4/13/07 REPORTS: TX / OK / AR

[Glenn Dixon]

We made it as far as Jacksboro, then began driving like we were lost. N. toward Seymour, no south toward Graham, no, north again. Finally made up my mind and went north. Got near Archer City while the local spotters were discussing lowerings and a possible wall cloud but got chased out by the squall line. Played dodge with pea-sized hail the rest of the way back to Denton. Didn't see much lightning nor an isolated base all day. I did, however, get to hear a spotter in one county (which shall remain nameless) refer to a dark lowering as 'omulous'.....

Not exactly the chase I had in mind when I left. Good for equipment testing I guess. :rolleyes:

[matt patterson]

Some how managed to find myself in Ft Worth about 1/2 mile behind the tornado... Was wrapped in rain for the entire time with only a few clearings. saw some damage to a grocery store and some abandoned cars on the 121 hwy near Irving... Fairly dissapointing for a 500+ mile drive...

[Eugene Thieszen]

Walt Gish, Eric Sipes and I left Cordell at 10:30am for our initial target of Seymour, TX. Storms had begun to develop from W of Abilene N to Aspermont and Guthrie by the time we arrived. Stopped to fuel up and get some fast food. Storm moving from near Aspermont toward Rochester went tornado warned just before we left Seymour heading down 277 toward Munday. At Goree we turned N and observed the storm for a short time from a mile or two N of town before backtracking toward Seymour. We headed ESE of Seymour on SR114 and pulled off on the driveway of an equipment site about 3 miles down the road and watched the storm come toward us from the WSW. At 2:41 pm the storm quickly condensed a giant, violent wedge from a large wall-cloud about 3 miles to our WSW. We were able to watch it for only a couple of minutes before it became necessary to move up the road because the tornado was coming at us so rapidly. By the time we turned around at our next pull-off the tor was wrapped in rain and dust as it crossed SR 114 to our NW. We continued following the storm to near Lake Kickapoo, but we did not see any further tornadoes. At Archer City, we pondered intercepting the storm along I-20 heading for Fort Worth, but instead decided to call it a day since none of us liked the idea of chasing in or near an urban area.

Gene
WXtreme Chase Team

Chase Log and Video Captures
http://www.geocities.com/genet_99/wxtreme_2007_037.htm

[Bill Tabor]

Updated detail case study of this chase on my website:
http://www.tornadoxtreme.com/Chases_By_Year/2007_Chases/April_13_07/april_13_07.html

Gene Moore and I were exiting Haskell, Tx to the north about the time of the report of the tornado 3NNE of Rule (in Haskell county). This was likely about 5 or so miles from us. I verified this with our GPS log at 1:45. As we were leaving town Gene was joking to me saying "look there's a tornado" LOL. There was lifted, blowing dust in the field. To me it looked like a gustnado, or perhaps one of those very weak rear flank whirlies everyone always sees. Originally I was thinking this was no tornado. However the location aligns very well with the path of the circulation that later led to the now know wedge. So perhaps it is somewhat likely this was a legitimate tornado. Perhaps some other chaser will come up with an image? At the time we ignored this area. We were instead focused to it's northeast on the wrapped up embedded meso that was exibiting rotation as it neared Munday. For awhile we videotaped and photographed this area as we were just within the wrapping rain. Threatnet was showing 138mph. It lowered close to the ground and then occluded. We continued following it through Goree and down hwy 277 always in or near the hook which was almost always rain obscured to varying degrees. We were in 1" hail at times near Bomarton and beyond toward Seymore with much of the road covered with near golfball sized hail, and also a lot extending in the fields while we viewed the meso to our south. We arrived at Seymore to see larger hail nearing baseball. Gene saw one stone while I was on the phone that was 4" or so with spikes as I recall near a home that had lost a lot of siding from the hail. It's a shame we didn't stop to take detail pictures of this, but I was on the phone and another core was approaching, plus we were trying to get into position for a tube. It was very cold in this part of the storm, often with hail fog. I videotaped some of this. At 3:04 at the intersection of FM1790 & FM2180 we observed some strong turbulent motion and various lowerings, but while associated with the meso, they also appeared a bit undercut and cold, outflow dominant. We didn't like the looks of these and the fact that it was going into lower dewpoints colder temps and decided to bail south along the dryline and observe possible tornadic there.

At 4:37 southwest of Graford we observed a large cone shape funnel like lowering for awhile to our wnw associated with the area of rotation that was also becoming part of a bowing shape a cycle or so later on radar. Took some shots of this. Here we also drove in occasional nickel hail and fairly heavy precip. Took shortcut around Mineral Wells as bow was inbound with tornado warning, but it was starting to look like more outflow crap so we continued south and sampled other storms along the way. None of them looked like much including those that Threatnet was showing had about 161mph shear. Later in Lampassas after a brief stop at 7:45 we were treated to billiant CG bolts very nearby in the clear ahead of the precip approaching from the west. At one point the lightning stuck a very large, long wire and illuminated it for awhile. Very cool. Tried to get some video of this, but without much success.

In summary, early on at Haskell we pretty well had picked a perfect spot with great timing as the cell was strenghtening and becoming potentially tornadic. We enjoyed this chase, but overall felt let down and a bit dissipointed as we thought the day had much more tornadic chase potential. It felt good to be out though. Additionally based on what we saw of the warm front anchor cell near Haskell / Munday, etc we didn't have a lot of faith in it's capabilities over toward DFW, but I suppose any thing is possible.

