{"id":2088,"date":"2009-05-29T20:38:23","date_gmt":"2009-05-30T04:38:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/?p=2088"},"modified":"2009-05-31T13:25:33","modified_gmt":"2009-05-31T21:25:33","slug":"may-29-2009-chase-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/2009\/05\/29\/may-29-2009-chase-update\/","title":{"rendered":"May 29, 2009  Chase Update"},"content":{"rendered":"<pre>I know, I know, it has been far too long since I have posted.  The past two\r\nweeks have been very busy, as usual.  Tour 2 went well, from May 11 to May 21.\r\nWe had 13 guests, and everyone seemed to have a good time.  There were about\r\nfour or five good chase days during Tour 2, but about halfway through Tour 2 the\r\nweather pattern really went sour.  This was about the time that the big tornado\r\nresearch project named \"Vortex 2\" began, so we blame the lack of severe weather\r\non the Plains on Vortex 2.  \r\n\r\nTour 3 began on Saturday, the 23rd, in OKC.  We have 16 guests for this one, and\r\nthe weather pattern continues to be poor.  Hundreds of storm chasers are\r\nsuffering during the last half of May!  Anyway, here is a summary of the past\r\ncouple of weeks...pictures will be posted later! \r\n\r\n<strong>May 11<\/strong>, a positioning day for Tour 2 from OKC to Liberal, KS \r\n\r\n<strong>May 12<\/strong>, We had placed ourselves in SW KS in order to give us a shot at\r\nsevere in either NE CO or the TX PH this day.  The southern TX PH won out, so we\r\nstarted south out of Liberal.  About 20 minutes later I realized that I had left\r\nmy wallet back at the motel.  I had the media guy drive me back to get it while\r\nthe rest of the tour waited at a convenience store in the middle of\r\nnowhere----the Oklahoma Panhandle.  I'm sure that my blunder made a nice good\r\nfirst impression on the new guests.  The maid at the motel had found my wallet\r\non the floor by the bed and had given it to the front desk.  Thank you,\r\nhousekeeping! \r\n\r\nWe did a quick lunch at Subway in Pampa, TX, and continued south to Turkey.  A\r\ncouple of big cells started to go up to our NW and SW.  We stuck with the south\r\none, and it had some good structure as it approached Memphis.  At sunset a very\r\nstrong cell threw some hail on us at Childress and we managed to get in front of\r\nit.  We rode out the core in Quanah at a convenience store.  A cop pulled Chris\r\nover in a small Oklahoma town on the way to Altus.  We aren't really sure why\r\n---- the cop checked Chris' I.D. and said that \"he almost was going to jail\",\r\nbut then he re-checked the information and learned he had the wrong guy.  \r\n\r\n<strong>May 13<\/strong> was a good day in western OK.  This was the day of the Kirkwood, MO,\r\ntornado, but that was much too far away to target unless we had blown off the\r\nprior day.  We waited around on a dirt road near Enid (actually, near Helena, OK)\r\nand saw some storm towers go up to the southwest.  A supercell quickly formed\r\nand started to drop almost due south.  The cell had nice structure and a sharp\r\nRFD cut, but was high-based at first.  Towards sunset, near Geary, the cell's\r\nbase lowered and it wrapped up strongly.  We were just south of the storm base\r\non a hill south of Geary, with a great view!  It was unable to produce a\r\ntornado, though.  We just missed the storm core as we dashed west and south to\r\nBinger, where we had one last look at the overall structure to the north before\r\ndark.  I elected to find some cover for the vehicles in front of the precip core\r\nat Carnegie, about ten miles farther west.  We had some one inch to maybe\r\n1.25-inch hail for a good ten minutes.  Farther east, the storm had suddenly\r\ngone tornadic, and two of my chase friends wound up riding out the tornado in a\r\ncar wash in Gracemont, OK!  They are okay, and the tornado went on to produce a\r\nlot of damage in Anadarko. \r\n\r\nThe prospects for <strong>May 14<\/strong> were marginal in W TX, and the next day looked pretty\r\ngood again up in northern MO.  