More Menacing Maelstroms of Mayhem
Texas Supercells near Noodle and Big Spring, 23 Apr 8
SHORT: Mean/ugly/nasty merging supercell complex intercepted between Anson, Roby and Noodle…missed earlier real tornadoes, saw two gustnadoes. Observed third/westernmost supercell from NW of Big Spring to Colorado City.
LONG:
Bryan Smith joined me for the latest of many N and W Texas storm adventures so far this year. Once again, we left a little later than I would prefer for that distance (1130 CDT). I was transitioning from evening shifts to a set of overnights. I had to ratcheted that transition backward a few hours in one night, then get enough sleep to chase so that sleep deprivation wouldn’t augmenting the innate hazards of storm interception.
Our target area was the outflow boundary being deposited by morning convection between ABI and Seminole, with hopes that convection would hold off long enough for two things to happen:
1. Middle-upper level flow to improve behind the initial shortwave trough — leading both to more favorable deep-layer shear and better storm-relative flow aloft, and
2. Us to get there.
Regarding the latter: The atmosphere doesn’t give a flip about our wishes, and proved so yet again.
As Rich, Ryan and I did on April 9, we cruised very efficiently SW right toward ABI, with only a brief pit stops in Seymour and Anson. The former included my first Allsups burritos of the year, which is amazing considering how much I’ve been in those parts this month. They were a delicious treat, as always.
This time, we had great data coverage most of the way down thanks to Bryan’s wireless phone-laptop connections. By the time we rounded the Seymour corner, storms already were becoming surface-based along the outflow boundary; and when passing Haskell, two mature supercells were rolling back-to-back along said boundary toward Anson. We would miss whatever was happening for another 45-50 minutes, including Amos’ tornadoes W and ESE of Snyder, but could fuel quickly and get W of Anson for whatever was left.
Most of the images linked below are wide angle (exceptions should be obvious), so remember: As the mirror says, objects are closer than they appear!
What greeted us was still another mean, ugly, nasty, menacing, complex, messy, fast moving meat-grinder of the prototypical North Texas HP variety, one that very nearly swallowed us up into the darkest catacombs of convective hell.
The storms hadn’t quite merged yet when we met the eastern one along US-180 near Boyds Chapel. It looked much more impressive on radar than in person (view NW at the amorphous mess). We watched it for a few minutes, until a ragged arcus feature began advancing S toward us (mauve tinged cloud band at right) from what probably was the forward-flank core region. I was concerned about the relative “dry hole” of low 60s F surface dew points that I had analyzed in the upstream SJT-JCT area before leaving home, and this process gave us a powerful hint that the dry hole indeed was going to be a problem — enabling cold pool development on the storm scale and resultant outflow surges.
We could see the southern low-level rampart of the larger second supercell, looming ominously to the WSW near and S of Roby, and headed W on 180 to intercept it near Sylvester. It soon became apparent that this sucker was closing in on us fast, and vice versa. The HP shark’s jaws of death began snapping at us as we turned tail and ran SE on FM 1812 toward Noodle, zig-zagging SSE, ENE, SSE, ENE on the easternmost fringes of that drunkenly displaced road grid that characterizes the Permian Basin. Somehow we managed not to get consumed by this beast. The storm — however strong the rotation aloft — was heaving forth mighty blasts of outflow that raised dense streamers of dust, a few of which we drove through. After getting just far enough ahead of the monster to snap a quick shot of its onrushing maelstrom of murk and mayhem, we dropped a few miles S of Noodle to let the mess roar by to our N.
We observed no true tornadoes; however we saw two gustnadoes — one SSE of Sylvester and one just S of Noodle. Note the plume of dust in the last photo, over the road. In a few seconds, a tall (~100-200 ft), quick (less than 20 seconds), well defined spinning column of tan/orange dust appeared in that plume, but it was not connected to a cloud base. In fact, it was surfing along a fast (35-40 kt) ESE-ward moving outflow surge — classic gustnado conditions. The Noodle gustnado was so short lived that by the time I ran to the other side of the power lines and shot a photo, the dust column was gone, and only a little blob of its dust was left near ground level.
