I’ll squeeze in another update this evening for y’all.  But first things first —

KINGS win AGAIN!  Up 3-0 against Phoenix, 11-1 in the playoffs so far —- absolutely unbelievable!  Storms in NW KS weakened an hour or two before sunset, and gave us time to get to the motel in Imperial, NE, at a reasonable hour.  Our group invaded the Brickstone Bar and Grill in Imperial for dinner, and they turned on the Kings game for us.  I was able to watch the last half of the game, and the Kings prevailed, 2-1.

My last update was a week ago in deep south TX, May 10.  The tour had two full chase days remaining.  On May 11, Friday, we targeted areas not too far north of our starting point of Hebronville, TX.  Some cells went up north of San Antonio and around Austin.  These were generally weakly organized and rather low-topped, near an upper-level low in north TX.  Better instability was towards Houston, but I wasn’t going deeper into southeast TX unless the tornado chances were excellent.  They were not, and we fumbled around with so-so junk in the traffic and congestion and general Friday afternoon mess along I-35.  YUCK.  We managed to see some okay low-level structure on what appeared to be a low-topped left-split weak supercell northwest of Austin.  A forgettable day.  We stayed at Copperas Cove for the night.

The upper low continued east and took the instability with it, leaving us with nothing to do on Saturday (May 12) except to continue north towards OKC for the end of the tour.  Tempest guide Jennifer Dunn gave us a tour of the NWS in Fort Worth (where she works) after our meal in downtown Fort Worth.  May 13th was an easy drive from Ardmore to OKC, with a stop at Norman to look at the radar domes.  That afternoon we performed the mundane routine of getting the vans cleaned and prepared for the next tour.

Ten-day Tour 3, with guides Bob Smith and Chris Gullikson, began on Monday, May 14.  The best air and severe storm chances were well to the southwest, near and south of I-10 in southwest TX.  This was too far to reach from OKC, so we headed west into the eastern TX Panhandle.  Despite north flow aloft and marginal moisture, a storm with some low-level organization was observed a little south of Shamrock.  This one didn’t last too long, but another one went up to its west, and actually moved or propagated to the west a little!  We stopped and watched it weaken.  it was better than a sharp stick in the eye, but not by much.  The new group was happy to see a few lightning bolts and to get the feel for a little chase.  We found a motel in Canyon (south of Amarillo) after doing a little sight-seeing in Palo Duro Canyon south of Claude.

The next few days on the Plains were characterized by pathetic moisture and weak flow, and we went into sight-seeing mode for the most part.  Tuesday, May 15, was sunny and dry in the Panhandles and for thousands of miles in all directions.  We went into Palo Duro Canyon for an hour or so.  The ground was still a bit muddy from the rainy Monday weather, so we hiked just a little bit and then went to the Big Texan in Amarillo for lunch.  I checked the group into a motel in town mid-afternoon and watched the Kings defeat Phoenix 4-0 in the breakfast room.  GREAT DAY!

On Wednesday (May 16) there would be some very high-based storms along the Front Range in Colorado.  This activity was not chaseworthy, and we scoffed at it.  We headed to Clayton, NM, for lunch, and then took an unpaved road from the Black Mesa area in extreme northeast NM through Sheep Pen Canyon to Kim, CO.  The scenery along this remote route is very nice, and we had the road to ourselves for about an hour!  From Kim we continued north to La Junta, and then to Limon.  Considerable cloudiness and virga were encountered upon reaching Lincoln County.  Limon was our home for the night.

Today, May 17, featured strong but dry southerly flow through the High Plains as upper-level energy moved through the Colorado Rockies.  We went up into the Genoa Tower to look at 6 states, and had lunch in Flagler.  High-based storms went up nearby along I-70, and we went east with them.  To make a long story short, we observed some mildly interesting high-based storms south, southeast, and east of Goodland from about Sharon Springs to Colby.  Lightning became somewhat frequent around Colby, but then the activity weakened.  We gave up east of Atwood, and headed northwest to Imperial.  A great double rainbow north of Atwood was a nice end to the chase, and the Kings victory was a great end to the day!

Images later.

By the way, we may get to chase in or around eastern NM/west TX on Sunday, where an annular eclipse will be in progress at sunset.  This could yield some fantastic photo ops!

Tempest Tours Tour 2B began out of Oklahoma City on Sunday, May 5.  The weather pattern had been slow for the 3 or 4 free days I had between T1 and T2B, so I relaxed in OKC and caught up on some web site stuff and did not chase.  There was a decent tornado risk in eastern NE on May 5, and we raced with the new group of guests up to York and I-80 from OKC during the afternoon.  It looked like Custer County would be a good area to target — not too far to our WNW.  Some towers went up in that area, and then fizzled.  Chase over — we got rooms in Cozad and watched strong elevated cells go up to our NW and N.

My birthday, May 6, was another non-tornado birthday for me.  I am still waiting for my first b-day tornado.  We blew off the severe chance near E KS/W MO for better chances in central or western TX the following day.  So, we drove from I-80 to I-20 — over 600 miles, to position ourselves.  The highlight was keeping tabs on the Kings SWEEP of St. Louis, and a pretty t-storm during the evening near Aspermont, with frequent lightning in the back of the storm tower and a near-full moon rising above it.  We stayed in Sweetwater.

