OKWEATHERWATCH STORM CHASE 2010
CHASE NUMBER 10-23
DATE: JUNE 23, 2010
DEPART TIME: 11:05 P.M.
TOTAL TIME: 1 HOUR 12 MINUTES
DEPART MILE: 103169
TOTAL MILES: 21
STATES: OKLAHOMA
RIDERS: NONE
LINKS: MAP - GALLERY
TEXT: Thunderstorms formed during the late evening hours a
couple of counties northeast of Okarche and moved/developed southwestward
toward the town. There were a handful of
decent CG’s to be had which in my mind signals the
start of the summer lightning season. One
interesting aspect of the chase was a large ag-burn
which was still occurring several miles northeast of the town. A thunderstorm was trying to develop over the
burn area which can be seen in several of my images, but never produced
lightning while the burn was taking place.
This time
lapse segment of photos shows the reflection of the fire on the bottom of
the developing storm. The lightning in
the distance is associated with thunderstorms still many miles away.
CHASE NUMBER 10-22 TRAVEL
DATE: JUNE 20, 2010
DEPART TIME: 8:52 A.M. CDT
TOTAL TIME: 4 HOURS 11 MINUTES
DEPART MILE: 102580
TOTAL MILES: 262
MILES TO DATE: 7578
STATES: KANSAS, OKLAHOMA
RIDERS: DOUG SPEHEGER
LINKS: MAP
TEXT: Just a travel day back from Salina.
CHASE NUMBER 10-21
DATE: JUNE 19, 2010
DEPART TIME: 11:18 A.M. CDT
TOTAL TIME: 11 HOURS 25 MINUTES
DEPART MILE: 102130
TOTAL MILES: 469
MILES TO DATE: 7316
STATES: OKLAHOMA, KANSAS
RIDERS: DOUG SPEHEGER
LINKS: MAP – Chase photos: ONE TWO
TEXT: Doug and I had a couple of days off and felt this day
looked good enough to make the long run toward the Nebraska/Kansas border where
we expected supercells and tornadoes. Supercells and
tornadoes did indeed end up happening, but not quite to the extent that we
thought they would. As we drove north of
Russell, Kansas
– our first target storm was becoming organized about 45 miles to our north
northeast. Convection associated with
the storm looked good from the start. We
should have taken the time to stop for a picture at one point when there was a
nice wide, main convective tower which was flanked on the northwest and
southeast sides by smaller turrets of convection in the shape of arms. Resembling a scene of a body builder flexing
his muscles, we made the comment that it was clear which storm was going to
have the most might. I think we were
correct. Before long the storm updrafts
had congealed… the storm became severe and started rotating. As we moved east of Cawker City,
we had the plan of getting east of the storm as it approached Jewell. Road options and timing didn’t allow that
plan to pan out and we worked east along dirt roads toward Jamestown.
During this drive, we observed the storm getting better organized with
several RFD cuts attempted and areas of strong rising motion and occasional
rotation. The storm looked its most
dangerous when it was just northwest of Jamestown. By this time, we had reached paved roads and
were pleased to be dealing with a storm moving only about 10 M.P.H. Radar showed a couple of areas where
tornadoes were possible, but the strongest one appeared likely to be embedded
in heavy rain and hail and was moving northwest toward Randall. Other storm chasers did manage to see a
tornado with this circulation, but it was obscured from our view by heavy
rain. The closer circulation tried on
numerous occasions to try and produce a tornado, but always seemed just one
step away from getting it accomplished.
As sunset approached, we moved south toward Miltonvale
where we got blasted by a different storm which was surging southeastward. Between Miltonvale
and Highway 81 – we encountered extremely heavy rain, small hail and winds
which were gusting upward of 60 M.P.H.
We called it a night in Salina.
CHASE NUMBER 10-20
DATE: JUNE 16, 2010
DEPART TIME: 10:11 A.M. CDT
TOTAL TIME: 1 HOUR 53 MINUTES
DEPART MILE: 101848
TOTAL MILES: 78
MILES TO DATE: 6847
STATES: OKLAHOMA
RIDERS: NONE
LINKS: MAP
TEXT: This was just a short morning chase through the
Kingfisher and Watonga areas for lightning associated with storms that had
moved into Oklahoma from Texas.
ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT
CHASE NUMBER 10-19
DATE: JUNE 13, 2010
DEPART TIME: 1:23 P.M. CDT
TOTAL TIME: 7 HOURS 19 MINUTES
DEPART MILE: 101378
TOTAL MILES: 363
MILES TO DATE: 6769
STATES: OKLAHOMA, TEXAS
RIDERS: NONE
LINKS: MAP – Lightning northwest of
Higgins, Texas. Second lightning picture
from Higgins, Texas.
TEXT: I got a bit of a late start once again and
thunderstorms were already forming in the northern Texas panhandle by the time I left
Okarche. Several severe thunderstorm
warnings were already in effect as I approached the Texas/Oklahoma state line
near Higgins. These storms were located
from my southwest to north. A storm at
the northern end of the area became tornado warned as it moved through extreme
northern Lipscomb County and into Beaver County. This was a storm that I could have played,
but I didn’t believe that the tornado production would be prolific and I
targeted other storms that were forming near McLean and Alanreed. Wrong play. After this second area of storms started
weakening, I had was left only with the storms in Roberts/Ochiltree/Lipscomb
Counties to observe. Most of these
storms were likely producing big hail, but had little in the way of structure
or significant lightning to hold my interest.
