October 4 2013 Chase Log

October 4 2013
James Gustina

Summary: The marginal play on the dryline in western Oklahoma pays off huge. Chased with Andrew Lyons and Cj Sayre. Couldn't make it north to Nebraska for the tornadofest but got an amazing mothership supercell west of Clinton in the last hour before sunset. Best chase of the season for me.

This day began to show up on the long range models about a week out. All indications were that a tornado outbreak would be possible from Nebraska to Iowa. But what caught our eye was the dryline with modest instability on the order of 1500 j/kg MLCAPE along the dryline ahead of the cold front in far western Oklahoma. After debating it the night before, we finally made plans to head out to a preliminary target of Elk City around noon.

We made great time and ended up playing the waiting game at the McDonald's in Elk City for a few hours. Storms were beginning to fire back north along the cold front near Woodward and tempted as we were, we decided to stay south along the dryline. We began to move north and east when a first tower exploded directly over our heads in Elk City.

We followed this first tower north of Elk City until it began to shrivel up and die, but not before it spat out some rain and I took a little praire grass barb to the foot. I guess that's what I get for wearing sandals on a chase.

But initiation was already underway all up and down the dryline/cold front. We continued north around Foss Lake (which would prove to be a tough obstacle on a return trip) and after passing through Butler, continued east and north, which ended up giving us an amazing view of the developing storms to the west and southwest.

After the storm to our immediate west fizzled we took another look at the storm to the southwest near Sayre. It appeared to be taking on the "shape" of a storm that had unimpeded inflow and might have a shot at giving something pretty. Man were we right. We opted not to go after the garbage to the north on the cold front and after taking a lengthy detour around Foss Lake, core punched the storm and came out directly under it's base. Thankfully there was only weak rising motion as the lowest level appeared too stable and the RFD too cold for tornadogenesis. As we got out ahead of it, we were treated to an amazing view of a mothership updraft.

After the above shots, we hauled ass out of there and attempted to get as far east on I-40 as we could to get shots of the amazingly structured storm. It was weakly supercellular at best, but just west of Clinton, it gave some great photographic opportunities.

It was truly a great way to end out what had been less than a stellar season for me. After missing the final two weeks of May on a family vacation to the west, it was great to have something that was truly amazing to finish it out.

Chase Stats
Miles Driven: 290.2
Cost: $20
Tornadoes: 0
Hail: 1/4"
Wind: 40 mph (estimated in core)