4/13/07 DISC: TX

[Bill Tabor]

Eugene Thieszen, saw your post in reports of wedge and find it very interesting. It's possible this was obscured to us from all the precip and hail in between us and the position of the tornado you mention. Our position at 2:44 was about 5 miles or so SW of Seymore on hwy 277. About this time we were viewing the large hail fall, wall clouds to our southeast, and very heavy baseball hail core to our east. We did observe the wall clouds and we saw rotating rain curtains. Seems your tornado would have been directly east and adjacent the wall clouds we were seeing. We were on the very edge of the threatnet shear marker at the time. We were stuck behind this thing the whole time with no decent way to get back in front quickly.

We'd love to see a short link to some of your video of the tornado if possible.

Did anyone have an opportunity to examine a damage track?

Congratulations to all of you that ended up catching this elusive wedge.

[Jason A.C. Brock]

I 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.

BTW If anyone has saved radar images of this cell at the time of the tornado id like to see it very much....either post in this thread or PM me. I noticed this tornado was also not listed on the SPC reports. Only a brief touchdown in Haskell county is mentioned. It seems for some the crappy roads of Throckmorton & Haskell County got us again. I hate that place.....hate is a strong word.....id rather jsut stay away from it :-(

[Glen Romine]

If you go back and review the radar evolution around the time of the tornado (2:40 pm based on Tony's siting) the storm was undergoing some unique evolution around that time. The tornado looks to have been where you would expect it though - out on the tip of the hook appendage, but immediately thereafter that circulation rapidly tracked northeast while a new core extended to the southwest, later crossing along a similar path, but perhaps that trailing mesocyclone is the one you met as you exited Seymore. Sorry to hear you were on 277 - there was chatter regarding what an unfortunate place that would be to try and navigate the storm.

[Bobby Prentice]

BTW If anyone has saved radar images of this cell at the time of the tornado id like to see it very much....either post in this thread or PM me.

Two of the best/easy sites to view recent past radar data are:

Plymouth St College NIDS Radar (15-day Archive) (http://vortex.plymouth.edu/nids.html)

NCAR/RAP Radar (5-day archive) (http://www.rap.ucar.edu/weather/radar/)

The WSR-88D radar sites that sampled the Seymour, TX tornadic supercell were Dyess AFB (DYX) and Frederick, OK (FDR). The best TVS signatures appeared on the DYX radar.

The NCAR/RAP site also maintains a good 5-day satellite and surface obs archive as well.

Other sites that provide good archived weather data:

UCAR Image archive meteorological case study selection kit (1998-present) (http://locust.mmm.ucar.edu/case-selection/)

NSSL/SCP Severe Thunderstorm Events Archive (2000-present) (http://www.spc.nssl.noaa.gov/exper/archive/events/searchindex.html)

SPC - Archived national Sector (s4) SPC Hourly mesoscale analysis (2005-present) (http://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/ma_archive/)

[Marko Korosec]

BTW If anyone has saved radar images of this cell at the time of the tornado id like to see it very much....either post in this thread or PM me.
Hope this helps, Jason...

http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/5433/animation1hc6.th.gif (http://img141.imageshack.us/my.php?image=animation1hc6.gif)

Also congrats to those saw that incredible wedge, I am waiting for grl2 scans to come out, should be an excelent hook to see. I've been on grl3 during that tornado, but forgot to save some grabs.

[Tony Laubach]

I had GRLevel3 running the entire time, however am not sure if it archives radar automatically. Would love to think so. None-the-less, our lack of road options pretty well set us in the best possible position considering our arrival. The only other option was to be east of the thing, and judging by our route, would've required us to be another 10 to 15 minutes earlier to get position as Seymour was getting cored pretty bad long before the tornado formed. None-the-less, our timing was perfect as we were able to get on it as it formed even as we lost it due to the RFD and wrap-around precip.

The 240pm timing I gave the tornado was pulled from my video camera, still camera, and my cell phone in which I made the 9-1-1 call. There may be a minute or two difference, but its pretty close.

I'm not sure what happened with the 9-1-1 report. The police department actually called me back a short time later to update us on another report they got from a woman east of town. I informed her of the damage (flood/hail) in Seymour as we were slowly making our way through town. I haven't seen the tornado on SPC's report page, so I don't know what came of our report.

[Dave Carroll]

Here is a link to the Seymour cell on radar about 20 minutes prior to Tony's awesome wedge intercept:
http://www.icsrc.org/ICSRC/TILT/Weatherline/seymourstorm.htm

[Amos Magliocco]

http://www.cycloneroad.com/images/chase2007/2007april13/view.JPG

I'm sure there were other angles, but from what I could tell, anyplace within the green shading would have offered a relatively clear view of the tornado between 2:38 and 2:44 PM.

[Tim Vasquez]

At risk of some slight self-promotion, my own Digital Atmosphere Equinox program will fetch the historical radar imagery you all are wanting. I was able to pull up yesterday's imagery with no problem as it goes out to TAMU's servers to get the old NIDS data. Basically this is how to do it:

1. Get Digital Atmosphere Equinox off my website at weathergraphics.com.
2. Go to File > Preferences > General > Preferred Radar Source Override > Texas A&M.
3. Radar > Set Date-Time.
4. Set your desired radar site in Radar > Set NEXRAD Station.
5. Uncheck "live" and pick the UTC date-time on the calendar and text box.
6. Pick any product you like, Base Reflectivity, Velocity 0.5, VIL, etc.

The clip of the Seymour storm on the Stormtrack front page was constructed in this manner, using the TPC chart underlays (a Pro version feature, but not necessary). Anyhow if you need technical assistance with it, it would be better to start a thread in Equipment. Images from the program can be shared and distributed freely or copyrighted as your own; no permission of any kind is needed.

http://www.stormtrack.org/070413seymour.jpg

Tim

[Tony Laubach]

I've posted my raw video on my website...

http://www.tornadoeskick.com/videos/TNL20070413a.html

Forgive the breaks in video as I either went to driving and left the camera in my lap or was shooting stills.