I decided after lunch in Childress to make the\r\ndrive towards northern Missouri.  We made it to Emporia, KS, for the night. \r\n\r\nWe got up somewhat early on the <strong>15th<\/strong> and headed for Kansas City.  Storms went up\r\nearly a little west of Kansas City, and we waited for them on the Missouri side.\r\nWe wound up chasing a severe-warned cell near Richmond, in NW MO, and that cell\r\nmoved into Carrollton, where they sounded the sirens.  The storm was in linear\r\nmode, though.  There were a couple of attempts to wrap up a bit and we thought\r\nthat there could be a tornado chance, but it didn't work out.  Early convection\r\nusually means a lousy chase day, and that was the case on the 15th.  We ended up\r\nback west near Ottawa, KS, in a heavy downpour courtesy of a squall line. \r\n\r\n<strong>May 16th<\/strong> marked the beginning of the Great May Lousy Chase Period of 2009.  We\r\nhad a short day, ate a lunch at Cracker Barrel in Junction City, and got rooms\r\nearly in Hays, KS. \r\n\r\nThere was nothing to chase on the <strong>17th<\/strong>, so we visited the Scott's house near Last Chance.\r\nLois Scott chatted with me and the group, and we hearkened back to July 21,\r\n1993, when I witnessed a large tornado near their home.  We then drove north to\r\nScottsbluff for the night.  The road up to the top was closed after 6 p.m.,\r\ndashing the hopes and dreams of our guests. \r\n\r\n<strong>May 18th<\/strong> was another down day with nothing to chase.  We visited Mount Rushmore,\r\nthe western Badlands near Red Shirt, SD, and stayed in Deadwood, SD, in the\r\nBlack Hills. \r\n\r\nAfter three down days we finally had a chase day on the <strong>19th.<\/strong>  Well, kind of.\r\nThe best cell we could find was a \"virga bomb\" in extreme southeastern Montana,\r\nnear Alzada.  Moisture was in short supply on the Plains due to a dumb low pressure area\r\nnear Florida that was diverting all of the Gulf moisture towards it---for days!   \r\n\r\n<strong>The 20th<\/strong> looked better, and it was.  We left Rapid City and targeted the\r\nnorthwestern Nebraska Panhandle.  A storm went up on schedule and looked\r\nimpressive, near Harrison, for about 30 minutes.  It had a supercell look with a\r\nbig lowering, but then quickly died.  We went east and found a nice updraft\r\nsouth of Hay Springs, NE, which the Vortex 2 folks were sampling.  This storm\r\nmoved east into a road void and we had to wave goodbye.  The chase ended under a\r\nbeautiful large anvil on the backside of a cell west of Hyannis, NE. \r\n\r\n<strong>May 21<\/strong> was the 10th and final \"chase\" day for Tour 2, but the weather pattern\r\nremained poor.  We headed back to our OKC base, via Greensburg, KS.  I'd say\r\nthat a good 70-80 percent of the house lots in Greensburg remain empty, and the\r\ntrees have the extreme shredded look. \r\n\r\nTour 2 ended in OKC after 4431 miles.  The 22nd was a day to wash the vans and\r\nget the oil changed and to rest up a bit.  Unlike the past two years, May 22 was\r\ndead, weatherwise, across the Plains, and the prospects for severe weather were\r\nbleak for the rest of May. \r\n\r\nThe 16 Tour 3 guests were in place at the Wingate in OKC on <strong>May 23<\/strong>.  My drivers,\r\nRob Petitt, Chad Cowan, and Kinney \"The Gardener\" Adams picked up a couple of\r\nrental minivans and we hit the road after the orientation.  Again, there was\r\nlittle or nothing worth chasing, so we went to Hays, KS, in order to be closer\r\nto the next day's target area in the Nebraska Panhandle.  Near Hays, we stopped\r\nfor a look at the impressive \"Cathedral On The Plains\" in Victoria. \r\n\r\nMoisture and shear were marginal in the western NE Panhandle on <strong>May 24th<\/strong>.  A\r\nhandful of mildly interesting cells kept our attention from Pine Bluff, WY, to\r\nKimble, NE, to Scottsbluff and 15 miles north of there.  We came back south to\r\nScottsbluff and were greeted by strong and dusty outflow winds from the south.