3/30/08 REPORTS: OK/KS [Archive]

Tony Laubach

03-31-2008, 02:43 AM

Busy and hail of a day for Carl Young and myself along with the Carlsons. Got on the same storms as half the chasing world, but had a great time! Saw a control burn, 3.5" hail, and great structure... more to come later...

http://www.tornadoeskick.com/images/2008/20080330_MC_18.JPG
Passing time early in the afternoon south of Sayre shooting a control burn. (c) Michael Carlson

http://www.tornadoeskick.com/images/2008/20080330_55.JPG
The hailstorm that got a few folks, including me. A big ol' spider in my windshield and some good dents (finally) on the van.

http://www.tornadoeskick.com/images/2008/20080330_22.JPG
Good structure early in the day.

http://www.tornadoeskick.com/images/2008/20080330_51.JPG
Our storm at sunset.

http://www.tornadoeskick.com/images/2008/20080330_76.JPG
More big @$$ hail in Union City well after dark.

More pictures on my blog with a chase report to follow later (http://www.tornadoeskick.com/blog.html).

CHris Whitehead

03-31-2008, 03:03 AM

Well just as I start this report, tornado warning officially issued for northern OK Co and southern Logan. Been monitering Gary all evening.
Anyways I didnt go out today...initially. Many factors turned me off (1) lack of shear (2) initiation not till after dark possibly. But as is the case this time of year, so many factos are involved that makes things so volatile that sometimes SPC cant keep up along with the models. Thats not to beat up on SPC, not they're fault, its just that thare sooo many things that come into play in the mesoscale and such that we cant forecast (see Thursday, see May 3rd, hell see today).
So I didnt head out till 8pm. At that time there were 3 main storms. One heading NE in eastern Blain, western Kingfisher. Second storm was over Hinton with third over Hobart. At that time, the second storm was exhibiting strong rotation but crawling. I looked quickly at SPC tornado parameters and saw maximized area that middle storm was heading into and that tripped me and I hit the ground running. By the time I got out to El Reno, the southern storm was the dominant one being tornado warned. So I headed down 81 to Pocasset and sat there and waited for the meso to come to me or slightly to my north. Well I swear I sat there for almost 2 hours cause it crawled. Well at about 11:45 the meso was to me north and I moved up to just north of Minco and got on a humongous hill and thats where I first saw a base. Hank Brown was right behind me with Val ahead of me. I was listening to Gary through an earpiece. Not 5 minutes later I began to see a bowl shaped lowering to my NNW. At that same moment Val broke in going off about the same lowering. Kept an eye on that at the same time I was watching a pronounced wall cloud that was very low hanging. Classic wall cloud shape. Was hard to disntinguish upward motion at dark but ground light was lighting up the wall cloud. That thankfully b/c was no CG with this storm at all at time. Well lowering disappeared not too long thereafter and I kept eye on the meso as it passed to my NE toward Mustang at which point I headed north and then turned east on 152 in Union City. ...(Wow tornado as I type)... toward Mustang. Pulled off 1mile west of Mustang on a hill and took look at things. Didnt see damn thing so called it a night and headed home.
Havent even looked at tomorrow but welcome to Spring, I have 9am class and risk.
Hope everyone had good day.

Dustin Wilcox

03-31-2008, 03:32 AM

Decent chase, saw storm nearly get it done during daylight hours just East of Rocky. Baseball sized stones as well, East of Rocky, enough to bust windshields. Supercells still raging just 15 miles North of our Motel here in NW OKC.

Jason Montano

03-31-2008, 04:33 AM

Just got home a few minutes ago. It was a good chase overall even though the storm never dropped a tube. I finally pulled my self north from Vernon, around my original target (that never panned out) when I saw the towers going up in OK. I got on the storm west of Hobart and it already had a rotating wall cloud on it. The structure was amazing in this beasty. I followed it for a while as it crawled to the East, trying to put down a tube numerous times. After dark this cell really got cranking, it could of been my different position as I backed off the meso a bit but the inflow increased dramatically. I broke off from the storm shortly after it went tor warned around Ft Cobb.

I will post pics sometime today when I get them uploaded to the server.

Shane Adams

03-31-2008, 05:01 AM

Chad, Mickey, Mickey's son Michael, and I observed an awesome supercell south of Weatherford before dark, which looked almost identical to our March 2 storm south of Carnegie. We picked up the next storm to the south as the first one seemed to weaken. However the first storm soon got cranking again, and we followed it east for several miles. Eventually it began to weaken and we decided to target a new storm due west of us, the furthest south storm. We turned south in Binger to Anadarko, then went west to Ft. Cobb. We came into view of the base north of town, and it reminded Mick and I very much of the Greensburg storm, with crazy structure and insane inflow. We tracked this storm east and observed an apparent brief tornado near Albert, as we saw multiple power flashes south of town. Video review shows a cone funnel above the power flashes.

Let that storm go and picked up the one west of it. This one was a lot like the Ft. Cobb/Albert storm, with great structure and crazy inflow. We were repositioning and missed the brief tornado near Sickles/Lookeba. Got chased by this beast all the way to Mustang, where we called it a day...just after midnight. But apparently this was too soon to quit, as I'm still watching live coverage on KWTV as I write this.

Eugene Thieszen

03-31-2008, 09:18 AM

In spite of other committments preventing me from going into full chase mode, I did manage to see a few interesting things in the local Cordell and Corn, OK area.

