts to 60mph. Most other chasers figured winds of 40-50mph. Whatever the speed it was WINDY and the dust being kicked up was quite a lot. We stayed just south of some dirt fields that were kicking up the most dust in order to stay out of the mess.
We made a quick retreat south on 266 to stay ahead of the storm. Goree was blowing the sirens as there was a tornado warning in progress. Softball sized hail had also been reported.
Once we got south of town we played leapfrog with the College of DuPage storm research team. The dust eating storm began to weaken towards 8:00pm which caused it to stop dropping south and it moved more east again. We had an incredible view now that we were well ahead of it. Here the meso and mammatus swirling around it can be seen.
We did shoot lightning later though I haven't processed those shots yet. I might add them to this set later.
We headed home on 380 with wind and heavy thunderstorms to keep the drive home interesting. White knuckle drives are always better for keeping one awake. Easy for me to say of course given that I wasn't driving.
Speaking of which, thanks Justin for driving and taking us all over the place. And thanks James for the advice and the use of your Canon 30D which, by the way, is the only reason I have ANY pictures from this day.
Justin has an awesome set of images on his Flickr page if you are interested in checking his stuff out.
EARLIER THOUGHTS REGARDING THE EVOLUTION OF CNTRL/SRN PLAINS
CONVECTION REMAIN. LATEST OA FIELDS SUGGEST AIRMASS ALONG THE I-70
CORRIDOR ACROSS KS IS DESTABILIZING SIGNIFICANTLY WITH SFC-3KM LAPSE
RATES NOW APPROACHING DRY ADIABATIC. FOR THIS REASON IT APPEARS
CONVECTION SHOULD DEVELOP AND INTENSIFY ALONG NRN PLUME OF
MOISTURE/INSTABILITY AXIS OVER THE NEXT FEW HOURS. WITH TIME ONE OR
MORE MCS-TYPE STRUCTURES SHOULD EVOLVE ACROSS NWRN KS WITH
SUBSEQUENT SEWD MOVEMENT INTO OK EXPECTED AFTER DARK AS LLJ
INCREASES ACROSS THIS REGION. HAVE OPTED TO LOWER THE TORNADO PROBS
ACROSS SRN KS/NRN OK DUE TO THE EXPECTED MCS STORM MODE.
Well... what to do now?
Turns out that there was a sharp boundary likely set down by the previous day's MCS running from the dry line in the Eastern Texas Panhandle through Childress towards Wichita Falls. Shear was quite high down there as a fairly decent jet streak sat over the Red River valley region. The cap was not much of an issue in Texas thanks to the fact that the mid-level shortwave was pretty strong. (Or it seemed to be fairly strong and far south). Nearly 6,000 j/kg of CAPE had pooled along that outflow boundary.
This is where the show would wind up being. And I had been ignoring it all day thanks to my stubborn SPC watching and not taking the time to carefully evaluate things in Texas.
Thunderstorms quickly erupted in the Eastern Texas Panhandle down the dry line to about Childress Texas. At that point I had considered simply heading home since we were so far out of position. However, the storms in Texas were tempting and if we kept west on I 40 we would gradually approach them.
James Langford called and seemed to think we should try and make a move towards the storms in Northwest Texas near Childress. Seemed like it would be worth a shot given how far we had already come. The cell on the southern end of the line near Childress looked like it would be the most healthy given it had unobstructed inflow and did not have to deal with splitting cell collisions that cells within the line did. The general easterly motion to the storms would make things easier given how far west they were from us.
The tricky part would be how to get south to the ones near the Red River. We decided to take Highway 6 south out of Elk City Oklahoma to get into the path of the storm near Childress. Things looked promising. And then a couple of things happened with the storm of interest. It began to dive south-southeast rather than moving more east, and a new storm formed to its southeast potentially causing some inflow problems. Our new target would have to be this new cell that was now at the southern end and it was now diving south-southeast as well. The only good thing seemed to be how slow the storms were moving.
Thankfully Justin and I were pretty relaxed today and didn't really feel the need to see anything too spectacular given how well the previous day had gone. So, the drive south was not really stressful. In fact, we were treated to some awesome looking clouds and lightning on our way south. The storms to the west had generated tons of anvil blow off that began to cover the western side of Oklahoma. In addition we came across some amazing cloud streets once we got south of Elk City. They had likely been there all day given the visible satellite presentation throughout the day. Note some mammatus in the anvil blow off from the western thunderstorms.
The storm of interest was very near Crowell Texas once we got to the Red River which must've been around 6pm. At that time it was a gigantic supercell with a gigantic mesocyclone. The storm itself wouldn't have quite fit into Collin County! The mesocyclone itself must've been 5-6 miles across or more.
I had a difficult time picking the roads to get us in its path. There were not as many highways as I would've liked down there and we needed to be far enough ahead of the storm that we would have time to escape to the south and east if we needed to.
Wound up staying on 283 south out of Vernon Texas and then taking 277 southwest out of Symour to get us into the storms path. When we reached Goree Texas we took FM 266 about a mile or so north of town.
At this point we were in the middle of the supercells inflow jet. I thought winds were sustained at around 45-50mph with gusts to 60mph. Most other chasers figured winds of 40-50mph. Whatever the speed it was WINDY and the dust being kicked up was quite a lot. We stayed just south of some dirt fields that were kicking up the most dust in order to stay out of the mess.
The storm that came into view was not like any of the other supercells I had personally seen before. I had seen some storms in photographs that had the swirly/babarpole/striations all the way up through the anvil but never in person. Given the inflow that was kicking us all around as we tried to hold our tripods steady and the massive vortex of a storm heading right for us I'd have to say this was one of the more intimidating moments in chasing. Maybe not the most but certainly up in the top few for me.
This was the last image taken from this spot and the edge of the meso is just about to us. This was shot with a 10mm lens on James' 30d. Can't remember the number of vertically oriented shots made to stitch this but it was a number. Point being is that the storm looks a lot smaller in the picture than it really was. The top part of the photograph was practically overhead for reference.
This was the last image taken from this spot and the edge of the meso is just about to us. This was shot with a 10mm lens on James' 30d. Can't remember the number of vertically oriented shots made to stitch this but it was a number. Point being is that the storm looks a lot smaller in the picture than it really was. The top part of the photograph was practically overhead for reference.
Once we got south of town we played leapfrog with the College of DuPage storm research team. The dust eating storm began to weaken towards 8:00pm which caused it to stop dropping south and it moved more east again. We had an incredible view now that we were well ahead of it. Here the meso and mammatus swirling around it can be seen.
What an awesome sky. I don't think words or even photo's quite do it justice.
We did shoot lightning later though I haven't processed those shots yet. I might add them to this set later.
We headed home on 380 with wind and heavy thunderstorms to keep the drive home interesting. White knuckle drives are always better for keeping one awake. Easy for me to say of course given that I wasn't driving.
Speaking of which, thanks Justin for driving and taking us all over the place. And thanks James for the advice and the use of your Canon 30D which, by the way, is the only reason I have ANY pictures from this day.
Justin has an awesome set of images on his Flickr page if you are interested in checking his stuff out.
Sweet!
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