4/21/07 DISC: TX/KS/NE/CO

[Jeff Miller]

Major information and transmission outage occured during the severe event of 04/21/07 resulting in warning and radar transmission errors.

The information outage apparently was not confined to the central region - OAX and FSD also were having transmission errors - radar and current reports both non functional as of 0755 CDT.

Any information as to what the primary outage cause was?

[Van DeWald]

There was a problem with the uplink to the SBN. No uplink equals no data on NOAAPORT. It all looks OK now, data is flowing again.

[Jeff Miller]

Information still not being accessed in Topeka, Omaha, or Sioux Falls just as an FYI... bad timing for this to occur.

Thanks for the info.

[Amos Magliocco]

Eric and I were in the Xterra.

We observed four tornadoes tonight including an approximately thirty minute (or longer) tornado that crossed SR 70 and struck homes on the eastern edge of Olton. But the one we’ll always remember was Tulia, where we were struck by the compact but vigorous initial circulation as it entered town.

We were repositioning on the storm and observed what we both agreed was, at the time, an elevated and ragged updraft base. Moments before entering the city, we observed small lowerings but each weakened and the rotation lost focus. When we were in the center of Tulia, neither of us imagined anything like what was about to happen. I was scouting navigational options on StreetAtlas, with my camcorder turned OFF (that’s how nontornadic it appeared at that moment) when Eric shouted “tornado.” Imagine looking over your left shoulder to see, about 100 yards away, a tornado that looked like nothing if not Chuck Doswell’s and Al Moller’s Pampa video: a violent circulation swirling with industrial debris. We accelerated, our ears popping, but the inflow jet tugged us off the road and we came to a stop in front of a small brick building, what might have once been a gas station or a general store. When the tornado reached us, it collapsed the building, blew out our windows, and tipped a parked semi tractor trailer onto the driver side front of Eric’s Xterra. We huddled in the center of the truck and shut our eyes.

When it was over, we climbed out to find a scene straight out of the movies, a wasteland of debris and downed power lines. A police officer passed us and we waved for him to keep going; we didn’t need help and were already feeling the guilt of potentially distracting emergency services. Our friends from OU took us to Amarillo where we’re spending the night.

We’re neither proud nor ashamed of our actions. I’ve taken some calculated risks in ten years of chasing; this wasn’t one of them. We thought we were repositioning between tornadoes. We had talked about how the storm had crossed the baroclinic boundary oriented northwest to southeast and might have become fully outflow dominated. I was wondering if it would produce another tornado at all.

We both regret that it happened, that we put our own lives in jeopardy and threatened to distract emergency personnel. Tonight, I’m glad that I’m alive and uninjured, that my friend is alive and uninjured, and that, from what I have read, the residents of Tulia are mostly safe. I’ll never release the videotape of this incident, publicize or profit from it in any way. If there’s any lesson it might only be that life is precious. We’ve ransacked our minds for the tiny detail or decision that might have kept us safer, and found nothing. What we did I would likely do again, because there seemed nothing unsafe about where we were at the time. Obviously we were wrong. Our choice was a mistake and we paid for it.

[Graham Butler]

First off let me say that I am VERY glad to hear that you and Eric are alright.

One hell of a storm:

http://www.darkskyproductions.com/ST/IMG_1166ec.jpg
Tornado over Tulia, highly edited for contrast.

http://www.darkskyproductions.com/ST/IMG_1255ec.jpg


Graham Butler
http://www.darkskyproductions.com

[Jason A.C. Brock]

Exactly Amos. Mother nature can and will never be able to be fully forecast down to minute detail. We can only hope to make the best decisons on the info we have readily available and on our experience and a little added luck to boot. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time and you learned a great lesson today...perhaps many...some of the leasons you already knew....but sometimes mother nature needs to tap us on the soulder or kick us in the backside and say....Im still a god.....and your only little old you.
The Tulia tornado was odd tho....the whole time I was getting closer there was just an odd feeling about. You almost didnt get excited.....you almost lost all feeling at all....at times it even seem like it was in slow motion..I think a few more than Just Amos had their guardian angels out there this evening. I am not catholic....does anyone know who the patron saint of storms is? or if there even is one? after today.....I may look for a trinquet.
Congrats to all....recharge those batteries folks....camcorders and your body.

If any of you guys need some extra cameras or scanners or anything for chasing next week you may have lost in the accident. Be sure to email me and ill see what I have laying around.