Also worth noting that SPC updated their reports to include the wedge..

[Bill Tabor]

I'm sure there were other angles, but from what I could tell, anyplace within the green shading would have offered a relatively clear view of the tornado between 2:38 and 2:44 PM.

Amos, I've been studying and plotting this today on Street Atlas and notice that you mention your location and that of the torn near 4 and 6 miles south of Seymore, but Tony Laubach and Eugene Theiszen agree about 3 miles south. That is a bit of a difference, can we all see a bit more agreement?

This is very interesting. I've been plotting this data all out with times, and comments, examining radar and video, noting our position, etc. Also compared our options, choices and roads with those of Tim Marshall who was in a similiar situation but running a hair earlier apparently. Trying to figure out what our best option would have been to see this wedge. So far I find no solution based on our original position near Weinert. Going north cuts ahead of meso and into baseball or larger hail (chase over), and going east and round about through Throckmorton seems to take too much time.

It's starting to look like storm motion, positioning, and road options left us with no option and killed our luck on this Friday the 13th chase.

[John Cameron]

I hope that anyone on the Seymour wedge with ham radio or cell made at least one attempt to report the tornado to local authorities or the Norman ham link. Thats great vid considering its a typical north Texas HP and the road grid is not chase friendly. You must always think there may be unsuspecting souls in its path.

I was doing the on-air play-by-play for the local CBS affiliate, and I was never made aware that there was touchdown. Wichita Falls based spotters couldn't get a good angle on the cell thanks to the core going straight up 277/82.

I know chasers dont have a rolodex full of numbers to county offices , TV stations or ham frequencies, and I understand you thinking that members of spotter nets are seeing what you're seeing, but I feel this may have been worth a 911 call. This info would have been of tremendous value to me and my peers considering the storm vector toward a major population center.

Love you guys, and what you do, just rembember you cant always be just a spectator.
My number at the station is (940)-322-1153 if you have a wedge, I'll put you on the air.

[Sam Barricklow]

see:

http://www.k5kj.net/20070413.htm

Also includes a satellite image of the Seymour supecell during tornado time.

Congrats to all who intercepted the Haskell/Seymour storm.

[Amos Magliocco]

Amos, I've been studying and plotting this today on Street Atlas and notice that you mention your location and that of the torn near 4 and 6 miles south of Seymore, but Tony Laubach and Eugene Theiszen agree about 3 miles south. That is a bit of a difference, can we all see a bit more agreement?

Bill, I can't speak for Eugene; I don't know where he was. But Tony was right behind me, so he and I were in approximately the same place. According to my GPS log file, the spot where we stopped to film the tornado was 5.98 miles from the center of Seymour. My StreetAtlas uses the Seymour Dairy Queen as the center of town. The tornado crossed the road in front of us no more than one-half mile, then fully condensed east of the road while moving east-northeast. So while we observed it, this tornado was probably never closer than four miles from Seymour, but my truck was parked 5.98 miles south of the Seymour Dairy Queen.

In my report I mentioned some roads I believe the tornado crossed. Another one to look for is Kubala Road, just west of 114 and south of the intersection of CR 221 and CR 226. I would imagine the tornado, as large as it was, probably passed over this rural road. Hope that helps!

PS: I would think it's possible the tornado was visible to anyone between 2 and 8 miles south of Seymour, depending on how quickly the wrap-around precip closed the curtain behind us. I'm sure chasers to the south of us would have lost visibility a little sooner.

[Amos Magliocco]

Tony called 9-1-1 and reported the tornado. They promised to notify the Norman NWS and failed to do so, despite calling Tony back moments later to give HIM an update on the location of the tornado from another source. Since they had the time to do this, I thought surely they would have contacted OUN.

We only called 9-1-1 after we were unable to place cell phone calls because of a busy network and I failed to break squelch into the linked repeaters. I don't know if I had a more distant frequency or if there was a PL tone I didn't have programmed, but we tried. It's too bad 9-1-1 didn't relay the report as they promised.

PS: as a member of the media, it might be worth your time to investigate what procedures are in place for 911 operators in Baylor County to relay tornado reports and to whom. Most chasers don't consider themselves only spectators.


I hope that anyone on the Seymour wedge with ham radio or cell made at least one attempt to report the tornado to local authorities or the Norman ham link. Thats great vid considering its a typical north Texas HP and the road grid is not chase friendly. You must always think there may be unsuspecting souls in its path.

I was doing the on-air play-by-play for the local CBS affiliate, and I was never made aware that there was touchdown. Wichita Falls based spotters couldn't get a good angle on the cell thanks to the core going straight up 277/82.

I know chasers dont have a rolodex full of numbers to county offices , TV stations or ham frequencies, and I understand you thinking that members of spotter nets are seeing what you're seeing, but I feel this may have been worth a 911 call. This info would have been of tremendous value to me and my peers considering the storm vector toward a major population center.

Love you guys, and what you do, just rembember you cant always be just a spectator.
My number at the station is (940)-322-1153 if you have a wedge, I'll put you on the air.

[Bill Tabor]

What's interesting is at 2:38 Gene and I were stopped on 277 about 7 miles sw of Seymore shooting video and pictures of the hail and wallclouds directly to our east. As I put the map and locations together I see that is exactly where the tornado is passing at that time. It would have been about 6 or 7 miles to our east. Either we caught (I got video) of the funnel / wallcloud before it became a wedge and wrapped up, or there were two areas of rotation directly next to each other and the wedge was somehow further north buried in deep rain hiding it from us.

[Amos Magliocco]

Do you mean you were looking east? The meso was east of 277 at 1938z unless you were actually in Seymour at that moment. From 277 in Seymour, the meso would have been due south at 1938z.

