Tuesday 17 May 2011

Active Period & Down Days







Tuesday 17th May finally starts to see some storms firing once again, not a great risk due to meagre moisture but some Colorado magic could be in the offing today with some high based beauties. Wednesday gets better still in the Oklahoma Panhandle and Thursday and Friday look great at the moment. Leading up to these days we went to the Palo Druro Canyon for some walking.........(YES WALKING) Haha





Sunday 15 May 2011

Thursday 12th May 2011 - SW Missouri







Left Dodge City early with a chase target of Joplin (Missouri) with a decent chance of some Supercells. Storms would fire on a cold front across Eastern Kansas and North East Oklahoma and drift NNE Towards us. We got onto a nice developing storm in SE Kansas near Pittsburgh and it developed rapidly into a Classic Supercell, we chase this for around an hour before letting it go, another 5 Supercells were lined up to our South West so we dipped down and sampled a few before darkness, most were outflow dominant but one just east of Joplin had a decent wall cloud and attempted getting the job done, unfortunately there was just not enough low level shear today, we let one of the storms hit our location and were treated to some close Cg Bolts, followed this east and let the line overrun us in Springfield where we spent the night.

Tuesday 10 May 2011

Tuesday 10th May - Slight Risk TX/OK

Going to dabble along the dryline today and see if any magic can be found in an area bounded by Lawton to Lubbuck to Abilene. After that it is back to Dallas Fort Worth for the changeover and then a tasty Dryline day in Kansas and Oklahoma

Sunday 8 May 2011

Sat 7th May - Elevated Stuff!







Early saturday 7th May would yield some elevated thunderstorms moving through the Western Missouri area so stayed the night in Joplin and everyone went to bed at 10pm in readiness for a small 3 hour window from 3-6am for lightning opportunities. The results were spectacular.

Friday 6 May 2011

Severe Weather Looks Like Returning

But only briefly it seems............The dry lean spell is starting to kill us over here, days of blue skies and paltry Uk style storms just not hitting the buttons. Sunday 8th May sees our first decent shot at the start of what should be an active 5 day pattern, Western Oklahoma and Western North Texas looking good at the moment for Sunday along a sharp dryline, will be using tomorrow (Sat 7th) to get into position for this event.

Monday 2 May 2011

Saturday 30th April 2011 - Texas







Absolutely great chase day for our first day. We started in DFW & I had a prelimary chase target of between Sulphur Springs and Mount Pleasant in NE Texas. This would put us firmly in the warm sector and in the best area for rotating storms. At 6pm things were not looking great but a few cells fired south of us near Tyler and a massive hailstorm near Dallas. I chose to go for the cell to our SSW Which was in the much better environment for Tornadoes, on route to the storm a Tornado watch was issued and our now supercell was strengthening. Upon getting to Gilmore we went west to intercept the NE Moving Storm about 15 miles further down Highway 49. Then took a SW Option to run along the SE Quadrant of the Storm. The terrain was shocking with Pine Trees and few views, so we needed a bit of luck. I got to a crossroads and blasted back North and finally a better view to our South west came. The Supercell now did a hard right turn throwing its forward flank behind us and leaving us perfectly in the Hook for about 20 minutes. We started to take sporadic Golfball sized hail and an amazing Bears Cage rained down Cg Bolts on the road in front of us. At this time the rotation was becoming crazy with a solid wall cloud about 2 miles to our West. Numerous Funnel clouds came down and rapid rising motion behind a row of trees looked like a Multi Vortex was on the ground although we could not confirm at the time, wrapping rain curtains were moving from SW To NE At high speed. I positioned us further South and again rapid rotation was literally on the road in front of us. By now darkness was starting to fall so Lightning became the our main goal.....or so we thought. Upon racing back east and then North we came along highway 281 and had a close shave with the Hughes Springs Tornado which crossed our road about 300 yds in front of us bending trees over and sending horizontal rain across the road, we fled south and got hit by the RFD, The tornado continued east and hit Hughes Springs and Dangerfield. We then blasted up the west side of the cell with the Tornado to our east and upon entering Pittsburg we got attacked by another New Cell which started raining down Cg's on us, getting stuck at Traffic lights was not a good option Lol. We then moved east to stay at Texarkana for the night with some very happy people.