[Jay McCoy]

This had a huge impact on a few chases yesterday. Right in midle of our chase with numerous cells around us we lost WxWorx radar coverage along with GR3 coverage and were blind for a good 30 minutes. Not having data killed us when we were trying to decide which storm to go after and we actually broke off the northern tornadic cell to go after ones coming up from the SW.

At 1st I thought it might have been my wxworx system so I rebooted but when I would click on radar coverage I would only have 1 or 2 stations like Salt Lake City or denver. On the 3rd try i wa lucky enough to get Clovis for a bit but would opnly get updates every other cycle so maybe every 10 minutes. Not good when your surrounded by storms.

[Bob Schafer]

I'm anxious to hear from Amos and Eric and anyone else who was in Tulia. Might they have been somewhere else at the time if it weren't for the outage?

[Tony Laubach]

Fortunately my Sprint data connection remained up and running throughout our entire venture... I did have issues making calls on my cell as I was getting "all circuits are busy" errors.

[Michael O'Keeffe]

I was punching the core of a potentially tornadic supercell in SE CO trying to get to the eastern side of the storm when the WX Worx gave out right as the hail started falling. It really could have been dangerous if the tornado was rain-wrapped. I have a Verizon wifi card, but I had no service either it was quite an adventure.

[mike scantlin]

well, me and the group i was with were trying to get back east of the line by squeezing between two cells. our radar hadnt updated for about 10 minutes, but it looked like a moderate rain core, so we went for it. we were on i40 west of ama, and as we were getting out of the rain, a whirl of derbris went up literally 100 feet in front of us in the median, lifted up, and then spun up again just south of us. at first we thought it was just a gustnado, than at that exact second the new gr3 info downloaded. 2 tvs rigfht on top of us. that was at 7:03:18. needless to say, we were already hauling balls to get out of that situation. when we got out east of the rain, i looked back and saw the tornado. there was not condesation to the ground, but there was debris spinning on the ground. we almost became the debris. luckily it wasnt strong. it was probably the scariest thing i have ever been through. information blackout almost got the best of us. lesson learned. dont depend on data.

[Howard Robinson]

Amos, I am glad to hear that you and Eric are ok.

[Aaron Kennedy]

I was punching the core of a potentially tornadic supercell in SE CO trying to get to the eastern side of the storm when the WX Worx gave out right as the hail started falling. It really could have been dangerous if the tornado was rain-wrapped. I have a Verizon wifi card, but I had no service either it was quite an adventure.

It appears to me that WxWorx has little to do with the situation being dangerous. If I recall, WxWorx simply gives you composite reflectivity with shear markers... tools I wouldn't base my life on.

[Daniel Christianson]

Man... im glad you guys are ok, someone was watching out for you that night, i couldnt even begin to feel what it was like, im glad you guys made it out...

[David Drummond]

We of course lsot everything too. Luckily we were already in position on the storm of choice and having chased in the old school days (prior to having mobile radar) we just chased the old fashioned way. I was pleased to learn that still worked. :)

[Aaron Kennedy]

David pretty much summed up what I was getting at. Not trying to take pop shots at anyone. There are still those of us that don't chase with continious data and seem to do OK =)

[Reed Timmer]

We had major issues with this as well....as we were dropping south towards the Tulia cell, we were confused as to why it didn't have a tornado warning! It obviously did at the time...definitely not good timing for data problems. While we were going through Tulia, and it was OBVIOUS a tornado was imminent (most rapid dry slot punch I have ever seen), we never heard any sirens...I hope this wasn't because of the tornado warning transmission problems.

[cedwards]

I was on my way down to that storm from AMA at the time of the outage. I had WXWORX and GRlevel3 going. I thought I had plenty of time to get to Tulia before it made it there to my planned east road option. when I was just a few miles north of Tulia is when I hear over 146.55 the reports of the tornado in town. I ended up corepunching to get there, but just saw the reminents of the tornado north of town. If I had more current radar I MAY have gone a little faster to get there sooner.

[David Drummond]

While we were going through Tulia, and it was OBVIOUS a tornado was imminent (most rapid dry slot punch I have ever seen), we never heard any sirens...I hope this wasn't because of the tornado warning transmission problems.

I have to agree with Reed, while we were a little further south when it hit, I was on the air watching that big wall cloud and even declared that I believed another tornado would happen at any minute, and of course it did. Talking with on of the officials last night he had told me that he went to his cellar when he heard the siren, and we heard the all clear siren later, so I guess it went off at some point. I guess this should be in a DISC thread...

[David Drummond]

I went ahead and converted this to a DISC thread and moved it.

