April 7 2013 Chase Log

April 7 2013
James Gustina


Summary: Frustrating yet fun chase day in southwest Kansas. Only notable storms went up right along the warm front just south of the I-70 corridor with the dryline fizzing out. Incredibly photogenic supercell near Great Bend that made up for the day.


The models didn't pick up on this day fully until about four days out. A very weak disturbance was progged in front of the positively-tilted trough from hell coming in from the Pacific. The finer details on the SREF and NAM indicated that a dryline would set up across western Oklahoma and Kansas with the triple point just north of DDC. Rapid moisture return with mid-60 dews were progged with significant MLCAPE values (2500+) for the time of year. The SPC tossed a SLGT risk across most of southern Kansas just along and south of the warm front. The low-level shear looked very promising closer to the dryline but it was also a question of capping and to a degree, forcing, on the dryline further south towards Medicine Lodge.

I ended up chasing this day with Zach Elliot and Brady Kendrick. We got a late start out of Norman around 1 PM but still made good time to our initial target of Alva. We took a slight detour to Waynoka (where the best redneck fair I had ever seen was in progress) before deciding to head north along the dryline in Kansas to get away from the cloud cover that was over much of NW Oklahoma and limiting the thermodynamic environment. The cloud cover was extremely disconcerting, especially with a much more well defined CU field in west-central Kansas.

 We went north to Hardtner and sat just west of town for about thirty minutes debating whether or not to bail on the southern play and continue further north towards the warm front along the dryline. We continued north on US 281 through Medicine Lodge and into Pratt. Towers were forming and toppling continuously around us on the dryline near Pratt. Between all the orphan anvils and turkey towers, we couldn't get a clear view of the show that was beginning to take shape further north. When the first severe thunderstorm warning came in on a cell that looked distinctly supercellular, we decided against going after it. The storm was then near LaCrosse and looked to be on the wrong side of the front. We still held out hope for the dryline.

After about another 45 minutes, we decided the dryline wasn't going to do it. We began to head towards Greensburg and about halfway there got a view of the now atomic updraft of the storm to the north. We quickly doubled back to Pratt and Zach put the pedal to floor blasting north on US 283 to Great Bend. The storm's updraft tower definitely had the "look" to it at that point.

As we were moving north near Saint John, Zach got a photo of what looked to be a perfect classic supercell with a monstrous beaver tail. That was the storm we were still a good 30 miles off of. We continued blazing north through Saint John and just as we entered Barton county south of Great Bend we got a stunning view of the storm. This is still one of my favorite shots of the season.

All credit goes to Brady for these, he was in the passenger seat and with a death grip on my camera got it out the window to get some great shots of this. We continued north into Great Bend and then turned east on US 56 towards Lyons, with the intent to get out ahead of the hail (which was in the range of an inch at that time if I remember correctly) and south again to get more shots with the sunset. We could see the core off to our left and thankfully beat it to a southbound option just past Ellinwood. We ended up getting some cool photos of the elongated base and I actually managed to grab a bolt out of the anvil with my not-really-a-DSLR camera.

After about ten more minutes, we plotted our route back to Norman, which required taking some farm roads to get to Hutchinson and US 50 to get to I-35. Thankfully we got back to Norman in great time around 1 AM and were able to enjoy the first real success of the season.

Chase Stats
Miles Driven: 576
Cost: $20
Tornadoes: 0
Hail: None encountered
Wind: N/A

Closing in on Chase Season 2014

Well folks it's that time of year. We're under the two month mark until March 1st and the real heavy duty deprivation kicks in now. This is also when I have the tendency to make wild guesses about the quality of the season, but this time all I can guess is that this probably won't be worse than last season for me, where I missed basically the entire season by not being on the Plains for the final two weeks of May. But since I'm a glutton for punishment, I'll make a completely uneducated guess at this upcoming season based on objective drought monitors. This is the drought map from the US Drought Monitor site.

 Western Oklahoma and the Caprock seem to be leaving the grips of the crippling drought that's been persisting over the area the past few years. While SW Oklahoma is still in absolutely debilitating drought conditions, things are beginning to look up for the southern Plains. The dryline mixing east almost to I-35 by noon, while not entirely dependent on drought conditions, definitely had something to do with the overall quality of surface moisture. The other good news is the current flow regime. This time last year, we were already beginning to go between periods of zonal and extreme meridional flow which led to a jet stream that was further south than it should have been in mid-April, ultimately giving us the crashing polar cold fronts from the Great White North for most of April. Overall, I think it'll be an "average" season with good days sprinkled from March through late June across the bulk of the Plains. Here's hoping my random guess is actually right for once.

