Chase Follies - April 21
What a wild day in the TX PH. As I posted yesterday, my original target was Amarillo to Plainview and I should have stuck with it. Hindsight is always 20/20. At least I didn't sleep through it thanks to Jay and Kanani who fortunately stopped by and knocked on the door. :-)
We decided to head down to Hereford and check things when we got there. We soon had some storms repidly erupting around us and quickly intensifying. We kept talking about heading south and decided it wouldn't hurt to play with these cells before we headed south to a larger storm developing and moving towards Lamb County.....which would be the monster to eventually hit Tulia. There's something to be said with a small, focused area of incredible diffluence at 300mb, eh?
After we briefly chased after one cell racing north out of Hereford, I saw another cell rapidly developing south near Dimmit and moving towards us. A quick analysis of all reflectivity tilts showed this would be a serious storm. We made it to Hereford just in time to take shelter from the hail up to the size of ping pongs. As we were there, the radar indicated pronounced rotation at tilt 2 and 3. At about that time, the town's sirens went off. Eerie.
A tornado warning was issued. The rotation couplet was pretty close, but just off to our west. The storm's base was still high and we could never discern any rotation in the base...even though the SRV tilts 2 and 3 were pretty impressive....nothing hardly at all on tilt 1. We then took in after it as it raced off to the north. We watched some pretty good lowering to the base and soon some pretty interesting chaotic motions. However, the storm began moving at heading 030 which slightly angled it away from us on a due north option. With it moving 40-50 mph and us having to take an eastward jog, we soon got out of position.
Through the rain and hail core wrapping around the area of interest, we saw something that might have been a funnel or brief tornado. It was very tough to make out anything discernable though. We encounterd some fierce inflow about that time up to 60mph in our estimate. We got our north option to try and keep up with it and encountered quite a chaser circus. We pulled off onto a dirt road, but it was one that everybody in that convoy decided to take. That was interesting as we tried to turn around and get back onto paved road and to I-40 in an attempt to get back into the action.
Another cell had popped up to our SSW and started opening up a good-sized hail core on us. So, we blasted north to get away from it towards Wildorado. Jay reported seeing a rogue stone up to baseball size. Yikes! We made it to the I-40 underpass just in time, but the hail size was pretty tame. At about this time, I noticed radar hadn't updated on GR3 along with warnings. ThreatNet was acting wierd and I restarted it only to discover that there was NO radar data. There was a ciritcal failure with the NOAA data feeds. It literally could NOT have happened at a worse time!!! I can't even remember when they had such a massive failure. But they did at that particular point in time.
So, we were data blind. This was the sort of day that you don't chase blind. We had no idea what the cells were doing to our south....what the ones were doing to the north...etc...etc. This outage cost us dearly as sitting around I-40 and Wildorado was as far away from the action you could get in the TX PH. LOL!!! Just as we got our data going again, Charles Allison parked behind me and came up to say hi. I had never met him personally, nor Matt Patterson, so I was caught offguard. :-)
We decided to head up north from Vega towards Channing behind the tornadoes there. We stayed behind for the rest of the chase because road options up here are few and far between. Kanani and Jay continued ahead, but the hail was cranking up again with another rapidly intensifying cell cranking 65dbz plus on track to overtake me on 354. I stayed back in Channing and decided to call it quits. I then heard that Cactus was calling for mutual aid and I tried a second time to make it east on 354, but blinding rain, partially flooded road, waning light, and a poorly marked road combined with my being pretty tired was just too dangerous. Thankfully, the damage in Cactus, while signficant, wasn't as bad as first reports. There was enough aid coming in, I didn't need to show up and complicate things.
I headed back to Channing and southward towards home all the while enjoying quite a spectacle of lighting to my east. I then started hearing how bad Tulia was hit. I haven't the news in Amarillo yet, but based on reports from other chasers and David Drummond, it's pretty serious. I was just there the day before and recognize the damage areas. Pretty sad and I hope nobody got seriously injured.
That's it. No tornadoes, but a decent chase overall negated by the road and data frustrations. My biggest personal gripe is that I had Amarillo to Plainview pegged in my mind before heading out. Another lesson of sticking to your original target area. :-) Tomorrow is another day!!