Gene
WXtreme Chase Team

A small funnel about 5 NE of Cordell at 7:00pm

http://www.geocities.com/genet_99/wxtreme_2007050002.jpg

"Spaceship" rain-free base about 7 miles ENE of Corn at 8:00pm

http://www.geocities.com/genet_99/wxtreme_2007050001.jpg

Hank Baker

03-31-2008, 10:04 AM

What a enjoyable early chase, close to home, slow moving storms etc..
The structure was really nice before dark. We were on the north storm just south of I-40 the whole evening following it as it lumbered along. What a treat this time of year to chase slow moving storms in March. The most interesting visual as far as tornadoes, were the several power flashes we witnessed just to the south of Binger right under the meso. To clarify, this was the first storm that past through Binger not the second one that followed behind it later on.

David Drummond

03-31-2008, 12:16 PM

I agree with Hank, the slow storm movement was a real treat this early in the year.

I was on the farthest SW storm when it first formed up and got a pretty rapidly rotating wall cloud which I was sure was going to tornado, (many of you watched that on the live steaming video), but then got undercut by the RFD I believe.

http://wx5tvs.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/033008tornadicsupercellok.jpg

Storm made many more attempts. I later went to what then became the western cell and stayed on it until OKC. I cannot believe this storm didn't put down large tornadoes. Inflow at times into the notch was over 60 mph! Structure was very nice.

Jeff Snyder

03-31-2008, 12:37 PM

Dan Dawson, Robin Tanamachi, Gabe Garfield, and I stayed primarily on the northern supercell from not long after initiation to sunset. We successfully played a "split the difference" deal for a while, with bases of both supercells in view, though we opted to stay closer to the northern storm given it's rather beautiful appearance at times. The structure of this storm seemed to improve nicely by about 8 pm, and a blocky wall cloud and tiered low-level structure developed shortly thereafter. Unfortunately for us, though, cell interaction with the supercell to the southwest proved detrimental to the storm we had been following. As such, as dropped south and east to get a spot southeast of Binger that provided a good view to the west. We saw rapid wall-cloud motion between Binger and Cogar not long after, and we measured a 51 kt (not 51 mph, as the LSR indicated) inflow wind a few miles W of Cogar as this 2nd supercell lifted northeastward. With a 3rd supercell to the immediate west, we jumped back towards Binger to get a better view, and we ended up following this one through Union City (were we saw 2" hail on the ground) before calling it a night (near 11:45 or midnight).

I then made it home about 1:15p (home in extreme northwestern Arcadia) to see a very large, what-I-thought-to-be elevated supercell to the southwest over far NW OKC, Piedmond, and Edmond areas. A tornado warning was soon issued, and we lost power at my house immediatley after one of the TV mets reported a tornado on the ground near the Edmond/OKC border (don't see it in an LSR, so it must not have been legit). It certainly looked as though the rotation was weakening as it passed through Edmond, and it looked as though it'd pass to the north, but I played it safe and opted to take a drive southeastward with the wife and pets to make sure we were out of the path. OG&E restored power to my area around 5:45a, I think.

Overall, it was a pretty good chase, enhanced by the slow storm motion, 2+ hours of daylight supercell action, a supercell that fluctuated between classic and wet LP type, and 3 different times of severe (51kt measured inflow W of Cogar, 2" hail in Union city, 0.88" hail in Yukon). Given that the primary concern was daylight initiation, I can't complain too much. The northern supercell we chased from 4:45p (-ish) to sundown had some nice structure, but it never appeared to be imminently tornadic; cloud-base motion wasn't ever terribly impressive to me. The 3rd supercell (the 2nd one to go near/through Binger) seemed to barf out cold outflow some ways ahead of the precip that constituted the hook/appendage/whatever which may have had something to do with the problems it had tightening up the low-level meso.

Rob Satkus

03-31-2008, 07:48 PM

I then made it home about 1:15p (home in extreme northwestern Arcadia) to see a very large, what-I-thought-to-be elevated supercell to the southwest over far NW OKC, Piedmond, and Edmond areas. A tornado warning was soon issued, and we lost power at my house immediatley after one of the TV mets reported a tornado on the ground near the Edmond/OKC border (don't see it in an LSR, so it must not have been legit). .

It was very legit...we observed the tornado from less than a mile away...it was rather small and didn't last very long. NWS has surveyed and rated it EF1. There were some absolutely insane things going on with that storm...sudden, rapid wind shifts, roaring sounds overhead with light winds at the surface, not to mention a lot of the hail...(2"+ in a few locations along NW Expressway.)

Rob

Michael O'Keeffe

03-31-2008, 08:05 PM

Had a great chase yesterday evening, but we just couldn't get the rotation to come down. However we since got incredible structure, monster hail, and rapid rotation.

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k3/wolverines028/March%2030/Mar30004.jpg
The incredible mothership supercell south of Rocky, OK. View looking WSW.

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k3/wolverines028/March%2030/Mar30014.jpg
One of the baseball sized hailstones that I found after we got pounded south of Rocky.

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k3/wolverines028/March%2030/Mar30018.jpg
Beautiful lowering to our east. The sun was setting creating this awe-inspiring look.

Here is a 3-minute video of the chase.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxtV33Hiv4o

Good to see the Carlsons, Sean, Jon, and Tony again!

