Adrian supercell video

Our tour group had an amazing chase this Monday.  We began in Lubbock, washed the vans and had lunch in town midday, and headed northwest to Clovis, NM.  This put us in the middle of the south end of SPC’s slight risk area.  Flow at 500 mb today was marginal, NW at about 25-30 knots, and looked to be slightly anticyclonic.  Surface flow was S to SSE and fairly moist for northeast NM and the western TX Panhandle, with dew points roughly from 54F to 59F in the region.   CAPE numbers were near 2000 J/kg from about Tucumcari to Vega, TX.  Given the strong turning of the wind with height and the adequate instability, a decent supercell was quite possible.  I wasn’t sure exactly which area to focus on, though.  Some boundaries from morning storms were in the western part of the TX Panhandle, so the area along 385 from Hereford to Dalhart was considered.  We continued north from Clovis to San Jon, on I-40, and looked at radar, satellite, surface obs, the SPC meso-analysis pages, etc.  Given that strong cells were going up to our northwest (along I-25) and the best air looked to be in and around Tucumcari, I elected to head west and northwest.  A cell with a cloud top near 50,000 feet beckoned.  It was a little east of Las Vegas, NM, nearly 100 miles distant.  If it would move southeast in the northwest flow, then good supercellular stuff would ensue…I figured.

We went west on I-40 and north on 129 towards Conchas State Park.  Our Las Vegas storm still looked good on radar, but a new storm had quickly gone up between us and it.  Okay —- now we didn’t have to drive as far!  We set up on a hill along Hwy 104, a few miles west of 129.  Our new cell, west of Trementina, looked to have decent structure, but it was a bit distant and contrast was so-so.  Lightning was active in a cell to our south, and a new strong updraft was going up almost overhead.  We would have to leave soon in order to stay east of the new nearby activity, but low-levels were looking more interesting with the Trementina storm.  In fact, a good-sized lowering, or wall cloud had a funnel cloud sticking out of it that was about 3/4 of the way to the ground!  It didn’t persist, unfortunately, and we bailed east and south quickly thereafter.  Our Tempest Tours guide and driver, Chris Gullikson, has reviewed his video of the storm and it shows that the funnel cloud was in fact a tornado briefly.

We headed back towards Tucumcari and monitored the new convection that was just north of I-40.  It was not organized well at all, and it disappointed the heck out of me.  Why couldn’t this stuff get its act together?  There wasn’t anything to the south or southeast to interfere with it!  I called Brian Morganti, who was looking at some new storms in Oldham County, TX, west of Amarillo.  He wasn’t too upbeat about the look of the storm cells yet, but there was one that he couldn’t see too well that was looming behind the weak one that he could see.  This new cell was in western Oldham County, not too far from the NM/TX border, and it quickly had a good look on radar.  I decided to head east for it —- there was little reason to stick with the junk nearby.

The back end of the new supercell came into view for us somewhere west of San Jon.  The mid and upper part of the storm tower looked good, but not exactly atomic.  The storm was dropping slowly S to SSE, so I knew it was spinning nicely.  We just had to beat it to Adrian, where there was a paved road south.  On the approach to Adrian the sculpted low levels of the supercell came into view.  We had enough time to stop and gape for a few minutes at Adrian.  An active wall cloud teased us with a little funnel cloud or two.  It had that “look” that it really wanted to produce.  The storm’s updraft base was to our NNW now, and the precip core was not too far away to our north.  We stopped a mile south of Adrian, and then two miles south along FM 214.  The updraft base was in full “Mothership” mode by this time, and I needed all of my 16mm wide-angle lens to fit the thing in.  A wicked precip core developed, and intriguing shapes were barely visible inside or behind the core.  We thought that there might be a tornado inside there, but it was impossible to tell for certain.  Soon the storm became tornado warned, with confirmed tornado sightings!  I guess we did see a tornado—-we just weren’t certain at the time—-and a review of our stills and video suggest that one indeed was back in there behind the heavy rain curtain.  Chaser Jason Persoff reported that a large cone tornado was on the north side of the meso and it quickly became rain-wrapped.  This explains why we had little luck seeing it, as we were on the south side.

