00:25 Large tornadic circulation begins
01:49 4x Speed of tornado evolution
02:22 Tornado begins to lift
02:31 4x Speed of tornado occluding into a rope
03:11 Tornado sirens in Hennessey, OK and major chaser gathering
04:11 Heavy chaser traffic and possible rain wrapped tornado on SR 51
04:31 Questionable driving practices through the storm’s hook
04:58 Other chasers just observed a tornado near the road I just drove on
05:55 More heavy chaser traffic
07:06 More wacky chaser driving
07:39 Funnel cloud develops west of Stillwater, OK
09:16 Tornado sirens in Stillwater, OK.
09:48 Strong thunderstorm outflow produces shelf cloud
10:08 Tornado sirens in Chandler, OK
11:08 American flag blowing in the strong RFD winds

Additionally I have compiled several time lapse videos of lightning and other storm phenomenon not typically apparent with the naked eye at normal speed. All new content is linked below.

Stills from HD video:

Storm chase compilation from May 25, 2010.

Time lapse thunderstorm – 6/19/08 – Treasure Island, FL

Time lapse lightning – 9/24/11 – Irving, TX

Time lapse lightning 2 – 9/24/11 – Irving, TX

Time lapse shelf cloud -10/17/11 – Irving, TX

The first storm, tornado warned and intercepted west of Channing TX was very much a high precipitation supercell. This had a persistent but non rotating wall cloud for at least 15 minutes.  Shortly after the storm inflow was contaminated by cold outflow of a neighboring  thunderstorm and became a very high precipitation mess. The below images show a before, during, and after shot of the storm.

Taken at Latitude/Longitude:35.686146/-102.343181. 1.21 km West Channing Texas United States <a href="http://www.geonames.org/maps/google_35.686146_-102.343181.html"> (Map link)</a>25-May-2010 17:19Canon Canon PowerShot SD10, 3.5, 8.462mm, 0.003 sec, ISO 80

25-May-2010 17:37PENTAX Corporation PENTAX K10D, 5.0, 20.0mm, 0.017 sec, ISO 100

Taken at Latitude/Longitude:35.685879/-102.361995. 2.88 km West Channing Texas United States <a href="http://www.geonames.org/maps/google_35.685879_-102.361995.html"> (Map link)</a>25-May-2010 17:47PENTAX Corporation PENTAX K10D , 4.5, 43.0mm, 0.017 sec, ISO 400

This storm no longer looked very favorable for redevelopment, thankfully a new tornado warned storm had just popped about 85 miles south near Dimmitt, TX. The storms were still moving slow around 20 kts, so I was able to jump on US-385 and blast southward to Dimmitt just as the storm was moving in. The storm appeared to maintain its strength and rotation according to radar for the hour and 15 minutes it took to get down to Dimmitt. Once I emerged through the rain core and encountered only sporadic pea sized hail, I was greeted with this monstrosity of a wall cloud!

Taken at Latitude/Longitude:34.601792/-102.312530. 5.66 km North Dimmitt Texas United States <a href="http://www.geonames.org/maps/google_34.601792_-102.312530.html"> (Map link)</a>25-May-2010 19:24PENTAX Corporation PENTAX K10D , 4.5, 18.0mm, 0.017 sec, ISO 100

Taken at Latitude/Longitude:34.601792/-102.312529. 5.66 km North Dimmitt Texas United States <a href="http://www.geonames.org/maps/google_34.601792_-102.312529.html"> (Map link)</a>25-May-2010 19:25PENTAX Corporation PENTAX K10D , 5.6, 55.0mm, 0.017 sec, ISO 200

Taken at Latitude/Longitude:34.601798/-102.312541. 5.66 km North Dimmitt Texas United States <a href="http://www.geonames.org/maps/google_34.601798_-102.312541.html"> (Map link)</a>25-May-2010 19:28PENTAX Corporation PENTAX K10D , 5.6, 55.0mm, 0.017 sec, ISO 160

Taken at Latitude/Longitude:34.601801/-102.312557. 5.66 km North Dimmitt Texas United States <a href="http://www.geonames.org/maps/google_34.601801_-102.312557.html"> (Map link)</a>25-May-2010 19:29PENTAX Corporation PENTAX K10D , 4.0, 18.0mm, 0.02 sec, ISO 100

Now I have only had the opportunity to do a couple of storm chases with my limited time living in tornado alley and this was my first experience seeing a low precipitation (LP) supercell. This was an incredibly beautiful LP storm and a slow mover at that. The sirens were sounding in Dimmitt intermittently, but otherwise it was very quiet and the winds were moving about 15-20mph into the storm.