Large (238k) radar image from 1935z (http://www.cycloneroad.com/images/chase2007/2007april13/070413r-1.gif)

What's interesting is at 2:38 Gene and I were stopped on 277 about 7 miles sw of Seymore shooting video and pictures of the hail and wallclouds directly to our west. As I put the map and locations together I see that is exactly where the tornado is passing at that time. It would have been about 6 or 7 miles to our east. Either we caught (I got video) of the funnel / wallcloud before it became a wedge and wrapped up, or there were two areas of rotation directly next to each other and the wedge was somehow further north buried in deep rain hiding it from us.

[Tony Laubach]

I hope that anyone on the Seymour wedge with ham radio or cell made at least one attempt to report the tornado to local authorities or the Norman ham link. Thats great vid considering its a typical north Texas HP and the road grid is not chase friendly. You must always think there may be unsuspecting souls in its path.

I was doing the on-air play-by-play for the local CBS affiliate, and I was never made aware that there was touchdown. Wichita Falls based spotters couldn't get a good angle on the cell thanks to the core going straight up 277/82.

I know chasers dont have a rolodex full of numbers to county offices , TV stations or ham frequencies, and I understand you thinking that members of spotter nets are seeing what you're seeing, but I feel this may have been worth a 911 call. This info would have been of tremendous value to me and my peers considering the storm vector toward a major population center.

Love you guys, and what you do, just rembember you cant always be just a spectator.
My number at the station is (940)-322-1153 if you have a wedge, I'll put you on the air.


The 240pm timing I gave the tornado was pulled from my video camera, still camera, and my cell phone in which I made the 9-1-1 call. There may be a minute or two difference, but its pretty close.

I'm not sure what happened with the 9-1-1 report. The police department actually called me back a short time later to update us on another report they got from a woman east of town. I informed her of the damage (flood/hail) in Seymour as we were slowly making our way through town. I haven't seen the tornado on SPC's report page, so I don't know what came of our report.

Sorry.. I'll be sure to make that clearer next time that we attempted to make the report... I guess I was kind of vague. :D

[John Cameron]

please forgive...I didnt read every post...nice pics/vid

[Tony Laubach]

please forgive...I didnt read every post...nice pics/vid

Forgiven... just remember as a member of the media, you should be sure you have all the facts before reporting; same with forums.

As said by Amos, this was a tough tornado to spot and I wouldn't have been surprised to be the only ones on the storm at the time. While there was a a few minutes before we were able to get in touch with officials, we assume the tornado to have still been on the ground which was confirmed minutes later when the police department called me back.

I honestly do not have an accurate distance on record, but recall saying the tornado at my time of reporting was about 3 miles southeast of Seymour; the initial tornado was probably a bit further south and obviously due south of town as it formed on the highway.

Tom Dulong, my chase partner, took excellent video out the passenger side as we turned our cars into the wind and has convincing proof of spray on the highway as the circulation was passing over the road which seems to indicate tornatic circulation on the ground at this time. The clouds were obviously very low to the ground at this point...

http://www.tornadoeskick.com/images/2007/070413_07.jpg

http://www.tornadoeskick.com/images/2007/070413_08.jpg

The vid grabs from my camera show the rain/spray in the road right beneath the circulation. Tom's video showed better the motion on the ground which makes me guess we had touchdown by this point.

http://www.tornadoeskick.com/images/2007/070413_06.jpg
This screen grab was before the circulation reached the highway, and we had very convincing motion which had us all thinking a tornado was imminent. However our view makes it difficult to see if there was ground circulation at this point. I'd be curious to know if there was.

[Bill Tabor]

Do you mean you were looking east? The meso was east of 277 at 1938z unless you were actually in Seymour at that moment. From 277 in Seymour, the meso would have been due south at 1938z.


Yeah sorry, I meant east, but you made your comment before I noticed / changed it from west.

I did some maps (post analysis) I want to post on this, but I'm not really sure if they are part of my REPORT, or belong in DISC. For now, it seems since we are all talking about it here, I will post here in a bit. I have to upload first.

[Bill Tabor]

Sorry.. I'll be sure to make that clearer next time that we attempted to make the report... I guess I was kind of vague. :D

You know, that's what you hear about all the time, that you call 911 and they never relay to the NWS. Looks like that is what happened this time. My guess is that's why it took so long to get logged.

You can use my Street Atlas NWS Phone Overlay, which is also a layer for Grlevel3 too. I probably need to update all those numbers, and re-issue.

I hear a number of chasers stopped reporting because of this, or because their information was ignored or not believed. I've had it happen to me too.

[Bill Tabor]

This first map image shows the zoomed in layout of the chase, with most participants represented, along with their location and time. It also includes the times the wedge was spotted, estimated path, and some of mine and Genes times and positions relative to the developing tornado.

http://www.tornadoxtreme.com/Seymore%20Wedge00001.jpg

[Tony Laubach]

You know, that's what you hear about all the time, that you call 911 and they never relay to the NWS. Looks like that is what happened this time. My guess is that's why it took so long to get logged.

I was contacted this morning by someone from OUN in regards to our tornado and it was actually them that made the update to include our report as we obviously can confirm via multiple witnesses to the tornado.

As far as I know, our report ended at the police department... it wasn't til I was in touch with OUN today that the report was made official.

Bill, would you mind if I included your image on my chase reports?

[Bill Tabor]

This second map shows our decision option 1 along with our position starting out where we (in reality) went north to Goree. This option shows what I was thinking would have been the best option to get to the storm. I used Street Atlas's routing function to determine distance and time of trip, and I have my routing preferences set aggressively. It's possible I could have been even more aggressive in real life if I had to :D, but let's just keep it pseudo legal right :cool:?

