Friday the 13th Supercells (SW OK)
Elke and I had a rare non-vacation chase day on tap for Friday, and had a sitter, so out we went right after I got off work at 3. We zoomed down I-44 through FSI to US62, where we were faced with the choice of a well established supercell in TX or newer storms to our WSW through NW. Through listening to the ever informative Rick Smith Show on ham bands, a call from RJ describing the young but huge TX storm, and timely text messaging from Ryan, we figured that the storms near Benjamin were 1. Ingesting air with larger T-Td spreads, 2. Unrecoverably HP, making whatever would happen hard to see, 3. In the sparse road network S of Vernon/Quanah, and 4. Attracting “whoreds” of attention from the yellow-donut chasers.
Rick had described a left split that peeled off the NW TX mess, headed right for the Beckham County storm. So we bypassed both the north and south options and ran straight up the gut toward the new CDS County storm. W of LTS we could see portions of all these storms. Here’s the N side of the TX supercell and the CDS County storm, with the anvil of a small supercell in Briscoe County in the far background.
The left split is somewhat visible at right beneath the anvil murk of the CDS storm here, looking W. The (Bend It Like) Beckham County storm is in the distance here, with low wall cloud faintly and poorly contrasted. Contrast enhanced version. Another supercell tried to spin up N of Hollis, in a space between other storms that would prove too narrow. This was that storm from near Hollis, looking NW.
We overshot the CDS storm S of Hollis, backtracked a bit then got in front of it. Somewhere in the peripheral FF core, with CGs popping all around, the driver’s side windshield wiper and mounting started to disintegrate. It was less than a year old. [Lesson: Don’t buy Anco Triple Edge wipers.]
Finally getting in good viewing position near Eldorado, looking W. While interesting, this certainly didn’t appear visually to be carrying the “intense, persistent couplet” Ryan had been TM’ing us about. “What’s the deal?”, I thought.
Looking back at FDR SRM data, the previously intense shear couplet vanished in two volume scans, right as we got to the storm. I suspect it was ingesting outflow both from the left mover and from the ever-enlarging HP cluster to our S. It’s either that, or believe that it knew we were coming and decided to barf a cake.
The storm tried to reorganize a little … then after throwing a hot ribbon CG into that very wheatfield and causing us to evacuate, it became higher based and more disorganized looking. [At least I got the CG on video, my first six minutes of video shot this year after over 2000 miles of chase driving.] Here is its RFGF cloud line, with the NW flank of the Benjamin/Truscott complex in the distance, looking SW from just N of Quanah.
We briefly became interested in the old Briscoe storm, letting it move right at us, but it was a skinny and struggling little thing. Meanwhile the NW flank of the Paducah complex churned along to our SW…
Other options exhausted, we thought about blasting S toward the behemoth but instead aborted the chase in Crowell, meeting Bobby and RJ briefly, and tanking up on fuel for both car and human — gasoline and gas-producer (in the form of Allsups burritos), respectively.
A true joy of the trip was finding a pull-off leading deep into a wheat field SW of Lockett, where we could do some sunset photography of mammatus and of the never-say-die Briscoe storm, now crawling down the Red River and enjoy each other’s company in the mild, refreshing SE breeze emanating off the Benjamin/Truscottt complex.
That little Red River storm continued to spark after dark as we headed back into OK, and would produce radio reports of marginal severe hail near Lockett.
All in all, it was a fun and worthwhile chase. We encountered just a few other chase vehicles and saw a few messy supercells. This was a step up and a welcome trend!
Now another welcome trend would be if we could get any rain here to take us over an inch for the month, and an inch and a half for April an May combined…
RE
Bustolas Illustrated, Vol. 20, Issue 2 (5-11-5)
Filed under: Summary
“I’m glad somebody found something today, because we essentially wasted an entire day and $50 each.” Rich Thompson
That’s total gas/food/toll expense for the trip, BTW. I’ll add a few pictures and some elaboration to Rich’s terse but justifiably frustrated account. We (Ryan, Rich and I) loosely caravanned with RJ and Bobby, and kept in phone touch with Bob C. who was awaiting dryline development. This is the initial eruption NNW of Hays and NNE of Wakeeney, looking NNE from N of Wakeeney (where we had parked so Ryan could access data as we waited for something to show).