Unfortunately, someone reported that as a tornado. It wouldn’t be the first time an overexuberant spotter or chaser has mistaken a gustnado for a tornado, especially if they either are not very levelheaded, or are trying to amass a “notch in the gun.” Fortunately, I was able to contact the SJT WCM later, and successfully unreport it.
The visual and radar structure of this storm was getting larger, nastier and messier by the minute, so we bid it goodbye with one last shot looking NE from near Trent, then headed out W to intercept whatever would be left of the storm NW of Big Spring. We found a great viewing overlook along US-87, 3 NW of Fairview, and let the storm come to us. What greeted us was a striking array of shelves, bands and plumes of dust, the likes of which we won’t forget for a good long time. The storm had a “cold” look to it, as if somewhat elevated, though its variegated menagerie of little dust piles shows it had considerable kinematic influence at the surface.
I shot this zoom at 1812 CDT, about the time of some reports of possibly tornadic rotation in dust, but we either couldn’t see the circulation, or it was so weak as to be of no meaningful importance anyway. meanwhile, the storm kept marching steadily our way, kicking up most of its dust amidst tremendous plow winds. Still, it was spectacular to behold, with an extraordinarily long tail cloud that seemed to extend all the way into another world. One possible gustnado did show up to our NW (actual and cropped image with heavy enhancing).
While we were at that spot, and before the storm’s outflow got to us, the inflow layer air mass cooled off from the low 70s to the upper 60s. This happened as the approaching mesocirculation backed the surface winds, drawing air from the too-fresh cold pool that had been left behind by earlier convection to the E. Then any low level evidence of the meso became diffuse or altogether absent, and an eerie mass of outflow clouds took its place. I called Ray at MAF to report that this storm was sucking in progressively colder air, with 67 deg surface temps to its SW-S-SE, and whatever minor tornado potential it recently had was vanishing precipitously fast. We zigzagged SE and finally gave up on active intercept mode SW of Colorado City and S of Westbrook, with an appropriately metaphorical shot of the impending fate of this storm.
We headed for dinner at the Sweetwater Schlotzsky’s outlet, but not before pulling off the interstate at Roscoe to enjoy a fine sunset scene. The very last vestiges of our storm intercepted the bronze rays of the descending solar orb that soon lowered in reddening hues beyond a distant wind power farm. We got back to Norman via SPS at about 0130 CDT, after a refreshingly uneventful ride through the cool, moist NW Texas night.
Breckenridge Tornadic Supercell
Abilene to Breckenridge to Sanger TX, 9 Apr 8
My chase crew for the day was Rich Thompson and Ryan Jewell, with Ryan driving his little bitty Toyota. This is important for three reasons:
1. I didn’t have to drive! I’ve probably driven 95% or more of the miles I’ve ever traveled on storm chasing trips, and I don’t mind it most of the time. The occasional break is a real treat, however, and offers a rather unfamiliar perspective of mobile storm observation from somewhere other than behind the steering wheel.
2. The fuel mileage was good, and made for a very affordable chase trip when split three ways.
3. You’ll see…
What unfolded was one of the most hair-raising storm observing adventures of my recent vintage, with only Narka KS (29 May 4) and Catoosa OK (24 Apr 93) surpassing this in terms of being disturbingly close to rain-wrapped tornadoes.
We left Norman somewhat later than we wanted, directly targeting the ABI area for the possibility of warm frontal initiation and/or storm propagation that way. Low level moisture would be the best yet this season, with a vorticity-rich boundary ready for feasting upon by any storm that could erupt near it. Our main uncertainty revolved around convective initiation — the location and timing — always a challenge with warm frontal storm interception. The potential existed for storms to fire farther W (and they did), but with an outflow-reinforced warm front unlikely to make it very far N of I-20, we were confident we would have to get at least that far.
Fortunately, most of the road work in the downtown SPS area is completed, including the new flyover from I-44 to US-277 (new Seymour Highway). Except for a quick fuel and food stop on the N side of town, and the small but somewhat confusing detour through the S side of Seymour (around the soon-to-open bypass), we had efficient travel there. Ryan lost his tethered-phone data feed somewhere S of SPS, so we plunged the old-fashioned “blind” way toward the SSW, through the stratus and murk N of the warm front.