[Wesley Luginbyhl]

The wall cloud there at Tulia was very ragged looking from the south, but it formed very fast. It went from nothing to a large lowering in about 5 minutes. We were coming up from the south on I-27, not only could we see the wall cloud over town, but the GRlevel image that came up was not looking good for Tulia. I didnt think the wall cloud was going to produce so soon from the the way it looked, but my friend spotted the debris cloud that looked to be right on the interstate from our location. It didnt seem to last too long and we were too far away to tell if it hit town at that time. I am glad i wasn't any closer.

[SteveCarter]

Last night, when I saw the map with stormspotters vehicle icons, I was REALLY concerned about tulia, because the tornado was headed directly for there, and I saw a vehicle in downtown tulia...was that YOU? Didn't help when the radar went down either last night, and it seemed like some warnings were having trouble getting out there, but any way....glad you're ok too! The best chasers/spotters can end up in the wrong places sometimes. Maybe you could matket the video anyway, as , "This is what you DON'T do!" lol

[David Drummond]

It may be tonight or longer before I can have much time to put any of my own reports up but if you want to see a little video of the Tulia tornado, damage and official statements we got last night they are currently online here:

http://kcbd.com/

[Joey Ketcham]

Glad to hear you and Eric were ok, Amos.

My chase partners and I also got caught by a tornado. We were driving east on I40 to get east of the storms just to the south, suddenly (and unexpectedly) a tornado quickly developed just off I40 and we got caught in the circulation. Debris was flying all around, I was driving so I gunned it and kept driving.

Luckily the tornado was weak, otherwise it would have been a disaster. Mike Scantlin, who was with us, got a picture of it.. hope to see tha tposted soon.

[Bob Hall]

It was a series of changing chase parameters that led to the ever evolving chase target yesterday. First Lubbock, then Plainview, then Amarillo, then Dumas, then Dalhart, and lastly back to Dumas, Texas. Fortunately the 1100.6 Miles paid off with a couple of Tornadoes in Dumas, TX. My blog has a more complete chase account and video of the tornadoes.

www.gobob.com
WX5SKY

[Paul Stofer]

Eric, Amos, I'm glad you both are okay. I know that this kind of situation can do horrible things with the mind, family, and to the pocketbook. I'm praying for both of you, your families, and the situation that you are going though. I'm glad that you both are okay. Coming home at the end of the chase is the most important thing in the world to any chaser.

[Tony Laubach]

Amos & Eric,

I'm so glad to hear you guys are all right... your post got buried in here and I was informed late of your incident... I'm glad to hear you two were not injured.

[Joey Ketcham]

Here are some of my pics from yesterday..

http://kschaser.com/cpg1410/albums/userpics/10002/normal_Image13%7E1.jpg
http://kschaser.com/cpg1410/albums/userpics/10002/normal_Image15%7E1.jpg
http://kschaser.com/cpg1410/albums/userpics/10002/normal_Image4%7E0.jpg
I'm not sure what this is, but it passed by us as we were sitting at Flying J's in Amarillo.

The rest of my pictures are on my photo gallery at http://kschaser.com/cpg1410/thumbnails.php?album=39

[Tomas Pucik]

RE: Jketcham
I might be wrong but it seems to me like it is a part of giant transformer...I saw such devices being transported to local transformer station. The upper parts are made of porcelain and wires are tied to them.
Sorry for being oftopic here but I tried to answer the question of the unknown object.

[Joey Ketcham]

Thanks for the info Tomas, I was pretty sure they weren't death rays or anything like that.. :) lol

And my bad on posting the pics here, I meant to stick them in the Reports thread.

[Brett Adair]

Glad to hear that everyone was okay. I hope the damage was minimal for you guys. Looks pretty bad from the images coming from Tulia, TX. I think everyone in the chasing community is praying for you guys.

[Verne Carlson]

Holy crap Amos and Eric,
I just saw the pic of your car, glad to hear you are all right! We heard rumors last night of something bad happening to some chaser but had no idea it was you guys.
Verne

[Ryan McGinnis]

Glad you're doing okay, you two! I wondered if it was you, Amos, when I heard it was an Xterra that got smashed. Looking at the pictures posted, I am somewhat flabbergasted that neither of you were injured in that mess.

[Tony Laubach]

I've posted about 50 of the 250 images I took this afternoon from Cactus. Jon was able to get us access into the town with his pass. We spent about 2 hours walking around the devestation in the town of Cactus. Its a very surreal experience to see something like that in person. Between the adventures had by many chasers and seeing the aftermath today, its easily one of the most sobering experiences of my chasing career...

