2008 OKWeatherWatch Storm Chase

Chase Days: 9

Total Miles: 3,586

Observed Tornadoes: 0

March 2 - xx:xx x.m. - xx:xx x.m. CST (xx hrs xx min) xxxxx-xxxxx (92 miles)

Decided to go ahead and add this late entry to the log. There were a few scattered supercells across western Oklahoma. I spent most of the afternoon trying to work out various equipment problems... and at the last minute decided to make a run toward a tornado warned cell in Blaine County. The storm was on the downhill slide when I picked it up east of Okeene and returned home having barely made it out of Kingfisher County.

March 30 - 4:52 p.m. - 11:39 p.m. CDT (6 hrs 47 min) 28839-29125 (286 miles) MAP

My original target this day was northwest/north central Oklahoma in advance of a small surface circulation that was moving through Major County. The atmosphere was very unstable across a large part of the state east of a dry line... but there were also questions about how strong the cap would be and if storms would form in the daytime. Questions about initiation were answered shortly after I started toward Enid, OK... but they were forming opposite of where I was headed. The first storms became severe in Washita and Greer Counties. Not wanting to leave my target area too quick... I stayed near Enid for about an hour before accepting the fact that the sky did not look favorable for storms. It took about an hour and a half to get back south to Weatherford, OK. Upon arrival... there were three supercells roaming through Washita and extreme southeast Custer Counties. I grabbed the first one that I came across which was just south of Weatherford. This storm had very impressive structure at times as it moved into Caddo County... but for the better part of it’s life, it looked too high based to present a serious tornado threat. By 9 p.m. I had decided to change my target to the western storm which was near Bessie, OK. It would have taken a core punch to get to the business end of the supercell to my south - near Albert, OK - and it appeared to have some extremely large hail with it. The Bessie storm had very high reflectivity and a great appearance on radar - but visually did not provide much of a photo opportunity. I ended up taking highway 152 back to highway 81 and north, home. This took me through the eastern supercell which was located between Minco and El Reno. I saw some golfball size hail 5 miles south of El Reno. All in all... not a bad first chase of the year.

PICS (Weatherford storm): ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX

March 31 - 10:49 a.m. - 11:02 p.m. CDT (12 hrs 13 min) (DS,EM) 29125-29607 (482 miles) MAP

Doug, Erin and I left Norman, OK eastbound on highway 9... with a general target of - south of I-40 and east of I-35. The dryline was still west of I-35... but surface winds had veered considerably and we felt that storms may not become tornadic until they reached the southeastern part of the state. Besides the veering surface winds... one of our problems this day was weak capping which resulted in numerous - too numerous - storms. Our drive through Seminole, Hughes and Coal counties was wet... no, very wet as we dealt with several storms in close proximity to each other. There were a couple of storms that we targeted.... but neither had very impressive structure and looked unbalanced to the outflow side of things. We were near Wapanucka, OK when we decided to target a supercell forming near Lake Texoma. This storm looked a little more isolated than the others and had some good structure on radar. It became tornado warned in eastern Marshall County and we had it in view shortly after - near Silo, OK. This storm was the best of the day for us and had some excellent structure... good rising motion and we were able to detect a broad sense of rotation. Later... it appeared that it was close to producing a tornado near Caddo, OK... but we only had a short view of this organization as we ran out of roads and the mesocyclone became rain-wrapped.

PIC (Johnston County storm near sunset): ONE

April 7 - 3:42 p.m. - 11:46 p.m. CDT (8 hrs 4 min) (DS) 30121-30482 (361 miles) MAP

When Doug and I left Okarche, storms were forming just south of the Red River in Wichita and Wilbarger Counties of northwest Texas. We didn’t target these storms... and felt confident that storms would form further north in southwest Oklahoma. By the time we reached Chickasha, OK... the northwest Texas activity had consolidated into a single supercell in northeast Wilbarger County. It was now tornado warned... right moving and headed toward northwest Wichita County - staying south of the Red River. We continued southward on I-44... watching for signs of storm initiation in Oklahoma... and still not targeting the Texas supercell. 1) We didn’t want to go into Texas and 2) we didn’t think that we could do it without a core punch. Stopping at the Walters exit... we watched the storm to our south gradually weaken and drift northward across the river to our southeast. While this occurred... several weak storms formed to our northwest in southwest Comanche County... only to weaken shortly after formation. One got strong enough to grab our attention and we moved northward to the Geronimo exit around 7 p.m. (PIC looking northwest and another of Kelly Thomas Field looking southeast) When these storms stopped showing signs of life... we headed back south to take a look at a couple of supercells that had formed in Wichita and Archer Counties. We stopped north of the Red River to photograph a left split that had come from the Wichita County storm (PIC PIC). Our new target storm started to weaken about the time we reached it in Wichita Falls, TX. By 8:30 p.m.... we were headed back home. There was a nice lightning show with new storms that had formed in Canadian County. One of these surprised us as we approached Okarche and became an impressive supercell which tracked eastward into Oklahoma County. We followed it for awhile experiencing hail up to quarter size and some interesting lowerings and cloud motions... dropping the storm on the southeast side of Piedmont as it began to accelerate through the metro area.