The structure and lightning with the storm were extremely impressive, tornado or no tornado.  We stopped a couple of more times farther south along FM 214.  Soon, the NM storms came rushing towards us and the supercell.  We were chased east towards Canyon, and the tornadic supercell was ingested and weakened considerably by the outflowing NM stuff.

Here are a handful of images of the Adrian Mothership Supercell —- more pics to come later.

By the way, I managed some great annular eclipse images from Jayton, TX, on May 20, and some very cool images of supercells in W OK on May 19.  We were close to the KS tornadoes on the 19th —- but had settled on heading down to OK instead.  We watched the storm towers that went up over Kingman from Pratt!  I hope to get the images posted soon.

CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO (video begins at 24-second mark)

Howdy all!  It is May 1 as I write this, my first post since I left California for my chase season a couple of weeks ago.  I have a lot of catching up to do on Stormbruiser.  Tempest Tours’ 2012 Tour 1 began out of Arlington, TX, on April 21, and ended on April 30.   The first half was very slow storm-wise, and the last half was very active.  We saw a supercell near Springfield, CO, on April 26; a brief tornado near Council Grove, KS, on April 27; nice night lightning near Benjamin, TX, on April 28; a nasty supercell near Lubbock, TX, on April 29; and another fierce supercell in the eastern TX Panhandle on April 30.  Check back often for updates!

This page is for the Memphis-to-Wellington, TX supercell and likely tornado on April 30.  We are relatively certain that the strongly rotating whirl that evening was a tornado —- check out the pics and video (video link is above).   Below is my chase account written shortly after the chase for the chaser community.

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My apparent “no brainer” forecast for the western end of the high CAPE lobe near the dry line NW of LBB did not pan out very well. We sat near Littlefield watching towers go up and down — mostly down. A large CB was visible towards AMA, but was soft for the most part from about 4 to 5 p.m. A much better and beefier CB exploded to our SE, near Post. I briefly considered blasting SE 70 miles for this, but did not. With my forecast target area falling apart, I elected to head east towards a towering cumulus cloud that was near Kress. If it did not impress, then I figured that it wouldn’t be too difficult to latch on the AMA area storm(s), which continued to have issues.

The Kress updraft poofed out but a new strong storm tower quickly developed not too far north of it. We blasted through Silverton and towards Memphis in order to get good position on it. Meanwhile, a left-split from the Post-area complex was headed NNE and was on a collision course with our increasingly impressive Clarendon supercell. Area dew points were lower than I would have liked — in the upper 50s — but low-mid 60s were waiting in SW OK. We finally got in good position a bit NNE of Memphis, and viewed some fairly impressive structure including a large low-level inflow band and occasional wall cloud. Disaster struck, though, when we got stuck trying to turn around (3-to-7-or-more-point turn) on a soft and sandy side road. Fortunately, Brian Morganti was now with our group, and his 4WD helped to straighten us out and get us out of the mess. We would have been pummeled by 2 or 3 supercell cores had he not just joined us at Kress!

6507 below is of the left-split supercell that was heading NNE towards our nearby developing storm.

We were skirted by the core of the lead supercell west of Wellington and received a few dime and nickel hailstones. The left mover to the south weakened just as it neared, and the remains were ingested into our nearby supercell. We headed south on U.S. 83 out of Wellington to take a look at the front end. Structure was quite nice with a low-hanging action area to our NW, though contrast and light conditions were poor. While some 8 miles S of Wellington (near the county line, I think) a good-sized dust whirl was viewed to the NW. It persisted for at least a couple of minutes, with some rotation in the clouds above. It approached quickly and a wide swath of dusty outflow was soon descending upon us. We got out of there in a hurry! The dust whirl did not seem to be associated with the primary action area of the mesocyclone, but it was fairly strong and long-lived —– a very strong gustnado or weak tornado hybrid, I guess.