EDIT: I now see the post above mine about the wedge. Very interesting. Please see my additional comment in the Discussion (DISC) thread.
EDIT2: In retrospect, now realizing there was a wedge just at arms reach from us that we couldn't see obviously lends credibility to the whole DFW torn scenario. In actuality this was the scenario we originally anticipated as the anchor storm rode east along the warm frontal boundary.

Also, this really is dissipointing now, to realize we were there at a location further west almost an hour before the other chasers that caught the wedge from looking back east, and realize we got cut off and forced out of position. Our intent was to follow close, observe, and seek the next opportunity to get back in front to the E and SE, but by the time that happened - sadly, so had the wedge. Congratulations to the rest of you guys for snagging a great catch!

[Randy Denzer]

Josh Jans, Allan Detrich and myself got a late start and left Brian / College station at about 1300. Got up to I 20 just as the cell west of Mineral Wells took off. hesitated as we watched the cell to our southwest develope and "poof", everything lined out and we got to see LOTS of rain and pea sized hail. This was in no way what we expected today.


Hats off to those who scored today, it was a tough chase.

[Brian Emfinger]

Couldnt leave Arkansas till 11am so we didnt get into target area until afternoon. We were on the eastern edge of storms for what was basically all day. First storm we got on was the tornado warned cell in Palo Pinto? county. We were very near the supposed circulation but it was already getting very outflow dominant:
http://www.realclearwx.com/images/apr1307a.jpg

When we got to Weatherford we saw the only interesting thing of the day:
http://www.realclearwx.com/images/apr1307b.jpg

Couldnt tell for sure but there seemed to be some hints of rotation with that. Then we had to go THROUGH Weatherford when everyone was getting off work and well it took quite a while. The storm above is what probably what went on to become the Fort Worth/Dallas storm. We had decided earlier that we would not chase anything in there and so being held up in Weatherford in the end really didnt matter.

Once through Weatherford we starting playing the keep heading south till you find a storm even though everything looks like crap game....and it was sooo fun!

The only storm that even appeared at all like anything worthwhile was the tornado warned storm coming out of Hamilton county. It didnt look as bad as the others on radar but it looked pretty much the same as the others when we got to it. We did get some nickel size hail around Laguna Park but it was brief and for a for a little bit there was some nice inflow in there but it just didnt last.

[Tony Cook]

Intercepted the Seymour cell near Archer City (post-tornado). It still had a warning, but cloud base was visually unimpressive. There was nice inflow, but that was about it. The forward flank of the storm went past me, and it took a while to get back in front of it again. I stayed in front of it all the way to Fort Worth, where it began to really get its act together again. Running into the FW metro and out of road options, I stupidly went south on I35W (this was about 5:30, I think). The storm crossed 35W with gusty winds, and I shot video of a couple of nice lowerings (one possibly rotating) along the forward flank. Will post vidcaps if I find anything worthwhile. There was a tornado warning for the cell at the time, but the main rotation was still 10+ miles south of me. Watched painfully on radar as the storm moved through FW and into the Dallas metro, developing that monster hook, and all the while, getting further east of me.

Spent the next hour and change slowing to a crawl at every highway overpass until I finally went through some neighborhoods in South FW and escaped on Highwy 287. From there, it was a white knuckle drive back to Austin, as marginally severe cells translated along and across I-35.


Thanks to Shane Hale for excellent nowcasting help, and road advice near Fort Worth (which I should have listened to). Congrats to TonyL and anyone else who managed a tornado out of this system. My April tornado count is still 0...

Miles: 646
Quarts of Oil: 1+

TonyC

[Mikey Gribble]

Ryan Shirk and I decided to chase at the last minute and left Wichita a little after 10AM. We went West of Dallas and intercepted the storm that went through Dallas about 45 miles West of DFW. It never looked very impressive. It kind of appeared outflow dominant after we got on it. As it started to move into the metro area we started contemplating whether we should call it a day or try to stay with the storm through DFW. There wasn't a tornado warning on it and we both figured that if the storm was showing the slightest possibility of producing a tornado the NWS would have already put a warning out because of the high population density in DFW. In addition to that, the storm didn't look good at the time. There wasn't a lowering, no fast vertical motion, and no rotation, so we decided to stop at Whataburger and eat some dinner before heading home. 10 minutes later the storm produced a tornado due East of us (right where we would have been). It felt similiar to getting kicked in the junk.

[Jason A.C. Brock]

was on 114 as the wedge passed over 114 to my due West ABOUT 1/4 mile away at most. One had to be in perfect position to see the thing. It appeared at first as tho strong inflow was pushing dirt off the fround then it was wrapping upward into the updraft as I watched a wall cloud to the SW. However a new wall cloud had formed closer to the precip core and when the tornado touched down it wrapped this precip around it very quickly. Ill have to review the video but until the thing was about to cross 114 to my West I wasnt even aware it was a huge tornado. You could see the massive inflow and upward vertical motion jsut before this occured however. It was actually some of the most intense VERTICAL motion ive seen on a storm. I will have to post video and pics later however as my laptop is having issues. There ertainly was a tornado....you jsut had to be in perfect position for a great shot of it....better poition thatn I was anyways :-(. I heard Tony Laubach has a great pic of this wedge. Maybe he can shed more light on the subject.
I went on south to sample the storms as they moved into DFW...I saw numerous dwoned trees and powerlines and got into alot of golfball size hail near Springtown Texas. To make a long story short my chase was cut short in Fort Worth due to my finding out where the Texas Motorspeedway is lol.