We decided to head down to Hereford and check things when we got there. We soon had some storms repidly erupting around us and quickly intensifying. We kept talking about heading south and decided it wouldn't hurt to play with these cells before we headed south to a larger storm developing and moving towards Lamb County.....which would be the monster to eventually hit Tulia. There's something to be said with a small, focused area of incredible diffluence at 300mb, eh?
After we briefly chased after one cell racing north out of Hereford, I saw another cell rapidly developing south near Dimmit and moving towards us. A quick analysis of all reflectivity tilts showed this would be a serious storm. We made it to Hereford just in time to take shelter from the hail up to the size of ping pongs. As we were there, the radar indicated pronounced rotation at tilt 2 and 3. At about that time, the town's sirens went off. Eerie.
A tornado warning was issued. The rotation couplet was pretty close, but just off to our west. The storm's base was still high and we could never discern any rotation in the base...even though the SRV tilts 2 and 3 were pretty impressive....nothing hardly at all on tilt 1. We then took in after it as it raced off to the north. We watched some pretty good lowering to the base and soon some pretty interesting chaotic motions. However, the storm began moving at heading 030 which slightly angled it away from us on a due north option. With it moving 40-50 mph and us having to take an eastward jog, we soon got out of position.
Through the rain and hail core wrapping around the area of interest, we saw something that might have been a funnel or brief tornado. It was very tough to make out anything discernable though. We encounterd some fierce inflow about that time up to 60mph in our estimate. We got our north option to try and keep up with it and encountered quite a chaser circus. We pulled off onto a dirt road, but it was one that everybody in that convoy decided to take. That was interesting as we tried to turn around and get back onto paved road and to I-40 in an attempt to get back into the action.
Another cell had popped up to our SSW and started opening up a good-sized hail core on us. So, we blasted north to get away from it towards Wildorado. Jay reported seeing a rogue stone up to baseball size. Yikes! We made it to the I-40 underpass just in time, but the hail size was pretty tame. At about this time, I noticed radar hadn't updated on GR3 along with warnings. ThreatNet was acting wierd and I restarted it only to discover that there was NO radar data. There was a ciritcal failure with the NOAA data feeds. It literally could NOT have happened at a worse time!!! I can't even remember when they had such a massive failure. But they did at that particular point in time.
So, we were data blind. This was the sort of day that you don't chase blind. We had no idea what the cells were doing to our south....what the ones were doing to the north...etc...etc. This outage cost us dearly as sitting around I-40 and Wildorado was as far away from the action you could get in the TX PH. LOL!!! Just as we got our data going again, Charles Allison parked behind me and came up to say hi. I had never met him personally, nor Matt Patterson, so I was caught offguard. :-)
We decided to head up north from Vega towards Channing behind the tornadoes there. We stayed behind for the rest of the chase because road options up here are few and far between. Kanani and Jay continued ahead, but the hail was cranking up again with another rapidly intensifying cell cranking 65dbz plus on track to overtake me on 354. I stayed back in Channing and decided to call it quits. I then heard that Cactus was calling for mutual aid and I tried a second time to make it east on 354, but blinding rain, partially flooded road, waning light, and a poorly marked road combined with my being pretty tired was just too dangerous. Thankfully, the damage in Cactus, while signficant, wasn't as bad as first reports. There was enough aid coming in, I didn't need to show up and complicate things.
I headed back to Channing and southward towards home all the while enjoying quite a spectacle of lighting to my east. I then started hearing how bad Tulia was hit. I haven't the news in Amarillo yet, but based on reports from other chasers and David Drummond, it's pretty serious. I was just there the day before and recognize the damage areas. Pretty sad and I hope nobody got seriously injured.
That's it. No tornadoes, but a decent chase overall negated by the road and data frustrations. My biggest personal gripe is that I had Amarillo to Plainview pegged in my mind before heading out. Another lesson of sticking to your original target area. :-) Tomorrow is another day!!
posted by Steve Miller TX at 4/22/2007 11:37:00 AM
12 Comments:
Was nice to finally see some cool storms even if I had to drive 6 hrs to see them. I saw more good stuff SW of Amarillo yesterday than I have seen in the last two years of chasing in Oklahoma. Got pounded by some pretty good hail about 5 minutes after I stopped by to hi. That radar deal really sucked yesterday and I was glad to be on the backside of those storms when it went out, it is times like that I wish I had a POS car that I could core just for the fun of it. Looks like things could change for Oklahoma starting tomorrow and we might see some real storms for a change! I put some video from yesterday up on my page.
