Sunday 28 June 2015

Monday 18th May 2015 - Permian Basin (Texas)

Today we started the day in DFW and with the girls on the trip opting to sit this one out 7 of us decided the gamble way out around 400 miles to the Trans Pecos region was worth it and were rewarded with a desert Tornado near Coyonosa and a stunning High based structured Supercell that became briefly surface based in the early evening, the most dangerous part of this chase was the extreme flooding in the Permian Basin and the danger of being washed off the road.

The forecast today was spot on and we got onto the only Supercell near the town of Pecos that was drifting slowly South East. We had a good position on this storm near Coyonosa near Highway 385 and watched as it gained a Tornado Warning, rotation was observed and was very weak at first but this storm was starting to get some really nice structure so we kept south east of it and watched its every move.


Above :- Classic Supercell over Coyonosa (Texas)

The Storm transitioned from Classic to HP And back to Classic numerous times and inflow was very good for all its life cycle. The next shot we got before we saw a brief Tornado near Coyonosa was in a HP Supercell stage below!


Above :- Love finding random abandoned objects like this whilst out chasing.

After the above picture was taken we stopped along the south road and looked back to the north and watched a brown dust plume lifted into the air connect with the very briefest of funnels above and a 45 second Tornado was in progress. The next part of the chase was by far the scariest though and seeing as we needed to be in Dallas to drop the guests at the end of Tour 1 our only route was back North through the Hail and where the Supercell had been sat for nearly 4 hours. So it was back north towards Coyonosa we went, along the way we witnessed downed power lines where the Tornado had crossed the road, we then got to the part of the road where nearly 3" of rain had fallen and had to negotiate some really badly flooded roads, at times I really thought we were going to be spending the night in the Desert such was the speed and force of the flood waters washing the roads away in front of us, luckily we followed a large lorry through and got out, the next 6 hours was spent following the storms to the Dallas area along I20.


Above :- Rising waters turned the desert into a sea.


Above :- Us and numerous other Chasers stuck in rising flood waters.

Below ;- SPC Reports for this day.

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/reports/150518_rpts.html

Saturday 16th May 2015 - SW Oklahoma (Moderate Risk)

Started today in Salina after a few down days and all preceding days were pointing to Central Kansas as the main risk zone, SPC Kept the 10% Tornado Risk over that area but it was clear that a morning MCS Was killing this zone and quickly, the other 10% Tornado risk was firmly on track though in SW Oklahoma with clear skies allowing the atmosphere ample time to recover. We initially drove west towards Elk City to a broken line of Supercells that had already produced a Tornado down near Childress and probably dallied a bit too long on this line before committing to the tail end charlie which was now moving into Oklahoma along the Red River Valley. After finally committing to this storm a large wedge tornado was already in process near Tipton and after punching through the FFD And down the eastern side we had to do a hasty backtrack near Seymour as Baseball hail was coming at us at quite a rate. We headed back east towards Lawton stopping for amazing structure of this now HP Supercell, the storm recycled one more time for us to glimpse a brief Tornado which we have on Video near Geronimo (OK) But all in all a very disappointing day given the overall set-up.


Above :- HP Supercell just west of Lawton after it had produced a wedge near Tipton (Oklahoma)

Below :- SPC Reports for this Day.

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/reports/150516_rpts.html

Tuesday 13th May 2015 - West Central Texas

Todays risk was only Marginal but turned out a lot better than expected with a very nice Tornado warned Storm near Blackwell which is just west of San Angelo, terrain and roads around here are a big issue with lots of small scrub trees and winding roads. We set up just west of San Angelo and got onto a broken line of Supercells, the 3rd in that line turned right very near our location and attained a decent level of low level rotation and duly went tornado warned near Blackwell. The Cg lightning barrage was quite intense near a wind farm and after tracking it near to San Angelo and the storm just not getting the job done we got in front of it as it congealed into an MCS Mess and let it roll over the Hotel.


Above :- Our position denoted by the white circle next to the rotation and just in the tornado warning


Above :- As close as the Supercell got to producing a Tornado near San Angelo.

Below :- SPC Reports for the day

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/reports/150513_rpts.html

Saturday 9th May 2015 - Western Kansas

Day 1 proper of the 2015 Tours and starting in DFW With a general Target of Western Kansas and Eastern Colorado was always going to be tough to get to, as it turned out Colorado had an amazing tornadofest with tornadoes pictured going through rainbows etc. After getting to Liberal at lunchtime I noted an amazing clearing coming through the Palmer divide and SE Colorado, this would be the catalyst for North moving Supercells around the Lamar and Cheyenne Wells area that would go onto produce numerous picturesque Tornadoes, sadly just out of reach for us, but we stuck with a nice Supercell in Western Kansas that would eventually go onto produce twin tornadoes after dark near Colby and Oakley, A nice way to start the 2015 season if not a bit annoying to miss the main show during daylight over Eastern Colorado.



Above :- Supercell that would go onto produce twin Tornadoes near Colby and Oakley in Kansas.

Have a video grab of the Multi Vortex Bowl Tornado with satelite Cone Tornado on my facebook page.

Below SPC Reports For That Day

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/reports/150509_rpts.html

Friday 26 June 2015

Thursday 7th May 2015 - N Central Texas

Arrived on time and picked up and kitted out the cars on the 6th May just as what would turn out to be Oklahoma's biggest Outbreak of the year was ongoing, hopefully NOT a sign of what would become the 2015 season. Today was in our favour for a local test chase for me and Ian to see how the equipment would work again around the DFW Area, so we set off up the 287 towards Wichita Falls and chased some marginal Supercells for a few hours making sure the Data Pucks and streaming were working, during our chase the 3rd member of Staff had landed (Tom) and we started to make our way back towards the Fort Worth area, just as we did so Supercells around the I20 Corridor started to look much more interesting and one near Decatur gained some decent rotation and went Tornado Warned. So just south of Decatur we watched a rotating wall cloud go directly over our heads and then put down a brief Tornado just to the east of Decatur, poor road option stopped us from viewing the now large cone tornado anymore as it headed towards Krum and Gainsville but not a bad start to the season with a Tornado in the bag already!


Above :- HP Supercell just South of Wichita Fallas


Above :- Strongly Rotating Wall Cloud just South East of Decatur (Tx) before it put down a large Cone Tornado.

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/reports/150507_rpts.html

Link above to SPC Storm Reports for the day including our Tornado 3 Miles SE Of Decatur