I made a futile attempt at some lightning photography northwest of
Lipscomb and again near Higgins before returning home.
CHASE NUMBER 10-18 TRAVEL
DATE: JUNE 11, 2010
DEPART TIME: 9:19 A.M. CDT
TOTAL TIME: 8 HOURS 8 MINUTES
DEPART MILE: 100826
TOTAL MILES: 521
MILES TO DATE: 6406
STATES: COLORADO, KANSAS, OKLAHOMA
RIDERS: NONE
LINKS: MAP
TEXT: Just a dedicated travel day from Limon, Colorado
to home.
CHASE NUMBER 10-17
DATE: JUNE 10, 2010
DEPART TIME: 12:03 P.M. CDT
TOTAL TIME: 10 HOURS 23 MINUTES
DEPART MILE: 100585
TOTAL MILES: 251
MILES TO DATE: 5885
STATES: WYOMING, COLORADO
RIDERS: NONE
LINKS: MAP – GALLERY – Radar images: VEL | REF – Time lapse video of
tornadoes.
TEXT: Wow! What an
amazing day this turned out to be. I
checked out of the motel in Pine Bluffs, Wyoming
and hung around the town for a couple of hours monitoring data. A lot of convection was forming across the
higher terrain of north central Colorado and
southern Wyoming, but as the afternoon wore on
the attention became the severe potential in northeast Colorado.
The atmosphere was really juiced up as easterly winds pushed higher
moisture westward from northwest Kansas and
southern Nebraska. While capping had been an issue the previous
couple of days, it appeared that Colorado
would get in on the mix this day with supercells and
tornadoes becoming possible. By 4 P.M.
CDT, storms began to form along the foothills from near Fort
Collins to Boulder. I had worked my way southward to near Briggsdale in the Pawnee National Grassland. Along the way, I took the time to shoot
images of antelope, prairie dogs and burrowing owls. Shortly after 5:30 P.M., a severe
thunderstorm rapidly developed near Denver
International Airport. I dropped southeast toward Wiggins and then
south to Hoyt, watching this beautifully structured supercell. I ended up on some dirt roads which quickly
starting becoming muddy when new storms starting going up, and I quickly fled
east to Woodrow where I could get on Highway 71. It didn’t take much consideration to target a
supercell which rapidly got organized at the southern
end of the line segment near Deer Trail.
It would be an easy intercept heading south on Highway 71 to Last Chance
where the viewing would be good if no additional storms formed. They didn’t, and it was. I stopped about one mile north of Last Chance
with the incredible supercell to my west southwest
which was only moving around 20 M.P.H. to the east. I was able to watch the entire life cycle of
two tornadoes which occurred about 6 miles to the east northeast of Deer Trail
between 8:09 and 8:27 P.M. CDT.
Afterward, I focused on storm structure shots between Last Chance and Lindon. The
structure display was amazing and what I would consider one of my top 5
ever.
CHASE NUMBER 10-16
DATE: JUNE 9, 2010
DEPART TIME: 11:44 A.M. CDT
TOTAL TIME: 10 HOURS 57 MINUTES
DEPART MILE: 100270
TOTAL MILES: 328
MILES TO DATE: 5634
STATES: WYOMING, NEBRASKA
RIDERS: NONE
LINKS: MAP – GALLERY
TEXT: Started the day cold – 42 degrees – but hey, we were
almost 7400 ft high in Laramie. I should really feel sorry for the folks in Oklahoma that have to
endure the heat and humidity over the past week while I have been roaming around
up here. I really should. What was that about again? After passing the ridge peak at 8640 feet
just southeast of Laramie, it was downhill to Cheyenne and eventually
Pine Bluffs. There, I grabbed an early
hotel. It look like the best storms were
going to hold off until late, and a motel room is a lot nicer to hang about
than a parking lot. I ended up back for
the night to get my full moneys worth.
At midday, I had serious concerns about what was going to be possible
this day. Winds over southeast Wyoming had become light
and variable after several rounds of early convection. By 5 P.M. the southeast winds had returned
and the moisture along with it. With
several hours of daylight left, there was little doubt about storms anymore –
just where, and when. Those questions
were answered when rapid storm development took off about 40 miles north
northwest of Pine Bluffs. With haste, I
made it to near Hawk Springs in time to see a fairly impressive supercell. For a
brief time… it even looked capable of producing a tornado. This didn’t last long and soon a surge of
cold outflow undercut the storm and we were left with a beautiful, but elevated
hailer pushing into Nebraska. I followed the storm a bit longer and finally
crossed the hail swath where there was a tremendous amount of hail on the
ground and hail fog. I drove farther
west to get a good overall view of the storm before returning to the motel back
in Pine Bluffs.