I believe this is the same option Tim Marshall chose, believing the other option was fruitless and would only end up with an unsuccessful attempt and a smashed vehicle. Using this option we would likely have arrived at 2:57 near your viewing location on hwy 183. This is too late for the tornado.

http://www.tornadoxtreme.com/Seymore%20Wedge00002.jpg

[Bill Tabor]

Bill, would you mind if I included your image on my chase reports?

Sure, no problem :)

[Bill Tabor]

Option 2 based on our position after leaving Haskell, is our only other possibility at this time I believe to try and reach the point where the tornado was viewable. It calls for being very much more agressive and hitting the accelerator and shooting up through Munday, to Goree, and on to Seymore where we shoot south of hwy 183 near Tony, Amos, and Eric, etc's position. I calculated this the same way with Delorme's routing function and determined that it would take about 41 minutes in clear, dry, best scenario conditions to arrive at 2:30. This would be in time for the 2:38 thru 2:44 wedge to cross the road, but only gives us an 8 minute leeway.

In reality I believe this route is fraught with peril and difficulty, and likely doomed to failure as well. We'd be taking hwy 203/277 toward Munday and crossing in front of / penetrating a very large wrapped up area of precip and wind that I that time, I thought really might have a tornado embedded. I still think this was a possibility. Once reaching Munday the supercell tracks pretty much along the same path as hwy 277 on the road to Seymore, and having followed it I know it had hail which grew from nickel, to golfball, to baseball - along with who knows how much high wind, flooding, and blinding rain. I suspect we'd have gotten slowed down some, especially by the large hail breaking our windows in Seymore. I'd say we'd be slowed at least enough to give back those 8 minutes margin of safety between our 2:30 arrival time and the 2:38 tornado arrival time. If that happened then that means we'd still have to somehow get in front of or drive through the tornado. Like I say this approach seems problematic to me as well.

This image also shows the path of meso / tornado all the way back north of Rule. It is my believe based on observation and time that the Rule tornado was formed by another weaker area of rotation further south on the supercell structure / flank than the area of rotation which eventually created the Seymore wedge, and which also crossed the road in front of us on hwy 203/277 north of Weinert. Following is the map 3:

http://www.tornadoxtreme.com/Seymore%20Wedge00003.jpg

[Bill Tabor]

Here are some additional statistics I recorded:
Stamford stop for gas at Shell - 10 minutes (1:25 to 1:35)

Rule Tornado 1:45

We are just on the south end of Haskell at 1:45

We exit Haskell and observe dust or 'gustnado' to our wnw at 1:49

First paused to observe approaching meso and wrapping rain at 1:55 to our NNW we resumed after about 1 min

We paused again at 2pm intersection of 277 and 203 (We resumed nearly 3 min later at 2:03)
2:06 turned down FM1720

Arrive at north turn on Ranch 1720 at 2:14
2:27 turn northeast at Goree for Seymore on hwy 277
2:39 - pause at CR 436 (I believe we were looking taping hail, and wallclouds here)
Resume moving at 2:42
Paused again at 2:48 for 1min 28 sec on 277 at CR411
Arrived Seymore at 2:52
Exited Seymore on hwy 114 at 2:54

Seymore tornado - 2:40 to 2:45

At 2:44 we are 5 miles south of Seymore on hwy 277

Eugene Theiszen - 3 miles se Seymore on hwy 114 observed torn 3 miles to wsw (2:40 to 2:45)
Tony Laubach - position 3 to 4 miles s of Seymore on hwy 183 observed to his immediate east / northeast
Tim Marshall was in similar position to us at Weinart (but apparently ahead a bit) and tried to follow
the same way but encountered big hail so went back to Throckmorton & missed the wedge
Amos Magliocco - reports his position as 4 to 6 south of Seymore on Hwy 183 with wedge nearby crossing to
ENE & most violent near Ogden Road and 226 and surely grazing the C Lazy T Ranch on 222
Bill Mudd - Thinks he might have seen it from 20+ miles south down by Throckmorton

[Amos Magliocco]

Tony Laubach - position 3 to 4 miles s of Seymore on hwy 183 observed to his immediate east / northeast
Tim Marshall was in similar position to us at Weinart (but apparently ahead a bit) and tried to follow
the same way but encountered big hail so went back to Throckmorton & missed the wedge
Amos Magliocco - reports his position as 4 to 6 south of Seymore on Hwy 183 with wedge nearby crossing to
ENE & most violent near Ogden Road and 226 and surely grazing the C Lazy T Ranch on 222
Bill Mudd - Thinks he might have seen it from 20+ miles south down by Throckmorton

Bill, I don't presume to speak for Tony, but, as I mentioned, and as you can see from his images, our vehicles were less than thirty five feet apart. Tony was south of me on the road at the moment that my GPS shows us stopped 5.98 miles south of Seymour. So, unless my GPS was wrong, Tony was about 5.981 miles south of Seymour. That's the position from which we both observed the tornado. Your graphic shows Tony north of the tornado track when we were actually both south of it as it crossed the road.

I don't think Tony and I disagree on any positioning or track estimates. Tony, correct me if I'm wrong.

[Jenn Brindley]

Amos,

It's so funny you mention it, because I was noticing that as well, we were directly behind you. And with the path of the wedge, I pointed that out to Tom just a little while ago. It is possible that it had dropped down prior to lifting and potentially "re-formed" over the road ahead of us... but I don't think it started that far south of us. I'm pretty sure Tony would agree... But that synopsis is very cool... I'll have Tony take another look at it in the morning before we head back to Denver.

Jenn Brindley



Bill, I don't presume to speak for Tony, but, as I mentioned, and as you can see from his images, our vehicles were less than thirty five feet apart. Tony was south of me on the road at the moment that my GPS shows us stopped 5.98 miles south of Seymour. So, unless my GPS was wrong, Tony was about 5.981 miles south of Seymour. That's the position from which we both observed the tornado. Your graphic shows Tony north of the tornado track when we were actually both south of it as it crossed the road.