Entering the Winter Doldrums Phase

It's finally that time of year. Central Oklahoma has begun to cool off drastically this past week with another cold front progged to come through later this week. I'm currently in the process of acquiring some new gear for next season, namely a decent camcorder and some Aquapel (for those of you using Rain-X, I'd recommend trying Aquapel) as well as refurbishing my tripod, which is, no pun intended, on its last legs.

In other news, only 102 days until the unofficial start of my chase season 2014. I'm still extremely far behind on most of my chase logs from the first half of the 2013 season and I likely won't finish until after exam week when I hit winter break. Until then though, I must content myself with the Bengals playoff chances and the possibility of OU making a bowl that doesn't have ".com" at the end.

Wrap-Up Chase Season 2013

After arguably the most frustrating season I have ever had, the fat lady has finally sung for my 2013 chase season. I'll have a review of all the chase days below. I also will be adding my remaining three chase logs in the next week or so, including the October 4th supercell near Clinton, OK. Below is a general overview of all the chase days this season.


February 9 2013 Texas Panhandle
A very marginal day that appeared on the models and looked too good to be true for the eastern panhandle. I ended up chasing with Zach Elliot, Jon Stone and Brady Kendrick. After photographing an awesome abandoned gas station in Hollis, we went and hung around the Mempis, TX area until sunset. Storms never did fire in the daytime, but the dryline kicked up a dust storm in its wake along I-27. After grabbing dinner in Memphis, storms exploded about 30 minutes after sunset. We hopped northwest on US 287 and southeast of Clarendon caught the severe storms that had started lining out. After Brady's car took a few tennis balls we bailed back east and south to get out of the way (hitting a tumbleweed of doom on a market road). Unfortunately I never had enough time to get my camera out to get a photo of one of the hailstones. This day definitely set the marker for 2013.

March 9 2013 Southern Oklahoma & Northern Texas
A very under-performing day. Instability in northern Texas was never quite realized due to thick stratus until roughly 19Z across northern Texas and southern Oklahoma. I chased with Jon Stone and ended up heading out of Norman in the early afternoon. We caught the first severe storm of the day east of Duncan and got probably the only storm of the day that came close to realizing any of the potential of the shear environment. The storm displayed some slightly supercellular characteristics with a lowering that had visible rising motion from a good distance away before lining out and dying as it went back up into Norman. From that point we continued south and entered Texas around 21Z and got to a stopping point in time to see a pretty cool multi-tiered shelf outside Gainesville. We then continued dropping south and ended the day watching some junk storms near Era before heading back to Norman.

April 7 2013 Western Kansas
One of my favorite days of the season. Chased with Brady Kendrick and Zach Elliot in western Kansas on a decent day across Kansas. We set out from Norman around 18Z with the original target of Alva, OK. We were expecting more discrete, supercellular storms along the KS/OK state line in the early evening but that never materialized due to cloud cover over much of NW OK limiting the thermodynamic environment. The only supercell that day formed along and rode the warm front way up near Great Bend, KS. We initially had given up on the day around 23Z as turkey towers were toppling all over SW KS and were halfway to Greensburg (I hadn't seen the town's recovery) before turning back around and blasting north out of Pratt after seeing a nuclear updraft to our north on that WF supercell. While we failed to catch it when it was at its most picturesque, we were still able to get some excellent shots as it neared sunset southwest of Great Bend.

April 17 2013 Southwest Oklahoma

This day has a special place on my s**tlist of chase days. It's arguably the most underwhelming day I have ever had the displeasure of wasting gas money on. This day had been progged by the GFS and to a lesser degree, the Euro, to be the first legitimate tornado day of the 2013 season. That is until, the NAM got involved. The crashing cold front solution and weak H7s it predicted would end up coming true and cutting this day down like the Reds' playoff contention. Andrew Lyons and I ended up chasing with a group of meteorology friends from OU and reached the first supercells east of Lawton around 19Z. We sat back and watched the first supercell go by and spit out a lot of wind and rain. We then side-stepped it and went after the next supercell. South of Lawton that storm quickly died. At that point we were sitting on a small country road south of Lawton watching this day crash and burn. That is until one HP supercell decided to tick up its inflow (which was some of the strongest I have ever been in) and spin out a brief bird fart in Lawton. We had a very murky view and except for the first powerflash which gave us a brief glimpse, we never saw anything else. After our crappy encounter of the spinny kind we debated whether or not to sit and wait on more storms coming up. Those storms would end up biting it as they entered a worked-over environment with crappy mid-level winds. We then decided against moving south to tail-end charlie near Vernon, TX (which would produce the only decent-ish tornado of the day) and headed back to Norman on the heels of the crappiest excuse for supercells of this season. 