Edit : Updated....... I have posted pics & Video of the monster HP supercell storm that Moved from Haskell County Texas into Knox Baylor & Archer Counties of Western North Texas on 4/13/07. You can see the amazing cloud motion and rotation this storm had in our videos and timelapse videos as well ass see video of the large hail that later moved into Springtown Texas West of Fort Worth Texas. These storms would eventually move into the Dallas Fort Worth metro producing as many as 3 tornadoes.
If you look closely at some of the video you can see a large rain wrapped tornado cross 114 SE of Seymour Texas. This is a perfect example of why it is not a good idea to go out looking for tornadoes yourself unless you have the proper training and or have been chasing storms for awhile. Monsters hidden in the shadows such as these can fool even the most seasoned chasers.

Video can be found http://www.texhomastormchasers.com (http://www.texhomastormchasers.com/) and clicking the 4/13/07 link at the bottom left on the buttons margin.

Or you can also go to the page directly at http://www.texhomastormchasers.com/41307.html (http://www.texhomastormchasers.com/41307.html)

BE SURE TO BROWSE THE PAGE AND LOOK FOR ALL THE VIDEO LINKS AS WELL AS CHECK OUT SOME OF THE RADAR IMAGES OF THIS AMAZING STORM AND CHECK OUT THE REST OF THE SITE.

[Rodney Harper]

Well we weren't exactly chasing but we were working in Saginaw when Tarrant went Tor warned. We decided to head back home cause our son was there by himself. We core punched the storm just on the SE side of Eagle Mountain Lake and noticed to very ominous lowerings to our south which would be Ft. Worth and one to our NE probably not a mile apart. We didn't get more than a few quarter sized stones as we punched and heavy rain. As we got home in Azle there was golfball hail all over the ground. Although not the smartest idea to punch a storm of that nature it was lucky for us since there was 3" hail where we were working and a poss Tor soon after. It was definately some of the best motion I have seen near home since the Alvarado Tor of 2005. Whew.

[Jeff Snyder]

I chased with my semi-regular group of folks (Dan Dawson, Robin Tanamachi, Jana Houser, and Mike French) west of the DFW metroplex. Our original goal was to target the area around Decatur, in hopes that it would keep all options open (e.g. we could intersept any northeastward-moving storms that developed near or sw of DFW, while also giving us space to head west or east if necessary). I was pleased to see the lack of convection in the warm sector during the morning (the models had forecast widespread convection across northern TX during the morning), and I was pleased to see some insolation occurring across parts o western north Texas. By the time we made it into Gainesville, we were well aware of the cell near Seymour, but we though it would quickly cross into more stable air. So, we waited for new initiation near or SW of I20, thinking it would move northeastward at us. Well, we waited in Decatur for what seemed like an hour (it probably was, actually) before opting to head towards Weatherford in hopes that the developing convection to our west would be more discrete in that area. Well, that didn't happen. The squall line (with embedded mesos and leading-edge mesovorticies that were very apparent on the Fort Worth 88D from time-to-time) passed over us near Springtown. Just south of Springtown, we came upon a pretty serious head-on collision, and we were just the 2nd car to come across the accident (the first car was just ahead of us). I didn't know where the driver of one of the vehicles was (the driver of the truck), but the driver of the car was pinned. I worked with a few others to pull the door open enough for someone to pry the guy's leg out. Regardless to say, he will probably have a very sore leg for some time (I can't imagine it isn't badly broken in some places, especially considering the stearing column was pressed all the way to the driver's seat). When it appeared as though he was free of serious injury, with emergency services 'en route, and a dozen others at the scene, we figured we couldn't provide any more help, so we continued onward.

By the time we made it to Weatherford, we heard about the tornado warning for Tarrant county. We briefly thought about (and tried) to catch up to it, but 4 accidents in a 2-mile stretch of I20 east of Weatherford made that impossible. Instead, we met up with Amos M., Eric N., Tony L. and his crew at a mexican food joint in northern Fort Worth. It was great to chat with Amos and Eric again, and it was great to finally meet Tony.

I'm not not entirely sure what that fineline was that was ahead of much of the convection west of FTW. First guess was an OFB, but it was continuous with a very fast-moving front that was sweeping eastward across the area. In addition, it was readily apparent before much convection developed along and behind it. With such intense low-level shear, I also can't imagine the outflow and gust front would have been able to surge that far ahead of the convection. So, given all this, I think it was more of a pacific front / cold front that moved so quickly that it undercut the convection and provided for an intense, linearly-oriented source of surface convergence. By early to mid-afternoon, I saw several obs near I20 in western TX that had westerly winds at 20-40kts. During the mid-afternoon, it looked as though the Canadian cold front was located E-W near Lubbock (northerly winds N of that), with a Pacific airmass located south and southeast of Lubbock (with very strong westerly winds). I thought briefly that this main boundary was a sort of dryline, but, IIRC, the air behind it was not "hot and dry" as we typically see with dryline (it was mild and relatively dry, not atypical of Pacific cold fronts). By the time 23z approached, it appeared as though the Canadian cold front had joined up with this Pacific cold front across much of the northern TX, as winds had turned to the NW and NNW behind the fineline and convection.

