April 26th Central Texas Incredible Supercell and Multiple Tornadoes

Day Five of the Close Encounters Tour produced the best event of this young season so far! A triple point supercell formed southeast of Abilene, Texas, and moved along the warm front producing a couple tornadoes, amazing structure and grapefruit sized hail. A second supercell evolved near Dublin, Texas and became the tornadic beast of the day traveling along the warm front as well, all the way to south of Dallas by midnight. We witnessed several tornadoes from this storm, amazing structure and inflow winds over 60 mph! Crazy, wild night for us!

April 24th Northern Kansas Tornadic Supercell

Day Three of Close Encounters had good potential in Texas and Kansas. We chose to chase the triple point near Hays. The first tornado warned storm formed right near Hays and failed to produce. A second storm formed just northeast and became the storm off the day. We witnessed a couple brief tornadoes (although one we couldn’t get a visual on actually was fairly significant!) and watched the superb structure of this supercell as it traversed the warm front of hours!

April 22nd Texas Panhandle Supercells and Tornado

Day One of the Close Encounters tour didn’t disappoint! A triple point southwest of Amarillo would foster the first significant tornado warned supercell of the day. Fairly limited low level moisture resulting in higher cloud bases, diminished the tornado threat. The first storm rolled across the panhandle all afternoon before weakening. Low and behold, another supercell formed southeast of Lubbock near the town of Lockney and had amazing structure and even produced a weak tornado we were able to witness. Fun day, and a great finish to it!

April 16th Texas Panhandle Tornado and Supercell

April 16th had good potential, but a tad limited moisture. Mid 50s dewpoints raced north on a strong low level jet and storms exploded on the dryline by mid afternoon. We interecepted the southernmost cell not far from Groom, Texas. Appearing outflow dominant and linear, we pushed ahead of it and watched as the tail end updraft become a rotating beast and produced a tornado. As the storm continued northeast, the structure was quite pretty as it tried again to produce several times, but just couldn’t stay focused long enough for that to occur. Overall, beautiful supercell and a great chase!

April 11th Southwest Kansas Tornado Warned Supercell

We got to chase close to home on April 11th, with storms developing in southeast Colorado off the Raton Mesa. As they moved east into southwest Kansas, deeper moisture and increasing instability resulted in an intense supercell forming which produced baseball sized hail and had incredible inflow winds. It came close to producing a tornado as well before diminishing after dark.

March 25th Central Oklahoma Tornadic Supercells

The first chase day for us for 2015! After a long drive from Denver, Caryn and Roger ended up near Stillwater, Oklahoma where several storms developed. Following the first supercell towards Tulsa, which weakened, we dropped southwest towards Moore, Oklahoma to catch this highly striated supercell at the tail end of a line. This storm produced another damaging tornado in Moore, which had been hit several times by violent tornadoes in the past 15 years.

July 18, 2014 – Western Kansas Tornadic Supercell

An amazing supercell with a landspout tornado was witnessed this day. We started the day in Denver and didn’t have far to go as storms exploded along a dryline/outflow boundary intersection in northwest Kansas. Good shear, moisture and instability allowed a rare mid July supercell to develop. We were on this storm from the time it was a towering cumulus cloud. The structure was fantastic. It also became quite electrified as it right turned due south towards Goodland, Kansas. By dark it was sparking away and still going. This storm also produced baseball sized hail along its path!

July 16, 2014 – Texas Panhandle Tornadic Supercell

Usually in July our Great North Tornado Hunt is in the Dakotas and even Canada, but not this year. July 16th was a pretty decent set up south with respectable moisture, instability and shear for this late. Storms formed along a dryline in the western Texas panhandle and also along an old outflow boundary in the northern panhandle. It was the latter storms that were the best, becoming tornado warned and producing a weak EF0 tornado that destroyed a barn. Structure was very nice and the lightning as well! Guests enjoyed this storm immensely !

June 27, 2014 – Southwest Kansas Supercell and Landspout Tornado

June 27th had decent potential with a dryline extending along the Kansas/Colorado border, with moisture pooling east of it. Moisture however never did get very deep and the result was large temperature and dewpoint spreads resulting in high cloud bases. However with steep lapse rates in place and developing storms along the boundary, a decent supercell formed with a weak landspout in its initial stages. We got what we figured we would with this set up and everyone was excited with the results!

June 18, 2014 Central South Dakota Tornado Outbreak

June 18th was an incredible day in South Dakota! Superb moisture, instability and shear was moving northwest from Nebraska and pooled along a cold front. By mid afternoon numerous storms formed along the boundary and merged into a squall line. This was a bit disheartening to see, but we stayed with the tail end and eventually, as the better shear arrived, supercells formed and produced at least 8 tornadoes we witnessed including a couple of strong tornadoes near Wessington Springs, SD. These storms were amazingly electrified and had great structure as well. We had two different times when we had 2 tornadoes on the ground together. The final set of twins were the last two tornadoes of the event and very photogenic. What an amazing 3 day period we had, were we witnessed nearly 15 tornadoes!

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