STORM TRACK: May 31, 1983 (Volume 6 Issue 4)

Storm Chase 1983 was a very good one for the Editor. It was the first that he (1) chased in a "High Risk" area; (2) saw three tornadoes in one day; and (3) drove to within a mile of one, all on Friday the 13th. Fortunately, the Editor's good luck was shared by others, since no major damage or fatalities were reported. During this trip, five tornadoes and one funnel cloud were seen, although slides of only three tornadoes were recorded. The first "missed" tornado was a gust front, wrap-up south of Waukomis, Oklahoma on May 12 between about 7:50 and 8:10 PM. Unfortunately, it dissipated before I could get a picture, but did wrap up briefly into a laminar tube, halfway to cloud base (Fig. 1 from memory). The next day, I saw three tornadoes, but the first one (near Estelline, Texas) was not recorded, due apparently to undue haste in recoupling a lens to the camera body. The new f-stop was not properly calibrated to the camera's timing mechanism. Lenses were frequently changed this day, and it was a "haste makes waste" case (@*#*!!). To compound the error, I failed to use a back-up camera, while hurrying to overtake the Estelline storm. Fortunately, it did not present a high contrast column from my location 6-7 miles west (Fig. 2 from memory) and was not, therefore, a significant loss. The next vortex one hour later, however, was fully recorded about three miles south of Dodson, Texas, against excellent back lighting on all three cameras, less than a mile away. The third was photographed a half hour later with weak contrast, 10-11 miles away between Reed and Vinson, Oklahoma. But, we're getting ahead of ourselves. Let's return briefly to the sequence for "Chase '83."

Figure 1

A writer from Science Digest magazine (September publication?) and I left, Abilene, Texas Monday morning, May 9 to check out the northern Texas panhandle. A severe storm watch was issued for southeast New Mexico and the west Texas panhandle. We drove into the northern end but only saw an old storm west of Tatum, New Mexico and so returned. Tuesday and Wednesday, we worked a dry line in western Kansas but saw nothing. A brief panic gripped the Editor each evening, as he belatedly found out about tornado watches in the Texas panhandle. However, subsequent, checking with the Lubbock NWS office proved these to be "bust" forecasts by Kansas City. On one day, a few funnels occurred northwest of Abilene, but nothing in the watch area. On the next day, nothing severe was reported in or outside of the watch. On Thursday, we left Dodge City, Kansas and drove to Wichita, south to Oklahoma City and, then, back north to Enid, There, we encountered our first tornadic thunderstorm, (we were approaching it about 30 miles to the southwest, when the initial severe storm warning was received. For the next several hours, we moved along the south flank but saw no definite signs of tornadic/cloud rotation, other than a broad scale anticyclonic rotation on the southeast flank, as it began to outflow.

Figure 2

Howie Bluesteins chase team of student meteorologists and several vehicles from Oklahoma University was south of Waukomis. We made a hasty stop to exchange greetings and speculate on what the storm would do next. There was a lot of activity, with people jumping in and out of vans and cars, grabbing cameras and straining to see through the gathering twilight what the storm would do now. The magazine writer heard one harried chaser, who had just set up three tripod cameras, exclaim ..."I can't believe it. I've got three cameras out and none of them are loaded.'" Such is the occasional panic and chaos that infects chasers, when trying to do comparatively simple, logical and organized things, while leaning into 30-40 MPH winds against a sky filled with swirling, ominous darkness. Shortly after this, the pick-up truck with "Toto" ( a 400 lb. instrumented cylinder, whose life is dedicated to being off loaded in the path of a tornado) drove a few miles north, and we followed. When we caught up, it had indeed been off-loaded next to the highway in front of a farm house. After a brief assessment that nothing significant was about to happen, we started south, pondering whether anyone in the farm house was curious about a four foot white cylinder sitting in the front yard, and had any notion as to what its proximity might portend.

We saw frequent transitory and low level dust swirls south and southeast of us, along the outflow boundary. Then, about four miles south, one low swirl almost instantly wrapped up into a laminar tube (Fig. 2 from memory). Unknown to me, Chuck Robertson was immediately next to it. When he later saw my sketch, he remarked; "Wow! I saw this dust swirl nearby but didn't know it looked anything like that!" ...Another close call.

