Melting Hail and Singing Frogs

May 1, 2013 by · Comments Off on Melting Hail and Singing Frogs
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Mulhall to Stillwater and Ripley OK
14 Apr 13

SHORT: Intercepted marginal/intermittent supercell–pretty storm–between Mulhall and Perkins OK.

LONG: Another day waking up during the late afternoon, after a night shift, offered a conditional opportunity for storm observing. In a year already shaping up to be sparse for such activity, this day offered at least marginally suitable wind and moisture profiles along or near a cold front, somewhere between OKC and southern Kansas.

One major concern was that any storms forming along the front, near and N of the KS border, would be undercut by the frontal air mass; so I played wait-and-see with shallower convection to its south. Finally, a clump of deep towering cumulus became apparent on visible satellite imagery NW of OKC, giving that look I’ve seen many times before of an incipient storm genesis area. Seeing that, I plotted a likely storm-motion vector that would take any resulting activity across I-35 W of SWO, threw the gear into the vehicle, and zigzagged to the Interstate to engage the prospective quarry.

As I passed downtown OKC, I could see deep towers to the NNW-NE glaciate. Radar reflectivities showed growing echoes in the same area, the spawn of the upward-motion zone responsible for those early towers. By the time I got to the high overlook near Mulhall, a series of mostly high-based and small (but deep) towers to my WNW-W were evolving into a more discrete and distinct storm.

From even these early stages, the storm was pretty, but had a pronounced core plummeting through the middle that limited the size of the upshear part of the updraft. This general configuration continued throughout its remaining lifespan, although the updraft did grow appreciably as it approached I-35 and moved into higher-PW boundary-layer air. I headed E to SWO a.k.a. Stillwater a.k.a. Stoolwater, then as the storm assumed marginal supercell characteristics, dropped back S toward Perkins to let it approach. The storm was high-based as expected, outflow-dominant, still with a small updraft, but severe-warned due to hail.

Knowing the tornado potential was next to zero, I let the rear-flank downdraft pass overhead then followed along behind the storm for a potential sunset view. In the Ripley area, still on the back edge of the rear-flank core, I encountered some hail up to about 8/10 inch in size, and reported that via the NSSL-PING app. A garishly painted tour vehicle zoomed east, into the core; but I opted for the colorful side of the storm, spread out beautifully across the eastern sky into which its slowly shrinking form receded. The earlier high-PW air began to be offset by diabatic surface cooling, and the storm spun down from the Perkins area eastward.

Cool, earthy aromas of fresh rain, melted hail and slightly pounded vegetation was welcomed by a chorus of frogs–something very seldom heard in these parts during the past couple of hot, drought-inflamed years. This was the full-sensory experience of storm observing, where even the feel and taste of the air was fresh, clean and wholesome.

After relaxing and enjoying the experience for a spell, I headed back through Perkins for a quick bite of fast food, then S down US-177, I-40, OK-102, and OK-9. It was a fun “backyard” chase that was most welcomed, while still getting me home in time to spend some time with my daughter and beautiful bride (who stayed home) before work.

Bittersweet First Chase of 2013

April 29, 2013 by · Comments Off on Bittersweet First Chase of 2013
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Tecumseh, OK
30 Mar 13

SHORT: After waking up, jaunted a short distance E to watch storms take on beautiful and photogenic sunset textures. Got an unwanted reminder about humanity.

LONG: I had been on an overnight shift that morning, knowing of marginal daytime supercell potential somewhere over the central or eastern parts of the state. The threat depended on the alignment and character of boundaries–some yet to be made.

After awakening rather late in the afternoon and gathering my senses, Elke and I noticed towers erupting along one of those features–an outflow boundary a short distance to our east and south. The eastern towers were in a more favorable moisture and lift environment, and showed decent mass continuity visually; so we proceeded on a mini-chase E along Highway 9 toward Tecumseh.

This all was shortly before sunset, so we stopped at a really good overlook 4 W Tecumseh for the preferred western view. Towers rose deeply and broadly into a downshear anvil while crisply alight in the late-day sunshine.