CHASE NUMBER 10-15 - LANDSCAPE SHOOT
ON DOWN DAY
DATE: JUNE 8, 2010
DEPART TIME: 11:48 A.M. CDT
TOTAL TIME: 7 HOURS 10 MINUTES
DEPART MILE: 99954
TOTAL MILES: 316
MILES TO DATE: 5306
STATES: NEBRASKA, WYOMING
RIDERS: NONE
LINKS: MAP – GALLERY
TEXT: It appeared
that the best chance of storms would be well south of Kimball, and even farther
south of where I wanted to be the following day. So, I declared it a landscape day and plotted
a roaming trip through some areas I’ve never been before. The drive from Kimball to Harrison
was one I had seen before, but took the time this time around to get a few more
pictures than I had before. The trip
west from Harrison to Lusk and Lost Springs
was a nice one, but would have been better at a different time of the day. I don’t like an overhead sun for photos. Still, I got to see a lot of trains, and
small towns – almost non-existent towns - along the way. The sign at the edge of Lost Springs still
has a population of one. How cool is
that. At I-25, I headed south to
Wheatland which is where the fun began.
Highway 34 from Wheatland to Bosler is one of
the prettiest drives I’ve ever been on.
It was a camera stop at every turn.
I rolled into Laramie
early enough to grab a few drinks (at Mulligans
across from the motel) and some dinner (Domino’s at the motel) and wind
down.
CHASE NUMBER 10-14
DATE: JUNE 7, 2010
DEPART TIME: 11:26 A.M. CDT
TOTAL TIME: 10 HOURS 45 MINUTES
DEPART MILE: 99632
TOTAL MILES: 335
MILES TO DATE: 4990
STATES: COLORADO, NEBRASKA, WYOMING
RIDERS: NONE
LINKS: MAP – GALLERY
TEXT: I left Brush, Colorado and headed north and west to Pine Bluffs, Wyoming. Cumulus was building west and northwest and I
drove north about 12 miles finding a high spot to observe from. For over an hour, I watched as storms
attempted to become established, but were quite small and fairly high-based. When one started producing cloud to ground
strikes, I started following it, reaching the Nebraska
border just east of La Grange. Its life was short-lived and I turned my
attention to other storms forming to the northwest. Wireless data became limited and I had to do
most of my nowcasting based on what I could see
visually. I made it almost to Lusk where
a storm that looked impressive was rolling southeastward, but changed my focus
to another storm that rapidly intensified northwest of Torrington.
This storm rapidly increased and took on a pronounced supercell shape, but also took on a look of being
high-precipitation in mode and began surging outflow to the southeast. Still, it was worth following southeastward
toward Scottsbluff. I never saw anything
that would suggest I would be able to see a tornado with it, but it did have a
nice shape for a period. When the rage
of outflow approached Scottsbluff and there were reports of extremely large
hail coming in, I started south to get out of the way. I stopped for a few other shots on the way to
Kimball where I settled in for the evening.
I had higher expectations for the day, but wasn’t too disappointed
either.
CHASE NUMBER 10-13
DATE: JUNE 6, 2010
DEPART TIME: 10:19 A.M. CDT
TOTAL TIME: 12 HOURS 45 MINUTES
DEPART MILE: 98993
TOTAL MILES: 666
MILES TO DATE: 4655
STATES: OKLAHOMA, KANSAS, NEBRASKA, COLORADO
RIDERS: NONE
LINKS: MAP – GALLERY
TEXT: I got out of Okarche earlier than I expected which
helped a good deal. I could have used
even another hour or so. After a long
drive to Goodland, Kansas,
I made the decision to head north and work toward the northeast corner of Colorado. There were severe storms which I could see
visually and on radar just northeast of the extreme northeast corner of Colorado. I felt these storms would push eastward far
enough that they would be out of my reach.
Other storms were trying to become established in Colorado
in Weld County, and these seemed to be the best
target. I didn’t get far north from
Goodland when one of the Nebraska
storms became tornado warned. It was
slowing down some and turning more south and suddenly seemed in play. I worked north through Benkelman and Enders
before taking up a position east of Imperial to watch the supercell
track southeastward through Chase
County. I have seen better structure, but still, it
wasn’t too bad. It just seemed a little
high based. As it got closer, a distinct
barrel shaped lowering was evident under the west side of the updraft. While still a bit of distance away, it
appeared that the barrel was rotating.
This feature lasted for a few minutes before getting eroded and
eventually becoming washed away in a surge of outflow which passed me around
6:43 P.M. I didn’t waste time
redirecting my attention to new storms which were quickly becoming organized in
northeast Colorado. There wasn’t much in the way of longevity
associated with the numerous storms that formed in Colorado.
They would form, weaken, seemingly reform and had a lot of different
movements. About the only way to pick
one was to have it form near you. These
storms and others that developed near Fort Morgan
provided me with some of my better lightning opportunities of the season. A decent supercell,
nice sunset colors and some pretty good lightning made the day worthwhile. I ended the evening in Brush, Colorado.
