Early Father’s Day Gift…of Storms
May, OK
3 Jun 12
SHORT: Intercepted splitting, intermittently severe thunderstorms in NW OK.
LONG: This would be the inaugural day of Elke’s and my annual Great Plains vacation together, and as always, one brimming with hope and anticipation for two weeks of adventures across whatever lands the atmosphere lured us. The medium-range pattern suggested (ultimately correctly) that we would be spending a good deal of time in the Dakotas, Wyoming and western Nebraska. Until then, and along the way there, we had this risk for high-based but potentially severe and photogenic storms in northwest OK and southwest KS.
Overnight MCS action had left a morning outflow boundary from southwest AR through OKC to the northeastern TX Panhandle. A departing MCV aloft, followed in close order by a weak 500-mb shortwave trough, would yield only subtle shifts in the muddled large-scale support for convection over the area near the dryline-outflow intersection. Deep-layer flow was modest; so some storm-scale help would be needed to even get sustained rotation. Nonetheless, it was a chance for a scenic storm along the way to future days’ chase chances, and in the company of friends.
David Fogel’s dad Bob happened to be in OKC for a wedding the prior day, and joined him, Keith Brown and the two big dawgs for the afternoon to see firsthand this long-described phenomenon of storm observing on the Great Plains. It was a great pleasure to meet Bob at long last, and to share a chase day with him. We all headed out of OKC and up the Northwest Passage, stopping for automotive, human and canine fuel in Woodward as towers erupted to the NW. We intercepted what became the most interesting and persistent area of convection near May, a little bitty splitting updraft pumping out a great big anvil.
It was a rather easygoing and relaxing scene–a good one for Bob and DF to savor before they had to return to OKC for Bob’s flight the following morning. The dawgs seemed more interested in relaxing than in the storm, but they were well-behaved and apparently didn’t fart too much.
As for the storm, it drifted S, then split some, then propagated back NW, expanded, and dissipated, as we maneuvered around the May/Buffalo/Laverne area. When it became obvious the convection was falling apart, we bid farewell to the Fogel men, Fogel dawgs and Keith, and headed toward DDC to spend the night. Along the way, we found a line of utility poles apparently tilted by severe winds at some recent time, with replacements already in the ground.
Dinner and lodging (and even the faucet water) were lousy; so we made haste out of Dodge the next morning on the road northward to what proved to be a very enjoyable two-week sojourn over the blue highways of Middle America.