The storm continued evolving but remained a LP supercell passing just a mile north of Dimmitt. For about 30 seconds, the storm appeared to kick up a lot of dust. Reviewing still images it looked like a brief microburst. However after reviewing some of the HD video I captured it may have been a very brief tornado without a condensation funnel! There was some very vigorous rotation in the cloud base for about 30 seconds just prior to the dust being pulled up into the air.

Taken at Latitude/Longitude:34.570253/-102.313780. 2.16 km North Dimmitt Texas United States <a href="http://www.geonames.org/maps/google_34.570253_-102.313780.html"> (Map link)</a>25-May-2010 19:37PENTAX Corporation PENTAX K10D , 4.0, 21.0mm, 0.025 sec, ISO 100	Taken at Latitude/Longitude:34.549768/-102.292876. 1.74 km East Dimmitt Texas United States <a href="http://www.geonames.org/maps/google_34.549768_-102.292876.html"> (Map link)</a>25-May-2010 19:54PENTAX Corporation PENTAX K10D , 4.5, 43.0mm, 0.017 sec, ISO 200	Taken at Latitude/Longitude:34.542673/-102.213189. 8.47 km North Roy Texas United States <a href="http://www.geonames.org/maps/google_34.542673_-102.213189.html"> (Map link)</a>25-May-2010 20:12PENTAX Corporation PENTAX K10D , 6.3, 55.0mm, 0.01 sec, ISO 100
Taken at Latitude/Longitude:34.542673/-102.213186. 8.47 km North Roy Texas United States <a href="http://www.geonames.org/maps/google_34.542673_-102.213186.html"> (Map link)</a>25-May-2010 20:12PENTAX Corporation PENTAX K10D , 5.6, 18.0mm, 0.01 sec, ISO 100

As the sun set, the storm retained it’s overall LP form but didn’t give me any confidence in it’s ability to produce a tornado despite it’s radar observed rotation. It did however give me a few more incredibly beautiful photographs.

Taken at Latitude/Longitude:34.542704/-102.213173. 8.48 km North Roy Texas United States <a href="http://www.geonames.org/maps/google_34.542704_-102.213173.html"> (Map link)</a>25-May-2010 20:24PENTAX Corporation PENTAX K10D , 4.0, 31.0mm, 0.02 sec, ISO 320

Taken at Latitude/Longitude:34.529765/-101.964616. 4.07 km West Lakeview Texas United States <a href="http://www.geonames.org/maps/google_34.529765_-101.964616.html"> (Map link)</a>25-May-2010 20:45Canon Canon PowerShot SD10, 2.8, 5.8mm, 0.077 sec, ISO 200

25-May-2010 20:13PENTAX Corporation PENTAX K10D, 4.5, 18.0mm, 0.017 sec, ISO 100

This was the end of the chase day for me as the sun set and the atmospheric instability yielded to a temperature inversion. I headed back to my hotel in Amarillo for the night, to prepare for sight seeing the next day.

View the complete photo galleries here!

NEW as of 10/22/11: View the complete video compilation of this chase below…

Chase Mileage: 660 miles
Number of tornadoes seen: 2

I departed from the Dallas Metroplex headed twards Lawton, OK. A new day 1 outlook from the SPC was then issued, which included a ‘High’ risk of severe storms. The high risk area was further north and east of my original target area. I changed my target area to a storm that had initiated and was moving towards Hennessey OK. This was the correct decision, as I arrived in Hennessey just as the storm popped down a large cone tornado! (the video will be forthcoming later).

Next I decided to stay with this storm and travel east along SR-51. This also ended up being the best decision, as the storm ultimately put out a large funnel cloud near Stillwater, OK but didnt quite make it to the ground. Unfortunately I did not see the tornado that damaged mobile homes in Stillwater however. The rest of the chase was spent driving around attempting to target a few other storm cells, but ultimately I was either too far away or the storms sucked in too much cold air.

Either way, it was a good day for tornado viewing. For now, a few videos I was able to get online quickly. I will get the Hennessey OK tornado video online soon.