I don't think Tony and I disagree on any positioning or track estimates. Tony, correct me if I'm wrong.

[Bill Tabor]

We did have an additional 10 minutes that we could have possibly gotten back had we not stopped for gas in Stamford, but I'm not sure how much that could have helped us, and it's 20/20 hindsight. At the time we wanted to top off right before the main chase activity began. That approach is standard and makes sense. At this time we didn't feel like we were behind anything so there was no motivation not to stop.

Apparently this was a Kobayashi Maru scenario similar to that faced by Tony Laubach back on May 12th 2005 to the fact that it seems unwinnable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobayashi_Maru This refers to the original unwinnable test scenario presented to Capt Kirk in Star Trek 2 and historical to other doomed unwinnable situations.

In retrospect I believe we could have intercepted this cell but it would have taken going north to Throckmorton initially from Albany where instead we took hwy 6 more directly to the storm. I will note that approach didn't seem all the intuitive at the time, and only in hind sight after much analysis and reflection does it make sense.

I welcome any other comments, suggestions, alternatives, observations any of you might have.

Either way it was a fun chase and we at least were in the thick of it. Perhaps I'll post my short clip showing the wallcloud / funnel I taped off hwy 277 to the east of us.

[Brandon Smith]

Pardon me for posting in here something other than the Seymour, TX tornado but since this is a dicussion thread about the storms in Texas on Friday, I thought this would be the appropriate place. Very interesting information so far on the tornado.

As listed in my chase report in the reports thread for Friday, I stated that we happened to be in, what we believed, to be a start of a tornado NW of Ft. Worth. This was on the particularly nasty squal line that went on to cause the tornado in N Ft. Worth. When this squal line was in Wise and Parker counties, part of it was tornado warned at the time for rotation spotted by spotter and NWS radar. While we were attempting to outrun the storm, we began to see a rotating base, about 1 - 2 miles SE of Springtown, TX, and just to the S of our location. About 4 -5 miles to the SE of Springtown we lost the rotation over the car. It was at that point we began to encounter violent, what I would call rotating winds. Our vehicle began to get pelted with pebbles and any light debris in the area. Any loose dirt in the area began to get lifted and swirled off the ground. Wind was not only buffeting our vehicle around but the surrounding vehicles that were getting knocked out of their lanes. I have no doubt in my mind that the circulation we had seen in the sky had extended to the ground, and had officially become a tornado. It couldn't have been more than an EF1 but still a tornado no-the-less. After reviewing time stamps on my photos of the funnel (right before we got buffeted), the time was 22:32Z, and just 1 - 2 miles SE of Springtown. The closest radar scan was 22:34Z with our location being 4 -5 SE of Springtown and the time we started encountering the ground circulation. I have included images of the radar scan below. My question is, was there anybody else around that area at the same time I was that happened to see anything? I know Jeff Snyder passed through the area just to the west of where this occured around the time we were in the Springtown area and noted the numerous mesovorticies associated with this line. I'm sure some of the local residents saw what took place. There were numerous houses around there and numerous people out and about. What do you guys think?

My Storm Report:
http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/showpost.php?p=131439&postcount=14

Here are three radar captures from the 22:34Z scan. I've outlined the spot where we were and witnessed the ground circulaton in the 0.5 Degree Storm Relative Velocity Scan. If anybody has better radar imagery, feel free to post it please.

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s145/quiksmith10/springtown_radar_velocity_outline.jpg

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s145/quiksmith10/springtown_radar_3.jpg

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s145/quiksmith10/springtown_radar_velocity_05.jpg

[Bill Tabor]

Bill, I don't presume to speak for Tony, but, as I mentioned, and as you can see from his images, our vehicles were less than thirty five feet apart. Tony was south of me on the road at the moment that my GPS shows us stopped 5.98 miles south of Seymour. So, unless my GPS was wrong, Tony was about 5.981 miles south of Seymour. That's the position from which we both observed the tornado. Your graphic shows Tony north of the tornado track when we were actually both south of it as it crossed the road.

I don't think Tony and I disagree on any positioning or track estimates. Tony, correct me if I'm wrong.

Yeah that was based on Tony's original statement. I put it on the chart before you reconciled the locations. Plus I can't put them too close together or those map tags overlap. As for the textual mention you're quoting I was just writing down what I got out of the other posts and he logged it that way.

[bill mudd]

My position though not close was certainly close enough to observe (5 miles nwest of thockmorton was my location on a dead end dirt road) at precisely these times - Bob Shafer was nowcasting for me and has confirmed the timing. Also my wife was with me confirming the visual.
While I was not in perfect photo distance, in hinsight I should have slapped on my zoom lens, but didnt. All I can say is that my visibility was perfectly clear at the time. What I saw was round and huge, even at this distance. (dont know the true distance but it was almost due north/a little north east).
What then distracted me was what was coming straight at me, punching through the clouds(obviously a new small cell formation).
So my options were to grab this lowering and book it out the 79.
(north northeast) - 2 hopes: to grab what I had in front of me and/or to possibly intercept THE seymour wedge as the road was more favored. Distance meant I was probably gonna miss the wedge.
I have some photos of what then happened heading out the 79, relative to my position it was just above and north.(not the wedge) Numerous red dust swirls a fast moving (fast) wall cloud (just over of me about 5 miles out of throckmorton) and an impressive funell formation with a bears cage. We had to outrun this as it crossed behind us.
The rotating picked some up debris and started to turn very brown at the base. But funneling none the less. We then were forced north through a detour and all I could see was a black mass that we followed for some time north that never really cleared out.(probably the then Seymour now rainwrapped event)
Ill try to post the few pics from down south of my cell in a few days.
If anyone wants some more on this pm me.