\r\nThese storms would look good for about 10-15 minutes, and then collapse as they\r\nspewed outflow.  We eschewed dinner in Scottsbluff and drove south to Fort\r\nMorgan, CO, for the night. \r\n\r\nProspects for the <strong>25th<\/strong> looked a little better, down in the TX Panhandle.  I\r\ntargeted the eastern TX PH, where CAPE values were expected to exceed 2500 J\/kg\r\n--- not bad at all.  Still, the forecast shear was marginal, but maybe enough\r\nfor a supercell.  As we neared the NW TX PH near Stratford, we viewed a strong\r\nbut high-based storm to the southwest.  It had frequent lightning and looked\r\nquite nice with the sun lighting up the fields of yellow flowers in the\r\nforeground.  But, it was undercut by its own cold outflow and was somewhat\r\nlinear.  We could see a new storm updraft to the east, in the target area, so we\r\nheaded that way along Road 281.  The cell looked like a supercell on radar and\r\nfrom behind, with frequent wall clouds and scary lowerings beneath an impressive\r\nupdraft tower.  Our road (U.S. 83) southeast to Canadian put us right behind the\r\ncell, and right then and there the storm went into fizzle mode.  The updraft\r\nshriveled as it spun out to our northwest, from a spot northwest of Allison.  At\r\nsunset we found a nice hilltop north of Canadian to watch a storm with laminar\r\nbanding and decent lightning, and a little later were on another hilltop south\r\nof town.  The Irish Inn in Shamrock was our home for the night.  \r\n\r\nThe outlook for <strong>May 26th <\/strong>looked even slightly better, with high CAPE forecast\r\nalong a boundary between Wichita Falls and Fort Worth.  We visited the Hollis\r\n\"Bridge of Doom\" on our drive from Shamrock to Quanah, TX.  The guests enjoyed\r\nthe solitude and scenery as they walked above the Red River.  As we grouped\r\ntogether for some photos on the TX side of the bridge, a very large swarm of\r\nbees came right at us from the southeast!  The twenty of us ducked down a little\r\nand the bees continued on, fortunately.  Those were a scary 30 seconds!  A storm\r\ninitiated in some hot and somewhat humid air at Weatherford, and dropped some\r\nlarge hail near the town.  We got on the back edge of the storm and then came\r\naround on the south side on I-20.  This storm was high-based, with long hail\r\nshafts visible in the sunshine.  The storm chased us slowly into the western\r\nfringes of the DFW Metroplex.  We weren't interested in dealing with rush-hour\r\ntraffic there, so we rode out the storm's precip core beneath a convenience\r\nstore cover.  Hail size was nearly one inch in diameter.  Another batch of\r\nthunderstorms was out west, so we enjoyed a nighttime lightning display before\r\ngetting to our rooms in Abilene. \r\n\r\nThe target area on<strong> May 27<\/strong> was around Fort Stockton, maybe 4-5 hours from\r\nAbilene.  Well, that is if you don't get a flat tire.  Rob's minivan got a flat,\r\nand we were able to roll into Coahoma.  The two tire places there were next door\r\nto each other, but both tire repair guys were out to lunch.  We put the little\r\nspare doughnut tire on the minivan, and then the tire guy arrived.  He checked\r\nthe punctured tire and said that it would not be a good idea to try to drive on\r\nit were he to fix it.  And, he didn't have a similar replacement tire.  So, we\r\ndrove the 15 miles into Big Spring on the spare.  Rob and I dropped the guests\r\noff at the Cajun fish place for lunch, and bought a new tire at Don's Tire\r\nplace.  This cost us about an extra hour, and storms were already going up\r\nsouthwest of Fort Stockton.  I elected to drop south to I-10 from Big Spring,\r\nand from there we dropped southwest to Sanderson.  Along the way, a big storm\r\ndeveloped near Marathon, well south of Fort Stockton.  We tried to get to it,\r\nbut when it started to turn to the south and follow the road south out of\r\nMarathon, we knew we were cooked.  We managed to get a view of the cell from the\r\nnorth side, about 25 miles away, along U.S. 90.  