So far, this July has been par for the course in Oklahoma. We're still sitting under the same high pressure dome that's been plaguing the S. Plains for the past month or so, with mid-90s highs and 70F+ dewpoints. Norman is currently sitting at an enjoyable 92/71 as of 12:05 with not a cloud in the sky. Not a whole lot looks like it'll be changing with the upper air pattern through the end of the month and into the first week of August but the hope for another good fall season is about all that's left at this point.
I'm slowly plugging through charts and getting my last three chase logs for 2015 prepared before I begin digging into 2016. Blessedly, none of this season's chase days should take a long time to write, due to the short nature of most of the chases I had this year outside of May 24th and April 11th. Be on the lookout!
Saturday, July 23, 2016
Friday, June 17, 2016
A June to Forget
After the swashbuckling few weeks of May that spat out the best tornadoes of the season, it seems June isn't likely to follow with it's own show. June 11, June 13 and June 14 all produced good tornadoes on the Plains, most notable was probably June 13, which saw a decently structured cone from Trinidad, CO to the Black Mesa of Oklahoma (OK's highest point) and then followed up with a large tornadic supercell north of Amarillo and south of Morse which spat out one solid tornado before congealing in the Canadian River Valley. But, the paucity of consistent setups is what's putting this June up there as a tough one. The death ridge currently sitting over us has been allowing massive amounts of moisture from the GOM to flow northward (The Norman Mesonet site recorded 91/78, the second highest dewpoint temperature in it's history) but the strength of the high pressure dome currently over the Central and Southern Plains is forcing impulses well into Montana and beyond. It's looking unlikely that I'll be stepping out the door to go roam the Great Plains any time soon as it stands, and it may end up being autumn before I get the opportunity for one last round of chasing before winter sets in.
Friday, June 10, 2016
May 9 2015 Chase Log
Summary
A tricky moderate risk chase day to say the least. Initially thought Wichita Falls would be sufficient as a target but ended up getting hamstrung by not bolting for the Cisco storm early, which would produce a slow-moving EF3 stovepipe. We wound up picking the middle storm for unknown reasons near Graham, TX and watched easily the least impressive supercell of the day slowly kill itself as it traipsed east through god awful terrain.This day would become more noted for the absolutely stunning tornadoes that occurred on the High Plains of Colorado near Eads, with the middle ground in OK/KS getting rained out as was tradition for 2015.
This day was the first chase opportunity that presented itself after I had fully finished exams. I had missed the Bridge Creek and other assorted tornadoes on May 6th due to a GIS exam as the supercell marched through Central Oklahoma and was desperate to get out. As was par for the course, morning convection created a messy and complex forecast scenario. Initial thinking was that the eastern TX Panhandle might be in play, but the MCS shown above took it out almost immediately. After analyzing data, it became a fast moving OFB was moving south past the Red River and would be in a prime location to possibly produce a few tornadic supercells. A deep trough was digging into the Four Corners and began to eject as the day went on. Copious amounts of moisture pooling south of the OFB and along the dryline made the target easy. We set out with an initial starting point of Wichita Falls.
We arrived in Wichita Falls shortly after 20Z and looked over data. Convective initiation was already well under way further south past the I-20 corridor, well south of the advancing OFB. We struggled to make a decision due to uncertainties and a lack of solid analysis from certain persons and decided to stick it out further north and begin to drift towards Graham.
We first stopped north of Olney to assess as storms were rapidly going up along the dryline to our west. By this time, it had become apparent that the storm nearing Cisco would be producing in short order and we had no choice but to stick north as there was no way we were getting that far south in time.
We continued to drift south and eventually found ourselves north of Graham with a potential supercell beginning to take shape west of town. The storm initially looked good; with a large rounded base and solid updraft plume.
The storm had initially appeared healthy, but as its base drew closer, it became very apparent that it was struggling in the low levels. Ragged, unorganized rotation was evident, but never threatened to touch down. We had lucked out in finding a great spot to view it from, with hills on three sides except where the storm was coming from. Below was about the scariest it would look with a fakenado behind the cut.
We began to get forced back towards Graham as the storm continued ENE and began to note the unusually cold air pouring out of the storm. The outflow had to have been a full 25-30 degrees cooler than the ambient temperature. The features below exhibited almost no rotation as cold outflow continued to rush out of the storm.
After hustling back through Graham, we continued on US 380 east until we found a good overlook back towards Graham at some baseball fields southwest of Bryson. The storm did have an interesting look to it, but at best it was "kind of pretty". It's lowering was ragged and almost stationary to the naked eye. The storm began to rapidly elevate it's base.
Shortly after the last photo, we continued through Bryson before calling the chase and headed back to I-44. The storm completely collapsed and flattened out as we drove north, to the point where we ran into almost no precipitation on the way. After fuming for a few minutes in the backseat, it was eyes on the next round of setups coming exactly one week later.
