2005 Storm Chase Season
Chase days: 22
Number of days with supercells: 14
Number of days with tornadoes: 7
Number of good storm days without supercells: 2
Busts: 3
Number of days with tornado warned storms: 13
Number of tornado warned storms: 22
Tornado warned storms that produced tornadoes: 9
Observed tornadoes: 16
Miles: 11,738
So you want to be a storm chaser? Like to drive? Here’s a running total of how far my chases could have taken me this year.
June 13 - The atmosphere in southern and eastern Oklahoma was extremely unstable at midday... and while it didn’t look like that tornadoes were likely... severe storms were expected and we felt there were some supercell chances. I picked up Doug Speheger and Erin Maxwell at Doug’s house in Norman. Not long after I got there... a severe thunderstorm developed almost right overhead and moved off into the trees of northeast Cleveland county. We decided to let this storm go and target storms that were forming about 50 miles to the southwest.
We found marginally severe hail in southwest McClain county... but not a lot of structure as the storms were quickly evolving into a long line segment. There was a supercell storm at the southwest end of the line that was anchored in Cotton county for a time. We saw a brief, small funnel cloud with this storm as we moved around the south end of Waurika Lake. The storm quickly became outflow unbalanced as it moved toward the Red River. Before it blasted us with wind and hail... I was able to come away with a couple of lightning shots. ONE TWO
We made a turn-around in Wichita Falls, TX and spent a bit of time on photography on the way back. ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT NINE
June 12 - This was yet another day of too much, too early. There was potential for a significant outbreak of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes... but the signs were clear early in the day that widespread convection was going to limit that potential. Vince Miller and I drove into southwest Oklahoma looking for a “narrow window” of opportunity that never evolved. I took a couple of lightning pictures (ONE TWO) on the way home...and a few more (ONE TWO THREE) back near the house.
June 11 - Our thoughts that the day might turn out to be a “day before the day” event came true. A strong shortwave was not expected to impact the southern plains until the 12th... but enough instability, low level focus and modest wind shear was able to produce a small area of supercells near and south of Amarillo, TX. I picked up Dave Dowell in Weatherford, OK and continued west into the panhandle.
We took our time driving and made a couple of stops including one near Clarendon before targeting new storm development west of Amarillo. Keeping our options open to check out other storms to the south... we targeted a storm near Bushland. This was a LP storm that had beautiful structure for awhile. Tornado warnings were issued for it and there was a brief time that rotation had increased to the point we believed a tornado was possible. But soon after... the storm became stretched out and when outflow started hitting us in the face, we moved to other storms south.
We targeted a storm northeast of Tulia that had a radar look of becoming the dominate storm. We could see the wall cloud taking shape as we approached. Taking a position west of Vigo Park... it became apparent that the wall cloud had fairly strong rotation. Lightning shot. The first tornado was a weak tornado that formed with an occluded mesocyclone to our west northwest. It was hard to believe that it was possible to get a tornado under such a small amount of cloud mass. I didn’t get good video of the second tornado. It was made up of brief condensation wisps under a very low bowl shaped wall cloud. The third tornado lasted a couple of minutes and appeared to be the strongest of the group.
Starting home.... we drove through the core of the storm that was located over the canyon area to the northeast of Wayside. We got to experience a period of hail larger than golfballs and then took time to shoot some lightning near I-40.
June 10 - We left Hays, KS toward a target area in the Oklahoma/Texas panhandles. The first part of the drive was wet as numerous showers and thunderstorms rolled across Kansas. There was concern that widespread convection might contaminate the atmosphere in the target area... and by mid afternoon it appeared that would be the case.
We had a narrow window of opportunity in the central and eastern Oklahoma panhandle... that closed quickly as storms rolled north out of Texas. We made it back and settled for some lightning pictures near the house. ONE TWO THREE FOUR
June 9 - Multiple tornado day in Kansas - Click here.
