STORM TRACK: November 30, 1982 (Volume 6 Issue 1)

On June 5, 1982, chase teams and individuals set out for western Nebraska (Moore, et. al.), western Kansas (the ST Editor), and the extreme northwestern Texas panhandle (Eric Rasmussen, et al). None of us saw anything rotate except road dust in the wake of our cars. One solo chaser, Al Moller, found something in his analysis of the weather patterns that the rest of us missed, and drove to the central Texas panhandle. What he subsequently photographed was unbelievable. Even after looking at the slides, it is difficult to comprehend. From an ideal photographic position and in excellent light, the most dramatic and clearly structured tornadic-thunderstorm ever seen by the Editor was photographed southeast of Borger, Texas, It is the quintessential "center-fold" storm. Stripped of obscuring clouds and heavy rain, it revealed the fundamental mesolow all the way to the anvil. Al tells his own story of this memorable day.

Diagram #1

Diagram #l depicts my route on the chase. I had earlier decided on staying close to Amarillo and not chase from Dalhart into southwest Kansas, where there seemed to be stronger surface parameters. There was a very strong 700 mb cap over the entire area, with the strongest capping at Dodge City. Even though surface conditions were strong in Kansas, I didn't think they would have enough heating/surface convergence to break the strong cap (they didn't). The cap was enough at Amarillo, that I knew there would either be no thunderstorms or a few severe thunderstorms. By mid-afternoon there was considerable cirrus overhead overhead at Amarillo, with a break in the clouds to the north-west. I charged up State 1061 to Boys Ranch and watched the first towering cumulus (tcu) bubble up on the dry line, and under the break. All three of the cells labeled '1, 2 and 3' initially looked good, but they all evolved into having the largest part of the rain-free base (RFB) and the hardest anvil edges on the north-west flank, as opposed to the southwest flank (not good)! They also raced rapidly north-northeast at 40 to 50 kts, too fast to keep up with and not at all like a slowing, right-moving supercell would do!

After penetrating marble hail and brief, heavy rain from #3 east of Dumas, I eyeballed cell #4 to my south-southwest. I figured that either #4 would repeat the process of storms 1, 2 and 3 or show slower, nore right-hand moving tendencies, and give some hope! It didn't take long to realize that the latter was coming true! I roared southward on State 207, encountering the northeast edge of the precip area out of #4, from north of Borger into town. The precip was marble hail and scattered large raindrops, visibility was never less than 4 or 5 miles in the area (Diagram #2). As I broke out of the precip in southern Borger, I was greeted by a storm chasers dream (illustration).

Picture 1

The obviously cyclonically rotating storm was tossing out almost continuous staccato lightning bolts from the anvil into my immediate area (photo position A). Thus I stayed in the car while shooting tornado #l's life cycle (Pictures 2-4). The tornado destroyed a rural house near Fritch, Texas, shortly after Picture #2. A small Rear Flank Downdraft (RFD) was visible wrapping around the first tornado. Apparently, the RFD pushed the bottom of the funnel northeastward, with the dissipating tornado tilting into the precip area, not away from it as most tornadoes do. Tornado #l was visible as a funnel/ tornado for about 6 or 7 minutes, as one of several 'funnels aloft' near Fritch. Most people still think that such an 'aloft' appearance means 'no touchdown'. I have been telling spotters to search for a damage track beneath any 'funnel aloft' and to expect damage in almost every case if the condensation cloud is at least halfway to the ground.

After tornado #1 dissipated, I doubled back into Borger, catching golf ball hail, again mixed with scattered large rain drops. At the same time that I was in southeast Borger, the hail in west Borger was up to softball size, causing about, $5 million in damage! I could see through almost all of the precip at this time, indicating that most of it was hail and not rain. The storm was a very efficient hail producer but inefficient as a rain producer. This is typical of the so-called 'Dry Line Storm,' as opposed to the classic 'supercell'.

Don Burgess has documented several of these dryline storms (One that produced the June 4, 1973 Norman tornado and another that produced the December 1975 Tulsa tornado). I showed photos of the Borger storm to Don, and he thought it might be a cross between a dry-line storm and a supercell. Further, Don suggested that dry-line storms might be a subset of supercells sort of a supercell without the usual abundance of rain fall. I think Howie Bluestein's 'Bell shaped storms' are usually within the category of 'dryline storms.' Some of them are extremely small. The Borger storm had the largest RFB of any dryline storm I have seen, but smaller than the RFB of some 'wet' supercells that I've been fortunate to witness. Now, back to the Borger storm.

Picture 2, 3, and 4

I rapidly made the core punch into Borger, then exited the precip by taking State Highway 152 southeast of town." Al told the Editor during a visit with him at his home near Fort Worth that his successful transit in and out of Borger was a chancy thing. As he re-entered town to get the road southeast, he ran into rapidly increasing hail, up to golf ball size. At the last possible moment, he took a large chance and charged off on the first available major road to the right. By the sheerest luck, he hit a bypass road that skirted the downtown area, already impassable with window shattering hail, and connected with 152. It was a desperation gamble, that paid off handsomely, missing the worst hail by the proverbial "skin of his teeth."

Picture 5

"From Photo position B, I took Picture 5, looking west-southwest. Note the developing wall cloud, behind the small, dense precip curtain and on the north side of the RFB. The rotating RFB and CB striations were more pronounced at this time, and the wall cloud was larger than with tornado #l. I expected a more substantial tornado, and I got it! Pictures #6 and #7 show tornado #2. A pronounced RFD wrapped around the tornado, making its demise predictable, shortly after Picture #7. Luckily, both tornadoes missed Borger, but the second one caused about $300 thousand in damage and injured two at the Phillips Petroleum Company to the west. Also, a car was blown off of State Highway 136 west of Borger, and a man was critically injured in the auto.

Picture 6 and 7

After tornado #2 dissipated, the Borger storm weakened and continued to Miami, Texas. A second (and smaller) dry-line storm moved in directly behind the Borger one. It was also rotating, but no funnels or tornadoes were observed. I pursued it to Miami until after dark. See you next spring.

Diagram 2

(All pics traced from slide projections)