[Gene Moore]

A week ago there was a thread on "counting tornadoes" and I had some comments that apply here. For years I kept records on many aspects of chasing, including why I busted on a particular day. Forecasting issues are the least of the reasons why I bust, it's more often something that happens in the field that leads to failure on a particular chase, and it was this time.

When I kept statistics in addition to counting tubes I counted large hail, times I chased on dirt/mud roads and so on. One persistent reason I missed tornadoes, or missed good photography jumped out of the numbers. That is, falling behind the storm or trying to chase within the RFD. I like to do this because the tornado is front lit, that is it has color, it's not just a sihouette. Some storms you can get behind the wall cloud and get away with it, but I've learned getting behind a storm crossing a warm front is bad and generally leads to failure. Warm front storms quickly tend to HP as the LCL falls, or will at least develop a notch with heavy wrap around precip. This kills the chance of photographing the tornado from the west and sometimes from the south. The thinnest amount of rain wrapping around a tornado (visual hook) will obscure it from view if that precip curtain is front lit. This tends to be true of most boundary crossing storms especially if they are not highly sheared. There is another important feature not discussed here. There were two mesocyclones and two different wall clouds. This could be seen early on when the original circulation (brief Rule touchdowns) occluded and a new flank intersecting from the east formed. These east flanks tend to go tornadic fast because they bring more low level shear against the precip boundary of the storm than the SW flank (my opinion). When I saw this structure form I encouraged Bill to drive through the old meso and get east. Bill, after his emergency room experience (glass in his eye) from the 05 South Plains tornado- hail event was reluctant to do this. So we tried to get ahead of the storm going east at Weinert and north to Goree, but the storm had the hypotenuse and we were doomed. The other alternative was to go east at Bomarton, we could have done this but the flooding already on 277 made me reluctent to call that move. Even then, with the tornado somewhat in a notch as shown by the images from different angles we may not have seen it. It appears to me only viewing within that notch or being SE-E of the tornado would have worked on this day. It was not a classic flanking line (Browning model) storm that would lend itself to that kind of chase strategy. In chasing, angle and lighting is everything not distance. There were times we were pretty close to this event, I saw rotating scud and rain curtains, but not the tornado. We just didn't have the angle on it. I can understand why Bill is so frustrated about this, to be so close and miss is maddening, but it's also chasing.http://stormtrack.org/forum/images/icons/icon12.gif

Gene Moore

[John Peters]

Does anyone know if NWS Norman will be conducting the damage survey for the Seymour Tornado? It would interesting to know how long it was on the ground and whether it caused any damage.

[Marko Korosec]

I was doing some research with GRL2 radar data on those tornadic storms, here are some grabs of the Seymour supercell/meso if someone gets interested on them.

19:35 UTC:

http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/7265/radar1935utcrefl357hx5.th.png (http://img510.imageshack.us/my.php?image=radar1935utcrefl357hx5.png) http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/4569/radar1935utcrefl358wu5.th.png (http://img140.imageshack.us/my.php?image=radar1935utcrefl358wu5.png) http://img107.imageshack.us/img107/9140/radar1935utcsrv357ts9.th.png (http://img107.imageshack.us/my.php?image=radar1935utcsrv357ts9.png) http://img107.imageshack.us/img107/4728/radar1935utcsrv358tu6.th.png (http://img107.imageshack.us/my.php?image=radar1935utcsrv358tu6.png)

19:39 UTC:

http://img115.imageshack.us/img115/3328/radar1935utcrefl000sn6.th.png (http://img115.imageshack.us/my.php?image=radar1935utcrefl000sn6.png) http://img115.imageshack.us/img115/6561/radar1939utcrefl001qr3.th.png (http://img115.imageshack.us/my.php?image=radar1939utcrefl001qr3.png) http://img106.imageshack.us/img106/3177/radar1939utcsrv000yw9.th.png (http://img106.imageshack.us/my.php?image=radar1939utcsrv000yw9.png) http://img75.imageshack.us/img75/8429/radar1939utcsrv001kz5.th.png (http://img75.imageshack.us/my.php?image=radar1939utcsrv001kz5.png)

Here are some animations;
1) Base reflectivity tilt 0.5°: http://www.weather-photos.net/temp/KDYX_radaranim_level_II-refl_tilt_0.5.gif
2) Base reflectivity tilt 0.7°: http://www.weather-photos.net/temp/KDYX_radaranim_level_II-refl_tilt_0.7.gif
3) Relative velocity tilt 0.5°: http://www.weather-photos.net/temp/KDYX_radaranim_level_II-srv_tilt_0.5.gif
4) Relative velocity tilt 0.8°: http://www.weather-photos.net/temp/KDYX_radaranim_level_II-srv_tilt_0.8.gif
5) Relative velocity tilt 1.3°: http://www.weather-photos.net/temp/KDYX_radaranim_level_II-srv_tilt_1.3.gif

Indeed this was an impressive storm!

[Eugene Thieszen]

This first map image shows the zoomed in layout of the chase, with most participants represented, along with their location and time. It also includes the times the wedge was spotted, estimated path, and some of mine and Genes times and positions relative to the developing tornado.



Bill and others,

It would seem the confusion comes from the inaccuracy of my earlier distances estimates. Having examined our GPS file and searched Google earth for our pull-off point, I found it on the NE side of the road just past CR 223 which puts us at 5.45 miles from the 277/114 junction in Seymour when we sighted the tornado. That correlates pretty well with Tony and Amos's data. Sorry for the confusion due to my "rule of thumb" estimates. Emphasizes to me the importance of accurate data gathering.

Gene
WXtreme Chase Team

[Amos Magliocco]

A week ago there was a thread on "counting tornadoes" and I had some comments that apply here. For years I kept records on many aspects of chasing, including why I busted on a particular day.