Early Friday morning, we left Moore, Oklahoma and checked the "AC" outlook at the Will Rodgers NWS office in Oklahoma City. We then drove to Hobart, where I did an 11:00 AM surface analysis. The south central Texas panhandle looked good, so we drove west, receiving a tornado watch from Lubbock radio for the entire panhandle just before leaving Oklahoma. To the south, we saw the early buildups of another tornadic storm that would later produce several along the Red River, To the west and northwest we saw many low clouds and 7/10 or more sky cover from early build-ups. Looking for the clear air both for visibility and more rapid surface heating, we drove south to Paducah and then tracked west to Matador, along the clear/cloud boundary. By 3:25 PM (CDT), we saw a hard tower building rapidly to the northwest, folding inexorably into a large anvil. That was it!! Charging north on Texas 70, I made a final check of other small, new CBs over my shoulder to the southwest. Anvils were building rapidly but remained narrow and long, with no steady enlargement after the initial anvil stage. By that time it was obvious that the CB to our northwest would dominate the atmosphere locally for the rest of the afternoon (Fig. 3).

Figure 3

The first tornado reported was 5 miles west of Quitaque at 3:40, at the same time as the CB in Fig. 3. We cleared Turkey at 3:58 and headed west to Quitaque. We got several pictures of an impressive wall and tail cloud to our northwest -- at 4:03, almost dragging the ground (Fig. 4). We turned back east to Turkey, through strong, gusting southerly inflow winds of about 40 MPH that rocked my compact car. At 5:20, we saw the first tornado near Estelline, from 7.7 miles west of town (Fig. 2). Judging by its size, it appeared to be the strongest of the three we saw -- at least an F3. As already noted, my slides did not turn out. One interesting characteristic of this vortex, that would be repeated for tornado #2 -- it appeared to develop along the southeast flank of the storm base (Fig. 5), along the inflow band. None lasted more than a few minutes. Also of interest, no extensive solid precip core was seen until late evening, as compared to other storms (or as with Enid, the day before). After Estelline, we proceeded down to Childress and then north on US 83 to the intersection with US 62. There we met Lou Wicker and other Norman chasers, who had photographed the Estelline storm from the east. At this time, the anvil's western towers (almost overhead) appeared very soft at higher elevations -- not all hard. This was not a good sign (becoming too warm aloft?), but the overall storm remained well organized -- the base was still close to the anvil and had not decisively outflowed. We all decided to head east on US 62, and I drove on ahead, watching with growing interest: two new inflow bands moving in, from east and southeast of the base. At Farm Road 1642, I turned north toward Dodson. The previously soft towers had suddenly changed character.

Figure 4

Figure 5. Approximate outline of storm base for observed tornadoes #l & #2 and old base (right).

They were now hard, boiling and tightly compact; merging with the CB beneath the leading southeast edge of the anvil. The towers in this flanking line were building rapidly above a shelf like band (Fig. 6) that curved or wrapped into the base.

Figure 6

My perspective may have been misleading, but it suggested an inflow band parallel to, and surmounted by, towers (Is this possible?). Two and a half miles north of US 62, we turned west 1/4 mile on Farm Road 1034 and stopped. A slowly rotating wall cloud moved across the road immediately to our vest, tightened up with increasing rotation and dropped tornado f2 one mile west-northwest at about 6:30 (Fig. 7).

Figure 7

Inflow winds were light to moderate in the 30 MPH range (20 to 35). Numerous suction vortices formed beneath the core rotation, which sloped gradually down from cloud base to just a few hundred feet (at the most) above the ground. I would estimate it was capable of doing F2 damage. It moved to within 0.8 mile and parallel to the Farm Road, before we turned around after several good pictures. All of my slides showed the same basic configuration as in Figure 7; there was no solid, broad condensation column to the ground while I was watching (between lense/ camera/light meter changes). Thirty-six minutes later and 7 1/2 miles northeast of Gould, Oklahoma, we saw tornado #3 about l0-ll miles to the north-northwest, between Reed and Vinson, Oklahoma (Fig. 8).

