| April 20 2005 |
| A few small funnels in far NW
Oklahoma |
| I went
ahead and did a brief forecast, and chose Harper county, Kansas as my
target for the day. Once Justin was off work he also looked everything
over, and agreed. As soon as Grant Johnson arrived, we ran a few errands
on our way out, and left town at a late 1:30pm. The area we chose wasn't
included in any of the SPC severe outlooks. |
| We got
to Enid a little after 3pm, and in the new SPC outlook, the slight risk
in northern KS was merged with the slight risk along the TX/OK border. We
figured it would. NW of Woodward, cape was now at 4500, normalized cape
was at 3.5, moisture convergence was an awesome 15g/kg, and there looked
to be some cu towers going up in the NE TX panhandle. We did lack decent
helicity, and the LCLs were a bit high for our liking at 1600+. Oh
well...that much cape and a dryline mixing east would surely kick up
something... |
| We
travel NW out of Woodward to Buffalo, then west on Hwy 64 to intercept
the southern-jost cell out of two that have gone up. The southern cell
is seeding the northern cell, so it's our best bet. |
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As soon as we turn onto Hwy 64, the base of
our storm is obvious. Rain to the north, nice rain free area behind it.
The Storm motion was a pleasing 10-15 mph to the N/NE, so we were gonna
have no trouble getting under any wall cloud that may form. We're also
hoping some rain cooled air could help lower the cloud bases, lowering
the LCL heights. Didn't really happen. |
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| As we
head north on Hwy 283, we parallel the storm, and as soon as we are in
range, a small funnel appears. |
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This small thing was seriously trying to
lower to the ground. |
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Here, the funnel has elongated more, but
still can't lower to the ground. |
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As we watch this funnel, I notice what looks
like another funnel forming to the south of the other. As we watched it
however, we realized it was the same funnel, on both ends. I marked the
funnel at the right, then the appendage at the end. The images below are
of the end of the funnel as it spun around, and spun into shape. Then it
all disipated, and the wall cloud continued it's ragged look. |
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Nice wrapped up storm, trying to reorganize
yet again. |
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As we sat and watched it nearly overhead, we
saw four funnels at once. I highlighted two of them with the arrow.
These were very tiny satellite funnels of the main rotation in the
middle. Again, we are too close to see much detail in the wall cloud,
and the other two funnels actually didn't show up very well, other than
visually. Twisty, and changing shape quickly, they were gone as quick as
they formed. |
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After the small funnels were gone, the storm
yet again, looked nice. It had this brief attempt at a lowering, but
it's just not going to cooperate today. |
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These shots below are just vid captures of
the rotation as it moved slowly over head. The storm began to split, and
the best meso was going to move to the NE, the left split was drifting
NW. |
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Justin checking the skies before we roll
after the storm. The storm in the background is about 70 miles away, in
the TX panhandle. |
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Grant and Justin trying to decide which
split to chase. Road options to the east are crap, unless we go all the
way north to Hwy 160 in Kansas, about 12 miles. |
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North of Englewood, Kansas, we find a few
small tennis ball hail stones. None hit us...largest we got hit by was
quarters. Of course I hate hail, so that happens all the time. Here the
'coffee can' (as we call it) is nearly on us, but moving slightly NE, so
we're good. The white line is the KS/OK border. We are the white
rectangle on the highway, stopped and facing east. |
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Although the storm shows impressive shear on our radar, it never does
anything close to a funnel again. We head east on Hwy 160 towards
Ashland. After gas and drinks at the local gas station, we head east 1
mile to get a view. Here the winds are great, the rotation is in the
right place, shear is shown as 92 mph, but nothing happens. We sit a
couple miles east of town for about 15 minutes watching the sunset
throught the storms...quite nice. I will add Justin's photos later
today. |
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| We
didn't expect to see a tornado, and I found it funny I chose Harper
county KS, and the best action was in Harper county, OK. It's only a
couple counties away, so good enough. Luckily we had data all day,
actually until the storms went up, and once you leave Woodward to the
north, say goodbye to digital cell coverage. 575 miles, 12.5 hrs total
'chase time'. The longest we sat still was about 20 minutes at the Sonic
in Enid. Watched Terminator 3... again!, on the way home. I really need
to remember my other DVDs next time we are hours away. |
| Only
thing I learned today was, I love May...hurry it up already. |
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