View the complete photo gallery by clicking here!

Taken at Latitude/Longitude:35.710027/-97.018004. 2.96 km North-West Warwick Oklahoma United States <a href="http://www.geonames.org/maps/google_35.710027_-97.018004.html"> (Map link)</a>19-May-2010 19:46Canon Canon PowerShot SD10, 2.8, 5.8mm, 0.025 sec, ISO 200	Taken at Latitude/Longitude:36.119742/-97.898945. 1.17 km North Hennessey Oklahoma United States <a href="http://www.geonames.org/maps/google_36.119742_-97.898945.html"> (Map link)</a>19-May-2010 16:43PENTAX Corporation PENTAX K10D , 7.1, 50.0mm, 0.017 sec, ISO 100	Taken at Latitude/Longitude:36.119792/-97.899009. 1.18 km North Hennessey Oklahoma United States <a href="http://www.geonames.org/maps/google_36.119792_-97.899009.html"> (Map link)</a>19-May-2010 16:45PENTAX Corporation PENTAX K10D , 5.0, 50.0mm, 0.006 sec, ISO 100

• 4:30pm I notice a cluster of supercells merging into a large storm complex near Abilene TX about 130 miles west of Frisco.
• 5:00pm this storm appears to have evolved into a severe line of storms looking like a bow echo. This storm is in a favorable environment and at current speed will reach Frisco by 7:30pm
• 6:04pm Tornado Warning is issued for Denton county, does not include Frisco yet but the storm’s track is still set to move very close to Frisco.
• 6:40pm Tornado is spotted on the ground in Roanoke, 22 miles WSW of Frisco. Spotted by Amateur Radio operators.
• 6:43pm Tornado Warning is issued for Denton, Collin, Tarrant, Dallas and Rockwall counties. This includes Frisco and The Colony.
• 6:50pm Tornado spotted by retired NWS employee, brief touchdown in Flower Mound, 15 miles WSW of Frisco.
• 6:53pm Tornado ripped roof off and collapsed wall to apartment building in Flower Mound, 15 miles WSW of Frisco.
• 6:56pm Tornado sirens finally start to sound for Frisco, note the 13 minute discrepency. This is EXACTLY why I tell everyone not to trust the sirens.
• 7:00pm I get out of work, the storm is now less than 8 miles away from Frisco,
• 7:05pm I drive one mile west along Warren Pkwy. At the intersection of Warren & Legacy I observe power flashes on the horizon about 3 miles to my WSW. At this time I turn around and head back home, 1.5 miles away.
• 7:12pm I arrive at home just as the very high winds and rains hit. Sirens are still going off.
• 7:14pm The strongest rotation made a last minute right turn and passes 4 miles south of Frisco, into Plano. The sirens stop at this time.
• 7:14pm 72 MPH wind gust observed at Frisco Fire Station on Main Street and Preston Road.
• 7:19pm 78 MPH wind gust observed at a school in Plano, near Independance and Spring Creek.

Allow me to reiterate how close this storm was. The storm’s center of circulation passed only 4 miles south of the T-Mobile site in Frisco (where I was at the time). At the time the tornado warning was issued for Frisco, the storms current track took it within 1/2 mile of the T-Mobile site in Frisco. Below is a Google map I just made demonstrating this.

The red circles indicate tornado sightings and tornado damage reports. The red line indicates the path of the storm’s center of circulation. The blue line indicates the storms projected path when the tornado warning was issued for Frisco. The purple circle shows where the T-Mobile building is, and where I was at the time. As you can see… this was a close call. If the storm had maintained its current track and not turned right in Lewisville, Frisco could have been hit head on.

Above is a radar snap from 7:09pm CDT, when the storm’s center of circulation was at its closest to Frisco. Left side is standard precipitation and the right is base velocity. You can see a weak reflectivity couplet that is unfortnately a tad obscured by the large yellow warning box. The yellow and red icons indicate areas of wind damage, and tornado reports respectively.

At this time, some damage reports in Frisco have come in according to Fox News KDFW. Some homeowners had their fences blown down, satelite dishes blown off their houses and windows broken. Another reports states at least three seperate 18-wheeler trucks blown off the road and tipped over due to high winds, mostly around Fort Worth. The Denton County Sherrifs Office reported a minor explosion at a gas station due to the weather. Across the metroplex, a whopping 260,000 homes are reported without power.