June 5 - Going to sleep the night before... and after the excitement of June 4... I wasn’t thinking too hard on a forecast and didn’t give much thought to the possibility of supercells. But looking at morning data... I not only felt strong about supercell potential... but that there would be a tornado or two as well. The target was in southwest Oklahoma... an area bounded by Lawton/Altus/Hobart. We took our time and headed into the Wichita Mountains... stopped atop Mt. Scott... took a few pictures and started toward a storm that was forming to the northeast of Altus. This storm produced some hail and photo ops in Roosevelt.
As the storm drifted south... hail size increased and so did the supercell structure and rotation in a wall cloud near Tom Steed Lake. The area of rotation drifted south to the northwest of Mountain Park where we saw the first tornado (small) about 3 miles west northwest of the town. The second tornado of the day formed about 4 miles west northwest of Snyder: one two three. This tornado only lasted about three minutes... but managed to find a couple of farm houses where damage was done.
Areas of rotation continued until dark... but we never saw any more signs of tornadoes and the rest of the evening was spent watching lightning (one two)as we drove toward home. This was the final day with Lorraine Evans and Gareth Poile who had been with my wife and I for about 10 days. While we had a few down days... we did manage to see some nice looking supercells and a handful of tornadoes. A very enjoyable time was had by all.
June 4 - A significant outbreak of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes was expected this day from Iowa and eastern Nebraska... south into Oklahoma and Texas. We believed the best area was going to be in northeast Kansas and southwest Iowa and started with a target of Topeka. While in Topeka getting fuel... storms started forming just to our northwest. They quickly became severe with one storm standing out on the east end which tracked near highway 75 between Holton and Fairview. We targeted this storm and for awhile we were not extremely impressed. As the storm approached Powhattan, KS... it rapidly organized into a strongly rotating supercell and produced a tornado about 4 miles east southeast of Powhattan. Here is our view looking to the east. Debris crossing the road in front of us. Multi-vortex tornado a few hundred yards to our northeast. One vortex stands out as it starts to rip up trees. Trees. Another vortex. Strong looking tornado.
As the tornado approached highway 73... there were a few farm houses in the way. Tornado getting ready to cross the road. A barn starts to come apart. Then a large barn: one two three. Here is a 30 second clip of the tornado crossing the road. After crossing the road... the tornado continued eastward carrying a lot of debris with it: one two three. Heading east with the tornado now to our north. Large tornado.
The tornado started to weaken... but still caused extensive damage to another farm house. Debris from house. Tornado going into rope stage. Rope stage.
June 3 - Strong overnight convection ended up destroying much of the moisture and instability that had been in place the previous couple of days. We started in Colby, KS and moved south with a target in the eastern Texas panhandle. The only daylight storms we were treated to were a cluster of low-topped supercells that formed in the early afternoon near Ness City, KS. One storm produced a tornado that we did not see... and another funnel cloud that appeared may have touched the ground for a few seconds. The rest of the day was spent driving back to Oklahoma City... but we did manage to find time to take a few landscape shots: one two
June 2 - Another drive back to Colorado. There would be a risk of supercell storms in western Kansas... but there was also strong capping to worry about. At Tribune, KS... we made the decision to continue northwestward into eastern Colorado for tornado warned storms that were rolling east near I-70. We targeted a supercell storm with great structure just east of Limon. This storm had produced tornadoes before we arrived... but didn’t while we were on it. Ended up with a broken windshield from hail larger than golfballs near Seibert, CO... and then continued to our hotel in Colby, KS. Near Colby we took the time to shoot a few lightning pictures: one two - and another with a train passing.
May 30 - We had fairly high hopes this afternoon as a near classic setup for upslope, severe storms was in place in a small area of northeast New Mexico and southeast Colorado. We decided to play the Colorado side of things and took a trip northwestward from Clayton, NM to near Kim, CO. This took us through some very pretty areas that I have not been before. We took some time out to shoot lightning photos midway between Trinidad and Kim. Lightning. Lightning.
