Elaborate Tornado Avoidance Techniques
Southern Kansas to east-central OK
19 May 13
SHORT: Intercepted 4 supercells in 3 tornado warnings and saw no tornadoes: 1. NW of Ark. City KS, 2. near Parkland OK (middle storm of OK triplets), 3. ENE of Prague, 4. Near Okemah and Okmulgee. Somehow managed to miss all the tornadoes two days in a row.
LONG:
Setting up “the day after the day before the day”
Having intercepted clearly the most unfavorable of several Kansas storms the previous day, the “day before the day”, Rich T and I were determined to get on a tornadic supercell on “the day”.
A classical setup set up for the corridor from southern KS to central OK, with rich low-level moisture return, a strong dryline, a lack of antecedent precip to mess up the boundary layer, large low-level hodographs, and strengthening deep-shear vectors with a decent component across the dryline. In short, this was a prime southern-plains tornadic-supercell regime, the only potential hitches being mode certain initiation with storm-mode concerns up north (near a cold front) and initiation questions farther south.
Our strategy, therefore, was to get in between the two ends and be in prime position to strike like a predator at the best developing storms in a corridor from OKC-ICT. We arrived early at a truck stop N of Perry and awaited development. Early storms near ICT looked interesting, even supercellular and potentially tornadic, (one did produce there), but also, potentially tangled up quickly in a messy cluster near the front. Fateful decision #1 had been made: blow off the early, tornadic ICT storm for more discrete and ostensibly longer-lasting activity to form closer, later.
Two areas of convection began to develop almost at once: just W of us, moving NNE toward Wellington, and about 75 miles SSW of us, on the NW fringes of the OKC metro area. Either was easily reachable. We had much better visibility on the closer activity, which seemed likely to remain in a favorable environment well into mature stages. Fateful decision #2 was sealed: check out the closer storms, which would take us away from central OK. We had seen this picture play out several times before–jump on middle or northern convection only to have the southern storm near OKC produce tubes (whether or not we would see one with our convection). Still, we risked missing something closer to home for something closer to us.
(Somewhat) northern play
Fully aware of that dubious history, we headed N to near Blackwell and took a look at the growing Cb, already showing some supercellular characteristics on radar–as did an initially separate, trailing storm behind the cold front and to our storm’s WSW. This is how it looked before the base came into view. We hopped N of the border, zigzagging E and W a little across I-35 N of Wellington to get in viewing position. The storm turned out to be a messy HP with poor contrast. Only a brief, surging attempt to wrap a mesocyclonic occlusion was visible, with a funky, spiked, ground-tickling tail cloud, before it buried itself deeply in rain again.
Optimism wasn’t the word here. The storm had 1) accepted a cascade of percip from the dying remnants of the post-frontal supercell, 2) dealt with big towers and showers forming and merging into its rear flank, and 3) interacted with a new, quasi-linear frontal segment nearby. Meanwhile, radar showed the storms near OKC coalescing with frightening speed into a big, honking supercell near Edmond. This is when we started getting that sinking feeling…here we go again.
Back to central Oklahoma
Fateful decision #3 actually didn’t take long: let’s not linger with this HP rubbish, and try our best to bust SSE ahead of the now violently tornadic convection just NE of Edmond (or anything that might form farther upshear). We didn’t dither on this, which made an intercept from that distance at least marginally feasible. Somehow, the at HP rubbish, and accessory convection building into its flank, produced a small but photogenic tornado near the South Haven exit of the Kansas Turnpike…not long after we left!
Unaware yet of that morale-crushing development, we made decent time southward on US-77/177 through PNC to the Cimarron Turnpike, then SE on the speedy slab. All the while, we could see the booming, huge flanking towers rolling into the back side of the leading storm, now near Stroud, with a known history of atmospheric violence. However, as we closed in for a potential end-around the back side, potentially in the Bristow/Kellyville area, the convection was softening, the mesocyclone weakening, the storm moving into somewhat cooler, lower-theta-e air.