Figure 8

It appeared to be capable of F3 damage (F2 to F3). Noteworthy was its location about 8 miles northwest of the still vigorous remnant base of tornado #2 (Fig. 7), which extended southeast to well back to the southwest of it and #2 redeveloped near Granite -- but too dark for normal pictures.

At this point, the only chaser to record anything clearly was Jim Leonard, with his new JVC CB-P5, Japanese color/sound, compact video camera. What's remarkable about this packaged system, in addition to (1) the compact camera size (2.75 lbs), (2) instant replay through the aperture (the camera itself is a miniature television set), and (3) capability of immediate replay on a local motel television set that night, is its ability to "bring in" available light for late evening (and indoors) work. It literally makes 8:00 look like 5:30. The resolution is excellent and color balance looked very good. The pickup tube even sustained the light overload of an immediately adjacent lightning strike, and went on to record three tornadoes near Medicine Lodge, Kansas four days later. Jim shared his work with the rest of us back in Norman on a couple of "off days" while we were between storms. It is certainly a highly dramatic medium, with sound and motion instantly available after the event. Good show, Jim! You've shown us the future!

The next day, Saturday, May 14 we went down to central Texas between Fort Worth and Waco but saw nothing other than strongly outflowing line squalls and hazy, overcast skies. The writer flew home Sunday morning with many notes and much to reflect on. The Norman chasers gathered that afternoon for a barbecue to swap "war stories"(more on this in a future issue) and look at Jim's exclusive telecast. Tuesday, I started from Hobart with a surface analysis pointing to south central Kansas and north central Oklahoma. Between Goldwater and Medicine Lodge, Kansas, I ran into Mike Watts and a friend from Wichita. We chased together briefly beneath enormous towers and anvils on all sides, that were just stunningly beautiful. I then drove north of Sharon to check out a building cell with an inflow band and wall cloud. Jim Leonard and Barbara White came up from the south and filmed two very crisp, clear tornadoes southwest of Medicine Lodge. We all came together on the third one a few miles southwest, of Sharon (although I didn't know it at the time). That night, I drove until 3:00 AM to Joplin, Missouri (through continuous rain), anticipating the next day's severe weather location. However, due to a sleep deficit, I blew the next day's forecast. I misread my own forecast plan and lost a northeast Kansas tornado. Thus, it was small consolation when Kansas City's tornado watch agreed with my mistaken one for south central Missouri -- because nothing happened there. In the middle of their watch area and at the middle of the watch time, there was nothing going on within at least a hundred miles visual range. Aaah, well. Thursday evening, I was back in Texas in another tornado watch, trying for time exposures of a lightning-lit base to a 70,000' top storm west of Anson/Stamford. A hook echo was reported with this storm, and I encountered the strangest inflow winds of the trip with at least 40 MPH sustained (some higher gusts). Just south of Anson at about 9:30 PM. However, the lightning wasn't close enough and none of the slides turned out. I did not pursue the Houston storms the next day. Trees are denser in east Texas, coming right up to the side roads and reducing visibility. Also, it's a much more moist air mass with more low clouds and imbedded storms, greatly reducing the visibility necessary for successful chasing. Friday the 20th, I started from Abilene with a forecast centered on Lubbock. However, I worked the southern half of my area, closer to the dry air and was a little too far out of position for the early tornadoes (3:28+) that started near Plainview. At 2:10, I started up Texas 70 from Roscoe (the tornado watch either side of a line from Lubbock to Oklahoma City, was from 3-9 PM) but was just an hour short all the way. I did reach Hall County at the start of its tornado warning (radar report), but the mesolow was poorly organized and shortly outflowed with a very impressive show of ground dragging clouds from a dark green storm base It pushed me back to Childress, where I intercepted Chuck Robertson and a friend. We chased the next hour or so, hoping for new development, but finally gave up later that evening and drove back. Joined by a returning NSSL chase vehicle, our CBs crackled long into the evening as we passed the time swapping stories and whimsy, as the sun set on the Editor's Storm Chase, 1983.