We were actually talking about your post on failure modes Friday morning, specifically how being late is a frequent but preventable problem. It was ironic because when we finished our long lunch at El Rancho in Ranger, we thought we'd made ourselves late by letting the warm front sneak north.

There's no doubt in my mind that if we'd ordered burgers at El Rancho instead of chicken fried steaks (which I've never done before on a chase day lunch), we would have left Ranger twenty minutes sooner and turned west on 380 at Throckmorton, and then northwest on 222 towards Munday to achieve the best angle given where the storm would have been at that time. We would have faced the same decisions as others and missed the wedge.

The reason we were 6 miles south of Seymour at 2:38 PM is because it was our first possible interception point and we barely made that.

[Mike Hollingshead]

I welcome any other comments, suggestions, alternatives, observations any of you might have.

Helicopter.

[Bill Tabor]

If you go back and review the radar evolution around the time of the tornado (2:40 pm based on Tony's siting) the storm was undergoing some unique evolution around that time. The tornado looks to have been where you would expect it though - out on the tip of the hook appendage, but immediately thereafter that circulation rapidly tracked northeast while a new core extended to the southwest, later crossing along a similar path, but perhaps that trailing mesocyclone is the one you met as you exited Seymore. Sorry to hear you were on 277 - there was chatter regarding what an unfortunate place that would be to try and navigate the storm.

Hey Glen,

Yeah, I've been reviewing the radar. That is pretty amazing to watch, how the meso with tornado area shoots off, and a new extension shoots back and starts tracking the same way. I wonder what would cause it to behave quite like this? Perhaps related to anchoring on the warm front and continued propagation?

And yes, after reviewing all our positions and times and comparing that with the Street Atlas map, and the radar it was the new secondary meso extension that was fast approaching us from the west. That's one reason we boogied on to the SW down hwy 114 quickly at that point.

[Bill Tabor]

Bill and others,

It would seem the confusion comes from the inaccuracy of my earlier distances estimates. Having examined our GPS file and searched Google earth for our pull-off point, I found it on the NE side of the road just past CR 223 which puts us at 5.45 miles from the 277/114 junction in Seymour when we sighted the tornado. That correlates pretty well with Tony and Amos's data. Sorry for the confusion due to my "rule of thumb" estimates. Emphasizes to me the importance of accurate data gathering.

Gene
WXtreme Chase Team

Ok, that makes sense. I don't think I'l redo the map, everyone just visually in their mind imagine the chasers locations on hwy 183 and 114 to be a bit further south a couple miles or so. Amos is placed almost right, but should probably be shown a hair futher south IMO too. Imagine the tornado track displaced a bit that way as well.

While making the distance to the east a bit further for our viewing of the wallcloud, we were watching it some although I couldn't alot because I was driving and on the left hand side of the vehicle. I do recall mentioning as we drove that I was seeing rotating curtains of rain around the lowered wallclouds. While we were stopped I got some video of it when it started getting better developed. As I recall it was hanging down pretty good and appeared to have a funnel in the middle starting to form. This could very well have been the formative stages of the wedge. I may post a video grab in a bit.

[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

[Bill Tabor]

There is another important feature not discussed here. There were two mesocyclones and two different wall clouds. This could be seen early on when the original circulation (brief Rule touchdowns) occluded and a new flank intersecting from the east formed. These east flanks tend to go tornadic fast because they bring more low level shear against the precip boundary of the storm than the SW flank (my opinion). When I saw this structure form I encouraged Bill to drive through the old meso and get east. Bill, after his emergency room experience (glass in his eye) from the 05 South Plains tornado- hail event was reluctant to do this. So we tried to get ahead of the storm going east at Weinert and north to Goree, but the storm had the hypotenuse and we were doomed.


It's true, there were two meso's initially. I've been examining all this stuff in detail on radar, Street Atlas, and pictures. As we were leaving Haskell and looking west we saw the lifted dust with weak circulation. I'm pretty sure that is what was left of the Rule tornado. It was part of an extended flank that wasn't as strong and didn't have the heavier radar echo of the area to our NW at the time. As we were racing north, this area of rotation paralleled us for awhile. I remember looking out the window at the small wallcloud with small extending funnel and mentioning it to Gene. :) He just said to ignore it. But I remember it did have a fair amount of rotation, but he was right I could tell it wasn't the big fish. I didn't slow down for that though. I began slowing down as the lowered wallcloud area to our NW, and then NNW began wrapping with a huge amount of precipitation and occluded. It got so thick you could no longer see the lowering, but it was a very intense, turbulent area of wind / rain, and who knows what. I thought it was a possible developing tornado, and said so. It was such a large area we were already in the wrapping rain especially as we continued north. I remember Gene said something like 'Let's go, we've got to get up the road', and I replied 'In front of...into that?' - :eek:. This is the area that had a big inflow band feeding into it from the east. I did continue, but at a bit slower pace than 70mph. Basically at this point the area of rotation that would eventually become the Seymore Wedge was passing in front of us. I continued on until Gene suggested we observe for a minute. After that we went a bit further north, and realizing we had no time or likely success going through that core / meso we turned east on 1720. The whole time we were alternatively riding under or near the hook as it progressed more or less to the NE. Pretty much the whole time that area of rotation tracked parallel hwy 277 offset by about 5 miles or so.

But no, I appreciate Gene's sentimentality, but the South Plains hail incident didn't have much to do with it. I wasn't worried about hail, but a tornado instead. Also for everyone's info (I meant to post something earlier), turns out I don't believe the spot of blood in my eye that day was due to glass. I forgot I get that sometimes in my eye. Not often, but occasionally where one of those blood vessels ruptures. It's no big deal and just goes away after a week or so. Likely that day with all the stress it shot my blood pressure up and caused it to happen. - I was wondering how my eye could have been cut with my hail goggles on (although they were hanging kind of lopsided in the confusion).