Resigned to missing all that storm had to offer, we saw two newer supercells on radar, and fuzzily from the sunny N side–a small one to our near SSW, near Carney and trailing behind the first. The westernmost storm was organizing fast…over Norman! That was the cell we really wanted to see, with its unimpeded inflow and longer prospective resident time in juicy air…but the middle storm (which was sucking some outflow from the formerly tornadic lead supercell) was smack in the way.
Since the middle storm was considerably smaller than the others, with lower VIL and MESH hail indicators and a thinner forward-flank core, we made fateful decision #4, hedged a bet against the risk that could strengthen its hail production, and headed S through its forward-flank core toward the Agra/Parkland area. True to its algorithmic evolution, that core indeed contained only marginally severe hail and was surprisingly translucent, allowing us to pop out of precip a safe distance of 4-5 miles ENE of the storm’s mesocyclone. We could check this out briefly while plotting a course to get ahead of the Norman storm, by now producing a tornado over Lake Thunderbird–just a few miles from both my house and Rich’s. That sinking feeling came back again.
Yet we weren’t obligated to leave this storm just yet, not with us in an unusually good vantage point for this hilly, forested part of the central Oklahoma crosstimbers, and a tightening mesocyclone approaching rapidly on track toward a spot on the highway immediately to our north. From a distance, the main cloud area was so low that it might have appeared tornadic, but we certainly were close enough to confirm otherwise. As it crossed less than a mile away, the persistent, deep, scuddy lowering was rotating, but not especially fast, and had no debris or dust beneath. Inflow felt rainy and somewhat cool the whole time, which seems to have been more related to the earlier storm than this one. Nonetheless, it tried hard (deeply enhanced crop)…just not hard enough.
Having spent just a few minutes examining that supercell, we made our expected run for the former Norman storm, now approaching Prague, offering a tremendous radar signature, and yielding terrible media-broadcast tales of tornadic destruction from the Dale-Shawnee area. By the time we got to I-44 and US-377, it was obvious we would have to either: 1) make a big zigzag to take a safer approach, or 2) penetrate this storm’s forward-flank core too, but come out perhaps even closer to what was known to be a dangerously tornadic mesocyclone on 377.
No, thanks…fateful decision #5–live to chase another day! I don’t know what would have happened had we turned stupid and tried to core-punch that sucker, but I’m glad not to know. Even though the NWS tornado mapping for the event shows a break at 377, the risk was too great…and of course gorilla hail can take out a windshield and end a storm intercept quickly. Notice also the tornado path NE of Prague, between there and Welty (the W road E0960 off OK-48, halfway from Bristow to I-40).
Zooming safely ENE on I-44 then S on OK-48 toward Welty, we passed instead through far-forward-flank precip that was dense but only rain. We passed through hilly terrain near Welty and hunted for the first relatively open view of the big supercell that wasn’t right in the path of the meso. By the time we saw the storm, looking W on side road E0980 S of Welty, it was a deep, dark, low-contrast, HP drum. The storm definitely was producing a tornado at the time based on official mapping, but one we just couldn’t see with our eyeballs because of extremely dense wrapping precip. At the time of the last shot, the tornado would have been directly down the road, in the distance (deeply enhanced crop).
Shortly after I walked a little way down the road to try a different angle (deeply enhanced crop), a small car pulled up. The unknown chap inside noticed I was shooting the storm, and started an impressive routine of big-timing, offering instruction about the supercell’s structure and what was going on where. His descriptions were fairly accurate in a general sense, but this presumptuous little game was wasting both of our times and just had to stop. I’ve seen and studied a supercell or two myself over 28 years of storm observing and professional meteorology, so it was hard to resist temptation to bust out laughing. Instead I decided to have mercy and let him off the hook relatively painlessly. Once I could get a word in edgewise, I succinctly discussed the likely pattern of vorticity lines around the wrapping, precip-filled occlusion downdraft and its interface with the forward-flank gust front of a supercell of this configuration and morphological stage. [Thank you V.O.R.T.EX.] Quickly my interlocutor quieted down and turned his attention back to the storm. 🙂
Duly amused and a bit grateful at not being recognized, and not wanting his vehicle (or its glare) to take up too much of the shot, I wished the dude good luck, and jogged back up to the vehicle. Rich (who had stayed by the vehicle) and I watched hard for any evidence of the ongoing tornado somewhere in there (deeply enhanced crop). The rotation of the precip cage and surrounding cloud deck was impressive, but we still couldn’t see the tornado by eye. Even the deep enhancement leaves room for doubt.