Well, strongly, linear sfc convergence along a rapidly-moving cold front will do that. I'm still surprised that we saw an upgrade to High risk all the way to the Red River, since it seemed apparent that the northern 1 or 2 counties in northeastern Texas were not going to see appreciable destabilization. I think the 00z or 01Z mesonalysis showed negligible SBCAPE (and very high CINH) for areas north and northeast of the DFW metroplex, which seemed to agree with 12z model forecasts. For the complete lack of sfc-based instability, along with the linear storm mode along the rapidly-moving cold front, I was surprised to see the High persist on the 01z SWODY1 (though I have a feeling this was more for continuity sake than anything else). Now, I agree that this setup looked like it could have supported strong tornadoes (and even violent tornadoes, given the very intense low-level shear), but I think the MDT + PDS tornado watch would have sufficed, at least across the northern 1/2 of the High risk area (hindsight is 20/20, yes, but I thought the same thing after the 20z SWODY1 was issued). We talked about this at dinner, and we wondered if some politics crept into the outlook process (being that the metroplex and TMS were under the gun). I'm not being overly critical, but it's just an observation that was shared by several I talked to today. (Politics will always play a role in the warning, watch, and outlook process in situations like this, so I'm not necessarily meaning to negatively criticize this)

[Jenn Brindley]

Well, I was lucky enough to be chasing with Tony Laubach and Tom Dulong. I know you all have already seen the stills from Tony's video, but I thought I'd throw a few of my photos up here for some viewing pleasure. :)

Another thanks to Amos Magliocco and Eric Nguyen for chasing with us and offering their support and knowledge. We made a pretty good team this afternoon! :D

Jenn Brindley

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m1/jennybeanjcb/9-1.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m1/jennybeanjcb/6a.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m1/jennybeanjcb/2-2.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m1/jennybeanjcb/1-2.jpg

After the storm in the clear:
http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m1/jennybeanjcb/5-1.jpg

Some crazy, awesome hail - ranged from pea to tennis-ball size!
http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m1/jennybeanjcb/3hail.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m1/jennybeanjcb/4-1.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m1/jennybeanjcb/4a.jpg

[Tony Laubach]

COMPLETE APRIL 13, 2007 STORM CHASE/TORNADO LOG CAN BE FOUND HERE!!! (http://www.tornadoeskick.com/logs070413.html)

We got suckered into the storm heading towards Seymour and barrelled north on Hwy 183 to get beneath it. What an unreal scenario as we certainly nabbed the needle in the haystack on this day!

Started in Wichita Falls; ended in Wichita Falls, and drove the same highways twice in some cases, but in the end, scored one of the better chased tornadoes of my career!

We met Amos and Eric in Ranger, TX at a small cafe; After a fuel fill-up and some data, we elected to fly north from Ranger to catch what was being dubbed as the "sucker storm" as we later came to find out.

We got positioned to the storm's immediate south on 183 just about 3-4 miles south of Seymour when the circulation took on violent characteristics and formed into the giant wedge which churned away to our immediate east/northeast before we got swallowed by the RFD.

We fought our way through hail and water covered roads to get east out of Seymour where we encountered incredible anti-cyclonic cloud motions and a newly developing meso to our southwest. Fortunately, neither of those areas developed into anything and we were free to parade east.

We tried to dive south to give us a catch, but to no avail. We called the chase southwest of Ft. Worth as the state of Texas held its breath when the right-moving supercell tore straight across the entire Metroplex; a sobering experience listening to that on 1080AM.

Kudos to Eric and Amos for their navigation to get us in position in time to view this tornado! And of course, how nice it was to be chasing with friends! And mega-kudos to Tom who was calling this storm beautifully the entire time! And also big congrats to Jenn who witnessed her very first tornado in a state she had sworn to hate...we may never get her to leave it now! LOL

SO GLAD I'M CHASING TEXAS IN APRIL.. NOT NEBRASKA! :)

COMPLETE APRIL 13, 2007 STORM CHASE/TORNADO LOG CAN BE FOUND HERE!!! (http://www.tornadoeskick.com/logs070413.html)

http://www.tornadoeskick.com/images/2007/070413_11.jpg

http://www.tornadoeskick.com/images/2007/070413_13.jpg

http://www.tornadoeskick.com/images/2007/070413_18.jpg

http://www.tornadoeskick.com/images/2007/070413_21.jpg

http://www.tornadoeskick.com/images/2007/070413_01.jpg

COMPLETE APRIL 13, 2007 STORM CHASE/TORNADO LOG CAN BE FOUND HERE!!! (http://www.tornadoeskick.com/logs070413.html)

I'll be posting raw videos as soon as I get home... was having computer issues with my FTP software and haven't been able to upload anything over a meg... will try when I return to Denver Sunday...

[Brandon Smith]

We left Norman, OK a little before 2 PM today, making it to Gainesville, TX at little before 4 PM. From there, we headed SW on Route 51, making a stop in Decatur, TX to do a radar check. After having some difficulty finding a wifi location and navigating the local roads, we finally continued SW on Route 51, heading towards Springtown, TX.

We realized we had spent a little too much time in Decatur messing with wifi when we started to see the edge of the squal line about 5 - 10 miles north of Springtown. The updraft behind the shelf cloud was incredible. For some reason, probably related to the storm, we got caught up in traffic in Springtown as the storm beared down us. By the time we reached the Route 51/Route 199 intersection, we could hear tornado sirens blaring through the town. We decided that we would head east on Route 199 to try to get ahead of the line.