As we watched this newest, somewhat high-based storm build into the back of its loosely organized convective cluster, a very friendly, middle-aged farmer living in the nearest house came out for a chat with us, then went back to his chicken coop and brought us two fresh, warm eggs from his hens. He told us how happy he was to get a new start in life with his wife, reminisced on his days as an Air Force pilot flying around storms, then headed back to his house.

Meanwhile the sun sank low in the west, and the big dome of convection assumed a gorgeous golden hue in the opposite part of the sky. Over the next 20-25 minutes, an assortment of intervening scud and multicell asymmetries developed, contributing colorful texturing and some oddly beautiful patterns of light and shadow to the storm scene. Meanwhile, we could see the ultimately tornadic Muskogee-area convection in the hazy, distant NE, its tops reddened by the last sun rays of the day.

Visible filaments of lightning were sparse, though the storm flickered rather frequently with deeply internal discharges. Hungry for dinner, we headed back home, and the convection took off southeastward into the hills and trees. The resulting supercellular-multicellular conglomeration traveled deep into the night, over and beyond the Ouachitas, producing hail estimated up to 2.5 inch diameter in Atoka County. From the remote perspective of my operational severe-storms forecasting shift, I saw the same convective cluster travel the breadth of southern Arkansas, finally dissipating near dawn as it massed over the Mississippi River near the Louisiana-Mississippi line.

In one of those moments that just makes one both angry and sad for the state of humanity, I very recently looked up the farmer’s name to make sure I remembered it correctly. Unfortunately, I did. He was listed and pictured in the official database as a registered sex offender, convicted in OKC in 2008 of dealing in illicit images of children, and turned loose on probation after serving three years behind bars. I guess that explains the “fresh start” out in the country.

Being a father, this sort of thing just makes me furious. It is also a shame to have the memory of a fine storm-observing jaunt soiled in that way. Sometimes what should be a good story just doesn’t have the happy ending we like.

It will be hard to look at those shots, or think of this trip, without being reminded of its dark side discovered later; but if we don’t still appreciate the good and beautiful that we saw…then evil wins. That must not be allowed to happen. So I tell this story in hope that you, too, can absorb unfortunate news and overcome its impact with the overarching grace of the perfect Artist who produced that sky.

Those Northern Plains Convective Skies

December 21, 2012 by · Comments Off on Those Northern Plains Convective Skies
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Medora to Hettinger ND, Lemmon SD
13 Jun 12

SHORT: Rewarding day considering low expectations. Scenic initiation over badlands of Theodore Roosevelt NP. Intercepted subsequent splitting storms along ND-SD line, with dominance of slight leftward motion. Ended chase on E end of high-based storms between Buffalo and Faith SD.

LONG:
We had enjoyed a few days of casual exploration in the Turtle Mountains and Peace Garden area, followed by exploring and photographing the North and South Units of Theodore Roosevelt National Park (TRNP) of North Dakota. The North Unit offers great hiking and few people…I highly recommend it for both geology and northern Great Plains landscapes!

All that was done while awaiting the next northern-stream shortwave trough, the system finally approached. This day offered the classic storm-intercept targeting conundrum of mid-June–stronger flow with weaker moisture up north, or vice versa farther S. Since “farther S” was New Mexico in this case, we stayed put, having found one of the few reasonably priced motel rooms in the region at one of the most inappropriately named towns on the Great Plains–Beach, ND. If you’re chasing in western North Dakota, be duly advised that rooms are scarce and expensive, and likely will remain so for the foreseeable future, because of the boom in fuel extraction from the deep Bakken Shale formation.

Fortuitously, the morning forecast scenario indicated storm initiation would occur near a slow-moving cold front and inverted trough over northwest SD and southwest ND–maybe even very close to us at TRNP. So…we cruised over to the South Unit of TRNP for some scenic hiking and driving in the morning, followed by lunch in Medora, and a grand plan to commence storm observing over the badlands of the South Unit in the mid-afternoon.