The other alternative was to go east at Bomarton, we could have done this but the flooding already on 277 made me reluctent to call that move. Even then, with the tornado somewhat in a notch as shown by the images from different angles we may not have seen it. It appears to me only viewing within that notch or being SE-E of the tornado would have worked on this day. It was not a classic flanking line (Browning model) storm that would lend itself to that kind of chase strategy. In chasing, angle and lighting is everything not distance. There were times we were pretty close to this event, I saw rotating scud and rain curtains, but not the tornado. We just didn't have the angle on it. I can understand why Bill is so frustrated about this, to be so close and miss is maddening, but it's also chasing.http://stormtrack.org/forum/images/icons/icon12.gif
Gene Moore

Yeah, when I was playing around with Delorme and routing at home at one point it created a route from Bomarton over to hwy 183. I'd say with the hail melting and all there was probably a pretty good chance it was flooded. Plus being a secondary road and covered under hail it might have been a bit slow going mostly in 4wd. Also looking at radar and Delorme it appears to be pretty lined up to pass directly into the developing wedge. Gene's a wild man though he may have been able to pull it off. :D Most likely he's pulled off something similar numerous times before.

Angle is important. This is probably a perfect text book example of the importance of being in the notch as you mention. Here, the other chasers were afforded a brief glimpse of what the storm was carrying with it. Even Bill Mudd many miles to the south believes he could see it, but not in the detail he wanted. That might lend some credibility to the notion of taking the long way round as we might have been able to see some of the wedge action from a distance from the SSE - not sure. It may not have been close enough for either of our preferences though. Plus in the images this tornado seems very low light, and low to the ground.

I have to admit, it was thrilling to ride under the hook. At least we really got to taste the storm, and feel it's pulse. We also did get some good views of the hail and the wallclouds. The wallcloud I shot with video (as I recall) came out fairly impressive. Hmm perhaps being on that Bomarton road would have let us sneek up behind and - at least close enough to view it somewhat?

Anyway, it is frustrating to some degree, but I've also been finding it fascinating to look at the pictures, radar, chaser accounts, and map locations and finally have an idea of what fully transpired as well as what situation faced us. I was intrigued to know what the options were, and if they were really workable options. In my opinion, I really think once we exited Haskell and started north we were basically cut out from seeing the tube. As I recall Tim Marshall was in a similar situation with our route, but perhaps a minute or so ahead, and he didn't fare any better.

[Bill Tabor]

Dal Archer, that was some amazing sounding audio and screaming inflow you had there. What's your best guess on your position? I'm thinking perhaps it was near the same area toward the end of Amos's Youtube posted video where it starts wrapping up and getting completely hid in precip.

[Tony Laubach]

Sorry for the late chime in... just got back from my 2100 miles in 4 days and am rejoining normal civilization...

My GPS log was not saved due to a computer reset, thus I would rely on Amos's location data for any distance and time. I was giving an estimate of the tornado based upon what I hda in front of me as I was running GRLevel3 over my GPS and wasn't looking back at GPS til navigating through Seymour (looking for alternative roads out of town due to flooding and traffic).

I gave a rough estimate based upon the last location I knew of as I became more concerned with the weather around me as opposed to what was on my computer. But as Amos stated, we weren't more than a few dozen feet apart during the entire stint, so unless you want to start talking inches, consider his position my position. When the tornado crossed the road, I was behind him; when we stoppde to film it in the field, I went around Amos and was in front of him.

A side note, Amos, I don't know if you recall the blue car that was with us at the time of the tornado. It was a chick with Florida plates. In my video, you see her pass you when you pull off, then slam the breaks and go into reverse when I think she realized why we were stopped.

I think her mother left a note on my blog saying how she was caught in the middle of it. I'm trying to get in touch with her to see if perhaps it was the same chick! LOL

[Brian Stertz]

Wondering when/where the NWS OUN will be posting their survey of this tornado. I would think they would be all over this as probably one of the stronger and largest tornadoes in the CWA in the past few years. The video shows some pretty violent rotation so it looked capable of being a damaging tornado (F2-ish).

[Bill Tabor]

I've added some video links to my REPORTS post regarding the chase. Hopefully this will give the desk chasers the feeling of being out there, plus give chasers in other parts of the storm an idea of what it looked like further west.
http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/showthread.php?t=11974

[Gene Moore]

Yeah, when I was playing around with Delorme and routing at home at one point it created a route from Bomarton over to hwy 183. I'd say with the hail melting and all there was probably a pretty good chance it was flooded. Plus being a secondary road and covered under hail it might have been a bit slow going mostly in 4wd. Also looking at radar and Delorme it appears to be pretty lined up to pass directly into the developing wedge. Gene's a wild man though he may have been able to pull it off. :D Most likely he's pulled off something similar numerous times before.

Well, I have to respond to my chase partners comments.....

The next time I'll drive, I'll also bring you a blindfold and earplugs (so you won't hear the pitter-patter of the little hailstones).http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/images/icons/icon10.gif Just have your camera ready.

Gene Moore

[Bill Tabor]

I have finally updated my website for this day. I pretty well did a case study on options for getting to the wedge. Maybe I went overboard, for a tornado I didn't catch, but it's the ones that get away that intrigue you most in my opinion. It's good to try and learn from any mistakes that were made, etc.

http://www.tornadoxtreme.com/Chases_By_Year/2007_Chases/April_13_07/april_13_07.html

[Alex Lamers]

Did the Norman office ever publish any findings or an official rating for the Seymour tornado? I couldn't find anything when I was looking and I was curious. Thanks!

AJL

[Tony Laubach]

Did the Norman office ever publish any findings or an official rating for the Seymour tornado? I couldn't find anything when I was looking and I was curious. Thanks!

AJL

From what I've been told, OUN did not do a damage survey of the Seymour wedge and are relying on reports from Emergency managers and other sources to get an idea of what went on. Not sure when/if any findings/ratings will be officially published.