Good to meet ya out in the field. It was a crazy chase day for sure. Hopefully the hail didn't do any damage. I inspected mine and found a few very minor dings on the hood. That's it. I too wish I had a POS vehicle that could take a few monster hail hits without depreciating the value. I am waiting for a car dealership someplace to get cored and go buy a vehicle WITHOUT repair.
Good luck with the next couple of days!! I'm stuck close to home because of job obligations, so Tuesday is out for me. I'll be cheering from the sidelines though and saving GR3 images. That's the next best thing to being there. ;-)
Oh, so grabbing GR3 is the next best thing, huh??? Well, I think I've got that nailed... I'm not feeling adequate SDS relief in that, Steve. Have another suggestion?
Well, you DEW (as in "do" lol) have a point. ;-) It's like eating a couple of shards of lettuce while watching somebody eat a thick, juicy steak...loaded baked tater, and a big chunk of chocolate pie for dessert....on video. :-)
Maybe you could have a chase video going on next to you an a big screen TV? Have a few Margaritas to increase neural receptiveness? Maybe more than a few? LOL!!
Throw in Bill Paxton giving me a shoulder rub, and that just might work... ;-) I'm feeling it. Better go get some limes.
Oh, and it looks like Tony Laubach is right there with you on the SpotterNetwork... if you see him, tell him I said congrats on the excellent grabs... not to rub it in... sorry, Stevoid... maybe next time. You still had some killer supercells. I know I'm jealous.
LOL!! Nice. Helen Hunt fantasies do it for me. ;-) Maybe we could hire Bill on an "as needed" basis for our SDS Treatment Centers. Hmmmm.....
The Spotter Network continues to show my position even though I turned it off last night coming into Amarillo. It's a bug they are working on I believe. Still, it is a really great toy to see everybody out there yesterday on the map.
The user interface for submitting a report though doesn't work too well with a cellular modem connection. So, I can't make storm reports from the field with that. I'm hoping they'll come up with something within the client instead of having to download that full page off the internet.
At least have him while I'm there. LOL!!!
My SpotterNetwork icons only show up sometimes on GR... I don't know what causes that. For example, right now, mine should show up, but for some reason, it's not. Hopefully, they are working out the kinks.
That is indeed odd. The only thing I can think off is that your client is not regularly updating and sending the info to the server every two minutes. If your status windows isn't indicating a successful upload every two minutes, then there is a bug perhaps with the SN server. They have a forum there, might post your problem there. They are good in helping people out.
Steve, there will be an huge amount of band new pre-tornadoed drivable vehicles on deep discount in Tulia soon. I saw a nice Excursion without any windows and a few dents I would love to have.
Unfortunately, the main problem is that it's a Ford. LOL!! No offense. I went round with them legally many years ago when they sold me a lemon and tried to tell me the problem was normal (a loud clattering sound from the engine when it warmed up...lol) I prevailed though and came out good, but swore an oath to never buy another Ford again...ever.
I've had my fill of American autmobile manufacturers. There's a reason they are struggling and it's not because of durability and quality. I got my Element and have driven the hell out of it...approaching 90,000 miles. No problems and it is in excellent shape. I've only spent money on basic maintenance. Now that I say that, watch it break down this week. LOL!!
Yeah, but it still looks like a lunch box on wheels. roflmao
I bet they have some low mileage, late model used vehicles with minor "wind" damage as well.
It truly does! I call it my "Hummer Escape Pod" LOL!! It's been a really great chase vehicle though and have enjoyed it alot. It's boxy design does catch wind more, but even with 60mph cross wind, it handles pretty good...just gotta use both hands. ;-) With front wheel drive, I've gotten into some hellacious muddy bob's roads and managed to get out each time...but not without alot of posterior puckering, praying and sweat.
I can honestly say it's been driven pretty hard in chase situations. But, I'm ready for something a little roomier and beefy with space for gear and a passenger. 4-wheel drive is a priority now that I live in the land of blizzards, floods and tornadoes. :-)
In any event, I have to wait until the house sells before I get another vehicle. I also want to wait until after the chase season winds down. I don't want to try and rewire all my gadgets the morning before a chase. ;-) I also want....LOTS OF AMBER LIGHTS!!! :-)
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