Our first supercell storm organized north of Kim and we spent the next several hours with it in northeast Las Animas county and northwest Baca county. Here is another view of the storm with great supercell structure. The storm tried several times to produce a tornado... but couldn’t get it done as far as we know. This video capture was during one of the attempts that had very strong cloudbase rotation. Our storm weakened and we were in the process of moving to the next storm southwest of us when this image was taken.
We wouldn’t catch up with the next supercell until well after sunset near the town of Pritchett, CO. This storm had some nice structure and produced hail as large as 2 1/2 inches that covered the road west of Utleyville. The storm produced one weak tornado that we know of... but our position and the lack of light prevented us from seeing it.
May 28 - The airmass was not that unstable and storms were not that impressive in eastern Colorado and western Kansas. We did get to see a storm collapse near the town of Brandon, CO that produced winds to near 60 mph... otherwise the day was spent watching quite a bit of wildlife. A deer - other than this one - was introduced to the front of the car. It ran off with a headache I’m sure... and we came away with no damage. Lucky for all of us.
May 27 - We ended up with more than we thought we were going to get this afternoon. We took our time driving toward eastern New Mexico. We came across a few storms in far west Texas near the towns of Friona and Dimmitt. These were weak and we continued northwestward to storms near Logan, NM. A brief stop to watch a small cell near Glenrio, NM and we continued on to storms that showed better lightning potential. We got to see some nice daylight lightning west of Nara Visa, NM and a beautiful sunset east of Romero, TX. It was in this area where we had a few other lightning ops: one two three four five six One spot west of Channing, TX treated us to heavy, small hail that covered the road in places.
May 18 - Shear wasn’t great... cap was strong and we ended up getting exactly what you would expect on this drive into southcentral Kansas. After spending several hours near I-135 north of Wichita... I moved to near Cheney, KS to meet up with David Dowell and Doug Speheger for some much need good company. We had one storm near sunset that gave us a few rumbles of thunder and some humor material for chasers that have been in the sun too long. Otherwise...just a few photo ops: one two three
May 13 - What started with such potential - ended rather uneventful. A couple of low level boundaries and high instability were going to be enough to produce supercells and tornadoes in the southwest part of Oklahoma and northwest Texas.
I started with a target of Altus... but getting there I found that supercell storms were forming in Texas near the city of Paducah. I didn’t want to go into Texas... but the quick development in a highly unstable atmosphere drew me in. At times in the early stages of the dominate supercell... it appeared that we were going to get a photogenic tornado. But... as has often been the case with chasing in northwest Texas... I found the storm to quickly become HP in nature and once again found myself looking for other storms to target.
The next storm I found was northwest of Quanah. It had nice structure for a bit but was on it’s way down by the time I reached it.
After looking at some interesting lightning near Altus, OK (one two three four) I made my way back toward I-40 with hopes of some photo ops near sunset as I slid between storms. A few of the results: Near Retrop. Again near Retrop. Near Cordell. Cordell courthouse.
May 12 - Left Garden City, KS with not a lot of hope on the day. A cold front had moved south through the Texas panhandle and into northwest Oklahoma. Model data suggested that the front would move back northward through the Texas panhandle... but morning and early afternoon storms looked to be keeping the front from moving much. As I drove south through the panhandles, it was cool and cloudy with periods of elevated thunderstorms that were producing some hail and impressive lightning.
Early in the afternoon... a supercell storm formed near Plainview and tracked slowly east northeast. I wasn’t in a lot of hurry toward this storm as it was a long way from me... but I steadily moved in that direction. After spending a couple of hours in the central Texas panhandle... I made a run at new storms that were forming to the west of the original Plainview supercell. The path I chose took me on a corepunch course with a storm about 15 miles southeast of Tulia.