Kiel Ortega

03-31-2008, 08:07 PM

It was very legit...we observed the tornado from less than a mile away...it was rather small and didn't last very long. NWS has surveyed and rated it EF1. There were some absolutely insane things going on with that storm...sudden, rapid wind shifts, roaring sounds overhead with light winds at the surface, not to mention a lot of the hail...(2"+ in a few locations along NW Expressway.)

Rob
Short story of my day yesterday: chased with Kevin Manross, Kevin Scharfenberg, Corey Mead and Tiffany Meyer. Started off at the Cherokee Truck Stop and then made our way down to east of Cordell. There made the decision to take off after the Kiowa/Wa****a county line storm. Storm became very photogenic at sunset just west of Gotebo. Followed the storm home towards Norman, finally ditching it north of Anadarko.

My morning today was spent surveying the above tornado with Rick Smith. A little disappointed that we couldn't survey the whole path due to some power poles being down. However, I think we got the "best" part of the tornado in the Valencia neighborhood. I was further disappointed when I got home and found out a neighborhood just north of Valencia had some roof and fence damage. And a car at Waterloo and Coltrane was also tossed; this location lines up nicely with from the Valencia to 192nd/Western power pole damage...so who knows. Looks like the warning process worked well as sirens woke people up and got them to take shelter.

The house that had the most serious damage was a bit of a conundrum. No other house showed as serious damage; the front door--which had a glass window and was dead-bolted--was blown into the house along with the entire door frame. The half circle window above the door was intact and the large window in the wall next to the door was just fine. Oh, and the small window that was part of the door frame was intact. So yeah...small tornadoes are interesting. 2nd worst luck in the neighborhood belongs to a guy who owned a red Suburban. Roof/fence debris was driven into his truck denting the hell out of a rear door and blowing out two windows, and some wood was driven into the gap between the car door and body. I'll be damage hunting tomorrow in the Albert-Binger area.

Alex Lamers

03-31-2008, 09:57 PM

Chased with Jess Erlingis, Joe Young and Luke Madaus. We headed west on I-40 fairly early based on the RUC's false babble about early initiation. Wound up in Weatherford, OK which wound up not being too bad of a target in retrospect. After waiting around for a couple of hours and tossing around a frisbee we got impatient. Cu fields were developing off to our ene around El Reno and Kingfisher, and also sw towards Wa****a Co.

Sad to say but based on the SPC mesoanalysis convergence fields...and low level shear values (all maximized to our ene), we decided to jog to the east on I-40 again. However, during this little jaunt we realized our mistake and headed back west on I-40. Wound up approaching Weatherford, OK again and seeing a beautiful supercell to our southwest just off the interstate. (Ignore the bug mash on the windshield in this shot lol)

http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s113/ajlamers/Pics%20for%20Jess%20and%20Her%20Friends/P3300466-1.jpg?t=1207015354

We watched this northern supercell near Corn, OK (just ene of Cordell by about 10 miles) for a little while. It had a nice updraft base and looked ok but there was very little rising motion and we didn't see much rotation. So we decided to drop south, and we had about an hour to play with on the southern storm. Wound up with some nice pictures (a couple below). Most interesting part of the journey...we were probably 8 miles away from the circulation and well away from the FFD when a golfball size hail stone randomly fell out of the sky and hit the ground right in front of us. Nothing else fell...but apparently this golfball size hailstone was lofted so far out of the storm it reached us (we were east of the rotation as you'll see in the pictures).

http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s113/ajlamers/Pics%20for%20Jess%20and%20Her%20Friends/P3300481.jpg?t=1207015173

http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s113/ajlamers/Pics%20for%20Jess%20and%20Her%20Friends/P3300483.jpg?t=1207015235

AJL

Verne Carlson

04-01-2008, 12:02 PM

Great chase with the two nice cells breaking out right at 6 o'clock magic hour! Northern cell looked too high based, jumped down on the southern cell which had great striations, scud lowerings and up to 3" hail busting our windshield and breaking in Michael's new Subie!

Earlier in the day we had some great fun watching a controlled burn south of Sayre, OK. The fire updrafts were so intense they were creating their own cumulus clouds. Was able to get some great test flights in with the Wicked Witch 3, check out the video here!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9mZVXQtZw0

Jason Montano

04-01-2008, 12:52 PM

I know you are supposed to post only one reply per event but for some reason I could not edit my original post to include photos.

http://www.thedryline.com/08Chases/30March08/stormtrack/anvil.jpg
http://www.thedryline.com/pics_30March08/stormtrack/anvil.jpg

This is under the anvil heading west.

http://www.thedryline.com/pics_30March08/stormtrack/backside_meso.jpghttp://www.thedryline.com/08Chases/30March08/stormtrack/backside_meso.jpg

backside of meso.

http://www.thedryline.com/pics_30March08/stormtrack/wallcloud.jpghttp://www.thedryline.com/08Chases/30March08/stormtrack/wallcloud.jpg

wall cloud as storm approaches Rocky, OK

http://www.thedryline.com/pics_30March08/stormtrack/meso_wall.jpghttp://www.thedryline.com/08Chases/30March08/stormtrack/meso_wall.jpg

backed off a bit to get picture of meso and wallcloud. this is near Gotebo, OK.

http://www.thedryline.com/pics_30March08/stormtrack/truck_meso.jpghttp://www.thedryline.com/08Chases/30March08/stormtrack/truck_meso.jpg

The trusty steed in front of the storm.