May 18-31 2013 

I was on a family vacation to the west (Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Vegas, etc.). A little bit of me died. 

July 12 2013 Eastern Iowa

A very disappointing bust day with Andrew Lyons, Nate Curtis and Aaron Rigsby. We initially saw some potential in eastern Iowa with the target set as Iowa City, but by midday it became readily apparent that nothing was going to happen. We stopped in central Illinois, turned around and drown our sorrows in Sweet Tarts with little unicell crappers shooting off all over creation. 

September 27 2013 Texas Panhandle

Another marginal fall chase day that ended up being ok. I chased with Brady Kendrick with the initial target set for Groom. We got to Groom just as storms began firing off along and in the Caprock Canyons. We patiently waited east of Groom with Jon Stone to see if any of the storms would get their act together enough to at least put out some nice structure. Unfortunately the lack of an appreciable inversion prevented any storms from becoming organized and except for a brief lowering with some rising motion, nothing else got close. But as we headed back east to get to Norman at a reasonable hour, we got the opportunity to get an awesome shot of the now bowing line of storms as they came off the Caprock west of Alanreed. Some decent shots were salvaged and we weren't left with too bad of a taste in our mouth. 

October 4 2013 Western Oklahoma

What ended up being my favorite chase day out of this season. I headed out of Norman with Andrew Lyons and Cj Sayre around 18Z with the initial target of Elk City. We made it to Elk City around 20Z and after lunch were in the perfect position to catch storms off the dryline before the cold front swept south. We watched the first robust tower of the day near Elk City until it shriveled up, before blasting north around Foss Lake to partake of some of the more vigorous convection north of Hammon. We were treated to an awesome view of the storm's updraft tower and base with a few nubs protruding from the base before the storm crapped the bed. We then dropped south again to get on a storm that had begun to get separation from the others east of Sayre. We got caught at a strange angle and ended up core punching the storm to get back to I-40. Only small pea-sized hail was in the core but once we got out far enough from the updraft base we were treated to an awesome view of a multi-tiered/mothership updraft structure. We continued east to about Clinton before stopping to get some shots of some of the best structure I have ever seen in person. Afterwards the storm began to rapidly decline as it congealed into the line coming up as the cold front caught the dryline and we drifted back east to Norman. 

All in all, I can't complain about my first full season of living on the Plains. Even though I missed the best tornadoes of the year and got seriously hosed on some setups, it was still great to end it on such a good note. Hard to believe chase season 2014 is just around the corner. The stats of the year will be posted below.

Chase Season 2013

Miles Traveled: 2752

Chase Days: 7

Busts: 3

Tornadoes: 1

Largest Hail: Tennis Ball (2.5 in.)

Highest Wind Gust: 85 MPH (estimated)

States Chased: OK, KS, TX, IL

Chase Possibilities Returning Next Week

The long-range GFS and ECMWF have been hinting at the possibility of a high-amplitude long wave finally breaking down the blocking ridge over the central CONUS. The wave's timing has been varied between the two models, with the GFS wiffle-waffling it between 200 to 240 hours out (essentially fantasy land). Moisture also seems like a possible concern with a cold front progged to go crashing through the central/southern Plains this Friday with another stronger front coming at the start of next week. At this point, even a whisper of a fall season is appreciated though.

The Slow Summer

The low-amplitude omega block from hell has finally set in over the central portion of the CONUS. Its looking like any August surprises on the southern Plains might be confined to upslope days in eastern Colorado. I'm way behind on a lot of the chase logs from marginal days back in March and early April (April 17th nearly took my will to live) but those will be forthcoming in the near future. Under two weeks until I head back to Oklahoma so hopefully I can get it all up to date before then!

Long Break!

Sorry for the huge gap in posts all! Exam week and vacation got in the way. Fortunately I was not in Norman for the EF5 on the 20th as it went tearing through Moore (thoughts and prayers with everyone there as well as in Shawnee). I've missed a good string of chase days on the Plains, just because 2013 got hot too late. Looking for some local stuff (IL/IN/OH) in the near future, with maybe a few good lines or something. Hopefully June kicks up a notch and a derecho day or two comes up.