{"id":23806,"date":"2019-06-15T00:00:10","date_gmt":"2019-06-15T08:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/?p=23806"},"modified":"2019-10-10T22:02:54","modified_gmt":"2019-10-11T06:02:54","slug":"june-15-2019-putnam-ok-tornadic-supercell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/2019\/06\/15\/june-15-2019-putnam-ok-tornadic-supercell\/","title":{"rendered":"June 15, 2019 Putnam, OK, tornadic supercell"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Start: \u00a0Hugoton, KS<\/p>\n

Lunch: \u00a0Woodward\/Chases BBQ<\/p>\n

End: \u00a0Clinton, OK<\/p>\n

436 miles<\/p>\n

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SPC Day One\/20Z<\/a><\/p>\n

SPC Mesoscale Discussion 1072<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0SPC Mesoscale Discussion 1073<\/a><\/p>\n

SPC Mesoscale Discussion 1075\u00a0\u00a0<\/a> SPC Mesoscale Discussion 1080<\/a><\/p>\n

SPC Mesoscale Discussion 1081<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0SPC Mesoscale Discussion 1082<\/a><\/p>\n

SPC Mesoscale Discussion 1084<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0SPC Mesoscale Discussion 1086<\/a><\/p>\n

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Chase account<\/a> by TT guest L. Ryan, with nice time-lapse of the Putnam supercell<\/p>\n

—-<\/p>\n

SPC showed a large “enhanced slight” risk in western OK and adjacent areas of Texas today. \u00a0The tornado risk was low, at only 2 percent, but SPC bumped up the large-hail risk in NW OK in their 20Z outlook. \u00a0By mid-afternoon, low-70 dew point air was heading northwestward towards the Seiling and Enid area. \u00a0The troposphere was capped rather strongly, though. \u00a0SPC noted that<\/p>\n

\"effective shear will only be marginally supportive of organized convection\"<\/pre>\n
…but I was hopeful that the high-end instability (CAPE values above 4000) would make up for the so-so shear.<\/p>\n
We drifted eastward from Woodward to Orienta, Meno, and Lahoma (not too far west of Enid). \u00a0This was an area with some persistent, moderate surface moisture convergence. \u00a0The CAMs (forecast weather models) were fairly insistent on showing a decent storm in north-central OK before sunset, generally around the Enid area. \u00a0The location for this predicted cell was bouncing around a bit, and some of the runs showed little to get excited about. \u00a0It was quite warm and muggy as we drifted around the Lahoma and Goltry area. \u00a0A few cumulus cloud towers made futile attempts against the cap. \u00a0Some better-looking towers went up, finally, to our southwest, near Okeene, perhaps. \u00a0These grew up into small rotating updrafts and failed to impress. \u00a0It looked like the cap might win today, but then a two big storms exploded a county or two to our west, between Seiling and Clinton. \u00a0This was less than an hour’s drive west, and the two cells here were in a rather good-looking environment. \u00a0Let’s go take a look!<\/p>\n
When we reached Canton, we had two strong cells, one to our W and one to our SW. \u00a0These were moving to the north somewhat slowly, steered by the flow from about 850 to 700 mb, presumably. \u00a0(The SPC mesoscale discussion maps, linked above, show the flow at 500 mb from the W at around 25 knots.) \u00a0The paved road network to our west and southwest was not very good. \u00a0I had to figure out which storm to approach, or to try to play both and see what happens, and then figure out what direction a strong storm might wind up going. \u00a0With the so-so road network available, it would be easy to wind up out of position. \u00a0Should I get north of these, north of Seiling?<\/p>\n
It looked like the north cell was slowing some and the southern cell was going to crash into it. \u00a0We edged south and west to Oakwood (on U.S. 270). \u00a0This road is a NW-SE oriented road, and neither of these directions helped. \u00a0 I wanted to head farther west, to U.S. 183, north of Putnam. \u00a0This is where the show was organizing. \u00a0We found a narrow but paved road to get west out of the Oakwood area, and we wound up several miles east of a storm base with a rather decent wall cloud. \u00a0This storm was looking rather potent, both visually and on radar. \u00a0In light rain and with some nearby lightning strikes, we were now just west of the Canadian River, \u00a0Our little-used paved road split here, with one branch zig-zagging WNW-ward to U.S. 183. \u00a0The other branch headed southwest in a chaotic manner to 183, winding up near Putnam. \u00a0I asked a local pickup truck driver if both roads could get me to 183. \u00a0 He said “yes,” but the confidence level was not high.<\/p>\n
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