Now we will wait and see what the NWS in Fort Worth states after they conduct their damage surveys, before we officially declare this as a tornado. Considering the numerous spotter reports, storm damage reports, and the radar velocity couplet, there is a good chance this will be classified as a tornado event. I will publish updates to this once the storm damage survey is released.

Concerning the tornado report in central Pinellas County for Friday May 22, several pictures were snapped of it, which appears was just a very large funnel cloud. Still, no damage reports have been called into media outlets or the NWS. See previous post for radar snap of the storm as it was over Largo.

http://tornadoscientists.blogspot.com/2009/05/surprise-supercell-intercept.html

Now let me give you a synopsis of my chase day… I left Kearney Nebraska and headed for Alliance. This seemed to be the convergence area that all the chasers picked as I passed at least two separate chase tours and numerous independent chasers.  I got to Alliance around 2:30pm, gave me plenty of time to spare so I could get some food and check data to verify my location was good. Saw some cumulus puffs forming, and storm anvils to my distant west.

[singlepic id=1650 w=320 h=240 float=]
Middle of nowhere, Nebraska.

[singlepic id=1681 w=320 h=240 float=]
Storms 100 miles west in Wyoming.

I waited until about 3:30pm when a storm storm was about to pass through Angora. I shot south along US 385 till I found a spot just to the north of Bridgeport and just hung out for a few minutes. I got hailed on with pea sized hail for a minute, before the storm moved on to the north east. The storm was still strong but not severe as it moved into an area with absolutely no road network to chase with. After the heaviest rain passed, I traveled north again to a rural unpaved road along 385 then sat and watched it for a good 30 minutes as it moved away. I actually saw the TIV along the side of the road with other support vehicles around it, following the same storm as me! Other chasers actually stopped right next to me and we watched a large coal freight train move by and contemplated our other storm options. We decided after 30 or so minutes to shoot back to Alliance and pull a wait and see maneuver.

[singlepic id=1696 w=320 h=240 float=]
Trying to blast south and catch up with the storm.

[singlepic id=1703 w=320 h=240 float=]
Heavy rains just before the pea sized hail.

[singlepic id=1706 w=320 h=240 float=]
Watching the rain and hail move into an area with no roads.

[singlepic id=1735 w=320 h=240 float=]
Waiting with other chasers, contemplating our next move.

[singlepic id=1740 w=320 h=240 float=]
Watching the heavy freight train roll by.

I pulled into Alliance shortly after 4pm, and noticed a severe storm in extreme north west Nebraska, about a hour drive north. This storm had good looking winds on it and looked like a miniature bow echo for a short while so after maybe 5 minutes of waiting in Alliance, I abandoned the other chasers and headed north towards Chadron. As far as I could tell, this severe storm was sitting in a better environment so I figured this storm would be a shoe in for me. Well about 15 miles before I reached Chadron, the storm had lost its severity and was no longer severe warned. I found a nice pull off with a beautiful wide open field to stop and watch the storm roll in. The storm still had a general shape of a bow echo and I was sitting right on the southern part of it, hoping to catch some strong winds. I caught a few neat pics of a gust front ahead of the storm, and wind gusts up to 35mph with my handheld anemometer.

[singlepic id=1586 w=320 h=240 float=]
Blasting north twards Chadron trying to catch up with this beast.

[singlepic id=1594 w=320 h=240 float=]
15 miles south of Chadron, waiting to see what the storm does next.

[singlepic id=1629 w=320 h=240 float=]
Still south of Chadron watching the approaching gust front.

[singlepic id=1641 w=320 h=240 float=]
A one in a million lightning shot during the day. This is using a Canon Powershot SD1000 with a 1/60 exposure time, and I captured lightning! WOW.