Jay Press

04-01-2008, 04:43 PM

Hey St'ers.. This is Brian Press using my brothers log in. For some reason I have not been able to post for some time now. Mod's, if you get a chance can you please check my account.. Thanks!!!!

Left Southern California at 10:46 am(Los Angeles time) arriving in OKC around 4:30pm (OK time). A good friend of mine flies for Skywest Airlines so I get super cheep buddy passes ($60 round trip) so I can do these kinds of last minute chases. Got my car, powered up WxWorx and my iPhone and I was off. Shot up the 40 west to I think Weatherford, dropped south and got on the southern most Supercell. It was beautiful and all twisted up.
http://www.impressivecreations.com/march30_08/wall2.jpg
http://www.impressivecreations.com/march30_08/wall1.jpg
http://www.impressivecreations.com/march30_08/sunset1.jpg
Followed it east for quite some time. Thought it was eventually going to drop a tube for sure. I knew the upper support was on the way, I guess it just wasn't in time. This is a bit further east. It was great to have a slow moving storm. This was taken as I was driving east.

http://www.impressivecreations.com/march30_08/drivingmeso2.jpg

Here are a few more right before dark. I was so excited to use my new 10mm wide angle lens.. So sweet...
http://www.impressivecreations.com/march30_08/supwlightign2.jpg
http://www.impressivecreations.com/march30_08/supwlightign.jpg

I was having some problems with wxworx, but the iPhone didn't skip a beat.. You can see the hook on this (blurry) radar image from Weather Underground. (I snapped this photo while I was driving) They have the coolest high rez radars for the iPhone.. and it's free, you can even put in a city name and you get a little "x" to show where you are. And for all you Mac folks, wxwrox does work using parallels on a Mac Book Pro. The issue I was having was with XM, they signed me up for the wrong package..
http://www.impressivecreations.com/march30_08/iphone.jpg
All in all and excellent chase and a great way to start my 2008 chase season. Believe it or not, we are suppose to have TS here in SoCal tomorrow (Wednesday)

B.p.

Dustin Wilcox

04-01-2008, 07:35 PM

Pretty fun chase, I am still a little surprised/disappointed that the storms didn't produce more tornadoes, I thought for sure once we got those isolated storms that things would go nuts after dark as the LLJ picked up and the instability remained. We continued to chase the storms into the night, and while they looked sweet on radar as well as structurally we never came across any tubes. Much like many of the other posts, we too ended up in Rocky earlier in the day, though I don't recall seeing any other chasers in our vicinity, looks as though we were just North of the convergence. In Rocky we got pounded by many golf balls and a few tennis balls. Just a mile or two S of Rocky a decent wall cloud began to condense, we paralleled the wall cloud along Highway 55 East out of Rocky, we had less than a mile rain free view of the base, though we had to deal with some big baseballs pounding us. We watched as the storm tried hard to produce right in front of us, though it couldn't quite get the job done, seemed to be just a tad to high based; too bad to, with our angle the dropping sun would have made for an awesome contrasted tube. After watching that storm fail, we repositioned to prepare for the night chasing. While nothing spectacular, most of our night action occurred around the towns of Albert and Binger, were we once again encountered big golf balls, and extremely strong dust filled inflow winds near Fort Cobb lake. While at times the lightning uncovered awesome structure we never spotted any tornadoes.

Wasn't much in the mood to use the SLR with the stones flying all over, so all are just video grabs. Once I get caught up with school business by the end of this week, I will try to get some video and some of the few photographs I took up on my site.

View From 3-4 Miles East of Rocky on Hwy 55 Looking Just to our South (note the hail splash in the field)
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h260/dwunl68/DSC00156.jpg

All the hail was busting as it hit the road, but check out that splash.
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h260/dwunl68/DSC00183.jpg

This is about as low as the cloud base could get.
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h260/dwunl68/DSC00160.jpg

Looking virtually Straight up at the RFD cutting in
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h260/dwunl68/DSC00176.jpg

Kiel Ortega

04-01-2008, 07:44 PM

Just finished driving 200 miles the long way between Colony/Alfalfa/Binger/Albert/Cogar to follow up Sunday's event for the PAR. While not on the NWS books yet, looks like there was a tornado 1.2 W Albert around 9:30PM. The residence that was hit had two sheds (one was described as a barn, but basically a shed) destroyed and some shingle damage. The family was home at the time of the tornado, but was watching the Tennessee ladies BB game...didn't know about the tornado until someone from the Oney FD knocked on the door about the same time the tornado was knocking on the door. I have no idea about path length or exact path, but it was at max 20 yds wide. Some large power poles were knocked down along 2580 Rd north of Albert-Oney Rd (1 W Albert). I also found some damage to some irrigation pipe 3.2 S Binger; some was wrapped on a telephone pole, some on a tree and some looked to have been tossed across the road.

Brett Roberts

04-01-2008, 07:57 PM

Complete photo set here: http://skyinmotion.com/chase/chase.php?id=38

Pretty much the same story as everyone else. Departed Norman at 2 with my usual chase group (Brandon Lawson and Bryan Putnam), targeting Clinton as a wait-and-see point. After watching the progression of the cold front, decided to stop just a bit short of that in Weatherford. Sat around for a little over an hour trying to figure out whether to head north towards the strongly-backed winds around Enid or put our bets on the dryline; when towers began going up to our SW, the answer was clear, given the superior moisture and instability in that area as well.