As you can see here, visibility in the warm sector was less than ideal because of haze. That factor combined with our ultimate lack of good storm views to make for the second of three chases this year with no slides taken, and the third of three with no distinct supercell base seen. Still, this offered a good deal of promise, about 15 minutes after the first shot.
It was the eventual Alma storm, which had formed on warm-sector HCRs and was now a young supercell moving into relatively maximized SigTor parameter space between the old outflow/confluence line and the true polar front. [The true polar front was represented on Hastings radar by a fine line drifting SSW across the southern tier of NE counties.] We figured this storm would have an hour and a half, maybe, to kick some butt if it right turned; and we could be well within view of the base before it crossed the front.
Problem was, it was rapidly losing any kind of base by the time we got to it. Nor had it right-turned. Ouch. Other towers were erupting ALQDS but south as the original storm turned into a featureless pall of gray, no pictures taken. None of those towers amounted to much except for one to the distant W. So we jogged N of Alma then W for the intercept, transecting the very strong front (temps going back S a little later rose from the 64-66 range to 87). This wasn’t a good sign. I prefer more gradual baroclinic boundaries for optimal tornadogenetic potential, particularly given the angle of crossing (right angle). I prefer higher warm sector dew points whe T=87F. And I prefer that a storm actually right move. This one didn’t either, as it cruised northward past us, already atop the stable frontal layer. Shot is 1 W Arapahoe NE looking NW. Temp was 66 F and falling with ENE winds. Core and lightning were to the right rear off the picture. This was the “base.” The public tornado report came half an hour later when the storm was at least 20 nm N of the front. Hmm…
Nowcast calls from Elke and from Daphne T (no “Edge” data coverage out there for Ryan or RJ) indicated dryline turkeys and distant strong of somewhat connected supercells to our W. Both are in view in this shot near Gem KS, the anvils from the string of supercells as seen through an orphan anvil as seen through dried bug-mustard on the windshield.
While passing that orphan, the drive down K-383/US 83, the SW-NE between Clayton and Gem was a relaxing Great Plains cruise with everyone else asleep or almost asleep, and the fresh new grass waving in the intense SSE crosswinds. Someone who writes a book about the Plains in the future, maybe another Merill Gilfillan or Stephen Jones, must drive that route and be inspired to prose. It’s one of my favorite drives among many of the blue highways of the plans — even in the face of a mounting bustola.
Though we raced SW in hopes of dryline storms reachable before dark, all we saw was this off to the distant S (from N of Oakley along I-70). I don’t think this is the future Ulysses tornadic storm, but instead one N of it that was severe-warned. The Ulysses storm would have been blocked from our view by this activity.
Needing to get back to Norman for a day shift today, and with a tired crew rather burned out on a long distance bustola, we took the fast route as Rich mentioned. I recall telling Ryan and Rich that, were it a real chase vacation, I would head straight S for lightning shots. [Turns out we wouldn’t have seen Ulysses anyway, but maybe — maybe — could have caught some of the later activity purely by happenstance.] Total miles: 1118, which is second all time for me for a single day there and back. I got 3 hours of sleep and am dragging right now.
So today, I was unable to chase as far as PVW because of working ’til 4pm. However, despite another day shift tomorrow, the dryline/front
intersection may be closer, perhaps reachable over SW OK. We shall see. Elke and I got a sitter and Corey was benevolent in trading some work time with me…so we can actually go. This must mean some sort of major mesoscale, storm scale and/or nonmeteorological failure mode. I’m almost in suspense wondering what it shall be this time! 🙂 But in any event I always find something to enjoy out on the Plains.
Still awaiting my first base-visible supercell of the year outside Norman and first storm structure slide of any kind.
RE