It was about an hour before\r\nsunset, and our only chance to salvage something were new strong towers well to\r\nthe east, northeast of Dryden.  After blasting east for a couple more hours, we\r\nwere near a strong cell with a lot of lightning, just north of Langtry (on the\r\nRio Grande).  There was some low-level structure with the updraft, but the main\r\nattraction was the frequent CG lightning.  We stopped a few times south of the\r\nstorm to photograph the lightning, before being chased farther southeast to Del\r\nRio by additional cells. \r\n\r\nThe forecast for severe storms in the Del Rio area persisted the next day, <strong>May\r\n28<\/strong>.  It looked like the initiation area would be a few counties to the north,\r\nnear San Angelo.  We hung out near Sonora and blew bubbles, and waited some\r\nmore.  This, again, was a day with less-than-adequate shear from the surface to\r\nmid-levels, but maybe enough CAPE to make things interesting.  Like practically\r\nevery other chase day for the past two weeks, the prospects for a tornado were\r\nextremely small.  A bunch of weak storms developed in a large cumulus field\r\nwhich extended to our northwest to southeast.  We drifted north to Eldorado, TX,\r\nand then decided to get close to a developing storm in Irion County, to our\r\nnorthwest.  My approach route via Barnhart (west and north) wound up ill-advised, as the\r\ncell moved more SE than SSE, as hoped.  Worse still, the original cell croaked\r\njust as we got on it, and a new storm went up just to its southeast.  We were in\r\ncatch-up mode now, on the wrong side of the storm!  The sparse road network was a bummer,\r\n\u00a0too.  Fortunately, it wasn't as if we were going to miss a tornado or anything spectacular,\r\n\u00a0as this was also a\r\nrather high-based cell...just another hail storm like most of the others during\r\nthe past few weeks.  We dropped down to I-10 and blasted east, to make sure that\r\nwe weren't fighting with cores in order to get back in front, on the southeast\r\nside.  This was accomplished nearly two hours later, between Sonora and\r\nJunction.  The activity north of I-10 was somewhat linear, but had a\r\ncool-looking laminar banding and a prominent lowering on the leading edge, with\r\nfrequent lightning.  We stayed with the storm to our Days Inn in Junction, with\r\nplenty of lightning and thunder and heavy rain into the night!  After checking\r\nin, we went to McDonalds for some food.  It was the only place in town still\r\nopen----until 11 p.m.  It was closed when we arrived around 10:30, though, as\r\nlightning had knocked out their computers.  We wound up, once again, with\r\nconvenience store food. \r\n\r\nAs I finish up this account, we are headed back to OKC on the final chase day\r\nfor this tour ---- with nothing within 300 miles of OKC to chase!  This chase\r\nseason has really been poor in terms of supercells and tornadoes, but at least\r\nwe had five days with thunderstorms for the Tour 3 guests.  Final mileage for Tour 3\r\nwas about 3350.\r\n\r\nI fly back home to L.A. on May 30 and hope to get a bunch of images posted.\r\nThen, I'm back out here for another month for Tours 5, 6 and 7 out of Denver.<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I know, I know, it has been far too long since I have posted. The past two weeks have been very busy, as usual. Tour&#8230;&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/2009\/05\/29\/may-29-2009-chase-update\/\">[Read&nbsp;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":[30,19],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2088","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-30","7":"category-updates","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2088","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=2088"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2090,"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2088\/revisions\/2090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}