{"id":13001,"date":"2015-05-06T00:00:25","date_gmt":"2015-05-06T08:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/?p=13001"},"modified":"2015-11-15T13:22:07","modified_gmt":"2015-11-15T21:22:07","slug":"may-6-2015-throckmorton-tx-supercell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/2015\/05\/06\/may-6-2015-throckmorton-tx-supercell\/","title":{"rendered":"May 6, 2015 Throckmorton, TX supercell"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"150506_0395_Throck\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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May 6 was a big tornado day for the central and southern Great Plains. \u00a0The SPC log shows 59 tornados. \u00a0Our Tempest Tours chase group began the day in Lubbock, and we targeted the area to the east a few counties away. \u00a0Supercell and tornado prospects looked quite good in the area around Seymour, TX. \u00a0We went after early afternoon convection in northwest TX during the afternoon, but it was junky and unrewarding. \u00a0There were too many storms, as mentioned in a mesoscale discussion:<\/p>\n

SPC Mesoscale Discussion 515<\/a><\/p>\n

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 MESOSCALE DISCUSSION 0515\r\n   NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK\r\n   0103 PM CDT WED MAY 06 2015\r\n\r\n   AREAS AFFECTED...PORTIONS OF WEST TEXAS...NORTHWEST TEXAS AND\r\n   SOUTHWEST OKLAHOMA\r\n\r\n   CONCERNING...SEVERE POTENTIAL...WATCH LIKELY \r\n\r\n   VALID 061803Z - 062000Z\r\n\r\n   PROBABILITY OF WATCH ISSUANCE...95 PERCENT\r\n\r\n   SUMMARY...THUNDERSTORMS EXPECTED TO DEVELOP RAPIDLY BETWEEN 18 AND\r\n   19Z. SEVERE HAIL AND WIND GUSTS ARE THE PRIMARY THREATS\r\n   INITIALLY...BUT TURNING LOW-LEVEL HODOGRAPHS SUGGEST A TORNADO\r\n   THREAT FOR ANY SUSTAINED UPDRAFTS.\r\n\r\n   DISCUSSION...STRONG HEATING HAS CONTRIBUTED TO RAPID DESTABILIZATION\r\n   AHEAD OF A DIFFUSE DRYLINE WITH AN EASTERN EDGE STRETCHING FROM EAST\r\n   OF LBB TO NEAR SHAMROCK.  ALTHOUGH THE MCD AREA IS UNDER NEUTRAL TO\r\n   SLIGHT MID-LEVEL HEIGHT RISES IN THE WAKE OF THE EXITING\r\n   WAVE...LITTLE TO NO CONVECTIVE INHIBITION IS PRESENT OVER THE AREA.\r\n   MIXED-LAYER CAPE VALUES HAVE RISEN ABOVE 2000 J\/KG WITH LOW-LEVEL\r\n   LAPSE RATES ABOVE 8 C\/KM. WITH EFFECTIVE SHEAR OF 30-40\r\n   KT...SUPERCELL STRUCTURES WILL BE THE FAVORED MODE FOR PERSISTENT\r\n   UPDRAFTS...BUT LONGEVITY OF THE SUPERCELLS COULD BE NEGATIVELY\r\n   IMPACTED BY STORM INTERACTIONS AS NUMEROUS STORMS ARE EXPECTED TO\r\n   DEVELOP UNDER LITTLE INHIBITION AND POSSIBLY ENHANCED BY LIFT FROM A\r\n   WEAK POTENTIAL VORTICITY ANOMALY PROGRESSING THROUGH THE BROAD\r\n   CYCLONIC FLOW IN UPPER-LEVELS.  REGARDLESS OF STORM MODE...SEVERE\r\n   HAIL IS LIKELY WITH THE STRONGER STORMS...WITH SEVERE WIND GUSTS\r\n   POSSIBLE GIVEN THE STEEP LOW-LEVEL LAPSE RATES. ALTHOUGH LOW-LEVEL\r\n   WIND SPEEDS REMAIN SOMEWHAT MODEST...LOW-LEVEL HODOGRAPHS SHOW\r\n   CURVATURE...WITH EFFECTIVE HELICITY VALUES OF 100-150 M2\/S2 FOR\r\n   STORMS THAT DEVIATE TO THE RIGHT OF THE MEAN FLOW AND SHEAR.\r\n\r\n   ..CONIGLIO\/HART.. 05\/06\/2015\r\n<\/pre>\n
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Early convection seemed to be a theme this May on the Southern Plains. \u00a0About an hour before sunset, a new storm developed WSW of Throckmorton by about 20 miles. \u00a0This one looked to be in a good spot, which had not been worked over by previous convection and which had an unobstructed feed of juicy Gulf air. \u00a0The storm was very slow to move as we approached from the east on U.S. 380, west of Throckmorton. \u00a0We had a good look at the base, which was just south of 380, but we were hesitant to get too close via 380 due to large hail prospects just up the road.<\/p>\n
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\"150506_0127_Throck\"<\/a>\"150506_0128_Throck\"<\/a><\/p>\n
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The road network here is poor, and there was no way to get up close to the base without driving off of the pavement or sampling the hail core. \u00a0The sun set soon after the images above were taken, and the storm continued to drift to the east. \u00a0The base refused to come up to the north along U.S. 380, so I decided to go into structure-viewing mode. \u00a0We headed back east to Throckmorton (about 10 miles) and then dropped south on 183\/283 approximately 6 miles. \u00a0Here we had a great view of the supercell, and we had plenty of time to set up for lightning photography at dusk and beyond. \u00a0The storm was quite electrified, with occasional spider lightning in the anvil overhead. \u00a0Around 9:30 p.m., chasers that were closer to the base (near Throckmorton) observed a large tornado with the storm. \u00a0The tornado crossed U.S. 380 near Highway 222, about 6 miles west of Throckmorton, and became rain-wrapped. \u00a0The tornado was not observed by anyone in our group, perhaps because there was a very slight rise in the terrain to our northwest. \u00a0Bummer. \u00a0I had reserved rooms in Vernon, about an hour to our north. \u00a0We had to wait about an hour for the slow-moving supercell to clear the road and move off to the east before heading north out of Throckmorton County. \u00a0Here is a sampling of my wide-angle shots, taken south of Throckmorton and looking mostly to the northwest (the road and power poles head to the north). \u00a0Images 0329 and 0333 below were taken about the time of the tornado reports.<\/p>\n
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\"150506_0179_Throck\"<\/a> \"150506_0190_Throck\"<\/a><\/p>\n
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\"150506_0203_Throck\"<\/a> \"150506_0236_Throck\"<\/a> \"150506_0252_Throck\"<\/a> \"150506_0264_Throck\"<\/a> \"150506_0329_Throck\"<\/a> \"150506_0333_Throck\"<\/a> \"150506_0347_Throck\"<\/a> \"150506_0390_Throck\"<\/a> \"150506_0395_Throck\"<\/a><\/p>\n
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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
  May 6 was a big tornado day for the central and southern Great Plains. \u00a0The SPC log shows 59 tornados. \u00a0Our Tempest Tours chase… [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":[62,16,56,11],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13001","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-62","7":"category-lightning","8":"category-nighttime-photography","9":"category-supercells","10":"entry","11":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13001","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=13001"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13018,"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13001\/revisions\/13018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}