Heading east, we began to see one of the many leading edge mesovorticies, that Jeff Synder previous mentioned, just to our south. There was definitely rotation, althought not strong, but still noticable enough from a moving vehicle. The mesovorticy approached us, passing over our heads, heading E/NE Keep in mind, at this point, we are attempting to race eastbound along Route 199, along with a bunch of other drivers. Suddenly, and with no warning, our vehicle started getting pelted with pebbles/sticks/leaves directly from the due south. We quickly began to roll up our windows. Dust began to whirl up and move quickly across the road. All the vehicles, including ours, were getting buffeted around, causing everyone to get on the brakes to stay in their lane. It became obvious that this mesovorticy that we saw had begun to make contact with the ground, very close us. There was nothing to do but race eastward in hopes of getting out of it. Apparently the beginning tornado we witnessed was on the ground between Boyd and Briar. This was definitely one of the most scariest moments I have ever been in. Being in a situation where thing are starting to blow all around you with no knowledge of where the possible tornado is is very frightening.

It was apparent that this rotation was what spawned these warnings. We were kind of stuck between the areas the warning was issued for:

http://kamala.cod.edu/offs/KFWD/0704132148.wfus54.html
http://kamala.cod.edu/offs/KFWD/0704132243.wfus54.html

Getting closer to Fort Worth now, we decided to pull off and let this storm pass us and there was no way we were going to be able to keep up with it. Once it passed, we then began to hear the warnings come out about the tornado N of Fort Worth. If only we would have kept on chasing east. We continued south of Fort Worth in hopes of catching some of the southern cells but realized we were too late. It was getting to be a bit far from Norman and we were getting tired. Overall, it was a very good experience for chasing on our first high risk day. Photos below.


http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s145/quiksmith10/sou_wise_springtown.jpg
The squal line about 5 miles north of Springtown, looking west. Taken near the Wise/Parker county line.

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s145/quiksmith10/north_parker_springtown.jpg
The backside of the shelf cloud with the intense updraft.

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s145/quiksmith10/east_springtown_parker.jpg
Beginning of the mesovorticy embedded in the leading edge of the squal line. A few miles east of Springtown, looking south.

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s145/quiksmith10/east_springtown_parker_2.jpg
Getting better organized and getting closer. Same location and direction as before.

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s145/quiksmith10/east_springtown_parker_3.jpg
Another shot, shortly before we encountered the circulation reaching the ground. Same location and direction as before.

[Amos Magliocco]

http://www.cycloneroad.com/images/chase2007/2007april13/070413tor2adjust_filtered.jpg

You Tube video here (http://youtube.com/watch?v=gzHQPgGZpTI)

Web report with a few video grabs (http://www.cycloneroad.com/2007april13.htm)

Eric's still imagery here (http://www.mesoscale.ws/07-documents/070413.htm)

Eric Nguyen and I observed a large tornado at 1938z, which was on the ground for at least six minutes and probably much longer as we lost visual once it wrapped in rain.

We had targetted an area from Throckmorton to Ranger but elected to go west on I-20 rather than SR 380 because we lacked confidence that significant instability would develop northwest of DFW. Moisture seemed to be advecting mainly into areas further west and southwest and the early RUC, even as it increased the "wrap around" moisture north of the surface low, generated little CAPE there. We assumed this was a function of cloud cover and cool air associated with (model-depicted and mostly imagined) WAA storms and earlier convection. We suspected this could keep the warm front along or just north of the interstate and we wanted to play storms crossing the boundary.

We stopped in Ranger and took lunch at El Rancho Cafe where Tony Laubach, Tom Dulong, and their friend Jenn joined us. We emerged to a very different situation. Now our skies were dotted with cu and it was apparent the front had sailed north without us, much like 07 April 2002 when Eric and I both missed the great Throckmorton tornado for the same reason. This was heavy on our minds because, on the way to Ranger, we had replayed the first episode of Gene and RJ's "High Instability" radio program where the hosts and Dr. Doswell discussed that event. Imagine our amazement when we realized this storm to our north was intensifying and probably about to traverse the warm front as it neared...where else? Throckmorton of course.

We moved north and finally gained a view of the base from about ten miles south of Seymour. We observed intense rotation west of the road, followed by strong RFD and occasional baseball hail. The tornado crossed 183/283 approximately six miles south of Seymour and we observed a fully condensed wedge tornado from near that location as it moved to our east northeast. For survey purposes, I would place the tornado at its most violent between 183/283 and SR 114, perhaps between Ogden Road (FM 1286) and CR 226. The tornado wrapped in rain and continued northeast and almost certainly grazed the C Lazy T Ranch on CR 222.

From there we tried to maintain position relative to the mesocycolne, but it was apparent the storm had crossed the front and suffered from more stable inflow. We dropped south but observed nothing more interesting than some elevated albeit pronounced rotation in a forward-flank meso in extreme northeast Palo Pinto and northwest Parker counties around 22z, about when Fort Worth warned on the storm.

We meandered back to the metroplex listening to radio coverage of the storms moving through Tarrant and Dallas Counties, an experience which was, as Eric described, "sobering." For all the noble efforts of FWD to raise awareness of such a possibility here, watching it happen on radar (and during race weekend no less) was surreal and scary. We were both glad to see the damage to life and property is apparently minimal.

We had a great dinner with Tony Laubach, Tom Dulong, and their freind Jenn--all from Colorado, plus Jeff Snyder, Robin Tanamachi, Dan Dawson, and their friends Mike and Janna.

[Bryce Stone]

Blugh. Arrived in Decatur just as the line was moving in. Went back east and then south to Justin. From there, I could see the backside of the storm producing the tornado just north of the Fort Worth area. That's about as close as I could get. I would say I was maybe 15-20 miles north of the tornado while it was on the ground in the FW suburb. Then drove east all the way to Greenville in hopes of seeing something. Gave up in Greenville and came back home.