We arrived on the first cell near Corn fairly early in its life cycle, and noting that it was barely moving, enjoyed the view from ~15 to the northeast for awhile.

http://www.skyinmotion.com/gallery/photos/chase/2008/2008-03-30/2008-03-30_3505.jpg

Got right up to the base of that (northernmost) cell just west of Cordell, and sat there admiring its photogenic albeit high-based appearance for a good 15-20 minutes, with no data and a few buildings blocking our view to the SW where the soon-to-be Sentinel/Rocky/Albert cell was exploding and acquiring a TVS. When we finally moved west and saw it, we blasted down to Sentinel and I grabbed numerous shots of the great structure.

http://www.skyinmotion.com/gallery/photos/chase/2008/2008-03-30/2008-03-30_3522.jpg

Like many others, we stayed just ahead of this slow-moving beauty for the better part of the around-sunset period. Here's a sunset shot from north of Gotebo:

http://www.skyinmotion.com/gallery/photos/chase/2008/2008-03-30/2008-03-30_3550.jpg

As the twilight faded, we noticed the storm near I-40 in northern Caddo County looking increasingly impressive on radar, so we began to move north to keep our options open, experiencing some moderate-size hail between Mountain View and Colony. By the time we were approaching Binger, it looked like sticking to the southern cell was the better play, so we dropped down to Ft. Cobb Reservoir where we had a nice view of the lightning-illuminated structure to the west; despite now being tornado-warned, we didn't see so much as a lowering from our vantage point.

http://www.skyinmotion.com/gallery/photos/chase/2008/2008-03-30/2008-03-30_3567.jpg

Messed around with this storm for the next hour, staying relatively close to the "hook" for much of the time with some lowerings but nothing too substantial. We may have seen the power flash SW of Binger that was mentioned in a warning update, but I'm not sure it wasn't just lightning (soon thereafter we were overtaken by the core and had to back off to the west and let it pass over town). Ultimately, we let the Binger cell go in favor of the one paralleling I-40 to the south through Canadian County, which proved frustrating but still entertaining while following it from Binger to Union City and Tuttle. As others have mentioned, the inflow into the mega-cell that resulted from the apparent merger of those two storms near OKC was just crazy, with persistent 30-40 mph sustained and gusts to at least 50+. The inflow bands a few thousand feet up looked like they must have been screaming NWward at 70+ mph! Continuous lightning during this period as well. Finally called it a day after midnight after stopping between Tuttle and Newcastle to get some final structure shots. All in all, a nice close chase with great structure for March, but the lack of any (visible) tubes was disheartening since our primary challenge (initiation despite the lack of upper support) was overcome; I'm sure we weren't the only ones expecting a fairly significant event to unfold around 6pm when those cells started exploding.

Brian Stertz

04-01-2008, 10:51 PM

Rich & Ryan Thies and I tarted the day up north with lunch in Cherokee OK. We saw the RUC forecast had some pretty serious looking supercells going before 00z. Daytime promise...hopes were riding decently high. We watched several storms and developing supercells fire all along I-40, and made the decision to target a lone and somewhat anchored supercell near Retrop OK. Caught the fairly high based but yet still very impressive updraft just immediately south and a little east of the town of Sentinel. The confused supercell was splitting off a left moving member as we pulled up. The right mover plodded ever so slowly east. The rotation with it was fairly strong immediately southeast of Sentinel and golfball hail was quite common as this supercell slowly moved away and eastward towards Rocky. It appeared to pulse again as it moved towards the small town of Rocky. We got some very nice photos of the supercell structures nearby and to our north. As we moved eastward away from Sentinel, we found several hailbombs in the grass in the 3 to 3.5" range. along OK-55. While doing a chaser easter egg hunt, we kept an eye on the base that showed some brief moments of hope as it tried to cycle and drop a tornado. Darkness set in and we tracked the now t-warned storm into Caddo Co. The night chasing was a bit frustrating and had some extended stays in the town of Binger and Union City. We actually took shelter from the inbound hailcore that pounded Union City with golfballs and a few baseballs. The sound of the bigger hail hitting the pavement was pretty impressive. The supercell tornado potential was lowering as it moved past. We were planning to call it a night and headed on into N. OKC to get a hotel room. We were listening to radio and a odd level of excitement soon perked up. The supercell took a huge breath and intensified. We were over by I-44/I-35 when our winds began to howl out of the east...certainly well over 50mph. The radio was abuzz with a possible tornado touch down in N. OKC/Edmond. We decided the chase was just now in dessert course and decided to go after it since it was so darned close to us. We headed north with a myriad of LE cars racing north and a few chasers. By the time we reached I-35 and Waterloo Rd. (Oklahoma-Logan Co. line) we started to see power flashes and the radio was going nuts with chaser reports of a nader on the ground and doing sporadic damage. Between Danforth and Covell Rd. on I-35 (extreme S. Logan Co.) we could finally see glimpses of the small cone tornado immediately adjacent to the very large inflow band spiralling in from the east. Lightning flashed a few times to show it roughly 3/4 of the way down. We were pretty much sure this was still in tornado mode at this time, as did many others reporting on the radio near our location on I-35. A very large wet RFD wrap around core eventually closed off our viewing angle so we decided to call it a chase. A very long day after starting out from KC some 16 hrs. earlier Sunday. All in all a good chase. I am pretty happy we decided to stick it out for the after midnight chase experience. The supercell radar structure was pretty impressive on many of the supercells on Sunday. Had there been a bit more in the way of upper support and cooling....things may have been a bunch more wild and exciting on this chase. Still no complaints all in all...1 for 1 for 2008 not too shabby...even if it was a smallish and weakening tornado late at night :rolleyes:

