3/18 & 3/19 Summary
Sorry for the blog delay. We are in the middle of a major Oracle upgrade/conversion at work. 8i/9i to 11i. In English: "Two bottles of Tylenol, mass quantities of alcohol, and long hours". :-)
Before I jump into my summary, check out this amazing story of a Missouri teen who traveled 1,307 feet in a tornado with only minor injury:
"Missouri teen survives ride in tornado". Yikes.
I spent last Saturday and Sunday hanging around SW TX looking for storms. The
models failed terribly with the upper system and corresponding surface
features...namely the warm front. That sucker never made it much past I-10
despite some model forecasts taking it to the Red River. Overall, it was yet
another dismal model performance even 24 hours out. I have a feeling that this
is going to be a bad trend for this chase season. The NAM is proving to be
about as reliable as a deck of Tarot cards and a Ouiji board. I might add
those to my forecasting tool chest this year. LOL!!
SATURDAY: My forecast target around Sonora was right on the money...although
the storms fired up after dark. If I hadn't been exhausted from the all-day
trip from McKinney (left at 7:30 that morning) along with the dangers of night
chasing combined with thick fog and numerous deer all over the place, I would
have chased them. :-) They looked great on radar and the NWS-SJT issued a TOR
on those cells as they approached Sonora.
SUNDAY: I played the warm front again which had sagged a little further south overnight. Again, Sonora was my spot to wait between my two target areas along the warm front...Junction to the east and Fort Stockton to the west. I thought the east target might pop from the small impulse brushing that area that produced the strong morning storms near San Angelo. The west target was a pretty good bet to fire storms with a dryline and being closer to the upper energy from the approaching trough. But, the thermodynamics weren't as good with higher LCLs likely. They would be marching along the warm front though and intersecting outflow boundary from earlier storms. The west target popped and I soon intercepted those cells east of Fort Stockton.
They were certainly high based alright, but it was early and they hadn't hit the warm front yet. When they did, they started cranking up to 77dBz and strongly rotating. I had no intention of core punching. Here is a radar image. I'm the dot in the white circle running away. :-) All of my gadgets were working well including GR3 which allowed me to watch them start wrapping up and producing tighter velocity couplets on the SRV1 scans. It was easy to tell that a TOR was about to be issued. I had about 10-15 minutes before that lovely purple polygon popped up on G3. :-) The "spinning donuts" were popping up all over the place on ThreatNet too. I was popping some storm wood. ;-)
I got around and up to 190 where I stayed with the stronger cell that was a real beast on radar. The velocity couplets were impressive and I just knew a tornado was going to form..esepcially as the LCLs quickly lowered. But, nada. There was too much cold air cutting under it. It certainly was trying though. The cool part was that the warm front was about 5-10 miles to the south. The entire sky was moving towards the center point of the meso right along the warm front....like spokes on a bike wheel. You could make out the outflow boundary, warm front, storm outflow, storm inflow, etc. quite nicely. That was pretty wild.
After teaming up with one of the local spotters/Firefighters, we kept driving east and heard chaser reports of hen-egg sized hail. I was wondering who in the heck that might be until I saw David Drummond and Graham Butler along with Bob Schafer in his Porsche coming east on 190 from the teeth of the storm. LOL!! I caught up to them later and we briefly chatted and "flashed" our chaser gang signs at each other and joked around about my being there to represent "Those Damned Tulsa Chasers". LOL!!
David and Graham expressed a business offer of "getting a piece of the action" and oversee West Texas and the Panhandle for the "Tulsa Family". I agreed to present this proposal to the "Administration" whom I think will heartily approve. So, now "The West Texas Banditos", "The North Texas Largemouths" (of which I'm the Capo), and "Those Damned Tulsa Chasers" pretty much have the southern plains covered. Soon, there will be road blocks setup on the roads leading to storms manned by "Guido" and "Bruno". They'll be demanding "stormchaser union dues" for passage. Failure to pay up will result in bent antennas and broken anemometer cups. Capeche? :-) (<<< this is all a joke, folks...so stop typing that nasty blog entry, ok?)
It was tough to stay and chat for more than 30 seconds because this storm was bowing out right at us. They broke off and headed further south towards the better looking storms well south of I-10. I continued east on 190 thinking the storms were turning into big HP hosers. I got east of Eldorado and the TVS sigs went off again on a cell just to my north. The SRV1 tightened up again and as I could crest a hill and look, pronounced inflow bands were present feeding into the area of concern. But, no lowering that I could make it. It sooon dissipated.
I continued the long drive back home afte that though moderate to heavy rain. Fun. All up 377 too...no interstates. It took me forever and I was quite the tired dog when I made it. But, overall, a decent trip. My itching for an extended road trip though has been thoroughly relieved. LOL!!
Some pics:
I've never seen such a large roost of buzzards before. There must be nearly 100 of them on this radio antenna. I looked closely for members of my fan club, but I remembered that they roost elsewhere. ;-) Seriously though, can you imagine a big CG bolt lighting this thing up? Buzzard Pot Pie for everybody.
I stopped by and told them to behave and stop their nuclear program.
I succeeded in thwarting another turkey kamakazi attack on my vehicle. Run away!
We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto. This is I-10 west of Ozona.
The beast approaches.
Look closely. No...more closely. You can discern a precip hook forming around the center of the meso using the hills as depth/distance perception. It's easier to see with the big picture. (<<< pun alert)
This is as good as it got on Sunday visually. This is the "center point" I was telling you about. I'm looking south. The broad rotation was impressive.
A bonus set of photos!! These are from March 20 just across the Red River near Durant. I had raced north after work still tired from the weekend marathon. So, I had no chance to have fun with the cold core naders. But, some nice photo ops.