It was an interesting experience to be in so many tornado-warned counties in one day. I think I managed to be in at least four different counties while they were tornado-warned and all I saw was rain, rain, and more rain.

[Tim Marshall]

TARGET: SEYMOUR, TX TIME OF DEPARTURE: 10 AM. Jim Deguara and I left Dallas right on time and headed west on Rt. 380. At Throckmorton, we broke out into the warmer air and had a decision to make whether to head to Seymour or continue west toward the dryline boundary. Then, two Cb's came into view to our west. Thinking that we needed to maximize the thin ribbon of the warm sector, we picked the southern cell and continued west toward Haskell. We seemed confident of this decision when a tornado warning was issued for western Haskell County. Angling northwest on Rt. 222, we arrived at Weinert on Rt. 277 in time to see the rain free base approach from the southwest. The base was relatively high and went through an occlusion right on Rt. 277. We headed east then north to near Goree. South of Goree, we saw the original updraft shrink and produce a long serpentine funnel. A new circulation (more violent) began south of Goree and continued toward Seymour. Unfortunately, the core of baseball hail was right over Rt. 277 and we had to back track to Throckmorton before turning north toward the storm. That decision/time cost us the wedge south of Seymour but saved our vehicle. We followed the storm northeast as it crossed the boundary at Archer City, then dropped southeast to Fort Worth. By then, a squall line developed and headed toward us. As we approached Fort Worth, we could see a shelf cloud to our west and sought refuge under a carport in Saginaw. There, we got 2 inch hail. We were quite surprised to find out that a tornado formed to our east-southeast in Haltom City. Oh well, two swings and two strikes for us today. TM

[Terry Tyler]

http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n9/wxchaser420/IMG_0004_1__0001-1.jpg

elevated convection was occuring with the warm front draped out along the mid-south...there were some severe cells in the area with some marginal hail threat, but the biggest threat was cloud-to-ground lightning...which really was a good relief to any SDS that lingered after the winter...

http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n9/wxchaser420/IMG_0001_0001.jpg

they had purple/blue bolts with those golden "streamers" i guess youd call em...you know, the sparks that remain after the lightning disapears...its been lightninging all night and its 511AM now...woke up to see the stratified line come in with a major cloud-to-cloud show...

[Simon Brewer]

Witnessed a tornado develop and stay on the ground for ~2-2.5 minutes on the SW side of Fort Worth at ~5:55pm, Link below:
http://www.stormgasm.com/4-13-07/4-13-07.htm
http://www.stormgasm.com/4-13-07/homepagepic.JPG

Target was Olney, TX: left Norman at 9am sat in Olney for a while, saw storm develop in Haskell County, but decided to let it go, because I thought the it would either cross the warm front quickly or get undercut by the pacific front; wrong, so I opted to intercep any new storm development near Throckmorton. Then the Haskell Co. Storm gets tornado warned, so I book it to Seymour; watched insane rotation and possibly got a peak at the tornado as wet RFD plowed the road in front of me. After storm got out of the way I stopped and took some pics of 2+inch hail on the ground in Seymour. Drove ESE to hit developing storms, which formed a line and pretty much gave up on the day south of Mineral Wells.

Then I got very, very, very lucky: I decided to attempt to get ahead of the monster squall-line and took I-20 east instead of just heading north on state routes, which would have been quicker. So I accidently miss my exit for I-30 and end up stuck on I-20, but when I was driving onto the I-820 loop onramp from I-20 and witnessed this:

The arc cloud from the gust front in my location went from 'slanted' to 'vertical' with a very convective appearence instead of a 'whale's mouth'. Also, the scud along the leading edge of the gust front dissapeared and the gust front developed into a relatively flat base at that location. As I was driving under the gust front and onto the onramp for I-820 I witnessed the formation of a gustnado (or so I thought) to my south out my passenger window. It was very impressive and I almost didn't stop, but I wanted to get some more pics for the day so I pulled over on the shoulder of the ramp (nobody was behind me).

I slowly pulled out the video camera, because the gustnado situation didn't seem imminent, but as the gustnado moved into view of my front windshield I could see an obvious 'in-my-face bowl funnel' rapidly rotating above the debris cloud!!! The camera was still not on, but I had to get out of the car and see it with my own eyes to confirm it was actually a tornado and not just a look-alike-gustnado, but surely enough it was a bowl funnel all by itself with a nice debris cloud!!! I got the camera on just as I was getting back in the car and rain was now starting to pound me, because the base/gustfront was moving away from me and I was then behind it again. I saw large debris being lofted into the air as the tornado passed over some buildings, and I had by friend Tom on speaker phone and yelled for him to report it to the NWS in Ft. Worth. That was the last call I could make from my cell until I left the DFW area that evening.

I'm irritated I missed the Seymore tornado in my target region, because I had no intention of chasing near DFW yesterday, but I got dumb luck and got a tornado in Metro Ft. Worth.

[Bobby Prentice]

Rocky Rascovich and I departed Norman, OK (KOUN) at 1730z, a bit too late to reach the Seymour, TX tornadic supercell. We got as close as Nocona, TX before deciding the storm would be elevated junk before we could intercept it between Wichita Falls and Archer City. So we dropped south in hopes of new storms ahead of the developing squall line.