After that, the visual appearance got even messier, the mesocyclone shifted NW then NNW of us, and RFD precip began to hit. We bailed S, glancing back at the remnant circulation crossing behind us (by then nontornadic, as it turned out) expecting that to be our last view of the storm in the fading daylight. An awful lot of rain was falling well S of the hook of our previous supercell, and once we got out of a cell-phone hole and saw radar again, it was obvious why. Yet another supercell had gone up farther SW, playing a game of mutual hindrance with the former Norman-Shawnee-Prague storm. They were aligned in ideal geometry to dump rain and/or outflow into each other’s inflow regions!
Enough was enough
Despite its ragged and somewhat high-based appearance (looking NNE from near Castle), we followed the last supercell N a few miles out of Okmulgee before twilight and unimpressive structure mercifully ended the intercept. Somehow we had witnessed four supercells and no obvious tornadoes on a big-event day, and aside from that, had seen very little in the way of photogenic structure. On top of our chase failures the previous day, this dealt a most demoralizing blow; and that wasn’t the worst of it.
At some point in there, I learned that the beloved cat Iniki, who suddenly had fallen ill a couple of days before, had to be put to sleep by an emergency veterinarian the same evening, while I was out driving hundreds of miles and failing to see anything of note. I never got to hold her and say goodbye. This day officially sucked. How could doing an activity I loved so much get so stinking miserable?
We ran into Bobby Prentice and Scott Fitzgerald at an Okmulgee gas station, hearing of I-40 being closed on our way home due to tornado damage (indeed, it was). We didn’t need more bad news. Yet, to make matters worse, we then learned that the Shawnee tornado had been a killer, and also, crossed the power-supply lines N of Rich’s house and cut electricity thereto for many hours ongoing. His food was unloaded into my fridge and big freezer, and he stayed at Elke’s and my place that night.
Our wish for the 20th was to turn the heretofore painful storm-intercept fate of the previous two days around on the third and final day of this weather system, despite fighting the urge not to even bother…
In the Dust Bomb
Protection KS
18 May 13
SHORT: Intercepted outflow-dominant mess of storms in SW KS with gustnado and dusty air currents.
LONG:
Favorably strengthening mid-upper level winds were expected to boost deep shear atop an increasingly well-defined dryline that, by mid-late afternoon, would set up on the east edge of the central and southern High Plains, near 100W. We had diagnosed an 850-mb dry slot left by an earlier wave aloft that was likely to lead to a shallower and more easily mixed moist layer over potential NW TX and western OK dryline targets, leaving is with western KS. The closest available part of western KS to us was southwestern KS. Hence, that was our rough target on this “day before the day”. Very rich moisture and backed surface flow were expected to reach parts of west-central and southwest KS before dark, but could it get there in time to be tapped by storms that likely would fire off the dryline beforehand?
Out the door early enough, Rich and I headed up the Northwest Passage, fueling and meeting the esteemed storm-observing firm of Fogel, Fogel, Weitzberg and Brown (and two heavily panting leonbergers) in WWD. There, we all were greeted by the full-body, hair-dryer feel of 96 degree F air blowing past. When the car thermometer (which is fairly well-calibrated in Norman to the nearby mesonet site) hit 101 deg F just across the KS line, between Sitka and Protection, we knew that was just too warm to preclude serious outflow from eventually taking over any storm that developed in that environment. However, we also expected richer moisture (supporting 70s F surface dewpoints farther E along the border) to advect into the area after peak heating, thereby lowering LCL and boosting CAPE. Which process would prevail first?