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***May 1 UPDATE!!***   Upon review of our images and video 24 hours after the event, we are going with “tornado” for this tight and strongly rotating item.  Wide video shows a nicely persistent and rotating cloud above the whirl.  The tornado event was from about 8:29 to 8:32 p.m. CDT, and was a mile or so west of U.S. 82 and about seven miles south of Wellington.  An RFD was kicking up dust to our SSW during the event, and though the tornado was not back in towards the old action area near the core, I think a new meso near the leading edge was developing and was responsible for the tornado.  The “tornadic” circulation appeared too strong, too large, and too persistent for “gustnado” status.

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With little light remaining we got out ahead of the cell a bit along 62 on the way to Altus and made a few stops to admire the view. Plenty of dust could be seen beneath the updraft base, but it was impossible to ascertain if any legitimate tornadoes were in progress.

I went to bed very happy — the Kings beat the Blues 5-2 in Round Two, Game Two in St. Louis to take a 2-0 lead in the series.

Link to NWS Amarillo page for April 30, with radar image of Wellington storm

This was a big day for us in Missouri, in the Ozarks, of all places!  After coming up empty on the big high risk day yesterday in OK/KS, the chase gods smiled on us today.   For some reason my infrequent forays into the Show Me state wind up paying off.  Of course, I don’t bother going into Missouri unless there is a good tornado chance and there are no other options, so that explains a lot!

This was the final day of this very productive late-May chase  pattern and the 9th day of 10-day Tour 3, and a chance to make up for the foibles and frustrations of May 24th.  Unfortunately, Dallas and Indra had to go back to Los Angeles and Channel 7, and they headed back south to Dallas for their flight.  We left the Apple Tree Motel in Independence, KS, and headed for the hills and forests of southern Missouri —– GAD.

SPC painted a large (and hatched) HIGH RISK area in their morning outlooks from southeastern MO eastward into KY/TN/IN/IL.  The wording in the discussion was a bit intimidating:

FARTHER EAST...SEVERAL MODEL SOLUTIONS INDICATE THE DEVELOPMENT OF
   CONVECTION IN THE WARM SECTOR OVER PORTIONS OF NORTHEAST
   AR/SOUTHEAST MO/SOUTHERN IL/WESTERN KY...SPREADING INTO WEST TN AND
   SOUTHERN IND.  0-3KM SRH VALUES OF 250-400 M2/S2 COUPLED WITH LONG
   HODOGRAPHS AND HIGH INSTABILITY SUGGEST THESE STORMS WOULD LIKELY BE
   DISCRETE SUPERCELLS WITH AN INCREASING RISK OF MULTIPLE
   STRONG/VIOLENT TORNADOES AND VERY LARGE HAIL.

That is precisely what I like to see when leading 15 people into the hilly jungles!  Well, maybe not so much.  If the storms are wet and the action areas are rain-wrapped, then chasing in Missouri is not fun at all, and can be very dangerous.

I didn’t really have a specific target area in mind when we crossed into Missouri from Kansas late morning.  I basically just wanted to get into the high risk area of southeastern Missouri and then figure things out as the day progressed.  Some chasers were favoring northeastern Arkansas and/or western Tennessee.  Well, we had to get east first and then fine tune.  We hopped onto I-44 near Joplin and continued to Springfield, and continued east on U.S. 60 towards Willow Springs, Van Buren, and Poplar Bluff.  I had never been through this part of Missouri, and I was concerned that the road might be a bit slow and curvy since it cuts right through the Ozark Mountains.  I was delighted to find that the road was a nice divided highway with normal highway speeds, and light traffic!

Some 50 miles or so east of Springfield, a cumulonimbus updraft was exploding and “anvilling” out quickly not too far to the northeast.  It was only 2:15 p.m. CDT!  This storm moved quickly to the northeast and dumped one-inch hail on Houston, in Texas County, MO.  From Willow Springs, fifteen minutes later, another impressive young updraft was easily visible well to our southeast.  The visibility was excellent and the sky was blue and the terrain and trees were not too much of a nuisance, thank goodness.  This developing cell was perhaps 50 miles distant, just south of the MO/AR border, and would be one that we might be able to intercept somewhere down U.S. 60.  It was moving into the High Risk area, so the chase was on!  Here is a pic of the hailer north of U.S. 60:

We arrived in Van Buren, MO, at 3:20 p.m. CDT, and our target cell was tornado-warned and about 20 miles to our south.  (The storm produced an EF-1 tornado near Myrtle, on the MO/AR border, SSW of Van Buren, just before 3 p.m. CDT.).   It was moving northeastward at around 40 mph, so we continued east on U.S. 60 to Ellsinore, a tiny town in extreme eastern Carter County.  The map shows the Mark Twain National Forest here, and we were unable to get a decent look at the lower portion of the storm due to the hills and trees.  With the supercell approaching from the southwest, we were under the anvil and had some rain to deal with, but generally the conditions were not bad at all.  In fact, I don’t recall any lightning or hail or heavy rain as we cut in front of the updraft between Van Buren and Ellsinore.  I elected to stop at a roadside convenience store at Ellsinore, as this put us pretty much directly in the path of the storm’s impressive “couplet” —- the radar signature which shows where strong rotation is evident.  Chris Gullikson suggested that this spot was likely a little too risky to stay at, given that we didn’t have a good view of the approaching updraft base and we might have a quick and unpleasant surprise.  I agreed, so we went a few more miles ESE on 60 and looked for a good high point.  We found one (where a convenience store was) and looked back to the southwest, where a splendid and tilted supercell updraft dominated the view!  Still, a little hill and its tall trees obstructed our view of the base of the updraft.  Given recent reports, we figured that there was a good chance that a tornado was in progress with the cell.  Chad was along U.S. 60 and waving frantically to westbound vehicles to alert them to the danger ahead!  Our group gathered along the shoulder and peered towards the west, along the highway’s right-of-way where trees had been cleared and a low-level view was afforded.  What would we see when the storm base crossed the road?!  Check out the images:

Obviously, a good-sized and highly visible tornado was in progress as the storm crossed U.S. 60 from left to right.  These images were taken from 3:54 to 3:57 p.m. CDT.  It is a shame that the terrain and trees allowed only a momentary glimpse for us, as this was a very long-track and potentially violent tornado.  We were on a classic supercell with a large tornado without any pesky rain-wrapping, but how were we going to be able to actually SEE what was going on?!  We were in a large pull-out area that was cleared of trees, and we could barely see the upper part of the tornado as it moved to our northwest.  This was exciting, but very frustrating, too!  I estimated that the tornado was about two or three miles distant and sent out a spotter report.  The following day we determined that it was slightly more than five miles away where it crossed U.S. 60.  At least one home was destroyed there.

As the storm and tornado moved away to our northwest and north, I decided that we may as well make an attempt at another intercept.  I was definitely not optimistic that we would ever see the tornado again, though, given the trees and hills, and because we first had to drive about 12 miles to the east-southeast to catch a road north.  We made our way north on U.S. 67 (not too far northwest of Poplar Bluff) and entered Wayne County.  Fortunately, this road was similar to U.S. 60, a wide and fast swath through the forest.  As we neared Greenville, the storm and tornado again came into view!  And this time, the tornado looked to be a massive wedge!  Chad commented on how the tornadic updraft was literally sucking in small updrafts and nearby cloud material.  And, as earlier, the updraft was just one big tornado-making machine, with zero precipitation issues in and around it!  Our route was a curvy and up-and-down trek through the forest, and we only had occasional decent glimpses of the large tornado, unfortunately.  We didn’t come upon a good place to turn off and watch, so we kept on heading north.  Near Greenville, it appeared that the tornado had already cleared U.S. 67 north of town.  There were some trees down, but I’m not certain if these were due directly to the tornado, or perhaps to strong inflow winds or RFD.    It looked like the tornado had ended at least momentarily, though the survey map for the storm shows that it continued another 15 miles or so to near Buckhorn.  It seemed futile to try to stay with the fast-moving storm, so we turned around and headed south to Poplar Bluff.  A couple of stills of the wedge while heading north on U.S. 60, south of Greenville, near 4:32 p.m. CDT:

There was still plenty of daylight remaining, so we felt that additional tornadic supercells could be sampled.  We headed east again on U.S. 60 through Poplar Bluff and came upon some dark and menacing storm clouds, but these were not well organized.  About halfway to Kentucky from Poplar Bluff, I decided to come back to the west where new storms were going up.  These were pretty around sunset south of Poplar Bluff, but were not very strong.  At Poplar Bluff we celebrated with a steak dinner and met up with Jim Cantore, in town to cover the severe weather in the nation’s midsection.