CHASE NUMBER 10-12
DATE: MAY 30, 2010
DEPART TIME: 3:19 P.M. CDT
TOTAL TIME: 4 HOURS 59 MINUTES
DEPART MILE: 98481
TOTAL MILES: 193
MILES TO DATE: 3989
STATES: OKLAHOMA
RIDERS: MARI ANTHONY, JOCELYN ANTHONY
LINKS: MAP – Storm images: ONE TWO THREE
TEXT: Thinking it was a marginal day for severe weather, but
hoping for a decent day of lightning, we started north to intercept storms
which were forming along a cold front moving through the state. Several large and intense storms did end up
forming which built/moved south and southeastward taking us back toward home. One of the larger cores produced hail to near
golf ball size a few miles south of Vance Air Force Base at 6:57 P.M. Another large core produced hail to quarter
size in and north of Dover
just before 7:30 P.M. A couple of the
storms had interesting shapes; however, these were high based and often
undercut by outflow or the cold front.
Of greater interest was once again the lack of significant amounts of
cloud to ground lightning. For some
reason this season, even the most intense storms have been lacking large
amounts of cloud to ground strikes and this day was no exception.
CHASE NUMBER 10-11 - TRAVEL
DATE: MAY 26, 2010
DEPART TIME: 10:25 A.M. CDT
TOTAL TIME: 4 HOURS 24 MINUTES
DEPART MILE: 98057
TOTAL MILES: 236
MILES TO DATE: 3796
STATES: OKLAHOMA
RIDERS: DOUG SPEHEGER
LINKS: MAP – Wildflowers - Wildflowers
TEXT: This was a
travel day back home from Guymon to Okarche.
Thunderstorms had already started forming in the central and eastern Oklahoma panhandle. In fact, we had a very close lightning strike
at the motel which woke Doug and me up around 7:30 A.M. While generally not severe, the storms did
provide a few photo opportunities with a nice crop of wildflowers currently
growing. We also took the time to stop
along the Harper/Beaver County line to take a look at the monuments dedicated
to “No Man’s Land”
and Beaver County. I’ve been by these a million times and never
stopped before.
CHASE NUMBER 10-10
DATE: MAY 25, 2010
DEPART TIME: 10:55 A.M. CDT
TOTAL TIME: 11 HOURS 59 MINUTES
DEPART MILE: 97688
TOTAL MILES: 383
MILES TO DATE: 3560
STATES: KANSAS, OKLAHOMA, COLORADO
RIDERS: DOUG SPEHEGER
LINKS: MAP
TEXT: We got out of
the Dodge City
motel just before 11 A.M. and started southwest. Overnight convection really did a job on the
atmosphere and the sky showed it as we left.
It didn’t much feel like a severe weather day and the low clouds were
flat and dull. Winds however, were still
rather brisk out of the southeast and we anticipated that things would turn
around by late afternoon. After a lunch
at the Dodge House, we made a stop at the wind farm near Montezuma
to kill a little time. As this image from Doug
shows, these aren’t nearly as big as they seem from the road. We were a little surprised that storms
started forming as quickly as they did near the western edge of the better low
level moisture. First radar echoes
appeared before 2 P.M. and we started a more west jog near Moscow.
At 2:28 P.M., radar showed that the storm at the north end of a short
line segment was becoming dominant as it moved toward southwest Stanton County.
Shortly after 3 P.M., the storm generated a wall cloud with steady
rising motion and some rotation.
While it didn’t completely appear like a tornado was imminent, it did
peak our interest for a short time. We
followed the storm a little farther north before it gave up on us just before 4
P.M. Our options at that time seemed
somewhat limited and we decided to start south toward the western Oklahoma panhandle and northwest Texas panhandle where convection looked
steady on satellite imagery. We got
caught in some great Kansas road work near Elkhart which held us up
for about 15 minutes. It was during this
period that we could see a lot of smoke from what was likely a rangeland fire
somewhere in the western Oklahoma
panhandle. Little did we know that these
two events would play into the remainder of our chase. Just after making it through the construction
zone, we were able to download a radar image which showed an impressive storm
had developed in Baca County,
Colorado. The construction likely allowed us to make a
move toward the Colorado
storm that we might not have made if we were another 15 or 20 miles down the
road. By 5:30 P.M., we had crossed into Colorado and a very
impressive supercell was located not too far to our
west northwest. At least it was
impressive on radar. Visually, the smoke
from the western Oklahoma
panhandle fire was obscuring most of our view of it. In fact, radar and GPS showed that we were
only a few miles from it, even though we couldn’t see much of it, which is
something that doesn’t happen very often in eastern Colorado.
