May 5th took us to northwest Texas to play a volatile boundary with high CAPE and moisture, but limited low level shear. A supercell formed along a boundary near Breckenridge, Texas and exploded as it tracked slowly southeast. It spun wildly, tried to produce a tornado a few times, but ended up being a nicely structured supercell with gigantic hail. We destroyed our windshield in the storm near Strawn with softball sized hail being quite common. Click on the video link below for a wild hail video.
May 1, 2009 Stamford, Texas Supercells
May 1st kept us in northern Texas playing a high CAPE/fairly low shear day. We had strongly deviant moving supercells with pretty structure, tornado warned but never did produce much, other than large hail, a funnel and heavy rain. Still, two very pretty structured supercells were observed.
April 29, 2009 Cedar Hill, Texas Tornadoes
April 29th took me to the Texas panhandle. Several severe storms developed along an old outflow boundary and warm front. Many spun strongly and a couple produced tornadoes. We were able to intercept the Cedar Hill storm and tornadoes from a distance of about 10 miles. We actually were chasing a tornado warned supercell just east of the Cedar Hill storm, when I saw the tornado form to our west. Due to poor road options, and muddy dirt roads, we were forced to stay east and watch from a distance.
April 28, 2009 Carlsbad, New Mexico Supercell
April 28th took me to southwest Texas and southeast New Mexico to chase upslope storms. By late afternoon such a supercell developed near the Guadalupe mountains and tracked eastward along the Texas/New Mexico border towards Jal. The storm had pretty structure and was tornado warned for a long period of time. There may have been a brief tornado but we were too far away due to poor roads to confirm it. The storm produced large hail and tons of lightning.
April 26, 2009 Roger Mills County, Oklahoma
April 26th had outbreak written all over it. SPC upgraded to High Risk and issued several PDS tornado watch boxes. Problems seemed to start with storm mode as things would develop and become a bit stretched out and eventually linear. By late afternoon a nice pinch point developed along I-40 over the far eastern Texas panhandle. Storms fired, spun quickly and became tornado warned. We intercepted 2 tornadoes near the town of Crawford and we came very very close to the second larger tornado. Close enough to smell the tornado and feel your ears pop. Click on the link below for a video (beware of LARGE file size!) and the small photos for larger images.
First 25 days of April, 2009
This is a collection of photos from storms I chased during the first 25 days of April. They are at various locations as shown with each photo’s caption.
March 23, 2009 Arkansas City, KS Tornadoes
March 23rd was a day full of strong dynamics but limited moisture/instability. My plan was to head to the I-35 corridor south of Wichita and play where the best moisture/instability intersected the dryline. We caught a nice supercell, albeit high based near Kingman, KS which was severe, produced tons of hail and had a respectable wall cloud. However, the best storm of the day would form south of Enid, Ok and move into the Arkansas City, Kansas area by late afternoon and produce two fairly weak tornadoes. The structure of the storm was by far better than I had anticipated. Later, we dropped into the Oklahoma City area to play the tail end storms for lightning. We weren’t disappointed.
March 7, 2009 Hutchinson, Kansas Tornadic Supercell
March 7th was a day of decent kinematics, but limited moisture. Nonetheless, intense supercell storms formed along the triple point in south central Kansas and intensified as they moved northeast through the instability axis. Most of these storms had decent structure and rotation, with several tornado reports occurring around the Hutchinson area. We intercepted on tornadic storm and several other rotating nicely structured supercells.
February 10, 2009 Texas/Oklahoma Supercells and Tornadoes
February 10th was a surprise set up for this early in the year. Moisture surging northward into southern Oklahoma and north Texas, with strong heating ahead of the dryline and advancing upper level system would set the stage for significant convection this day. We ended up near the Wichita Falls, Texas area via Oklahoma by 4 PM to find the action farther north near and north of Oklahoma City. Storms farther south were fairly linear as strong forcing along the dryline was occurring. We stayed put, near Henrietta, Texas in hope for something to fire ahead of the line or at the tail end, and move into an environment conducive to rotating storms. We were not disappointed. A cluster of towering cumulus developed ahead of the line south of Bowie, Texas, and matured into a magnificent supercell that produced a tornado near Ringgold, Texas. As it crossed the Red River north of St Jo, TX I got a great shot of the developing wedge that would later cause the death and destruction in Lone Grove, Oklahoma. Very successful first chase of the year, but with sad results of the EF4 tornado tearing through Lone Grove.
