Three Texas Tempests
…and a Dead Goat
San Angelo to Marble Falls, 14 May 8
After a good night’s sleep in ABI, we made a forecast target area of SJT, based on the presence of a well-cooked old outflow boundary from an overnight MCS that by now was near HOU. The boundary extended WNW to just SW of SJT, where it would experience heating on both sides while intersecting an eastward-mixing dryline. This was a reasonably straightforward forecast, for once, so it was up to the atmosphere to cooperate. Even though a separate storm produced a visible tornado N of the warm front and well WNW of ABI later that afternoon, we were fairly pleased with the results — two supercells forming right in the forecast area and moving down the old outflow boundary.
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Southern OK Bustola and Jack County “Pseudocell”
Filed under: Summary
13 May 8
I’m only showing the flower because it was more impressive visually than the eventual storm. Nonetheless, this day, like most chase days, turned into an adventure that none of the participants ever should forget. Two of them certainly never will.
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Dueling Banjos, Deliverance and Bigfoot
Filed under: Summary
Messy Tornadic Supercell near Broken Bow OK
10 May 8
This day’s four-vehicle chase crew consisted of Tim Samaras and Carl Young in Tim’s hail-targeting “Big Ugly Truck,” Verne Carlson in his plane-deployment Subaru, two ISU students in a mobile mesonet vehicle, Rich Thompson, Tony Laubach and me. Tony rode with me for the first part (and active chase) in order to work out some software and hardware bugs that I somehow solved simply by sitting down. Yes, I sat my big butt down in the driver’s seat on one occasion, a beep came from somewhere below, everything suddenly began working. Rich rode with Verne at first, then with me on the way back.
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