We decided to take a dirt road up the west side of the slow moving storm
for a closer view. I still get
flashbacks from my dirt road experience of a couple of years ago, but the road
was in good shape and we figured we could always turn around if it started
getting bad. This almost cost us dearly
as the road got steadily muddier while we continued our trip down it. Luckily, it was a very wide road and we were
able to stay out of the ditches during the very long trip to Vilas. From there, we had a paved road east back toward
Kansas. The smoke started clearing and we decided
that one more dirt road might allow us to drop down to the business area of the
storm. We abandoned this thought at 6:49
P.M. and decided to get back to a paved road and stay on it. We had already pushed our luck and won. We passed back into Kansas
at 6:58 P.M. and would spend the better part of the next one and a half hours
in southwest Stanton and northwest Morton Counties
watching the beautiful
supercell move very slowly east and northeast at
only around 5 M.P.H. Other images: ONE TWO THREE View to the northwest
around 8 P.M. View to the north around
8:35 P.M. Closer look at top of main updraft. A stitched together five
image view looking west
northwest to east. View to the southeast
toward the near full moon. We
thought our show was over, but just before 9 P.M. a strong updraft started
increasing just to the west of the weakening old updraft. This was located on the Colorado side of the border. With the sun already having set, contrast
back toward the precipitation area was very low, especially now that the storm
had moved farther away from us. We were
getting ready to leave when Doug spotted something in the distance. It’s easy at times like this for your eyes to
play tricks on you, but I started seeing it as well. I brought out the video camera and started
shooting in night shot mode. Sure enough,
we had a Colorado
tornado in there. This lasted for about
10 minutes and while not the most spectacular part of the day, at least made
the day complete. VIDCAPS:
ONE TWO THREE
CHASE NUMBER 10-09
DATE: MAY 24, 2010
DEPART TIME: 1:24 P.M. CDT
TOTAL TIME: 8 HOURS 4 MINUTES
DEPART MILE: 97339
TOTAL MILES: 360
MILES TO DATE: 3177
STATES: OKLAHOMA, KANSAS
RIDERS: DOUG SPEHEGER
LINKS: MAP – Photos north
of Dodge City: ONE TWO THREE FOUR
TEXT: Doug and I left Okarche and tripped up Highway 3 to
Woodward. Thunderstorms had already been
severe – and in some cases tornado warned – in southwest Kansas
and the Oklahoma
panhandle. Other thunderstorms had
formed in the Texas
panhandle by the time we reached Woodward.
The storms in the Oklahoma panhandle
and Kansas
seemed out of reach, especially considering their north northeast
movement. We decided to head west
southwest out of Woodward and see if an intercept in Texas would be possible. Storms continued to evolve in eastern Texas County
in Oklahoma, and southwest of Perryton in Texas. At Shattuck, we turned north and continued
working toward the Oklahoma
panhandle. We were able to catch up with
an interesting storm that tracked by Liberal, Kismet and Plains, Kansas. This storm had decent supercell
structure for awhile, but was small and may have been impacted by
perturbations associated with left splits from the Texas convection. We had about a 30 minute window where the
storm maintained good structure before becoming part of a large mess of storms
that moved through the Dodge City
area. We spent a good amount of time
north of Dodge City using the setting sun for
photo opportunities before headed to Dodge
City for the night.
CHASE NUMBER 10-08
DATE: MAY 19, 2010
DEPART TIME: 10:33 A.M. CDT
TOTAL TIME: 8 HOURS 43 MINUTES
DEPART MILE: 96708
TOTAL MILES: 386
MILES TO DATE: 2817
STATES: OKLAHOMA
RIDERS: NONE
LINKS: MAP | Video of Hennessey
tornado.
TEXT: I started the
morning in Guymon, quickly moving east when I realized that the target for the
day was going to be 150+ miles to the southeast. The drive through the panhandle and northwest
was cloudy and breezy with occasional periods of fog and drizzle. As I approached Oakwood in Dewey County,
skies began to break and numerous TCU/building CU could be seen to the
south. I had reached the warm
front/outflow boundary and before the show started. I was only about 45 miles from home and
considered just heading back and watching things unfold from there. I instead found a nice place to sit near the
Canadian River in northeast Custer
County and monitored
radar, satellite and surface trends. At
2 P.M., the first signs of storm development appeared in Ellis and Roger Mills
Counties. I was hesitant to jump that way very quick
because I thought the low level flow was questionable at the time – both in the
immediate area and just northeast of the storms. At 2:34 P.M., these storms had not shown a
great deal of progress and my attention turned to large TCU/CB’s which were
forming just to my northeast. At 2:47
P.M., I had seen enough organization to go ahead and target storms which were
developing northeast of Watonga. I drove
north through Oakwood to Highway 51 and started east. This jog back north took me back into the low
clouds and fog at times and visually, it was hard to see the storms I was
targeting. I still did not have a good
view – despite being only a few miles away – when the first tornado warning was
issued for the storm with a spotter reported tornado just south of Okeene. This short-lived event was over when I
finally had cleared most of the low clouds and had a good view. I followed the storm east on Highway 51,
stopping occasionally to watch some interesting cloud motions in the updraft
region, but generally not finding anything too dramatic. Until just before 4:30 P.M. As the updraft of the storm reached the
Kingfisher/Garfield County line, it encountered something that it liked well. The storm grew in size, developed a broad
rotating lowering and began moving more east than north. Feeling a tornado was imminent; I drove a
couple of miles north of Hennessey and stopped to video. I had the video camera on a window mount and
was all set on go when a member of law enforcement pulled alongside and used
his P.A. to tell me that no stopping was allowed. I guess this was his solution to keeping
chasers moving through the area. I
turned around and moved south about a mile, finding a driveway to pull
into. From there, I was no where near
the highway right-of-way, but I had no “visual-of-way” of the tornado. Running to a clear spot between the house and
barn, I ended up shooting about five minutes of hand held video of the first
significant tornado produced by the storm (VIDCAP VIDCAP
VIDCAP). After the tornado weakened, I drove east
along Highway 51 from Hennessey encountering some very tough RFD and a good
handful of other chasers. Given the
limited roads, increasing number of chasers, and more difficult viewing due to
heavy rain and RFD, I called off the chase and started back toward
Hennessey. From five miles east
southeast of Hennessey, I viewed another tornado with the storm to my east
northeast at 5:10 P.M. I continued south
on Banner Road
and west toward Dover exploring options of
dealing with the next storm that was moving into Kingfisher County. I stopped once southeast of Dover and had this view of the
approaching supercell. Moving to five miles west southwest of Dover and with the storm
approaching, the view became more ominous (PIC PIC). I was able to view a large tornado embedded in
rain about 4 miles west southwest of Dover
at 5:51 P.M. before fleeing to the east toward Crescent. At this point, I knew my chase was over for
the day and dropped to Waterloo
Road and returned to Okarche. I did make a couple of stops for pictures of convection
on the way back. Everything around
Okarche is just about as green as I have ever seen it.
