March 30th Recap
Pics will be uploaded later to my main website. Here are some radar grabs I just uploaded: Click here. (I'm the little white circle)
It didn't end up being the big outbreak as everybody expected of which I as part of the chorus. I was totally stunned not to see anything happen at all in N OK after one cell fired and went TOR earlier in the day. I'm still puzzled over that one.
I finally made it to Tatums, OK yesterday and intercepted the TOR warned storm there. It had already produced a couple of tornadoes that Shane Adams caught while I was passing through Ardmore. It wouldn't produce anymore after that. Arrrg. it certainly tried though, but seemed to get undercut. All of the storms yesterday exhibited a distinct corkscrew appearance on radar...pretty cool. It seemed that the NWerly flow in the upper levels was spreading some precip and anvil debris SEward while storms were E to NE resulting in storms moving into their own precip-cooled airmass...a bit odd.
I followed that cell all the way to Roff, OK before giving up the weaker looking storms. I finally got a look at the updrafts which were all mushy. A good data interrogation drew me back to the Red River where storms were intensifying along the boundary there and were lining up more W to E with strong southerly flow feeding into them at a perpendicular angle....sort of force feeding them. I LOVE these types of setups, so I got down there as fast and safely as I could while navigating the hail cores on I-35 just north of Big Red. It's nice to have live radar with a GPS overlay. :-)
I saw a storm erupting over Montague county that was more isolated than the cluster to it's NE as well as seeming to come in a tad further south than the previous storm tracks riding up along those outflow boundaries. I also saw on surface plots that the low level winds were really roaring into these storms. Nice!! As I got south of Big Red near the Gainesville Outlet Mall, I was treated to some gorgeous storm structure...a rounded stacked plate updraft base with a nice beaver tail and mid level inflow bands. After that, it got fun as the inflow really increased and became stout.
I stayed with it as a TOR was issued on it...and right over my family's houses NE of Whitesboro. Yikes! I had warned them earlier when the baseball hail was being reported and I could see the rotation on G3 tightening up. I filmed an ominous lowering and wall cloud and tracked it to Sherman where I filmed some very rapid rotation that quickly tightened up right over the city...eerie to see the structure lit up from the city lights. It quickly got undercut and chased it about another 20 miles to the east filming the wall cloud along the way.
I broke off as I saw yet another upstream storm erupting south of Gainesville in similar fashion..a tad south of previous storms....riding right along those outflow boundaries. I got west of Gunter and was treated to an even more incredible structure view. I took some stills which I hope come out. This one soon got a TOR with good rotation couplets on it. I was all over this one too following it east of Van Alstyne. Ominous wall clouds again are all that I saw with one big green powerflash at one point.
No tornadoes, but I was in great positions most of the entire chase very close to the rotation couplets and the bears' cage. I'll give myself an A for effort. I still had a blast though and look forward to more of it this weekend!!
The end. :-) On a sidenote, my vx-2100 got a big hickie on it as it was victimized by the strong inflow winds while sitting on the tripod. Like an idiot, I left it to get something out of the car and "thud". Ouch. It's seems to be ok though outside the cosmetic hickie.
More fun possibly later today, but especially on Saturday and maybe Sunday!!!
It didn't end up being the big outbreak as everybody expected of which I as part of the chorus. I was totally stunned not to see anything happen at all in N OK after one cell fired and went TOR earlier in the day. I'm still puzzled over that one.
I finally made it to Tatums, OK yesterday and intercepted the TOR warned storm there. It had already produced a couple of tornadoes that Shane Adams caught while I was passing through Ardmore. It wouldn't produce anymore after that. Arrrg. it certainly tried though, but seemed to get undercut. All of the storms yesterday exhibited a distinct corkscrew appearance on radar...pretty cool. It seemed that the NWerly flow in the upper levels was spreading some precip and anvil debris SEward while storms were E to NE resulting in storms moving into their own precip-cooled airmass...a bit odd.
I followed that cell all the way to Roff, OK before giving up the weaker looking storms. I finally got a look at the updrafts which were all mushy. A good data interrogation drew me back to the Red River where storms were intensifying along the boundary there and were lining up more W to E with strong southerly flow feeding into them at a perpendicular angle....sort of force feeding them. I LOVE these types of setups, so I got down there as fast and safely as I could while navigating the hail cores on I-35 just north of Big Red. It's nice to have live radar with a GPS overlay. :-)
I saw a storm erupting over Montague county that was more isolated than the cluster to it's NE as well as seeming to come in a tad further south than the previous storm tracks riding up along those outflow boundaries. I also saw on surface plots that the low level winds were really roaring into these storms. Nice!! As I got south of Big Red near the Gainesville Outlet Mall, I was treated to some gorgeous storm structure...a rounded stacked plate updraft base with a nice beaver tail and mid level inflow bands. After that, it got fun as the inflow really increased and became stout.
I stayed with it as a TOR was issued on it...and right over my family's houses NE of Whitesboro. Yikes! I had warned them earlier when the baseball hail was being reported and I could see the rotation on G3 tightening up. I filmed an ominous lowering and wall cloud and tracked it to Sherman where I filmed some very rapid rotation that quickly tightened up right over the city...eerie to see the structure lit up from the city lights. It quickly got undercut and chased it about another 20 miles to the east filming the wall cloud along the way.
I broke off as I saw yet another upstream storm erupting south of Gainesville in similar fashion..a tad south of previous storms....riding right along those outflow boundaries. I got west of Gunter and was treated to an even more incredible structure view. I took some stills which I hope come out. This one soon got a TOR with good rotation couplets on it. I was all over this one too following it east of Van Alstyne. Ominous wall clouds again are all that I saw with one big green powerflash at one point.
No tornadoes, but I was in great positions most of the entire chase very close to the rotation couplets and the bears' cage. I'll give myself an A for effort. I still had a blast though and look forward to more of it this weekend!!
The end. :-) On a sidenote, my vx-2100 got a big hickie on it as it was victimized by the strong inflow winds while sitting on the tripod. Like an idiot, I left it to get something out of the car and "thud". Ouch. It's seems to be ok though outside the cosmetic hickie.
More fun possibly later today, but especially on Saturday and maybe Sunday!!!
posted by Steve Miller TX at 3/31/2006 06:19:00 AM
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