At this time, I noticed the remnants of the storm that I was originally chasing had actually become severe and looked supercellular, DOH! The storm was 70 miles to my ESE, moving east at about 30 mph. By this time it was 6pm and assuming all goes well I would intercept this storm at 8pm at the earliest. I decided to shoot south to Alliance again, then take state road 2 east as fast as I could. I anticipated on arriving in Thedford Nebraska as the storm was arriving, right around sunset.  While driving south on 385 towards Alliance, I got some more pea sized hail which slowed my travel down. I passed two more VORTEX2 vehicles which appeared to be part of the mobile mesonet. Then as I was driving state road 2 through the rural sand hills, a line of storms formed along the cold front directly in front of me. This was unexpected! I saw some very low level clouds forming below the general cloud deck which appeared to be a shelf cloud! This line of developing storms was occurring behind the severe warned supercell I was intending on catching, but directly in front of me. It was pretty to watch but the storms happened to be moving about the same speed as me since I was not able to get in front of these storms easily. For a brief moment I thought I saw a funnel cloud forming out of the shelf cloud about 3 miles to my south east, but the road took be behind some tall hills and by the time I emerged, there was no trace of the funnel. I drove through about 20 miles of white out condition rains which dropped my speed to 40mph and basically left me stuck right in the worst of this storm as we were traveling about the same speed. I finally emerged from the rain near Whitman Nebraska and saw the leading edge of this shelf cloud as it started to collapse. I continued to drive east towards Thedford but by the time I arrived, the supercell storm was no longer severe and had moved out of Thedford. About this time the sun had just set, so I decided to call it a day. I prepared for another 3 hour drive back towards Kearney for the night.

[singlepic id=1655 w=320 h=240 float=]
Shelf cloud starting to develop a few short miles infront of me.

[singlepic id=1664 w=320 h=240 float=]
A possible funnel cloud emerging from the shelf cloud? Sorry for the blur, its dark, and I am driving 70mph trying to get ahead of this.

[singlepic id=1671 w=320 h=240 float=]
Very heavy rains infront of me, this is the leading edge of the storm front, just behind the shelf cloud.

[singlepic id=1674 w=320 h=240 float=]
Finally ahead of the storm front, the shelf cloud has collapsed. This is the end of my chase day.

All in all, I am happy that I picked the same target area as the professionals with VORTEX2 and other chasers. However I did not pick the right individual storms it appears. At the time that I made my decision they were the strongest storms in the area. If the original storm I had picked hadn’t moved into an area with no roads, then I’d have stayed on that storm until it became the supercell. I also learned that I will no longer use an integrated data card for my cellular data service. The connection drops when you switch roaming data providers and does not reconncet. Next time I will tether to a BlackBerry so I don’t have that issue again. Also 14 hours of driving does not work well for me when driving solo. Next time I will keep it to 12 or less. I got a few good pictures but nothing amazing. I will not put my telephoto lense on the DSLR camera anymore either, capturing the entire storm is more important than capturing telephoto detail.

You can view the rest of my gallery here: http://watchingtheskies.com/?page_id=33&album=4&gallery=29

Internet here is slow, so I will post the pictures once I arrive back at my house in Frisco TX. I am staying overnight in Kearney Nebraska again, should make for a 11 hour drive back home which isnt too terribly bad.

The next two days appear extremely quiet with no organized severe storms expected. Below is the day 1 outlook, valid for May 21 2009.

I arrived up here at around 10:15pm which was 45 minutes ahead of schedule. Now I can officially scratch Kansas and Nebraska off my list of states to visit too! The drive itself isn’t bad… traffic is light to non existent and the speed limits reach 75mph. There is a large patch of south central Nebraska along US 81 that has no cellular coverage for a good 60+ miles though which was a little nerve wracking. I always knew there was alot of nothing out here in the plains, but it is certainly something wild to experience the true level of nothingness out here.

I have heard chasing storms in western Nebraska can be no fun due to the extremely limited road network, radar coverage being poor, and likely no cellular data service. Looks like these will be storms I am just gonna have to eyeball. Oh well, itll be fun either way!

Above is the day 1 forecast by the SPC, valid for May 20 2009. Currently, looks like storms will initiate along and ahead of a cold front that will stretch from north east Colorado/south east Wyoming/Nebraska panhandle, to along the Nebraksa/South Dakota border. At this time I am thinking of heading to Alliance Nebraska. It is a 4.5 hour drive from Kearney, so this will give me an ETA of about 2:30 to 3pm, just in time for the storm initiation! This also gives me a North/South and East option incase I want to change storm target areas. Currently we got bumped to a slight risk for the Nebraska panhandle, 2% tornado, 15% hail and 5% wind risk. Not much, but its something.

Below is the tremendous day 1 outlook valid for May 19, 2009

Yawn. I really don’t know what to do for Tuesday. Nothing pops out and screams FUN right now. I really want severe weather, its all that I want right now. This concludes my blog post for day 3.