Near Anson, we noticed the ambient light growing ever dimmer, even as the stratus gunge began to show a few thin breaks. There was a storm someplace down there, so I flipped on ABI weather radio to learn more. Immediately, a tornado warning blared over the airwaves – for a storm less than 15 miles to our SW! Not only that, but Mr. Roboto mentioned a reported tornado. Indeed, there was a storm already up, riding the warm front, and possibly spawning hoses, moving right toward the stretch of highway less than 5-10 miles to our S, and we couldn’t see anything but dark murk.
Geez-lou-weez! Could it be that we drove like a nearly blindfolded dart shot for four hours from Norman straight to a tornadic meso that we didn’t even know existed until we were almost upon it? As if the Red Sea parted, we broke out of the grunge fast and — lo and behold – saw a dark supercellular updraft base with an obvious wall cloud around 5-8 miles SW. It took a few more miles of driving N and S to find a safe pull-off spot without annoying obstacles to viewing, but we did. By that time, the wall cloud took on a smoother, flatter-based, “colder” appearance, as if it was beginning to uptake a little too much air from N of the warm front and/or from the storm’s own outflow. As happened two days before, we arrived on the first storm just a little too late to see the tornado.
After some closed exits and resulting road confusion on the N side of ABI, we decided to head E and stay even with our storm, despite its increasingly messy and disorganized appearance. Meanwhile, another updraft erupted S of the first storm and was getting organized quickly to our SW, right over ABI. We wheeled over to a pull-off 6 WNW Clyde, looking back W toward ABI at the tornado-warned new storm and an area of weak circulation just S of its main core. The storm then got messier, merged with its northern predecessor, and took off the ENE as a very dark and messy supercell (view N across from the TX-604 bridge over I-20 at Clyde).
We had to take on fuel at Clyde, and it was a treat to see Dave Hoadley there. We briefly chatted than parted, and I still don’t know how Dave and his chase partner fared the remainder of the day. Here’s how we fared…
The storm wasn’t following a zig-zagging hodgepodge of farm roads like we had to, and it was moving somewhat faster than purely warm frontal supercell motions would indicate — that is — unless the warm front was retreating northward, either matching the northward component of storm motion, or nearly so. This allowed the storm to keep maintaining surface based inflow for another hour as it steamed toward Breckenridge — and as we furiously but safely attempted to keep up. We still and no onboard data of any sort, so this was a difficult visual chase of a very scuddy and messy storm. Our ensuing track toward Breckenridge varied from slightly astern to slightly abeam of the pirate steamer USS Supercell. By the time we reached Eolian, SW of Breckenridge, we were not as much astern or abeam as damn near inside the steamer’s boiler room — without fully realizing it at first.
One mile E of Eolian, we suspected we were in the back side of the hook by the somewhat translucent, W-E wrapping rain curtains to our immediate NE and N. A turn in the road took us through that precip, which turned out to be an outer annulus of the wrapping mesocyclone rain. A stubby funnel appeared at the base of a wildly rotating little wall cloud, half a mile to our N, with an inner annulus of rain starting to wrap around its own W side.
We quickly found a safe pull-off, 1 E Eolian at 1513 CDT (from EXIF data). The funnel now was gone but the ragged cloud-base vortex now to our NNE appeared visually to be nearly tornadic in intensity. The next shot was taken 16 seconds later. Note the amazingly fast motions and evolution if you compare the photos side by side in browser panels, with the inner annulus of rain already starting to obscure the circulation. We came in right behind it on FM 576 and found busted trees near the Big Sandy Creek crossing. Therefore, we believe this either to be the start of the Breckenridge tornado, or a brief, precursory, yet still damaging tornado-scale vortex.
It also was about this time that radar indicated a rapidly strengthening low level circulation (based on our later examination). We had to bail E, and fast, to stay out of more of the RFD and to have any hope of seeing it cross US 183 somewhere near the S side of Breckenridge. Not wanting to punch an unknown number of precip annuli and end up inside a tornado, we cautiously crept N on 183, stopping when ferociously wrapping rain curtains whizzed across the road less than a mile to our N. We strongly suspected that a tornadic vortex was buried in there, but simply couldn’t see it. Just after its passage, we drove N and soon found power poles downed toward the E, along with sheet metal strewn about, an overturned semi on the road (nobody was inside), broken limbs, and minor damage to roofs of homes. About a mile farther N, power poles were snapped back toward the W. This made it obvious a tornado just had crossed the road at some oblique SW-NE angle, and I got an open phone line to call in the report to NWS FTW.