It was one of my more intense core punches... not only having a large amount of hail up to baseball size and high winds... but a lot of flash flooding to go with it. For those with hi-speed internet this 7MB video clip shows a bit of the experience.
Shortly after I came out of the core near South Plains, TX... strong rotation was evident to my northwest. I believe it had already produced one tornado and quickly produced a second as it approached the town of South Plains. The contrast of my video was poor... but I decided to stay out of the hail and get poor video. Most chasers that chose to stay near South Plains and get better video ended up replacing a lot of glass the next day. Here is the tornado as it first came into view. Another look. It looks larger here and there is excellent rotation in the wall cloud. Tornado approaching the north side of South Plains. Another look. The tornado looked largest just as it passed the town. Here was one of my last views. I believe the tornado weakened shortly thereafter.
At this point... it was clear this was becoming a HP beast and with bad road options I just decided to get out of the way. Here is one final look at the meso as it was moving just southwest of Quitaque.
May 11 - Two tornadoes with a beautiful supercell near Ulysses, KS. Click here.
May 8 - We finally had some surface heating and fairly strong instability to work with... but the mid level flow over the region was weak and storms ended up being mostly multi-cell clusters instead of supercells. We left OKC southwestward and came across a few interesting storms in eastern Comanche, southern Grady and northern Stephens counties. While sitting east of the Comanche county storms... Tracey noticed a VERY high based funnel cloud that was strange in that it extended from the anvil region of the storm. Something I have not seen before. Closer look. We came across one hail core that produced severe size hail (one inch) about 3 miles southeast of Sterling. Here is the updraft region of the storm with the hail core on the left.
May 7 - An upper system was moving into the plains and the start of better low level moisture had returned to Texas and Oklahoma. Thunderstorms were expected to form along a dryline in the eastern Texas panhandle. We felt that a couple of supercell storms and maybe a tornado would be possible... although it was not a textbook situation. We ended up spending most of the day in Shamrock and McLean, Texas. Extensive high cloudiness - that we did not expect - ended up keeping temperatures on the cool side and had a big impact on preventing organized thunderstorms. One brief storm formed west of Childress that had a little bit of lightning and pea size hail with it... but the day was basically a bust and we called it shortly before sunset.
April 21 - I thought we would see a bit more action in Oklahoma. I met up with Hank Baker in Tulsa and we watched the towers and CB’s pulse repeatedly just to the north of the city. Hank had a good enough internet connection that we were able to loop visible satellite images and could tell that one of the better looking areas for tcu/cb development was right near and about 40 miles either side of the Kansas/Oklahoma border north of Tulsa. With this in mind... we moved to Vinita. There were several attempts at storms that made about 35/40 dbz in the low levels before they went poof. Finally, one storm took hold in Kansas which turned out to be the Parsons, KS storm. Doug Speheger confirmed for us by looking at higher radar tilts that the storm had some substance to it and was the real deal... so we started north... and started the chain of events that would become one of the first frustrating days of the year.
It would have been very easy for us to get on the Parsons storm... but just as we reached the Kansas border... another supercell started going up right overhead. It quickly took on a radar look better than the storm to the north so we sat with it for awhile... too long. We watched a lowered area develop with very strong rising motion just to the southwest of Chetopa, KS. Moving to the west side of Chetopa, the storm looked very close to producing a tornado. Here is a realplayer clip of the wall cloud on the west side of the town. East of the town... a very strong RFD cut made it’s way into the west side of the updraft. Rotation increased for a brief time... but then it appeared that the RFD had hurt our tornado genesis chances instead of helped. The storm maintained an occluded and new mesocyclone look for awhile after... but was on a steady rate of shrinking/weakening. Here was a final look at the wall cloud near Faulkner, KS.
With the large tornado reports north of us... we made the decision to abort our storm... making it to the Parsons storm just as a merger took place. It ended up being a bad merger as far as tornado production goes. The storm seemed to become a little unbalanced to the outflow side of things and was never able to get it’s feet back under itself. Hank and I both saw a couple of funnel clouds on the flanking line. Hank said his made him believe a tornado was going to be possible... mine didn’t look as impressive.