My fears of hodograph loop/kinks due to cold-air advection (CAA) in the 1.5 - 4 km layer came to fruition as these new storms were rather poorly organized multicells that quickly evolved into a squall line as a north-south oriented radar fine line (apparent cold front) undercut everything. The best we saw was heavy rain and 20-30mph winds in Weatherford, TX. Structure wasn't good due to low clouds, haze, and trees except for a few minute view of a shelf cloud before it hit us. The entire event appeared to be a hopeless linear squall line so we decided to end the chase and eat dinner at the Cotton Patch Cafe in Weatherford.

Of course, the squall line broke up along the warm front to form the classic tornadic supercell which struck the DFW Metroplex. However, I'm not too fond of chasing a metro area during Friday rush hour, and this event wasn't that spectacular, so no big loss.

In retrospect, the proper strategy was to chase the early storms as they crossed the warm front over northwest Texas before the CAA/hodograph/squall line problems began.

SPC MCD issued April 13 at 1951z:
http://w1.spc.woc.noaa.gov/products/md/mcd0481.gif

Congratulations to those who found the needle. We were buried by the haystack. At least in the internet age, we get to see your pictures and video.

One of the days I'm finally going to learn to simply blow off these hodograph kink/loop squall line events altogether. :D

[bill mudd]

was also on the Seymour storm - heres my report

Entered Semour from the west on 114 around 1:15 , stopped for gas
while enroute to Semour we noticed the system building above us through haze...at vera around 1:00 there a a slight cloudbreak and warming started. We continued to our Semour target and arrived there still in some pretty good haze. Seeking more convertive heat I felt a south shot to Throckmortin might be a good idea. On arriving there about 2:15 I noticed a rapidly building system off to my North..explosive. By now it seemed that all the storms started to fire at once. Knowing of no immediate way to run back there in time and knowing of the iminent hail threat. (as it turns out alot of people got hail damage there)
Next I proceeded west 5 miles out the 380 from Throckmortin made a north bound 1 mile run to a gated road where I witnessed what I believe was maybe the end of Haskell storm/tube at about 2:30 - 2:45. Too far away to really get a good video grab we decided to get on a cell that developed directly in front of us!
We bolted back to Throckmorton and picked up this building cell going n/e hwy79 out toward elbert. Ended getting under a large funell that was producing big dust swirls directly on the ground. Just prior to getting out my wife shot 2 impressive shots one directly into the lowering funell which produced a perfect round image, amazing. Scary amazing. Then it was "gogoggo" to get out.
We then hit a detour and booked it down to Grahm where we decided to call it a day.
Great day, better pics on the 4/12 littlefield, but no real complaints. Congrats Tony!

[skipper bennett]

I teach in Mineral Wells and drive a bus. I had been able to peek on the net during the day and was aware of the moderate then High Risk the SPC had out for our area. I also had been monitoring the vis satellite and radar so was a little apprehensive as school let out and I began my route.

It had been grey-cloudy all day north of the warm front but as I walked out to my bus the skies were a bright and soupy as low scud flew on a very stiff southeast wind. Warm front seemed to have passed.

After I loaded the kids at my school, I had four more schools to stop at. As I drove around town I kept checking toward the west and southwest skies but the bright scuddy air prevented me from getting a clear view. From radar I saw before I left I knew there were cells entering the county to the west but I couldn't see them. Driving an assigned route, aboard a large, high profile vehicle through crowded traffic and having 50 children on board, well it gives the usually routine trip an edge anticipating what could happen.

I pick up at the last school on the east side and as I drive through town there is still no clear view to the west. I make my first drop on the west edge of town and head out about 2 miles into the country.

I begin to see the edges of towers through little gaps in the scud to my far southwest. When I drop off at the first houses in the country the scud is gone and I can see a dark wall to the west. At my last stop near the Brazos river the anvils stream overhead and far to the east into the first blue sky we had seen all day.

Now it's just my daughter and I as we hurry back home to Mineral Wells. We beat the storm to the house and soon get some pretty good gusts and marble size hail and are tornado warned by NWS Ft. Worth.
I enjoy severe weather but I would rather not go out welcoming it to town in a loaded school bus.

[Dal Archer]

Good day, but could have been better. After just about deciding not to go out I left Tulsa area around 10:15 in the morning. Headed to Wichita Falls and then from there took Hwy 82/277 toward Seymour area to intercept the storm.

I was a little later than I wanted and found myself out of position to continue to take 82/277 in order to beat the storm to a good south location. I briefly contemplated trying to beat the storm to the south option (cannot remember the road I was trying to reach) and quickly realized that I was going to have to core punch or backtrack and try to find another option.

The threat of baseball size hail quickly diminished any sense of valor and I backtracked and began to become annoyed when mile after mile passed without any south option. (I cannot believe the terrible road networks in that area). Anyway, eventually found some rural road (sorry I did not save my GPS file so I am unsure of the road--stupid huh) and was almost due south of the storm.

Noticing the incredible inflow into the storm and the roar I could tell that there was a violent tornado in there somewhere. Thank goodness Amos, Tony and crew had position, because I was really interested to see what was occurring.

I am disappointed about not having better position to view the tornado, but the small snippet of video includes some of the best audio that I have ever had of a tornado. The "squealing" sound came out pretty well and I have included a link to some video (bottom of post -- the second and third portions of the video clip are of the storm trying to get it's act together again between Seymour and Archer City.) [/URL]



I continued to follow the storm and after repositioning myself I got in better position and the rotation again increased and I thought that another tornado might drop. Did not occur at that time and finally took one last shot close to Archer City, but by then the line was really filling in and I headed east.