Before I jump into my summary, check out this amazing story of a Missouri teen who traveled 1,307 feet in a tornado with only minor injury:
"Missouri teen survives ride in tornado". Yikes.
I spent last Saturday and Sunday hanging around SW TX looking for storms. The
models failed terribly with the upper system and corresponding surface
features...namely the warm front. That sucker never made it much past I-10
despite some model forecasts taking it to the Red River. Overall, it was yet
another dismal model performance even 24 hours out. I have a feeling that this
is going to be a bad trend for this chase season. The NAM is proving to be
about as reliable as a deck of Tarot cards and a Ouiji board. I might add
those to my forecasting tool chest this year. LOL!!
SATURDAY: My forecast target around Sonora was right on the money...although
the storms fired up after dark. If I hadn't been exhausted from the all-day
trip from McKinney (left at 7:30 that morning) along with the dangers of night
chasing combined with thick fog and numerous deer all over the place, I would
have chased them. :-) They looked great on radar and the NWS-SJT issued a TOR
on those cells as they approached Sonora.
SUNDAY: I played the warm front again which had sagged a little further south overnight. Again, Sonora was my spot to wait between my two target areas along the warm front...Junction to the east and Fort Stockton to the west. I thought the east target might pop from the small impulse brushing that area that produced the strong morning storms near San Angelo. The west target was a pretty good bet to fire storms with a dryline and being closer to the upper energy from the approaching trough. But, the thermodynamics weren't as good with higher LCLs likely. They would be marching along the warm front though and intersecting outflow boundary from earlier storms. The west target popped and I soon intercepted those cells east of Fort Stockton.
They were certainly high based alright, but it was early and they hadn't hit the warm front yet. When they did, they started cranking up to 77dBz and strongly rotating. I had no intention of core punching. Here is a radar image. I'm the dot in the white circle running away. :-) All of my gadgets were working well including GR3 which allowed me to watch them start wrapping up and producing tighter velocity couplets on the SRV1 scans. It was easy to tell that a TOR was about to be issued. I had about 10-15 minutes before that lovely purple polygon popped up on G3. :-) The "spinning donuts" were popping up all over the place on ThreatNet too. I was popping some storm wood. ;-)
I got around and up to 190 where I stayed with the stronger cell that was a real beast on radar. The velocity couplets were impressive and I just knew a tornado was going to form..esepcially as the LCLs quickly lowered. But, nada. There was too much cold air cutting under it. It certainly was trying though. The cool part was that the warm front was about 5-10 miles to the south. The entire sky was moving towards the center point of the meso right along the warm front....like spokes on a bike wheel. You could make out the outflow boundary, warm front, storm outflow, storm inflow, etc. quite nicely. That was pretty wild.
After teaming up with one of the local spotters/Firefighters, we kept driving east and heard chaser reports of hen-egg sized hail. I was wondering who in the heck that might be until I saw David Drummond and Graham Butler along with Bob Schafer in his Porsche coming east on 190 from the teeth of the storm. LOL!! I caught up to them later and we briefly chatted and "flashed" our chaser gang signs at each other and joked around about my being there to represent "Those Damned Tulsa Chasers". LOL!!
David and Graham expressed a business offer of "getting a piece of the action" and oversee West Texas and the Panhandle for the "Tulsa Family". I agreed to present this proposal to the "Administration" whom I think will heartily approve. So, now "The West Texas Banditos", "The North Texas Largemouths" (of which I'm the Capo), and "Those Damned Tulsa Chasers" pretty much have the southern plains covered. Soon, there will be road blocks setup on the roads leading to storms manned by "Guido" and "Bruno". They'll be demanding "stormchaser union dues" for passage. Failure to pay up will result in bent antennas and broken anemometer cups. Capeche? :-) (<<< this is all a joke, folks...so stop typing that nasty blog entry, ok?)
It was tough to stay and chat for more than 30 seconds because this storm was bowing out right at us. They broke off and headed further south towards the better looking storms well south of I-10. I continued east on 190 thinking the storms were turning into big HP hosers. I got east of Eldorado and the TVS sigs went off again on a cell just to my north. The SRV1 tightened up again and as I could crest a hill and look, pronounced inflow bands were present feeding into the area of concern. But, no lowering that I could make it. It sooon dissipated.
I continued the long drive back home afte that though moderate to heavy rain. Fun. All up 377 too...no interstates. It took me forever and I was quite the tired dog when I made it. But, overall, a decent trip. My itching for an extended road trip though has been thoroughly relieved. LOL!!
Some pics:
I've never seen such a large roost of buzzards before. There must be nearly 100 of them on this radio antenna. I looked closely for members of my fan club, but I remembered that they roost elsewhere. ;-) Seriously though, can you imagine a big CG bolt lighting this thing up? Buzzard Pot Pie for everybody.
I stopped by and told them to behave and stop their nuclear program.
I succeeded in thwarting another turkey kamakazi attack on my vehicle. Run away!
We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto. This is I-10 west of Ozona.
The beast approaches.
Look closely. No...more closely. You can discern a precip hook forming around the center of the meso using the hills as depth/distance perception. It's easier to see with the big picture. (<<< pun alert)
This is as good as it got on Sunday visually. This is the "center point" I was telling you about. I'm looking south. The broad rotation was impressive.
A bonus set of photos!! These are from March 20 just across the Red River near Durant. I had raced north after work still tired from the weekend marathon. So, I had no chance to have fun with the cold core naders. But, some nice photo ops.
posted by Steve Miller TX at 3/26/2006 10:18:00 PM
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