April 24 - 3:19 p.m. - 9:22 p.m. CDT (6 hrs 3 min) (DS) 31341-31588 (247 miles) MAP

This one goes down as a true bust with regard to weather. While Doug and I knew that there were questions about initiation... we were surprised that we hardly saw a cloud! We spent some time in Kiowa, KS (PIC PIC) looking at the local scenery. Then some time by the canola fields near the state line. (PIC PIC)

May 1 - 3:29 p.m. - 8:50 p.m. CDT (5 hrs 21 min) 31973-32122 (149 miles) MAP

I managed to squeeze this chase in between some work hours. I needed the storms to be close enough and form early enough to allow me to get out and back to work by 9 p.m. For a change... Mother Nature cooperated. Several supercells formed in Kansas and northern Oklahoma... I picked the southern most storm which formed over Blanchard and moved northeast through the eastern sides of the Oklahoma City metro area. While I never saw a tornado from it... the overall storm structure was amazing! Here is an image during the explosive development as it approached Moore and southern OKC. I took up somewhat dangerous positions around the storm (east and north of the updraft) just to see storm structure from a little different point of view for a change. Here was a view looking back to the west from about NE. 10 and Choctaw Rd. (PIC PIC). I don’t know how I managed to do it.... but I escaped getting hit by the many baseball to softball size hailstones that were falling around me. Just east of Choctaw and Wilshire is where I think the updraft structure was most incredible (PIC PIC). I followed the storm into the Wellston area before making a dart back to work. Fun, short and well worth the days effort.

May 5 - 4:33 p.m. - 10:10 p.m. CDT (5 hrs 37 min) 32377-32666 (289 miles) MAP

I didn’t really plan on chasing this day. However... convection began forming on a weak surface boundary that extended from the northwest corner of the state to just north of my house in Okarche by mid afternoon. A slow moving supercell was located well to the northwest in Woods County when I left to examine weaker developing showers around Kingfisher. The close activity never took hold and I found myself drifting farther and farther northwest toward the Woods County storm. I stopped to shoot a few pictures near the Glass Mountains in Major County... then continued north intercepting the isolated supercell west of Alva. This storm was well elevated and small by the time I got to it. I grabbed a few lightning shots and headed toward home at sunset.

May 6 - 11:02 a.m. - 1:28 a.m. CDT (14 hrs 26 min) (DS) 32666-33384 (718 miles) MAP

Doug and I left not really knowing what atmosphere evolution might take place in the Texas Panhandle... but we felt there were enough things going for the day to make a run at it. We got to Amarillo well before the show started... so we hung around the parking lot of the National Weather Service for a short time and then made a visit to my Aunt’s house in the far northwest part of the city (kind of like a scene out of ‘Twister’ - but my Aunt Gwen is cooler than Aunt Meg). By 5 p.m... we had moved to Vega and watched as several TCU/small CB’s made attempts to our west near the New Mexico border. By 5:30 p.m... we had decided that these were having a difficult time with it and we directed toward a storm that was forming about an hour south of us in Bailey County. Upon arrival... there were several updrafts that were having trouble getting organized into a single storm. We stopped a few miles south of Olton: PIC PIC... and again a couple more miles south. Here our storm had moved out of the way just enough to reveal the updraft of a LP storm a few miles west. We moved a little to the west and were able to watch this beautiful storm for quite a while: PIC PIC PIC PIC. By 7:40 p.m... we had become surrounded by supercells - not a bad position to be in. We had the LP to the west... a left split supercell approaching us from the south and our original storm to the east. Our storms suffered poorly from the interaction of outflow and convection that approached from the south. There never appeared to be a significant tornado threat. TIME LAPSE VIDEO (50 seconds)

May 9/10/11 - 5:00 p.m. - 10:06 p.m. CDT (53 hrs 6 min) 33436-34398 (962 miles) MAP

This was pretty much as bad of waste of time as you can get. I stayed the first night with a friend near Canadian, OK. This would be a good jumping off point for the 10th... little did I know how good of jumping off point it would be. Had I stayed at his house... I might have seen a tornado from his back deck. But... I targeted Arkansas instead and drove southeast toward De Queen. I finally picked up a well organized supercell near Benton... but the combination of trees... lack of roads and traffic near Benton made it impossible keeping up with this storm. Returning westward on I-40... I picked up another supercell after dark just north of Russellville. Again... trees and lack of visibility kept me from seeing any of the business end of this storm. I overnighted in Russellville and watched all the tornado reports file in from Oklahoma earlier in the evening. There’s a good reason I don’t chase eastern Oklahoma or Arkansas. I just need to do it every few years to remind me...