TORNADO WRAP-UP

The NWS office in Paducah, KY, surveyed the May 25 tornado in southeastern Missouri. The official path length was estimated to be 48 miles (from Grandin to Buckhorn) , the greatest width at one mile, and the rating at EF-3.

This storm produced a tornado near the MO/AR border (3N Myrtle) around 3 p.m., and 45 to 50 minutes later considerable tornado damage occurred at Grandin, 32 miles or so to the northeast.  Apparently there were no tornado reports between Myrtle and Grandin.  The area between the two small towns is forested and undeveloped, though the supercell did cross U.S. 160 in Oregon County.  The large tornado did EF-3 damage near Ellsinore around 3:55 p.m., and had a wedge tornado with it near Greenville and Silva at 4:30 p.m. CDT.  It apparently persisted for another 15 to 20 minutes on the way towards Buckhorn.

It is uncertain whether a tornado was with the storm between Myrtle and Grandin.  Given that “90-100 mph winds” and EF-1 damage occurred 3N of Myrtle, and given “major” tornado damage in Grandin, it is possible that a tornado was in progress with the supercell for a good chunk of time (if not the entire time!) during its trek from the MO/AR border to U.S. 60 at Ellsinore.  (Clip g below shows a new tornado developing near Grandin…this might have been a second or third tornado cycle for the supercell.)  The storm was tornadic or nearly tornadic for approximately two hours over a distance of about 80 miles, from Myrtle to Buckhorn.  Fortunately, there were no deaths or injuries with it, as it missed the small towns in the area.  (A similar long-track tornado did not miss towns back on May 21, 1957.)  There were very few other chasers on this storm, and pictures and video of the tornado are surprisingly few.  (Surprising given the highly visible/non rain-wrapped nature of a long-track tornado in mid-afternoon during the height of chase season.)  Of course, the horrible terrain and landscape (from a chaser’s perspective) kept tornado images to a minimum!

Tempest Clip A by Bill Reid and Chad Cowan

Tempest Clip B by a guest in Chris’ van

Some youtube clips:

clip a near Ellsinore

clip b from chaser Nick Nolte

clip c from chaser Nick Nolte (long version)

clip d near Ellsinore (some language and hyper-ventilating, looks like the same location as clip a

clip e by chaser Mike Brady along U.S. 60

clip f from Silva, MO

clip g from Grandin, MO

Some six or seven miles east of Fairview (on Highway 8/58), we were able to look back to the southwest to see the supercell updraft and attendant structure.  A clear slot was evident, but important lowerings were missing.  The next paved road south was Highway 8, south to Okeene.  It was nine miles east of Fairview and put us a little farther east than I would have liked, but wasn’t terribly far.  Light rain was falling when we arrived directly east of the storm base, about six miles or so north of Okeene.

We weren’t here more than a few minutes when a skinny funnel cloud became apparent beneath the updraft base, and a wispy dust plume from the surface came up to meet it—we had a little tornado!  It was about 4 or 5 miles away, perhaps, over open countryside, and persisted for a few minutes.  When the tornado ended the storm seemed to struggle some, and we watched it go downhill on the west side of Okeene.

From there we went east and south towards the Piedmont area to view other storms, but these were unimpressive.  And, finally, we made our way back north to Kingfisher to watch a nasty HP supercell/complex descend upon the town from the northwest.  There was no apparent tornado threat, so we found some car wash shelters in Kingfisher and waited for the storm to release its fury.  We were not disappointed, as winds to about 50 mph and lots of hail to around an inch in diameter blasted our surroundings.  As dusk drew nigh, we made our way east on 51 through heavy rain to Guthrie for the night.

In image 1782 below the dusty remains of the weak tornado are visible.  Dallas and Indra are in front of the “TIV” in Guthrie.  I’ll add some video stills of the tornado soon!