{"id":10975,"date":"2014-05-22T21:47:12","date_gmt":"2014-05-23T05:47:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/?p=10975"},"modified":"2014-11-14T15:19:56","modified_gmt":"2014-11-14T23:19:56","slug":"may-22-2014-etter-tx-dusty-funnel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/2014\/05\/22\/may-22-2014-etter-tx-dusty-funnel\/","title":{"rendered":"May 22, 2014 Etter, TX Dusty Funnel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"140522_7607b_Etter-TX\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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This was the final chase day for Tempest Tours’ Tour 3.\u00a0 It began in Stratton, CO, and the severe risk ran through the High Plains from about Sidney, NE, southward to the Rio Grande.\u00a0 We needed to wind up within a few hours of Oklahoma City, so I was looking mostly at the western Oklahoma Panhandle and vicinity as the target area.\u00a0 Surface winds were upslope and moist, but upper flow was on the light side from the S to SW.\u00a0 The cap was rather weak, so it was looking like an early show, turning into a wet and messy junk-fest late.<\/p>\n

We had a quick lunch in Lamar, CO, and continued to Boise City and into the TX Panhandle.\u00a0 Storms were in progress to our west and southwest, and we headed to a blob southwest of Dalhart.\u00a0 This threw some dust at us and kicked up a decent gustnado or two when we were WNW of Dalhart by about 10 miles.\u00a0 These two images were at an old school house called “Bunker Hill.”<\/p>\n

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\"140522_7588_BunkerHillSch\"<\/a>\"140522_7587_BunkerHillSch\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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A big cell went up just south of Dalhart, but today’s good cells were only good for 10 or 15 minutes.\u00a0 It was a dud when we got halfway there.\u00a0 We headed east from Dalhart and watched some heavy and briefly ominous-looking activity to out south, and then continued east.\u00a0 As we neared Etter and Cactus, visibility decreased dramatically due to strong winds and blowing dust, from the south.\u00a0 Light rain was mixed with the dust, and the windows were a little muddy.\u00a0 Through the dust to the east a very low cloud feature emerged.\u00a0 Was this a wall cloud or something?\u00a0 The radar indicated a good discrete cell nearly overhead, but the velocity data and shear data showed little to nothing here.\u00a0\u00a0 A mile or two later, the action area was just to our north, and we were suddenly out of the dust.\u00a0 The rain had quit for the most part, too, and we piled out of the vans.<\/p>\n

A very intriguing scene presented itself to the north!\u00a0 Dust was rapidly getting pulled up into a tight, low, sculpted, and rotating updraft base.\u00a0 Soon, a funnel cloud was in view, with the dust getting wrapped around it!\u00a0 Was this a tornado?\u00a0 I shot a bunch of stills and some video with the Canon 5D, as I didn’t really care what it was —- I just wanted to get some quality documentation of this very cool development.\u00a0 I did not observe any really rapid or violent rotation near the surface, but dust was largely obscuring whatever was occurring beneath the funnel cloud.\u00a0 We were on Farm Road 281, about a half mile to a mile west of Etter and Hwy 287, and this circulation must have been very close to Cactus.\u00a0 Time of these photos:\u00a0 5:58 p.m. to 6:04 p.m. CDT.<\/p>\n

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\"140522_7597_Etter-TX\"<\/a> \"140522_7598_Etter-TX\"<\/a> \"140522_7605_Etter-TX\"<\/a> \"140522_7607b_Etter-TX\"<\/a> \"140522_7611_Etter-TX\"<\/a> \"140522_7616_Etter-TX\"<\/a> \"140522_7618_Etter-TX\"<\/a> \"140522_7621_Etter-TX\"<\/a> \"140522_7622_Etter-TX\"<\/a> \"140522_7625_Etter-TX\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Rain began to get heavy again at our location as the action area continued moving northward.\u00a0 We quickly jumped on 287 to blast north, but blasting was not possible due to very heavy rain.\u00a0 By the time we got into lighter rain, the interesting area with the rotation was no more.\u00a0 There was little else to observe on our way to Shamrock for the night, except for some occasional lightning.\u00a0 It was a minor miracle that we were able to witness this event near Etter and Cactus.<\/p>\n

May 23rd was the “departure day” for Tour 3, and we had an easy drive from Shamrock to Oklahoma City.\u00a0 We stopped somewhere along I-40 in western Oklahoma for a group photo.<\/p>\n

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\"140523_7631_T3\"<\/a>\"140523_7628_T3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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  This was the final chase day for Tempest Tours’ Tour 3.\u00a0 It began in Stratton, CO, and the severe risk ran through the High… [Read More]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[60,11,18,57],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-10975","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-60","7":"category-supercells","8":"category-tornadoes","9":"category-wind-and-dust","10":"entry","11":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10975"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11637,"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10975\/revisions\/11637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}