We all headed E back into the mid-90s heat, and a shady rest area near Coldwater where the big dogs could get out and walk some without suffering heatstroke. There we also met Ryan Jewell, watching towers bubble up and occasionally glaciate along the dryline from NNW-W-SW. The gathered crew (four of whom are pictured here) represented a large collective of storm-observing experience, which makes some of our decision-making this day even more peculiar! Since they may not wish to be positively, pictorially identified with this chase day, we may only know their monikers (l-r) simply as Big Dog Daddy, Downtown, The Roach, and Jumpin’ J-Hawk, with Gran Rogelio behind the camera.
Patiently this motley bunch awaited the arrival of the better moist layer that we could see in the form of haze and lower-based cumuli off to the E and SE. One of these, the high-based little Cb pictured here, moved NNE and eventually evolved into the Rozel cell. Had we known what it would do, we would have followed this seemingly pathetic little plume with mouth-foaming fervor. Alas, on this day, we simply did not. With this cell moving closer to the moist axis, I still can’t fully explain why we chose to go SW toward the bigger, messier activity coming out of the Panhandle and still in the drier air, except for some hopes it would not get outflow-dominant before reaching the richer moist layer we could see to the ESE.
Meanwhile, a storm farther N (and legitimately out of reach) was already tornado warned and apparently producing rain-wrapped circulations as it approached I-70. Longstanding convection in the northeast TX Panhandle and extreme northwestern OK was growing in size and depth, glowing with blood-red reflectivities on radar and a deepening visual darkness in the southwestern sky.
Someone mentioned the possibility of anvil shadowing cooling the temps, lowering LCL, weakening mixing, and perhaps allowing the moist layer to advect into the inflow region relatively unadulterated. It wasn’t bad reasoning, per se, but the large size and SW-NE, quasi-linear orientation of the cluster to our SW should have been a clue that it wouldn’t wait for the rich moisture before spreading its load of outflow all over the surrounding countryside.
As we approached via southwesterly zigzag, the cluster seemed broad and disorganized with some updraft area on the south and east sides. When we stopped, S of Protection, the updraft area obviously was getting undercut by outflow, and the high-based, multicellular mess started its predictable forward-propagational heave. Cold outflow blasted past us to the E and SE, and a weak gustnado buzzed eastward across a field to our NE.
Dust rose from roads and fields, jacked skyward and forward in dense plumes, scenes from the Grapes of Wrath swirling through our minds as ribbons of fine soil blasted past. J-Hawk photographed and sepia-toned two of us pathetically immersed in the lofted dirt.
Massive dust-bombing wasn’t why we drove over 200 miles, though it did offer its own interesting photographic adventures. Nonetheless, this was the hand we pulled from the deck. Richer moisture did move into the inflow layer of this storm complex, but by then it evolved into a raging, N-S squall line that ate up every other convective attempt in its path (including the tornadic Rozel supercell that had gotten entrained into its N edge). One last view of the convection at sunset, from near Camp Houston OK, and it was time to plod home, regrets over choosing the “wrong” storm tempered by hopes for the next couple of days of potentially significant tornadic potential closer to home.
Millsap TX Tornado and Supercell
Brock TX
15 May 13
SHORT: High-based junk storms watched near ABI. Headed E on I-20 toward confluence-line towers moving into high-SRH environment. Saw eventual Granbury supercell looking S and almost went after it. Instead took direct I-20 route to explosive, then-bigger storm to our NE. Watched excellent structure, brief/weak tornado(es), longer-lasting Millsap tube, and messy/multi-vortex circulation from Brock exit. Road-screwed for both storms after that. Tried to glimpse South Dallas storm after dark, too much rain.