Chase Stats
Miles Driven: 442.1
Cost: $40
Tornadoes: 0
Hail: None
Highest Winds: None
A tricky moderate risk chase day to say the least. Initially thought Wichita Falls would be sufficient as a target but ended up getting hamstrung by not bolting for the Cisco storm early, which would produce a slow-moving EF3 stovepipe. We wound up picking the middle storm for unknown reasons near Graham, TX and watched easily the least impressive supercell of the day slowly kill itself as it traipsed east through god awful terrain.This day would become more noted for the absolutely stunning tornadoes that occurred on the High Plains of Colorado near Eads, with the middle ground in OK/KS getting rained out as was tradition for 2015.
This day was the first chase opportunity that presented itself after I had fully finished exams. I had missed the Bridge Creek and other assorted tornadoes on May 6th due to a GIS exam as the supercell marched through Central Oklahoma and was desperate to get out. As was par for the course, morning convection created a messy and complex forecast scenario. Initial thinking was that the eastern TX Panhandle might be in play, but the MCS shown above took it out almost immediately. After analyzing data, it became a fast moving OFB was moving south past the Red River and would be in a prime location to possibly produce a few tornadic supercells. A deep trough was digging into the Four Corners and began to eject as the day went on. Copious amounts of moisture pooling south of the OFB and along the dryline made the target easy. We set out with an initial starting point of Wichita Falls.
We arrived in Wichita Falls shortly after 20Z and looked over data. Convective initiation was already well under way further south past the I-20 corridor, well south of the advancing OFB. We struggled to make a decision due to uncertainties and a lack of solid analysis from certain persons and decided to stick it out further north and begin to drift towards Graham.
We first stopped north of Olney to assess as storms were rapidly going up along the dryline to our west. By this time, it had become apparent that the storm nearing Cisco would be producing in short order and we had no choice but to stick north as there was no way we were getting that far south in time.
We continued to drift south and eventually found ourselves north of Graham with a potential supercell beginning to take shape west of town. The storm initially looked good; with a large rounded base and solid updraft plume.
The storm had initially appeared healthy, but as its base drew closer, it became very apparent that it was struggling in the low levels. Ragged, unorganized rotation was evident, but never threatened to touch down. We had lucked out in finding a great spot to view it from, with hills on three sides except where the storm was coming from. Below was about the scariest it would look with a fakenado behind the cut.
We began to get forced back towards Graham as the storm continued ENE and began to note the unusually cold air pouring out of the storm. The outflow had to have been a full 25-30 degrees cooler than the ambient temperature. The features below exhibited almost no rotation as cold outflow continued to rush out of the storm.
After hustling back through Graham, we continued on US 380 east until we found a good overlook back towards Graham at some baseball fields southwest of Bryson. The storm did have an interesting look to it, but at best it was "kind of pretty". It's lowering was ragged and almost stationary to the naked eye. The storm began to rapidly elevate it's base.
Shortly after the last photo, we continued through Bryson before calling the chase and headed back to I-44. The storm completely collapsed and flattened out as we drove north, to the point where we ran into almost no precipitation on the way. After fuming for a few minutes in the backseat, it was eyes on the next round of setups coming exactly one week later.
Chase Stats
Miles Driven: 442.1
Cost: $40
Tornadoes: 0
Hail: None
Highest Winds: None
Thursday, May 19, 2016
May 9 2016 South-Central Oklahoma Tornadoes
It's been a very busy spring so far between storms, school and work. Finally, here are my pictures from the SC Oklahoma tornadoes near Wynnewood, Sulphur and Bromide. I'm continuing to chip away at last season's chase logs so I can begin on this season's chase logs before I get too behind. Photos will be captioned below.
First view of the Katie-Wynnewood EF4 north of Wynnewood as it churns west of I-35
The tornado as it begins to enter it's ropeout phase crossing I-35. Sitting just east of Wynnewood.
The tornado begins to come undone completely with a massive barrel updraft and long inflow tail
The condensation funnel rapidly evaporates
The large mothership looming south of Wynnewood prior to the Sulphur wedge
The large Sulphur wedge about 4 miles north of Sulphur. Inflow was quite strong.
The entire updraft and wedge
Hard RFD cut with solid updraft tower and the low contrast wedge continuing to the east
The Bromide tornado shortly after touching down. Viewed from southeast of Hickory.
The tornado viewed from full zoom as it morphs into an elephant trunk
The ropeout stage begins
Displaying walled structure in the center
Rapidly breaking down after 7-8 minutes on the ground
A distant view to the north at the Norman LP
Arguably one of, if not the best chase days I've had. We saw four tornadoes in all. The Katie-Wynnewood tornado was initially rated as an EF3 before being upgraded to EF4. Both the Sulphur wedge and Bromide tornado were rated EF3.