We saw no damage in the main part of Breckenridge, but the whole town was without power. When we got to the E edge of town on US-180, downed power lines and poles blocked both the main highway and side streets that could be used as a detour. Unknown to us, Robin Tanamachi and crew were right behind, and shot a photo of our vehicle (at left). At that time, we noted several other vehicles — all larger than ours, some containing locals and some with chasers, milling around behind us, unable to get between or under the wires. But Ryan found an eye in the needle, and managed to thread his car adroitly through it. Onward we zoomed – now several miles behind the circulation and clearly stern chasing.
Once we got back out of the RFD and into the inflow air, its character was different: cooler, more stratified, almost foggy…north of the warm front! We soon re-acquired our data feed, which showed a big, strong mesocyclone off to our N. Did the storm still have any effective surface based parcels, despite being on the cool side of the boundary? We decided to give it one last shot to find out.
Eastward we cruised through the “Palo Pinto Mountains.” I knew about this steep, tree-covered terrain from many trips to and through the Possum Kingdom lake area; and indeed, we drove right past a roadcut where, three days before, I had gathered slabs of hard Pennsylvanian limestone for Elke’s landscaping. Still, it was annoying to chase there, especially when our storm to the N was buried in very low stratus (ceilings 200-400 ft).
Armed with near real-time radar, we decided to make one more run at bullfighting the meso, heading NW on 337 to an area just SE of Graford, the aim being to allow whatever was left of the circulation to pass across the road just to our NW. It did, as evident in the wind shifts and surge of RFD precip, but we couldn’t see diddly-squat in there. And despite the “media report” of a tornado near Graford, we neither saw any damage nor understood how anyone could witness anything tornadic in that foggy mess. Subsequently we stayed behind the storm most of the way past Decatur to I-35, let it cross I-35 a few miles to our N near Sanger (no damage seen), then cruised home in the rain.
Another monstrous, dark, nasty, menacing North Texas HP supercell goes into the books, and observing this one was no easier than any of the others. I had very few photos. This still was a worthwhile, educational and very entertaining trip, though; and the storm led us 2/3 of the way home from ABI.
Sky Sculptures and Joy Joy
Three Splendidly Structured Supercells
Electra, Holliday and Joy TX – 7 Apr 8
In some years, it’s a great treat to witness three sculpted supercells in one season. On this day, we did so in the span of less than four hours and a 70 mile radius of Wichita Falls. It was a spectacular and most worthwhile trip — and rather short too. Given the high price of fuel these days, having a short chase split three ways made it like old times, cost wise.
Bryan Smith, Corey and I agreed to wait for Rich to be relieved on his mesoscale shift at 3:30, and haul him down to the target area somewhere near Wichita Falls. Deep towers already were bubbling east of the dryline and along the warm front by that time, boosting confidence that this agitated area would be the place to go. I-44 was a fast road straight to the area, and we wasted no time getting there; still, we barely missed seeing the fuzzy, diffuse and distant tornado.
Multiple storms had erupted between SPS and Vernon in what looked at first to be a horrific mess, some of the cluster moving N of the Red River. We were confident that one of them would become the dominant supercell, but at the same time, quite concerned that said dominator would churn right down the river, terribly limiting road choices and viewing options. By the time we approached the river, we could see the south edge of the anvil clearly, and one storm indeed did take over. I’ll call this the Electra storm. Just before the bridge to A Whole Other Country, we could see a huge, low-hanging wall cloud under a classical looking, flared supercell bell (no photos…driving). Big chunks of scud formed low above the ground and rose slowly, but methodically and helically into the base, orbiting a common circulation center. This storm clearly meant business, and it was our business (and pleasure) to expedite our intercept of it!