LONG:
Pre-storm setting and early dryline convection
In a year that had been rather scant for observable tornado potential, we didn’t truly expect this day to yield much, either. Maybe it was pessimism. Maybe it was an unspoken wish not to jinx the chase, despite our disbelief in such paranormality. Maybe it was the peculiar pattern, with some split flow and the shrunken remains of a southwestern upper-level low slowly ejecting across Oklahoma. [For decades, didn’t Al Moller often extol the virtues of split flow aloft for outstanding Texas chasing?] Maybe it was the vibe that this was one of those down years (shown to be decidedly false by month’s end).
Reasonably large hodographs were reasonably forecast for part of north-central and NW TX, but generally displaced 100 miles E of the dryline, near the western lobe of a corridor of very mist return-flow air. Perhaps if an initially high-based storm firing off the NW TX dryline bulge can last long enough to get into that returning moisture and backed surface flow before dark, it could get happy. Perhaps this, if that…you know the saying: “If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, it would be Christmas every day!” Whatever the reason, we headed southwest on a classical spring chase trip to NW TX talking supercells but not tornadoes.
Rich and I decided to play the belt of enhanced midlevel winds and deep shear, S of the OK low aloft, W of the northward moisture bulge and E of the eastward dryline bulge. Initial target was the Haskell-ABI area, with (naturally) the season’s first Allsups burritos consumed along the way in Seymour. While at an abandoned farmstead N of Anson, the first deep towers erupted just to our WSW, practically in our laps and as if on queue.
However, more, even deeper towers could be seen in the hazy distance SW of ABI. Not seeing an appreciable difference in the environment of either, and both being in our target area, we decided to head toward the southern towers and keep the northern ones in view. The southern convection stayed more vigorous, and even garnered a severe warning–but turned to virga-blowing mush by the time we got S of ABI and in good intercept position to its E.
Meanwhile, the high base of the original convection, now two counties (or about 50 miles) to our N, could be seen clearly despite its distance, beyond the anvil material of the dying ABI storm. A quick check of the surface map and objectively analyzed moisture and CAPE fields revealed that the northern cell was a flimsy hope for making it far enough E to tap the reservoir of upper 60s surface dew points S and E of MWL, and (for now) shallow but building towers could be seen in the distance, corresponding to a confluence line located along the W side of the moist plume.
Maybe the northern storm somehow could get far enough east (unlikely). Maybe the cap could weaken enough along the confluence line to blow a storm or two and send it into the good juice (an intriguing but highly conditional possibility at that point). For either scenario, we would need to head back to I-20, then ENE at least 50-60 miles. If ifs and buts were candy and nuts…
As we scooted E of ABI and the northern storm shriveled, we were at our most pessimistic, as were many other storm observers–some of whom immediately abandoned the chase to start heading NW toward forecasts of central High Plains storm potential in the following days. We didn’t have that option, and besides, something very intriguing was happening across the eastern sky.
Target shift
We hung our hopes on those gradually deepening confluence-line towers–convection that got ever deeper and thicker as we rolled along the slab. The closer we got, the better it looked. The bigger towers began to sort themselves into young storms, and some of the development to our SE, ESE and ENE looked like it was going to erupt into big action very soon. The situation definitely was passing the eyeball test for those of us who have been doing this awhile.
Parameter check: effective shear was fine…SRH increasing E of the confluence line…CAPE was large, and we know what big CAPE does. Accordingly, an elongated bull’s-eye of significant tornado parameter (an index we invented, so we had better pay heed!) showed up and increased downshear from the building storms and W of I-35.
I could detect the scents of delectable convective comestibles cooking in the kitchen of the sky, soon to be placed on the smorgasbord of atmospheric violence for us to devour! The question was becoming: which entree shall we select?
By the time we approached exits leading to BWD and MWL, one healthy-looking storm already was beginning a right turn near BWD, and was warned. Two younger and closer ones were apparent and looking robust visually, but not yet as impressive on radar–approaching SEP (this became the eventual Granbury/Cleburne storm) and near MWL (the eventual Millsap storm). We had our pick of the litter, and ultimately wouldn’t have gone wrong with either of the two closer choices. Though the southern one of the closer pair initially was smaller and took longer to mature, it ultimately produced a violent tornado in deepening darkness. We briefly stopped briefly to look S at that young, future Granbury/Cleburne storm to our SSE, small but already showing some visual supercellular characteristics.