It was good to see Tony Laubach and his chase partner near Cogar briefly...before we got soaked and had to roll on as the RF gust front/core moved in. Special thanks to Jeff and Kathryn Piotrowski for the radar updates on the fly. :)

Mike Hollingshead

04-02-2008, 01:23 AM

Same storm as everyone else. Full account and pics here: http://www.extremeinstability.com/08-3-30.htm

Thing put on quite the show at twilight and after. Shot all the first ones from west of Ft. Cobb from one spot for about an hour and a half. Was close to it at Albert and saw the power flashes about a mile or less to the ne. There's a couple pictures of it only 60 seconds before the power flashes. I was repositioning closer and pulling over when they started to pop away, right under a big bowl in a nicely formed rfd cut.

http://www.extremeinstability.com/stormpics/2008/08-3-30-2833.jpg

http://www.extremeinstability.com/stormpics/2008/08-3-30-2842.jpg

http://www.extremeinstability.com/stormpics/2008/08-3-30-2852.jpg

http://www.extremeinstability.com/stormpics/2008/08-3-30-2860.jpg

http://www.extremeinstability.com/stormpics/2008/08-3-30-2892.jpg

http://www.extremeinstability.com/08-3-30.htm

Wesley Luginbyhl

04-02-2008, 01:31 AM

It was nice to use less than a tank of gas and actually see some storms worth chasing. I ended up chasing 3 different storms through out the evening. I successful streamed a webcam for the first time for most of the chase, which added a little extra excitement to the day. The slow storm motions really helped so I got to show more of the storms than the highway on the webcam. After dark was pretty intense, considering I saw atleast 3 different wall clouds from the same storm. Some of the inflow to those storms were amazing and was quite interesting with all the lightning after dark. The structure alone made that chase more than worth it.

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q122/not_a_leader_of_men/DSC_0175_3.jpg

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q122/not_a_leader_of_men/DSC_0234_1.jpg

Western storm near Corn, OK @ 9:46pm.
http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q122/not_a_leader_of_men/DSC_0357_1.jpg

Eric Carlson

04-02-2008, 02:59 AM

What a fun chase! After documenting a controlled fire, we jumped to the target area and got on the southern cell, played around a bit in the hail, and dropped back to Amarillo by nightfall. I just got up the video from our chase, check it out:
http://stormchaserco.blogspot.com/2008/03/march-30th-2008.html

sdienst

04-02-2008, 08:11 AM

Great slow moving supercell and pretty much same story as everyone else. Got into some impressive hail from about 2 mi east of Rocky on 55.

Darrin Rasberry

04-02-2008, 08:19 AM

Setup and Expectation of Goals. After reading the models, Craig Maire and I thought that this chase would be primarily a hail/structure threat, with short-lived tornadoes as a possible side treat. Holding firm to the "late afternoon/night" scenario also predicted by others, we set out from Wichita, Kansas at 1 P.M., believing that area to be dry until the early morning hours.

We targeted the Guthrie, Oklahoma area originally, centering ourselves between both the southern potential and the northern triple point setup. After learning from a weather update that southwestern oklahoma had the remaining daytime threat, we set out for that area in general and, later upon a nowcaster call, Corn in specific. We reached our first destination in Corn at approximately seven in the evening.

First target: Corn. At the time, we were heading south of Corn to chase the cell that everyone else was on. However, the cell north of Corn developed a wall cloud in a field, right in front of our eyes. After stopping and shooting brief footage and photographs of this storm, Craig judged it to be too high-based and lacking in rotation, so we headed south and gave up the northern storm.

Second target: Gotebo. We headed approximately thirty miles south/southwest of Corn to chase the more promising cell. We flanked the storm and ended up in perfect view north of Gotebo of a nice wedding-cake structure with some low-hanging scud and a possible small funnel. Judging that the tornado potential was high enough to warrant staying a few miles east of the structure, we observed the entire formation as a whole and found ourselves in perfect position to pick up some hail.

After watching and recording the cell for nearly half an hour, we headed north to the tip of the hail core at sunset and snagged a few shots of baseball-sized droppings.

Third target: more night terrors. Minco. After a brief break at an I-40 gas station, we headed thirty miles east to a tornado-warned storm. We took the 281 South exit from the interstate, took a farm road detour, and ended up in a situation much like Abilene two weeks ago: a forested area with hills out in the middle of nowhere at dark, with a tornado-warned cell approaching. Upon losing our phone signals, we were left on our own, eventually finding our way to Minco before reconnecting with the nowcasters.

Fourth Target: Guthrie. Although we attemped several times to intercept the storm, we could never get a perfect marriage of reliable cell coverage and sturdy positioning. Judging that the cell had taken on HP characteristics, we decided to pull back to more reliable cellphone territory and chase the beast as it moved north of Oklahoma City.

We observed the newly exploded cells and flanked them north, and ended up back at Guthrie when the tornado warning was issued for Edmond. Since we had Level 3 working on Sprint Wireless at the time, we spotted the rotation over the city of Edmond and growing possibilities for the outer edge of the same cell to produce some massive hail, so we decided to shelter up at the Guthrie Best Western, where we hoped to watch the hail come through.