CHASE NUMBER 10-07
DATE: MAY 18, 2010
DEPART TIME: 11:55 A.M. CDT
TOTAL TIME: 11 HOURS 32 MINUTES
DEPART MILE: 96124
TOTAL MILES: 609
MILES TO DATE: 2431
STATES: OKLAHOMA, TEXAS
RIDERS: NONE
LINKS: MAP
TEXT: With an initial
target near the western end of the Oklahoma
panhandle, I drove northwest through Woodward, Guymon and Boise City. Large sections of the panhandle continue to
have data reception issues and I wasn’t able to pay a lot of attention to the
evolving weather on the drive. At Boise City,
I was able to take my time and get caught up.
At 4:54 P.M., radar showed severe thunderstorms had developed in eastern
Hartley County, Texas
– about 55 miles to my south. This was a
little farther south than where I wanted to play, but being the only storm in
town, I started back southeast toward Stratford. By 5:31 P.M., it became clear that the storm
had right turned and was starting to move almost straight east toward
Dumas. I continued south on US 287 and
made my way to the west side of Dumas at 6:13 P.M. The view of the storm / on radar and visually
PICTURE PICTURE
/ was extremely impressive. It had
incredible structure with an intense looking core just to the northwest that
wrapped into the hook area just to the southwest. There was a broad lowering to the west
southwest with very fast motions / lifting and rotational /. I was almost sure that I would be seeing a
tornado from that location. But, I’ve
thought that before, and sure enough – not this time either. I shot a lot of steady video from this
location and a couple of others to the east of Dumas which have been used for time lapse of the
storm. The storm maintained great structure and appeared to have a
strong threat for a tornado as it moved across Dumas and down Highway
152. I believe that tornadoes occurred
west and east of Dumas that others saw, but I was not able to make out. I observed quarter size hail – 8 miles east
of Dumas in Moore County at 6:41 P.M. and golfball
size hail – 9 miles east of Dumas in Moore
County at 6:47 P.M. The combination of increasing crowds, the
storm appearing to transition to a wetter hook region, and large hail beginning
to fall on the only paved road in the area caused me to start looking for another
target around 7:00 P.M. There was a
small storm on radar that had a decent shape to it in far southern Union County, New Mexico
that was moving northeast and would soon be entering Texas.
It was a little tough leaving such an impressive storm, but conditions supported
the new target storm continuing to organize as it got into the panhandle. During the first part of my trip back through
Dumas and north toward Cactus, I wondered if I made the right decision as the
intensity of the new storm starting to come down while crossing the
border. There were also going to be
serious road issues between Dalhart, Stratford
and Boise City.
A rather large area with no paved roads, and I had been warned by locals
not to take dirt roads because of the recent rain. While driving north toward Stratford and back southwest toward Dalhart,
the storm got new life and really looked good on radar. After working through some low clouds, the
storm became visible
to my west and north just west of Dalhart between 8:30 and 8:45 P.M. I was NOT disappointed by my decision to
change storms! At 8:46 P.M., I observed
a weak tornado which was likely near Ware in Dallam County. This was a best guess based on radar – I was
several miles to the southeast. I stayed
put allowing the storm to move northeast of me and grabbed shots with light
from the already set sun at 8:59 P.M. I
have stitched together three of these shots which can be seen here. With all the clear skies west of the storm, I
started making a move north to see what it would look like after dark. On my way north on US 385, I observed a
tornado which I guess was about 12 miles north of Chamberlin in Dallam County
at 9:30 P.M. Stopping just a few miles
south of the Oklahoma
state line, the view of the storm to the southeast was beautiful! (PICTURE PICTURE) I watched lightning illuminate the updraft
and flanking line of the storm for about 30 minutes before making the move
toward Guymon for the night. At some
point in the night, large hail started falling at the motel. Exhausted after a rewarding 600+ mile day, my
head never came off the pillow to see the time or the size.