Meanwhile, the cell near MWL went berserk in ten minutes–two volume scans–explosive towers evident through intervening low clouds in the near NE sky, and remarkably rapid growth in areal coverage on the radar screen. Between that trend, the choppier terrain in the path of the much smaller SEP storm, the presence of an Interstate to take us straight to the northern storm in legal haste, and the poorer road options S of I-20, we quickly selected the MWL cell for close investigation. Along the way, and between hills and other obstructions, we saw a wall cloud quickly form and occlude (without tornado) under the base. This storm went from disorganized mess to serious supercell in less than half an hour, and as Jim Leonard might say, “This is serious business now”.
Smorgasbord delivered
Finding high yet accessible vantages in that part of north TX is a challenge; so we grabbed the easiest and first spot we could find in the storm’s inflow region — a staging area for construction work right off the Brock exit. Unfortunately, this means there is road-work material and/or the Interstate in the foregrounds of some of the images; but I guess they tell a story and add some foreground texture too. As for the storm, what a structural delight that greeted us! We remained at this spot, or just across the overpass (later stages) through the entire tornadic stage of this storm.
One fairly low wall cloud developed while the storm still had most of its spectacular deep-layer structure visible, with a turquoise tinge starting to show up in midlevels. A few minutes later, around 1841 CDT, a funnel (deep enhancement) developed on the near left edge of the wall cloud, with scud sometimes rising rapidly right off the ground and more slowly rotating into it as part of a distinct, helical column. It was about as weak and low-end of a supercellular tornado (deliberately underexposed zoom) as one can imagine, but nonetheless, there it was. This little vortex lasted just 2-3 minutes and whetted our appetite for more.
In the succeeding 20 minutes after that “wimpnado” ended, a big gob of rain slowly wrapped around what was left of the wall cloud — now becoming ill-defined — in the form of a precip-filled RFD. Then, at 1903, another funnel (deep enhancement) became apparent within the translucent bear’s cage, a little more distant from us (maybe by a couple miles) than the first vortex, and near Millsap. Though no power flashes were visible, faint and low-contrast ground contact of condensation in these early stages confirmed another tornado for us–albeit cheesy at this stage.
Quickly, the whole mesocyclone wrapped deeply in rain and completely obscured any remains or evidence of a tornadic vortex within. As such, we do not know if there is true physical continuity between that vortex and the next one in the same general area. However, this view at 1907, as the precip began abating and the mesocyclone got more deeply occluded, shows no obvious visible evidence of a continuous tornado.
Here’s the next visible vortex! This showed up suddenly at 1909 (deep enhancement), representing the start of the “Millsap tornado” that many observers watched. It may or may not have been continuous with the previous tornado. Some translucent curtains of rain still were orbiting this increasingly deeply occluded and quasistationary meso. The tornado became better visible as a classical, partly rain-wrapped cone beneath a scuddy and ragged storm-scale circulation.
Meanwhile, the parent supercell was moving slowly SE, away from the tornadic circulation–effectively kicking the old occlusion farther back through the rear of the storm. A new mesocyclone started stem-winding just ENE of us by just a mile or two, at most. We had to keep our heads on a swivel, watching the adjacent, tightening area of rotation while admiring the tornado from a greater distance.
Look here, look there…left, right…look here, look there! Someone watching a camera trained on me might have thought I was observing a slow-motion tennis match. Unfortunately, I didn’t shoot the closer meso yet because our ideal tornado vantage on the SW side of the interchange put the Brock Road bridge in the way of seeing much beneath the circulation that was practically in our laps. What a mesocyclonically bipolar conundrum! I was ready to run over or under the bridge, however, to shoot right down the Interstate in case the nearby circulation tightened to tornadic intensity.
It’s a good thing that didn’t happen yet, because the meso was smack-dab over the road to our immediate ENE, with a good deal of truck traffic zooming this way and that.