That edge itself ended up rotating strongly, enough to produce a tornado warning for the Guthrie area and set off the sirens in that town. Although the cell reduced in power as it approached our area, we observed nickel-sized hail while interstate travelers (barring truck drivers, of course) scurried and scrambled inside the local gas stations.

Fifth target: Tonkawa, and Conclusion. After my own faulty and poor positioning later on a northern storm that had previously produced a tornado warning near the Enid area (and getting cored in punishment), we decided to call it quits on the chase. Due to my experiences, I have gained an increased respect for night chasing situations. This one in particular was an incredibly heart-pounding and dangerous night chase, and I was thankful to have Craig Maire in the passenger seat and Fabian Guerra as our primary nowcaster throughout the event. Thanks go out to all of the others who called in with help!

Videos and photos. A video of the cake structure and photos of our captured hail may be found here (http://www.easterniowastormchaser.com/2008Chases.html).

Shane Adams

04-02-2008, 08:47 AM

I'll be taking my video to the NWS probably Thursday (only day I probably won't work this week). I've got excellent video of the multiple power flashes near Albert around 9:51pm, which shows what looks like a funnel above. Also, I remember videotaping the bowl lowering featured in H's pics before the power flashes...we couldn't have been a quarter mile from H from the look of his pics. I'm going to review my entire video from the Albert area extensively this evening and get my report together...I definitely have this tornado on video, I'm just not sure how long it lasted or just how much of it I captured. I'll report back here with my findings tonight.

Amos Magliocco

04-02-2008, 03:40 PM

http://www.cycloneroad.com/images/chase2008/080330/CRW_1509_JFR_med.jpg
near Rocky, Oklahoma ~2351z (additional photos here (http://www.cycloneroad.com/2008march30.htm))

With a confusing surface pattern in the morning, I staked everything on the 12z WRF's output of a well-defined dryline and triple point, and scrapped my original target for a more southerly play along I-40 near Elk City. But the screaming west and southwest surface winds herded me northward anyway, where at least theta-e convergence was steady, even if the warm sector narrowed and limited any potential storm's range. I didn't trust the RUC's promise that those winds would back in time, though I knew the deeper low was forming west. It seemed the northern area offered the best chance of daytime initiation. About the time I reached Scott Blair, Scott Currens, Bob Fritchie, and Al Pietrycha east of Fairview, it was time to heed the newly-backing winds and impressive cu fields to our southwest--back in the direction I'd just traveled. More gas.

We passed on the first storm, near Corn, Oklahoma, in favor of a cell to the southwest near Cordell. Once we escaped a stubborn precip shaft, we observed a sculpted rotating updraft (see above) and found a hilltop vista just as the sunset blazed red and orange. We rushed to arrange tripods and shooting angles as a wallcloud organized and produced two or three weak, short funnels. Though the updraft was high-based, the rotation gave us some hope for what would have made a spectacular tornado image. As it was, we settled for a palette of fountain blue sky astride cotton anvil filaments, all above a spreading amber horizon. Nobody complained.

A short time later, near Mountain View, our semi-organized appendage dissipated entirely and left a flattened, perfectly circular base, which we allowed to drift overhead. For no particular reason, I looked straight up: the entire, rounded updraft was visible. There was enough ambient light to outline the full perimeter in my peripheral vision. The sense of such transient mass directly overhead was unprecedented in my experience.

Our third storm, near Colony, Oklahoma, was more impressive on radar than in person, though it was after dark and difficult to discern much. We skirted around the rotation. On our way back to the interstate, we entered dense hail fog and lost all visibility. When it cleared, we found a wintery scene of two inch deep hail covering the road, and ditches with deeper drifts. We stopped to check on a motorist who'd skidded off the pavement and Scott Blair reported our conditions to OUN.

In Weatherford, we found a friendly, 24 hour diner called Jerry's that saved us from the McDonald's drive through. We discussed why so many storms with such impressive visual and radar presentations failed to produce a tornado. One theory was that we simply ran out of time to recover deeper moisture after the strongly veered morning and afternoon surface flow.

Overall, a very satisfactory early season chase.

Jeff Bartlett

04-02-2008, 05:38 PM

Initial target was Okeene, OK in order to play both scenarios. Just as initiation was beginning to the SW, I received a text from home requesting my assistance (newborn and a 2 year-old, those of you with kids understand). I shot back, very pissed, to STW. Sat there and helped out until around 9:30 when I figured I could still make it south on I-35 and the Kilpatrick to I-40 and then get south in front of the storm.

Talk about timing, I reached Union City literally a minute or two before the main area of interest reached my location. I was able to position myself north of Minco just as the first meso reached Union City. Couldn't see too much, but I was thrilled to have pushed through the business end of that storm without seeing any of the monster hail that was later reported.

I stuck around after hearing the reports and watching the radar of the more intense portion of the cell that was located to my west near Cogar. I sat at the intersection of 152 and 81 for a while, but visibility to my west was less than adequate for my own personal tastes. At that point, the inflow winds (reported ~60 mph) hit my position and I sat there for a few minutes enjoying that feeling before I relocated back to Minco. Just after my arrival, I hear reports on the radio of a funnel cloud at the intersection I had just left (1 mile to my north at this point). I saw no funnel, no tornado, or anything else that resembled an appendage.
http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg112/ElJeffe76/Weather%203-30-08/March3020087.jpg
Looking NE (lights of Union City visible on the right)
http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg112/ElJeffe76/Weather%203-30-08/March3020082.jpg
Main area of rotation passing directly over Union City, no funnel.