I have 50 of the pics thumbnailed on my very incomplete April 21, 2007 storm chaser log, but none-the-less, they are viewable (http://www.tornadoeskick.com/logs070421.html)... below are a few shots...

http://www.tornadoeskick.com/images/2007/075222_206.JPG

http://www.tornadoeskick.com/images/2007/075222_33.JPG

http://www.tornadoeskick.com/images/2007/075222_73.JPG

http://www.tornadoeskick.com/images/2007/075222_105.JPG

http://www.tornadoeskick.com/images/2007/075222_25.JPG

http://www.tornadoeskick.com/images/2007/075222_177.JPG

At one point, several emergency vehicles arrived at this overturned trailor and firefighters and rescue people began digging through the rubble as if someone was found inside. As far as we know, no one was inside this trailor as we left after 20 minutes when it seemed as if the search dogs gave false alarm. Hoopefully that remained the case..

http://www.tornadoeskick.com/images/2007/075222_140.JPG

I saw Al Pietrycha on our way out and chatted with him about the damage for a bit... he said a ground survey put the damage path at 3/4 mile wide, however they were going to do a survey from the air to confirm that. His thoughts were EF-2 with the potential for EF-3. Nothing confirmed at this time that I am aware of...

The rest of the images can be found here... (http://www.tornadoeskick.com/logs070421.html)

[Amos Magliocco]

Thanks, all. We're fine. Looks like Eric's instruments were recording and he's trying to extract the data now. Will try to post something in Reports later tonight.

PS: at the time we entered Tulia, we were using GRLevel3 for data from KFDX. LBB wasn't updating and XM had been down for some time.

[Wesley Luginbyhl]

I had just came back into service as we caught back up to the Tulia storm (we were about 10 miles to the south) and I saved an image off of GRLevel3 right before the tornado came down in Tulia. Just thought I would share it.
http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q122/not_a_leader_of_men/4-21-07_1.jpg

[Jenn Brindley]

Here are a few of the images I got with Tony and Jon of the damage from the tornado in Cactus.


http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m1/jennybeanjcb/DSC_0385.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m1/jennybeanjcb/DSC_0349.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m1/jennybeanjcb/DSC_0347.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m1/jennybeanjcb/DSC_0323.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m1/jennybeanjcb/DSC_0314.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m1/jennybeanjcb/DSC_0267.jpg

[Chris Sokol]

Same here guys. I know it's been said a lot, but man...I'm really glad to hear that you made it out ok.

[Stuart Robinson]

Actually made the news here in the UK

http://news.sky.com/skynews/picture_gallery/picture_gallery/0,,70141-1261999-5,00.html

I am glad that you are ok

[Scott Olson]

Amos & Eric, glad you guys made it through, that does indeed sound like a sobering experience.

[Dustin Wilcox]

Link to Lubbocks damage survey results.

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/lub/climate/Local_interest_events/2007/20070421_tor/

[Shane Adams]

Amarillo has the tornado WNW of Boys Town at 6:51pm as the same tornado that eventually tracked ENE of Channing, ending at 7:27pm......other chasers reported these were seperate tornadoes. We saw the beginning stages at 6:51pm, but the tornado *appeared* to dissipate shortly before disappearing in wrapping rain curtains. A few minutes later, well east of where the original tornado disappeared, we observed a large teardrop tornado.....and there was also a large wedge just east of THAT one we didn't see at the time (pics in the REPORTS thread for this date are evidence to this). So there was at least one tornado during the 6:51-7:27pm time frame that was seperate from the long-track single tornado AMA has logged........but other chasers have reported the white stovepipe/rope tornado NE of Channing/SW of Dumas was a different tornado from the wedge east of Channing.

If anyone can confirm either way (one single long track or separate tornadoes) I would appreciate a PM about this......I've been trying to log my tornado count from that day and it seems I may have too many recorded.....I am meticulous about records and I want them to be as accurate as possible. So if anyone witnessed this as a single tornado event or a multiple tornado event (we lost sight for several minutes) please let me know....and also, AMA is unaware of the separate teardrop tornado.

[Doug Lee]

Shane, have you looked at radar images from that time slot? If so, do they show a secondary area of rotation? I wonder if the AMA mets missed it because it may have been anticyclonic...? Or most likely, they were so focued on the main TVS or rotation signature they didn't notice any others in the same vincity. Maybe looking at data from other radar sites would help. Just a few things to look into if no other chasers who were out there saw anything helpful.