With the tornado still in progress to the NW, a brief, small funnel appeared to the N, but with no ground circulation evident beneath. The funnel sprouted from the cyclonic-shear zone (and likely ribbon of low-level vorticity) in between but connecting with the two mesocyclones. Clearly, this was a much different environment than our moisture-starved convection out by ABI.
Back on the occluded, certifiably tornadic area NW of us: the rain gradually fell away to reveal a classical tornado specimen in its full splendor, going through assorted conical forms from nearly symmetric to tapered and curved for several minutes, finally roping out with a twist. A detached condensation puff marked this tornado’s dissipating gasp at 1919, and its parent mesocyclone very quickly followed suit.
No time existed for basking in the joy of a harmless and beautiful tornado as just seen. The nearer mesocyclone actually retreated N of the Interstate, exhibiting a similar storm-relative backtracking as the precious attempt–but without the long-lasting, high-contrast tornado. Instead, it offered a short-lived, fuzzy, scuddy, ragged, multivortex circulation that lasted 2-3 minutes starting around 1922. We promptly drove the hundred yards or so back onto the eastbound service road and over Brock Road to get a better view, by which time the multivortex action to our NNE had consolidated beneath a fat little tube that was coiling ragged scud off the ground.
Fortunately, the brief tornado continued to back away from the Interstate, soon dissipating. Yet another meso was developing downshear, a few miles to our SE, as the supercell jumped flanks.
Decisions in Dallas darkness
Unfortunately, this southeastward, effectively discrete propagation led us right to the W edge of a road void ENE of Dennis, looking E at an increasingly rain-wrapped meso. We had no viable option back around to the inflow side, and no view within. A very well-defined radar hook, a tight velocity couplet, and rapid N-S precip motion on the back side left us wondering just what was happening “in there”. The precip was just too dense to see through, and the viewing angle was bad (except for the rainbow across a field of flowers).
Refreshingly rain-cooled air, tinged with a blended floral and earthy scent, carrying bird songs, was a consolation for an inability to ascertain what the later storm reports indicated was nothing of importance happening inside the mesocyclone. We surprisingly encountered Jack Beven and Margie Kieper on this remote stretch of unmarked back road NNE of Dennis; they had seen the main Millsap tornado from the distant E after a late start from visiting friends in the DFW Metroplex.
We all could have made the loopy plunge southward to intercept the now tornado-warned Granbury-Cleburne storm (whose flanking towers were visible and not far away) at or just after dark. Common sense prevailed. Core-punching a tornadic supercell, from the N or NW, on twisty and hilly roads with few escape options, in deepening darkness, did not appeal. Instead, Rich and I grabbed dinner at Whataburger in Weatherford, then headed back toward FTW for the turn northward and homeward.
Along the way, a small supercell with a nice hook erupted over Arlington and cruised E across the Oak Cliff section of SW Dallas. meanwhile, the Granbury storm was headed ESE toward I-35 and could have been targeted (again, we decided against that). Though it was dark, the projected path of the smaller Dallas storm took it toward south Mesquite; so we jumped down to I-2o to get into its inflow region. Very shortly after doing so, we encountered a huge traffic jam…going the other way! A wreck had the westbound Interstate backed up for miles; but our side was smooth sailing. Before we got into decent position SE of the storm, though, a dense cluster of heavy showers formed and moved right over us; their outflow weakened and ultimately killed the south Dallas supercell. We turned N through its feeble remnants, wheeled around LBJ freeway and drove on back to Norman through occasional elevated storms.
A north Texas chase day finally bore fruit for us with a classically structured supercell and a few low-impact tornadoes casually observed from one spot. The bad news was that the storm we didn’t chase (and wisely so) produced a terrible killer tornado near Granbury, and a big, destructive wedge after dark, around Cleburne. This marked the sad day that the switch had flipped on from a shockingly inactive tornado season to a dreadfully busy and tragic two-week stretch, at least for the southern Plains.