It was the first time I started back from a chase by going through Joplin, MO. Heading down I-44... there was an impressive lightning show to the east with new storms that went up southeast of Vinita. For the second year in a row, I was able to get some lightning pictures from the turnpike while returning from an April chase northeast: one two three four
April 20 - Doesn’t qualify as a chase... but headed out on a short venture to catch some lightning in Canadian county. I kept getting rained on and ended up with the only lightning shot (a poor one) when I got back to the house. It was however, the first lightning shot I captured at the new house.
April 19 - After several days involved with moving from the house in Okarche to Oklahoma City... I was pretty much looking for anything that would get me out the door. We knew the cap was strong and that storm formation was a bit of a long shot... but Doug Speheger and I headed southwest in case something decided to show itself. We ended up in the Wichita Wildlife Refuge near Lawton, OK... and despite the lack of storms... made the best of it with the photo ops. I probably shot more photos than I would have if we had seen storms. one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen
April 10 - This was the first chase of the season with my wife, Tracey. In the previous 24 hours, it became clear that the main area of interest would be northeast of the surface low - well to the northeast of Dodge City. We did not want to commit to that kind of drive for the given event... but instead hoped that supercells could develop as far southeast as northwest Oklahoma. We ended up making a move into Kansas as the convection in Oklahoma struggled.
The first target storm was west of St. John near the town of Macksville, KS. It had fairly good structure when we rolled up on it and a tornado warning a short time later. There was nice cloudbase rotation for a time and during a couple minute period - I gave it a 50/50 chance of producing a tornado. This didn’t last long and was moving into an area of bad roads... so we decided to target the next storm in the line. This storm also had a tornado warning as it moved toward St. John, but never looked very close to producing a tornado.
As with the previous chase, there was a lot of small hail and plenty of rainbow photo ops. Tracey grabbed a few shots: picture picture picture including one of me trying to get the shot.
March 21 - I spent most of the morning concerned that instability would be lacking for any significant severe thunderstorms this day. However, morning storms moved out of central Oklahoma and by noon we started getting some surface heating along the dryline that was located from northwest to central to southcentral Oklahoma. SPC meso analysis showed an area of northwest Oklahoma that had improving low level CAPE and a modest amount of low level shear. I felt there was a chance of low-topped supercells under the cold pool of air aloft and with increasing TCU on satellite less than an hour from Okarche... decided to start north on highway 81. While in Enid, the Dodge City National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for a storm just north of the Oklahoma border - near the town of Protection, KS. I made a phone call to confirm why the warning was issued (a reported tornado) and figured that the potential extended to storms that were developing in Alfalfa and Grant counties.
I targeted a storm near the Great Salt Plains Lake that had a large hail signature on radar and - a severe thunderstorm warning had been issued for it. Visually, there was nice structure with a dark rain/hail core, rain-free updraft base and vivid cloud to ground lightning. About the time I pulled up just east of the updraft... a tornado warning was issued for the storm.
I drove west - just north of the updraft to a point 3 miles east of Byron when a funnel cloud became visible to the south. It was moving slightly east of due north and a short time later showed signs that it had become a tornado. I continued to watch the tornado to my southeast as rain and hail increased at my location. Eventually the tornado became obscured and for a short period of time I didn’t know if it was still on the ground or not. I started driving east toward where I thought it would be and it didn’t take long to become visible again. By this time it looked smaller... but was still photogenic. Another look toward ground level. Final look of the stretched out weak tornado.
Later, and back east toward the Grant/Alfalfa county line... I came close to another tornado. I would only see this multiple-vortex tornado for a brief period of time before it became obscured in rain. It had some nice motion with it and leaves and twigs dropped to the ground after it passed the road.