CHASE NUMBER 10-06
DATE: MAY 11, 2010
DEPART TIME: 2:46 P.M. CDT
TOTAL TIME: 9 HOURS 38 MINUTES
DEPART MILE: 95380
TOTAL MILES: 341
MILES TO DATE: 1822
STATES: OKLAHOMA
RIDERS: NONE
LINKS: MAP – LP supercell
at dark near Sharon, OK.
TEXT: I left the house and worked my way west along I-40
with a broad target of just “western Oklahoma”. I pulled off short of Clinton
to kill a little time and decided to visit Indianapolis,
one of the towns in Custer
County listed on the
ghosttowns.com website. There isn’t much
left, but there may be some good photo opportunities if the light is ever
right. Who would have known that a
tornado would come very close to Indianapolis
about 30 hours LATER.
Storms started to form in southwest Oklahoma
and I had made my way to Cordell when one was warned on in Greer County. The warning seemed to kill it, and it was
gone about as fast as it came. At Elk City
I decided to continue north watching numerous TCU and small CB’S from my
northwest to northeast which were on the warm front. One storm became severe in Ellis County
and moved into Woodward
County. I was able to get a view of the base of this
LP storm west of Sharon. There was a small funnel which was reported
to have formed into a tornado. I
couldn’t confirm it due to darkness and it being a few miles away. I did get a few golf balls bouncing around
before heading back east and photographing the beautiful structure which had
just enough light left on it for photos.
CHASE NUMBER 10-05
DATE: MAY 10, 2010
DEPART TIME: 12:35 P.M. CDT
TOTAL TIME: 11 HOURS 8 MINUTES
DEPART MILE: 94980
TOTAL MILES: 415
MILES TO DATE: 1481
STATES: OKLAHOMA, KANSAS
RIDERS: ERIC STANLEY
LINKS: MAP
TEXT: Well, I’ve never seen a Grant County
tornado before – why start yesterday. Wakita has become my “white whale”. Shades of March 13, 1990 when I left the Wakita storm 15 minutes before it produced. 99 decisions can be made right, but it only
takes one... We sat west of Wakita, making comments about them getting their real
“Twister” today, for about 30 minutes while the storm approached the Great Salt
Plains Lake. Looking for every sign that it had started
producing, we couldn’t find one and over thought things, believing that it
would cross the KS/OK border before doing so.
All I wanted to do was get to the east/west running road that runs from
highway 179 to Caldwell,
about three miles north of the state line.
Three sources of information said this was a paved road – WRONG! Instead of going back south, we went north to
Anthony and east on highway 44. We got
about half way to Anthony when we saw the storm on radar put on its brakes,
start spinning like crazy and then hooking it east. With good data, I felt safe heading toward Caldwell despite being in
core the entire way. Miles and miles and
miles of golfball – then to baseball – then back to golfball hail. My
ears are still ringing. At every road
that would take us back south… 81 to Renfrow, 177 to Braman, even 77 out of Ark City…
it didn’t look safe to try and do so. We
made absolutely no progress getting east of the meso
with the speed we had to drive in the hail.
At Ark City, we decided we needed to abort and
headed north with a target of the great looking storm that was headed toward KICT. It had become
a mess of junk by the time it got to us near Augusta.
Heading back, we got bogged down in traffic where the tornado had
crossed I-35 – at and just south of the Kansas/Oklahoma border. Some pretty decent tree/sign damage and a
couple of overturned trucks in a wide swath there. All the glass stayed in the car, but five
monkeys with hammers could have worked on it for an hour and not added more
dents. I sustained the only injury when
I rolled my window down enough to get a better view through the rain and hail
and took a hail shard in my left sclera.
Feels like I have “welder’s eye” today.
CHASE NUMBER: 10-04
DATE: APRIL 22, 2010
DEPART TIME: 10:59 A.M. CDT
TOTAL TIME: 10 HOURS 47 MINUTES
DEPART MILE: 93604
TOTAL MILES: 357
MILES TO DATE: 1066
STATES: TEXAS, OKLAHOMA
RIDERS: NONE
LINKS: MAP Time lapse video of
various scenes from the 21st and 22nd of April. Map showing video and
tornado locations.
TEXT: I had pretty high hopes for the day… and overall it
didn’t disappoint. I took my time
getting out of Amarillo
and ended up a few miles north shooting some time lapse video of early
convection to the northwest. The best
play looked like it would be late in the afternoon over the eastern panhandle –
more specifically – the southeast panhandle.
But this was as obvious as a bus coming down 6th avenue and I knew that
large numbers of chasers would be basing out of Childress. My hope was that the northeast panhandle
could also produce and I drifted toward Pampa. I stayed in that area for quite awhile
monitoring trends. When I noticed TCU
both visually and on satellite imagery getting organized in Swisher and Briscoe Counties… I decided to go ahead and roam
toward I-40 taking my chances with the hordes.
I was in Groom when storms formed basically overhead and about 30 miles
to the southwest. Several small updrafts
moved north and northeast across Groom – producing some brief heavy rain and
small hail. I only had to move a few
miles east to get a good view of the updraft region of an approaching storm
which became severe just before 5 p.m.