We crossed the river and went through Burkburnett to head W on TX-240 and the storm. Unfortunately, the town is elongated E-W along that road, and hung us up for several critical minutes with poor visibility. This was about the time of the brief tornado, the last vestiges of which may have been visible to us even from that distance (15-18 miles) but for rain now wrapping around the deeply occluding circulation. As the mesocyclone buried itself farther back through the rear flank, another large base developed on the forward bend of the S-shaped rear-flank gust front. This would become the new dominant supercell updraft, and our primary experience with the storm.
We found a great vantage along TX-368 just N of Iowa Park and let this beautiful storm to our WNW spiral toward us. Its towering NE wall, adjacent to the vault region, reminded me a lot of Howie’s classic shots of the Spearman supercell from 31 May 1990 — without the tornado. Our confidence in another tornado wasn’t too high, either, given the relatively dry air (50s F surface dew points and well mixed boundary layer) characterizing this storm’s prospective inflow region. Indeed, as expected, the base gradually got higher with time, and the midlevel clouds above it looked a little too “gust-fronty” for our tastes, taking on the ragged, somewhat translucent and scalloped appearance of the underside of a shelf cloud — but with a supercellular bell affixed beneath. The scene was at once mildly depressing and eerily spectacular, and most definitely captivating.
As the supercell passed to our N and NE, the base kept rising and the structure got more ragged. We headed back toward Wichita Falls, hoping for some dinner and perhaps other convective eruption within reach, before dark. We stopped briefly on the NW edge of town to watch the shrinking storm slowly shrivel away, but not before one of its feeder towers shoved into life a gorgeously ghostly pileus cap.
Here’s a little visual trick that works for me. Let’s see if it works for you too: Focus both eyes deeply upon the upper middle of that shot, just below the pileus and along the upper edge of the near tower. Stare hard. Then, while still staring, note that the towers may appear to move with respect to one another. This actually was happening, and it’s neat to be able to gain such an illusion from a two-dimensional still photo.
Other storms were forming not too far SW in a short, multicellular line segment, and in the same crummy moisture field as what was killing our original supercell. Duly uninspired, we ate dinner at the little old Arby’s just N of downtown, then became slightly more motivated and decided to wander the short way SW for a closer look. Two obvious supercells soon became apparent — one anchoring the line segment (Holliday storm), the other a short distance to our SSW (future Windthorst-Joy storm). We couldn’t see the southern storm worth a flip, but after skirting the southern edge of its forward flank precip region (with some small hail), the view we got of the Holliday supercell was a treat indeed! These shots toward the WNW silhouetted the spiraling storm and its small wall cloud with a setting sun: 1 and 2. The wall cloud persisted for 15-20 minutes but never exhibited any rapid rotation. Anvil rain from the Windthorst-Joy storm, along with a rogue shower that got Corey soaked, cooled the inflow of the Holliday storm. We gave it little credit for future success, and let it pass to our N and NNE. A stumpy, ragged, very slowly rotating lowering (probable funnel) appeared in the rain, way back on the rear side of the oldest occlusion, but didn’t last long and never looked any better than this (here’s a deeply enhanced crop-n-zoom).
Two gorgeous supercells in one chase, this one after dinner, with perhaps the best yet to come…
The Windthorst-Joy supercell was all by itself, easy to see, and not too hard to get ahead of, despite being to our SE by now. We just had to breeze through Wichita Falls, then ESE on US-287, then S out of Henrietta, past Bluegrove, on TX-148. By the time we rounded the horn on this storm and parked 1 mile E of Joy, it was still the gorgeous, striated bell that other observers had seen earlier near Archer City. But now, it was a truly magnificent scene, dominating the western sky late twilight, with lightning occasionally shooting out of it. The vault region managed to produce a few CGs too, including this one, with stars visible S of the storm. We had a blast, just standing there in the inflow, crickets chirping, watching that storm spin itself across the W and NW sky. When its structure got diffuse, and its lightning scant, we turned N and homeward, quite contented with the day’s haul of morsels off the atmospheric smorgasbord.
We listened to the college hoops championship on the way home — aghast that Memphis would choke away the game like they did! — and even saw bits and pieces of yet more supercell structure from the distant S between Chickasha and Norman. A storm was moving across the northwestern portions of the OKC area, but we weren’t interested in getting closer. It was getting late, I had a day shift the next day, and we were satisfied with our chase day. And for good reason!