Towers already were erupting along overhead and to the S, when we were finishing a late lunch in Medora. We headed several miles E to the Painted Canyon area of TRNP and set up for a few DSLR time lapses of convection over the scenic North Dakota badlands. Here are some still shots from those, looking N and looking NE.

Those photos are part of several speed-adjustable time lapses I made from timed photos at those locales…be advised that these time lapses may load slowly if you’re on a low-bandwidth connection:

  1. Three time lapses looking N at convection forming along the boundary (time lapse 1, time lapse 2, and time lapse 3) looking N at the convection forming on the boundary, and
  2. My favorite, a longer time lapse I was able to build looking NE from essentially the same place.

Another clump of towers deepened marvelously with a mesonet site in the foreground. This told us the atmosphere was ready to do something special, the main question being, “What, exactly?”

Setting forth southeastward across southwestern North Dakota, we stopped occasionally to watch assorted towers build beautifully, ever deeper, ever grander across a verdant Northern Plains landscape. Several Cbs within a 75-mile radius offered themselves for targeting. This upwelling of atmospheric splendor to our NE, near New England (the town) tempted us, but the updraft and base on the N (left-inflow) side looked better than that on the near (right-inflow) flank.

This storm, and most others on the day, were either splitters or left-movers. Despite the decent deep-layer shear, small low-level hodographs kept storms from becoming too rightward-dominant, and therefore, from being long-lived cyclonic supercells.

Leaving that cell as it left us, we zigzagged farther SE toward Hettinger, to intercept another cell that was looking larger and more robust, visually and on Bismarck radar. We couldn’t quite reach our E option (US-12 near Bucyrus) before the storm did, so we let it cross the road with the abandoned Hettinger Equity grain elevator in the foreground. Being high-based, the storm traversed above a deep and slightly moisture-deprived boundary layer, producing a strong theta-e deficit in its immediate wake. Profuse hail up to an inch in diameter contributed to that localized cold pool, too.

Following the storm eastward, we saw more rainbows, finding the pot of gold not in a literal sense, but in the splendor of a convective Northern Plains sky, a treasure beyond measure, intangible and ephemeral yet perpetually memorable.

Being behind a storm, especially one that’s not terribly speedy and that likely won’t produce a tornado, often can be more photogenically rewarding than being in its way. Seldom was this more true than when we pulled beside a moist, rain- and hail-cooled field E of Hettinger for a tremendous view of the receding Cb brightening the northeastern sky with its convectively reflective brilliance. It was a great way to bid good-bye for the year to North Dakota–a state where they use spruce instead of cedar for wind rows (as seen in the last two shots), a state that had treated us very well convectively and otherwise over the preceding few days.

We dropped ESE obliquely across the South Dakota border on US-12 into Lemmon, noticing new development to our distant WSW, S of Buffalo. Without any decent, intervening north-south roads, and with the newer storms growing upscale and moving fairly rapidly, we headed S on SD-73. This also would take us closer to Belle Fourche, where we had made lodging reservations for the night, in anticipation of a meteorological down day spent at Devils Tower WY. We watched the very high-based, south end of a line of storms approach, laden with wispy tendrils of windblown precipitation, then dodged southward out of its way and into a twilight adventure driving to Belle Fourche.

We knew it would be an exasperating ride when we saw a sign, “ROAD CONSTRUCTION NEXT 47 MILES”. Although no actual, active construction was taking place, we ended up driving for about 25 of that 47 miles behind an 18-wheeler, on a rough, 1-2 lane dirt version of the state “highway” that featured sudden and unmarked lateral shifts in road position within its right of way. The truck drove off the road several times and back on again; so we couldn’t depend on its driver to guide us regarding upcoming jogs in the roadbed. We did, however, have to suck the dust, even while staying back a few hundred feet.

Needless to say, we got into our motel later than hoped, tired from the unexpectedly weary ride in, but thankful for one of the most purely pleasing convective days of the year.

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