Start, Pampa, TX; end Wichita Falls, TX; estimated 330 miles; lunch Billy Sims BBQ in Altus
On this chase day an obvious triple-point play was looking really good, in extreme southwestern Oklahoma. SPC had a 10 percent tornado risk outlined along a warm front northeast and east of the surface low, which was a little south of Quanah. Chasers had their eyes on the Altus, OK, area for development, and the forecast supercell and tornado parameter numbers were rather impressive.
Much of the target area was still mired with low cloudiness around noon, but sunshine was beginning to peak through some breaks near and along the Red River. Right after lunch at Altus is when things started to fall apart. Storm towers were already developing! UGH — it is barely even 1 p.m. CDT, and the atmosphere wants to make storms already. Usually early convection such as this means a long chase day and a big DUD of a chase day, and that was the case today. Early convection often means that the cap is too weak, and too many storms form. Or, the atmospheric energy aloft is mis-timed. Generally, chasers like to see upper-level energy arriving late in the afternoon and to have storm development after 4 or 5 p.m.: after plenty of afternoon heating.
On this day a big and nasty supercell quickly developed in the vicinity of Tipton and Manitou, and it moved eastward rather slowly. Additional storms went up just north of this one. The tail-end cell was HP and outflowish practically from the start. It was not particularly pretty, either. Part of the problem today, in part because of early development, was that plenty of quite cool air was lurking just north of the warm front. I think that there was just too much cool air becoming involved with the “Tipton” supercell to keep it from becoming an outflowing dud. We stayed ahead of it and it pushed us to Geronimo, Comanche, and Loco. A weak tornado or two was reported with another storm to our north, closer to the H.E. Bailey Turnpike, but the supercell that we were watching was never able to come close to producing. Near Loco, OK, the storm was surging out a bit and a cool-looking band of convection provided some nice photographic opportunities. I was dismayed with how the chase day had turned out, and from Loco I started back to the west to try for some “pretty CB at sunset” shots, but that did not work out very well either. Now, we had about a week of benign weather to wait out.
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