Looking ahead, it looks like we have an active week of some less synoptically-evident severe setups starting Sunday on the High Plains. It should be a busy week so updates may be few and far between for the next 7-10 days.
Friday, May 6, 2016
April 24 2015 Chase Log
Summary
Insufficient time to get to the best target along the I-70 corridor near Hays and a crappy south target in northeast Texas lead to playing the middle in south-central Kansas. Extraordinarily strong upper level winds on the order of 110 knots coupled with meager instability lead to the only cells south of monster HP in Hays to get sheared over.
With two enhanced risks splitting Oklahoma, it became clear that northern Kansas was the place to be. Unfortunately, multiple time constraints due to the time of year (closing in on finals) forced us to improvise and attempt to play further down the dryline into south-central Kansas. We ended up getting a late start but gradually made our way from South Haven, up to Kingman and finally making our final stop in Pratt. The HP cell that produced the notable tornadoes of the day was already ongoing by the time we reached Pratt. We decided to sit and wait in the Pratt McDonald's as a few attempts at CI were ongoing.
Finally, a TCu managed to push through the strong winds aloft directly over Pratt. The storm began spitting out hail almost immediately and started drifting northeast at a pretty steady clip. We followed it northeast along KS-61 and watched it develop a small, rotund updraft base. Unfortunately, it was the best the storm would ever look.
As we drew closer to Preston, it was exceedingly clear that the updraft was struggling. Finally, near Langdon, the storm began to fall apart and withered away with it's anvil being blown off extremely far downstream.
We cut our losses and headed to get dinner in Hutchinson as a line of storms went up further west along the retreating dryline. We were treated to a nice lightning show on our traipse back south on 35 but got the added issue of hitting what appeared to be bits of an old wooden dresser just past Wellington, KS. It managed pinched the gas line of the car and made the most ungodly sound I've heard from a car while chasing. We thankfully limped back to Norman without issue.
Chase Stats
Miles Driven: 534
Cost: $35
Tornadoes: 0
Largest Hail: Dime (3/4")
Highest Winds: None
Insufficient time to get to the best target along the I-70 corridor near Hays and a crappy south target in northeast Texas lead to playing the middle in south-central Kansas. Extraordinarily strong upper level winds on the order of 110 knots coupled with meager instability lead to the only cells south of monster HP in Hays to get sheared over.
With two enhanced risks splitting Oklahoma, it became clear that northern Kansas was the place to be. Unfortunately, multiple time constraints due to the time of year (closing in on finals) forced us to improvise and attempt to play further down the dryline into south-central Kansas. We ended up getting a late start but gradually made our way from South Haven, up to Kingman and finally making our final stop in Pratt. The HP cell that produced the notable tornadoes of the day was already ongoing by the time we reached Pratt. We decided to sit and wait in the Pratt McDonald's as a few attempts at CI were ongoing.
Finally, a TCu managed to push through the strong winds aloft directly over Pratt. The storm began spitting out hail almost immediately and started drifting northeast at a pretty steady clip. We followed it northeast along KS-61 and watched it develop a small, rotund updraft base. Unfortunately, it was the best the storm would ever look.
As we drew closer to Preston, it was exceedingly clear that the updraft was struggling. Finally, near Langdon, the storm began to fall apart and withered away with it's anvil being blown off extremely far downstream.
We cut our losses and headed to get dinner in Hutchinson as a line of storms went up further west along the retreating dryline. We were treated to a nice lightning show on our traipse back south on 35 but got the added issue of hitting what appeared to be bits of an old wooden dresser just past Wellington, KS. It managed pinched the gas line of the car and made the most ungodly sound I've heard from a car while chasing. We thankfully limped back to Norman without issue.
Chase Stats
Miles Driven: 534
Cost: $35
Tornadoes: 0
Largest Hail: Dime (3/4")
Highest Winds: None
April 18, 2015 Chase Log
Summary
A promising dryline setup turns out to be an LP dud in far western Oklahoma. An extremely compact shortwave slowly dug into the southern Great Plains with a modest moisture fetch from the Gulf of Mexico in advance of a sharp dryline situated at the state line between Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle.
An enhanced risk was in place across from the Rio Grande up through far western Oklahoma and into northwest Kansas near Great Bend. While tornado chances appeared low, the possibility for scultped supercells was too good to pass up. We initially set a target of Mangum.
After departing down 40 west, we decided to adjust and stuck north of Mangum near Willow and watched the first attempts at convective initiation going up along the dryline near Erick. We slowly moved north as the towers began to anvil out.