Stayed with some of the line for awhile, but got disgusted with the linear nature of the storm and decided to call it quits. Wish now I would have stayed with the cell that plunged ahead of the line and dropped the tornado on Ft. Worth, but I did not really think that much more was going to happen and I wanted to avoid the Metroplex at all costs.

Overall, I had mixed feelings. I was certainly glad to be close to the action at Seymour, but definitely disappointed about missing out on the visual of the wedge. (I really, really hate the road networks -- or lack thereof -- in this region)!



Link to video: [url]http://youtube.com/watch?v=RIOJ_XdPG9I (http://www.yousendit.com/download/QlVqa3NkR0ZCSWMwTVE9PQ)

[Jim Bishop]

I caught up to the Ft. Worth/Dallas supercell as it produced a large wall cloud right of the Dallas metroplex, and followed it to dark. Not a bad chase considering the event did not pan out at all like I expected.

My girlfriend and I left Houston at 10am for Hillsboro, TX. My target region was southwest of Fort Worth near the Stephenville area, but I figured Hillsboro would be a good place to find data. As my luck would have it we were not able to find a wifi connection and headed to Glen Rose by 2:30pm.

At that time things are still looking great for supercells to fire to my west in the next couple hours. I repositioned further north in Granbury. By around 4pm I made it to the Granbury library and saw that the cold front had continued to surge faster than models indicated, and a squall line was developing. By 5pm I basically gave up and started heading home.

Heading northat on state highway 67 to 35W Simon Brewer called me up and told me he had just witnessed a tornado on the west side of Fort Worth from the "bow echo" storm. Apparently it was becoming surface based again. I immediately called a friend for nowcasting help. Upon reaching 35W I stayed northeast on 67 and headed for I-20.

We got just a few miles south of downtown Dallas and saw a large wall cloud to our north hanging over the metroplex. We were listening to the reporters on the radio flipping out. We headed east on I-20, punched through the southern edge of the hook and turned northeast on state highway 34 through the town of terrel.

Heading northeast on 34 we were east of the hp supercell. We were never able to get northeast of it, so all we could see was a very long and ominous looking RFD gust front and the meso occlusion that disapeared into the rain. But WOW the low level clouds were soaring into the storm very quickly. We headed east upon reaching Quinlan and it got dark. The storm was producing a strobe light of lightning.

We drove in and out of a squall line all the way back to Houston (east on I-20, southeast on 69 to 259 to 59) and arrived around 3am.

[Steve_Stuck]

Started off at 12:30 pm heading from my house in Celina toward Wichita Falls. The storm was going simply too fast for me to set up, so I zoomed south, passing other chasers stopped on the side of the road. Eventually I stopped East of Jacksboro to snap some pictures of the mammatus clouds. Not wanting to chase the storm from behind (would never catch it), I called it a day. The 3rd picture is of football player Deion Sanders' house.

[Shane Adams]

For whatever reason, it always takes me two screw-ups in a certain scenario to figure it out. I said to Mickey around the time I started to realize the day was slipping away from us: "This is April 7, 2002 part two."

Just like that day, I opted to play the warm sector, about 30 miles south of the warm front and 50 east of the dryline (actually the 50 east of the DL was an accident as I mis-judged where it would be by initiation). Our target all the way was 35W south of FTW, which we drove straight to and waited. And waited. And waited. Waited while the Seymour storm formed, and sat there laughing, saying "we're not getting suckered away from our target for that iffy early show.....that storm might produce but it'll cross into stable air soon...."

....just like I thought on 4-7-02....

After about an hour, the "sucker" storm was becoming the show of the day, while our target remained silent. Finally, we decided to move west, which we did. We discovered a few towns that rival even the nightmare that is Chillicothe, MO for quick navigation, namely Cleburne and Weatherford.....the latter of which was the most ridiculous excuse for an interchange I've ever seen, as we tried all four directions trying to simply get over I-20 on the overpass bridge to get north through town....all attempts failed. The storm we had perfect position on but had to drop because we couldn't get through town??? Went on to become the FTW tornadic storm. It was just one of those days.

We decided our only chance at anything was to just start dropping south and east, going down the line, sampling each core as it came to us....just like I did on 4-7-02. And just like that day, we ended up way down south as darkness fell, just north of Waco, watching crap storms roll over us. Oh well, if it was always easy it'd lose its appeal.

So from now on, in the early part of the year, on retreating warm fronts in Texas....my butt is going straight to the TP, and I'm parking it there all day, come whatever. I might get burned by this set up a third time, but it won't be the TP that gets me.

[Jimmy Deguara]

Congratulations to Tim Marshall for his spot on forecast and thanks for that long drive Tim. It is a pity that we weren't able to intercept this beautiful wedge - congratulations to those who were able to.

Here are the latest pictures:
http://australiansevereweather.com.au/photography/photos/2007/jd20070413.html
http://www.australiasevereweather.com/photography/thumbs/2007/0413jd19.jpg (http://www.australiasevereweather.com/photography/photos/2007/0413jd19.jpg) Serpentine funnel
The mesocyclone that most likely produced the wedge tornado ??
http://www.australiasevereweather.com/photography/thumbs/2007/0413jd20.jpg (http://www.australiasevereweather.com/photography/photos/2007/0413jd20.jpg)
Hail west of Fort Worth falling from the second HP supercell we intercepted - near Eagle Mountain Lake
http://www.australiasevereweather.com/photography/thumbs/2007/0413jd34.jpg (http://www.australiasevereweather.com/photography/photos/2007/0413jd34.jpg)
Regards,
Jimmy Deguara