At this point I sat in Minco watching this storm roam off towards Mustang and Yukon and I waited for the back edge to pass over so I could head up 81 back towards STW. I was unaware that this thing would later go on to produce near Edmond, but it was cycling, getting late, and I was tired. Pushing through some decent street flooding in El Reno, I began seeing the lightning from the ragged cluster of storms SW of Enid. And what to my wondering eyes should appear, but that ragged cluster slowly merging together into a supercell. As I reached Hennessey I could easily see the updraft portion of the storm just to my NW. I decided to hop over to 132 north towards Drummond, where I was able to stop and grab a few pics of the updraft base as it became sheared and organized.
http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg112/ElJeffe76/Weather%203-30-08/March3020083.jpg
On 132 looking north towards Drummond
http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg112/ElJeffe76/Weather%203-30-08/March3020084.jpg

http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg112/ElJeffe76/Weather%203-30-08/March3020089.jpg

As this feature pushed fairly quickly off to the NE, I could see the wrap around precip moving towards me from the west. I decided to relocate further east in order to keep an eye on the updraft. This is where things got very interesting. I fly east towards Waukomis in some heavy rain from the wrap around. As I get east of Waukomis on Drummond Road, I can begin to see the original updraft through the precip. At about this point the inflow winds were still screaming in from the S/SE. And as if someone flipped a switch, the winds shifted immediately from the north and picked up in speed. Pieces of trash and some small pieces of whatever crop was growing in that field began to rocket past my vehicle heading south. "Well, sh**", I said to myself. The winds continued to increase from the north and I assumed that I had unintentionally driven east under a new updraft region trying to stay ahead of the precip and keep an eye on the old updraft. The north winds continued for ~1 and 1/2 miles and then the switch was flipped again. The original south/southeast winds rocket back the other direction. Two blocks behind me is a powerline explosion. It's dark, I'm on a tiny paved county road in the middle of nowhere, no other spotters or chasers in sight, and now the powerline thing happens. I'm now booking east at 80+. I eventually stopped after a few more miles southeast and took a few more pics of the original updraft as it moved NE of Enid. Drove through a monster on hwy 51 between I-35 and STW. Got home at 3:30 am and being at work by 8 really sucked.
http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg112/ElJeffe76/Weather%203-30-08/March3020085.jpg

http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg112/ElJeffe76/Weather%203-30-08/March30200810.jpg

http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg112/ElJeffe76/Weather%203-30-08/March3020081.jpg

Shane Adams

04-02-2008, 06:51 PM

After an extensive video review of my entire sequence from the Albert storm, I have concluded that we observed at least two brief tornadoes. The first was west of Albert between 9:34-9:35pm CDT, and lasted around a minute. It began as a concentrated dust bowl beneath the lowering and gradually stretched the dust upward to the cloud base, as a nub funnel formed above it. Throughout the entire sequence of still frames there is a persistent RFD notch cutting in to the left of the ground circulation. This tornado appears very weak visually in my video.

The second tornado is the one I reported in my original chase report, but I have adjusted the time to 9:48pm CDT (original listed time was 9:51pm CDT). Again, this tornado created a quick "fireworks" display of multiple power flashes, which illuminate a cone funnel above. I'm not exactly sure how far away we were from this one, but our position was 2 miles SSW of Albert looking NE.

There's a third possible tornado even further northeast from the same position, observed at 9:50pm CDT. I've got multiple still frames of a lowering with RFD notch to the left and a precip core to the right. In one of the stills there is what appears to be a cone tornado with full condensation to the ground. But it's only in one still, out of 4-5. I'm uncertain whether it's a trick of lights or if it was just a really quick tornado. If it's not, it's the best lookalike I've ever seen.

I'm taking my video to OUN tomorrow morning, but being it's a severe weather day, they may not have time to look at it.

Dean L. Cosgrove

04-02-2008, 11:26 PM

My chase report is similar to Mike H's and others so I will just share a few pics . Highlight of the day for me was the lightning show on the tornado warned cell .

http://www.windsweptchasetours.com/2008March30_4.jpg

http://www.windsweptchasetours.com/2008March30_10.jpg

http://www.windsweptchasetours.com/2008March30_7.jpg

http://www.windsweptchasetours.com/2008March30_8.jpg

more pics

http://www.windsweptchasetours.com/2008March30.htm

Dean Cosgrove
http://chasetours.com/dates.htm

Jerry Funfsinn

04-04-2008, 05:58 AM

I caught up to the two cells south of Cordell and opted for the southern one near Rocky. Had some nice views until dark
and then followed it north and east for a few hours after dark. When the cell finally went T-warned I was in the process
of heading home. Made numerous attempts to get around it west of Binger but the sizable hail and fog proved difficult.
New Trailblazer is no longer a virgin. Ran into flooding in Binger and then headed south to get a look. Filmed a slender tree
illuminated by lightning for a while, after realizing what it was decided to call it and head home. Stopped in OK City to fuel
and take in the moment. The cell was still warned to the SW and I watched SE inflow winds roaring towards the storm as
the sirens sounded. After a 11 hr drive and a quick nap with a visit from a Illinois State trooper, I managed to be at my
doorstep by 1 pm Monday. Certainly a long haul which turned out to be a relaxed chase due to storm motions, but its been
a long winter and I'm happy to have the first chase of the year under my belt.

Short video clip of chase on my website (http://www.creativejetstream.com).