Unfortunately, the moisture in the immediate vicinity of the dryline had begun to crater and LCLs began to skyrocket. We had two distinct updrafts with bases well above 1500m by the time we got our first view south of Sayre.
The strong ventilating winds at the anvil level coupled with the persistent moisture depth issues made the storms LP from the getgo. Almost no precip fell at any point at our vantage point even as we moved just to the north of the updraft. Eventually, both bases began to shrivel up and die leaving a substantial orphan anvil in it's wake.
Shortly thereafter, we decided to move back east on Oklahoma 152 to meet a cluster of storms coming out of the Wichitas. Unfortunately, the storms were extraordinarily outflow dominant and presented a meager shelf cloud with cold air streaming out east of Cordell.
Shortly thereafter, we decided to call the chase and began traipsing back east with the storms hot on our heels as we negotiated OK-152 to OK-37 back towards Norman.
Chase Stats
Miles Driven: 299
Cost: $15
Tornadoes: 0
Largest Hail: none
Highest Winds: 30 mph (estimated)
A promising dryline setup turns out to be an LP dud in far western Oklahoma. An extremely compact shortwave slowly dug into the southern Great Plains with a modest moisture fetch from the Gulf of Mexico in advance of a sharp dryline situated at the state line between Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle.
An enhanced risk was in place across from the Rio Grande up through far western Oklahoma and into northwest Kansas near Great Bend. While tornado chances appeared low, the possibility for scultped supercells was too good to pass up. We initially set a target of Mangum.
After departing down 40 west, we decided to adjust and stuck north of Mangum near Willow and watched the first attempts at convective initiation going up along the dryline near Erick. We slowly moved north as the towers began to anvil out.
Unfortunately, the moisture in the immediate vicinity of the dryline had begun to crater and LCLs began to skyrocket. We had two distinct updrafts with bases well above 1500m by the time we got our first view south of Sayre.
The strong ventilating winds at the anvil level coupled with the persistent moisture depth issues made the storms LP from the getgo. Almost no precip fell at any point at our vantage point even as we moved just to the north of the updraft. Eventually, both bases began to shrivel up and die leaving a substantial orphan anvil in it's wake.
Shortly thereafter, we decided to move back east on Oklahoma 152 to meet a cluster of storms coming out of the Wichitas. Unfortunately, the storms were extraordinarily outflow dominant and presented a meager shelf cloud with cold air streaming out east of Cordell.
Shortly thereafter, we decided to call the chase and began traipsing back east with the storms hot on our heels as we negotiated OK-152 to OK-37 back towards Norman.
Chase Stats
Miles Driven: 299
Cost: $15
Tornadoes: 0
Largest Hail: none
Highest Winds: 30 mph (estimated)
Sunday, May 1, 2016
First Tornado of the Season
Finally got on the board this previous Friday (April 29th) after a month and a half of chasing progressively better setups from March onward. An HP supercell that formed in Comanche County produced a brief multi-vortex tornado that we were able to view from just east of Cement as it traipsed northeast and wrapped up. I also saw some of the most intense inflow just off the deck that I've seen in years. Moisture was visibly streaming in from miles outside of the updraft.
While the tornado was brief and I didn't manage to get any salvageable pictures of it (It was twilight lighting at 4 PM CDT), it was nice to get the monkey off my back and enjoy a quick chase within an hour of Norman.
Looking ahead, the pattern begins to take a nosedive. 2016 so far has been notable for it's seeming lack of tornado/supercell productions on the Great Plains. Outside of the Eads, Colorado tornado and the Eva, Oklahoma tornadoes on April 15th, this year has been a pretty big letdown. The Plains look to go between systems in the next week and come under the influence of a cutoff low sitting in the center of a pretty persistent omega block. Funnily enough, after an open Gulf of Mexico the past week with rich moisture streaming all the way to Nebraska, we look to struggle to regain a foothold with respect to moisture content on the prairie. It's been a strange year and it looks like we might be waiting until the end of May into June to really get going.
While the tornado was brief and I didn't manage to get any salvageable pictures of it (It was twilight lighting at 4 PM CDT), it was nice to get the monkey off my back and enjoy a quick chase within an hour of Norman.
Looking ahead, the pattern begins to take a nosedive. 2016 so far has been notable for it's seeming lack of tornado/supercell productions on the Great Plains. Outside of the Eads, Colorado tornado and the Eva, Oklahoma tornadoes on April 15th, this year has been a pretty big letdown. The Plains look to go between systems in the next week and come under the influence of a cutoff low sitting in the center of a pretty persistent omega block. Funnily enough, after an open Gulf of Mexico the past week with rich moisture streaming all the way to Nebraska, we look to struggle to regain a foothold with respect to moisture content on the prairie. It's been a strange year and it looks like we might be waiting until the end of May into June to really get going.
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