May 7 was looking quite volatile, but was overall a lot of driving and dissapointment.  We got to San Angelo in time for lunch and, unfortunately, very early convection.  Some severe stuff teased us near Knickerbocker, but there was too much too early and it was, unsurprisingly, messy and ugly.  We then blasted west for a long-lived cell approaching Mentone.  We killed it upon arrival.  After a bite to eat in Kermit and reserving rooms in Fort Stockton, a supercell got strong and turned right/southeast 50 miles to our north.  It approached Seminole, and we got south of it via Andrews.  It had impressive structure and occasional lightning.  This was around 9:30 p.m., with little or no light remaining.  After the core passed the N-S road, we moseyed on up to find a lot of small hail on the road, strong cold winds, and blowing hail fog not too far south of Seminole.  We got back late to Fort Stockton, with a nice CG show to our west between Kermit and Fort Stockton.  Another loud t-storm came through town around 3 a.m.

The cold front swept through most of Texas and there was cool and moist upslope flow over W TX on the 8th and 9th.  Severe chances were slim, though, so we focused more on scenery around Big Bend.  On the 8th we headed south to Presidio via Alpine, then went along the Rio Grande on 170 to Terlingua.  That is a great stretch of pretty scenery.  A strong storm passed NW of Presidio, but wasn’t worth bothering with.  During dinner at the Starlight Theatre in Terlingua, an impressive cell put on a lightning display up near Marathon.  On the 9th, the weather was overcast and very pleasant for the drive through Big Bend National Park.  Again, there was a slim chance of a decent storm in the region, but none occurred near us.  Our motel stop was Del Rio, via Marathon.

Today, May 10, featured good severe weather ingredients for south TX, and maybe not too far from Del Rio.  Supercells and tornadoes were predicted by SPC.  We hung around Del Rio into the early afternoon, then figured out that better convergence and low-level air was down south towards Dimmit County.  Upon reaching Highway 44 (north of Laredo), we considered going after big cells which were getting tornado warned to the east, but elected to stick with Plan A — wait for supercells moving out of Mexico.  One big one approached us as we waited ten miles southwest of Encinal.  A left split slammed into it, but this caused little more than a hiccup and the beast reorganized quickly.  As it approached our location, it featured a large area of lowerings and some good low-level structure.  It was a bit outflowish and HP-ish, though, and it chased us farther south as it turned ESE.  We raced south to Laredo and ENE on 59 to intercept it again, but it was even more outflowish and disorganized.  Occasional inch-diameter hail and heavy rain accompanied us on the way to a flooded Freer, TX.  I reserved rooms in Hebbronville, 40 miles to the south.  Nice lightning crawlers and this update summary are causing me to stay up too late!

Images will come later, as usual!

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 day began in Vernon, TX, and we targeted the warm front/boundary that was in the Lamesa area midday.  It lifted north a tad during the afternoon and convection began west and SW of Levelland late afternoon.  A supercell got its act going just north of Levelland.   A large gustnado developed to our south while we hugged a menacing wall cloud. The cell was a little outflowish with a large precip core, and RFD winds kicked up large dust plumes along Highway 114 east of Levelland.

An area of interest showed some promise just north of Smyer (along 114), but dust and poor contrast made it difficult to see exactly what was happening.  I elected to head east and north a little for some structure and maybe some back lighting, and this is when a new updraft went up quickly just south of 114, I think.  This one quickly strengthened, became the dominant cell, and developed a big hook and was tornado warned.  We zoomed southward around the west side of Lubbock on the loop, and had a good look at the supercell and frequent lightning to our southwest.  The storm turned to the ESE and headed towards the southern fringe of LBB.  We got east of the updraft in light rain and occasional small hail on the southwestern fringe of Lubbock, north of Slide.  We had a pretty good look into the notch area from some 5-8 miles away and saw no tornado, or good wall cloud for that matter.  Dust was a problem, it was getting dark, and lightning was not frequent enough to help out much.

Quarter-size hail chased us farther east and south along U.S. 87, and we let the thing pass to our north.  Again, it was difficult to discern much at low-levels due to dusty inflow.  We inched back north along 87 after the cell had passed by (or at least 80 percent of the core).  We stopped at the Lubbock/Lynn county line and picked up hailstones that measured up to 3 inches. Also, blowing hail fog made driving extremely hazardous —– it was the first time I had witnessed blowing hail fog!  We saw numerous vehicles off of the road with broken glass.  The bulk of the city of Lubbock dodged a bullet with this one.

The previous day was active up north near Topeka, KS, and we stayed the night near Wichita.  The target area today was the Red River area, near Lawton and Wichita Falls.  The cap was strong and the chances for daytime storms along a SW-NE boundary from about Vernon to Oklahoma City were so-so.  Computer models indicated a big cell before sunset way down south, around Clairemont, TX.  But, dew points in that region were in the upper 40s, compared to the mid 60s near the Red River.  Models were certain about convection and even supercells somewhere near the boundary in SW OK…but were waffling as to whether storms would initiate before dark or not.

We drifted south to Wichita Falls and even a little south of there, even though a surface circulation and moisture convergence bullseye suggested that convection was more likely up towards Lawton.  I thought about blasting southwest to the Clairemont area (Kent County, TX) around 4 p.m., but resisted and decided to give our original target area a chance.  By 6 or 7 p.m., our area had little more than a struggling cumulus field, and that big and bad storm did indeed form in the middle of the wasteland between Abilene and Lubbock —- near Clairemont.  Shucks.

We rolled into Vernon at 8 p.m. and got a quick bite at McDonalds.  I reserved rooms in town, and then decided to blast SSW to the beast, now tornado warned!  It was 100 miles away, but I thought that we should be able to at least get a decent light show if we drove for an hour or so.  As we neared Benjamin, we were treated to some distant CGs out of the big storm’s anvil, and some nearby CGs due to new small cells.  After clearing these small cells and the rain south of Benjamin, we stopped and set up the tripods and had a little luck with some lightning crawlers.

The sunset pics were just south of Vernon.