This storm rapidly organized and began producing tornadoes as it came
out of the valley and approached Jericho. I believe there were two main tornado events
that are evident in the time lapse. One
was several miles away which gave me no chance of seeing ground level
action. The second event formed much
closer and I was able to see good ground level rotation only a couple of miles
to the south. After this tornado
weakened… the storm maintained strong rotation and likely produced again. However, the strongest rotation became more
rain wrapped with time and more troublesome to see. Road options north of I-40 around Rockledge
and Alanreed are quite limited and I did most of my
observing while moving back and forth along the interstate. Once it became obvious that a linear mess was
evolving and shoving toward western Oklahoma…
I made the decision to hit I-40 east back to the house.
Tornado number one – 4:59 p.m. until 5:02 p.m. – From 5
miles northeast of Goodnight to 5 miles south southeast of Groom in Armstrong
and Donley Counties Texas
PHOTOS: ONE TWO THREE
Tornado number two – 5:10 p.m. until 5:26 p.m. – From 4
miles southeast of Groom to near Jericho
in Donley County Texas
PHOTOS: ONE TWO THREE FOUR
CHASE NUMBER: 10-03
DATE: APRIL 21, 2010
DEPART TIME: 12:54 P.M. CDT
TOTAL TIME: 9 HOURS 23 MINUTES
DEPART MILE: 93213
TOTAL MILES: 407
MILES TO DATE: 709
STATES: OKLAHOMA, TEXAS
RIDERS: NONE
LINKS: MAP
TEXT: Storms were forming from the northeast corner of New Mexico… southeastward across the western Texas panhandle and into the Texas
south plains when I pulled into Amarillo. Fog and stratus had held firm over the
central and northeast panhandle… but the atmosphere was rapidly destabilizing from
the south plains northwestward across the western panhandle. I drove southwest to Hereford and monitored trends for a bit
before targeting storms to my north near I-40.
One storm in Oldham
County became quite
strong and took on supercell characteristics as I
approached the interstate. A tornado
warning was issued shortly after and the storm started coming into view through
the hazy skies that existed. With little
in the way of paved roads… my options were limited. I sat near Landergin
and shot video for time lapse of the updraft to the northwest. For a brief time… I
saw enough motion in the wall cloud to spike my interest. This was short-lived. The storm maintained some decent structure on
radar for another hour or so… but rotation lessened and the updraft became
obscured as low clouds and fog returned to the area. I drove back southeast to Amarillo and grabbed a room – in position for
the following day.
CHASE NUMBER: 10-02
DATE: APRIL 4, 2010
DEPART TIME: 8:31 P.M. CDT
TOTAL TIME: 2 HOURS 46 MINUTES
DEPART MILE: 92226
TOTAL MILES: 112
MILES TO DATE: 302
STATES: OKLAHOMA
RIDERS: NONE
LINKS: MAP Supercell
storm in southeast Garfield County as seen from just east of Dover.
TEXT: Low level moisture made its strongest return of the
young severe weather season and the atmosphere became quite unstable across Oklahoma southeast of a
dry line that pushed through most of the northwest part of the state. There was little in the way of large scale
forcing to support storms… but convergence along the dry line and strong
afternoon heating was sufficient to weaken the cap near and just after sunset. When the prospects of having a storm
intercept within 30 minutes of the house became obvious… I headed out the
door. The first storm I saw had some
impressive lightning. The updraft was
almost completely exposed and despite it being well after sunset… it was easy
to observe given the intense lightning.
I set up just east of Dover
and watched this storm for about ˝ hour as it passed well to my northeast. Another – more powerful storm – approached
northwest Kingfisher
County a short time
later. I had to make some moves to avoid
this storm as it looked like it contained some very large hail. Falling in behind it… I measured 1.65 inch
hail about four miles north of Loyal before returning home.
CHASE NUMBER: 10-01
DATE: MARCH 10, 2010
DEPART TIME: 1:19 P.M. CST
TOTAL TIME: 3 HOURS 46 MINUTES
DEPART MILE: 90362
TOTAL MILES: 190
MILES TO DATE: 190
STATES: OKLAHOMA
RIDERS: NONE
LINKS: MAP
TEXT: A powerful storm system tracked across the state
during the afternoon… the main negative for it was that it was moisture
starved. Still, storms were able to form
in eastern Oklahoma
as some low level moisture made it back for the show. I played low-topped storms that formed closer
to the mid/upper level low from the Okarche area northeastward toward
Perry. I started northwest toward
Watonga when a new storm formed near Calumet. I back-tracked and came through Okarche again
getting hail and thunder in town before heading east. The small cluster of storms that organized in
Kingfisher and Logan
Counties never really had
an interesting look to them. What they
were good at was producing hail. And, a
lot of it! It never reached severe size as
best that I could tell… but I have never driven so many miles with hail falling
on me before. Perry looked like it had
seen a good snow storm. That was where I
made it to while realizing that the storms in this area were just not going to
do anything very interesting and started back.
I saw a little more hail and lightning near Dover on the way back with high based storms
in the dry air. It was a good first test
for everything that had me back at a decent hour.
