GoBoB Chasing

The smart money at this point indicates the cap will rule the afternoon with the aid of subsistence predicted by Steve Miller TX. That being said, the small conditional probability still bears watching for those of us close to the area. The SPC in their day two mentions that none of the models break out precipitation along the dryline tomorrow and have only a slight risk. It has been a few years since I’ve seen a thermonuclear cap broken unexpectedly. I would venture a guess that OUN will do a special 18z sounding which will put the final nail in this chase coffin. I’ve been monitoring buoy 42002 Jeff Snyder noted on Storm Track this morning. The trend over the past four hours is encouraging.

Date CDT
04 30 9:50 pm Dew Point (DEWP): 00.0 °F
04 30 8:50 pm Dew Point (DEWP): 67.8 °F
04 30 7:50 pm Dew Point (DEWP): 64.9 °F
04 30 6:50 pm Dew Point (DEWP): 64.4 °F
04 30 5:50 pm Dew Point (DEWP): 64.4 °F
04 30 4:50 pm Dew Point (DEWP): 64.4 °F
04 30 3:50 pm Dew Point (DEWP): 63.5 °F
04 30 2:50 pm Dew Point (DEWP): 62.1 °F
04 30 1:50 pm Dew Point (DEWP): 60.6 °F

Lots of complicated things to explore in the next 48 hours. About 7:00 PM CDT something should be firing that could have significant consequences if the right pieces come together. Current thinking is NE OK, S KS, MO. We’ll have to monitor closely.

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I apologize for the lack of timely updates. Yeah… I know you have heard it before. I do have a really good reason though. It has been my desire to stream live video while chasing for the past several years. I have pursued several schemes that seemed promising and yet did not come to fruition. Sprint wireless broadband is pretty remarkable in the speed that EVDO can deliver. Working with a small consortium, I am pleased to report that we have this working moderately well. Wednesday the 23rd was my first day to use this technology in the field on a chase.

This was to be another Texas chase; initially I was thinking a Lubbock to Childress line. My plan was to get to Altus, where I knew I could get data and then commit to a final target. We settled on Stamford, TX as a target. If we had gone just a bit farther south to Abilene a tad earlier, what a different tale we would have to tell. Instead we were chased eastward through Lueders, Breckenridge, Palo Pinto, and Mineral Wells by a massive storm that was throwing golf ball hail at its very periphery an likely tennis ball size near the Bears cage.

I was a little surprised at the destruction in Breckenridge from the April 9th storms as we passed through. There were houses missing roofs and plenty of large snapped trees. When it looked as though we may have gone far enough east to make a southward track, a new cell to the east of this storm and south of us was quickly building. This cell would eventually go over Palo Pinto, Mineral Wells and eventually the Dallas Metroplex. We evaded this storm and made the turn for home in Fort Worth. We were away from the storms for several hours which was a joy, but engaged another strong but not severe storms on the Turner turnpike between Oklahoma City and Tulsa. This was a long 868 mile chase with partners Robert and Karen Hall.

Checking with coworkers on Thursday, the streaming apparently worked very well until I hit the TX border and signal became an issue. I have purchased a high gain amplifier and antenna for this setup, so we’ll see if we have this fixed.

Wednesday represents the first Texas chase of the 2008 Season. Target was Abilene, TX. Chase partners were Robert and Karen Hall with a total chase day of 902 miles. We arrived in Abilene as the initial storm was starting to fire and patiently waited for it to build at the Dr. Pepper bottling plant parking lot (no time for a free tour today.)

This was looking to be a great day with the main fly being the overabundance of moisture and what could lead to a “grungfest.” We went a little north of Abilene and saw a nice rotating wall cloud, and had to retreat south a little as the storm continued to build. A poor road choice by me put us behind and it seemed like we were playing catch-up / avoid being munched all day.

We were very close to the storm as it approached Breckenridge, TX. We were slightly ahead of it and the city was not yet hit as we were just to the east when the Tornado went through Breckenridge. Observation was impeded by hills, limited road network, and tremendous amount of precipitation associated with the storm.

This storm was a beast and we stayed with it as best we could for the next several hours. Several times we saw the aftermath as evidenced by debris. Large trees down across the road, several missing roofs, strewn corrugated tin, and widespread power outages.

This was miserable driving in all the rain and horrible visibility even after we disengaged to return home to Tulsa. Special thanks to my Father for the incredible driving.

The next two days look active for Texas and Oklahoma. The Gulf of Mexico then gets scoured for moisture so I plan to make the most of these two days. Current thinking Haskell, TX.

I had put two new tires on the chase Jeep in early March; the run-in in Atoka meant it was time to buy two more. I did not plan on chasing Monday as I was skeptical of sufficient moisture return. I knew that many of my friends were out chasing and hoped they would do well, but I was more fixated on the storms that would be forthcoming on Wednesday/Thursday. I had a staff meeting where I was getting recognized for five years of service so I could not leave work before 3:00 PM. When the Storm Prediction Center issued their afternoon outlook, I was a bit surprised to say the least. The SPC had ratcheted up to a very tight moderate risk and they issued a Particularly Dangerous Situation (PDS) tornado watch that was centered on Lawton, OK. PDS watches are relatively rare with only five to ten being issued most years. Knowing that a PDS is is only three hours away is just too tempting. I left work about 3:45 P.M., loaded up the Jeep, and picked up the parents.

We watched radar and saw the storms firing across the Red River that would produce the tornado in Electra, TX. It looked as though Wichita Fall, TX would take a direct damaging hit by a nasty storm. The moisture tongue that held dew points in excess of 60° F was small and the storm outran the moisture as it approached Wichita Falls. The models had Lawton pegged as a great target. Several small storms went up as we approached, but none became anything. We got fuel just outside of Lawton and ran into Justin Teague’s chase team at the Loves gas station.

With about one hour of daylight left, it did not look particularly promising so we headed back to Tulsa. This 376 mile trip was the shortest so far this year, but still a little disappointing.

Attention now turns to Wednesday April 9th.

Anyone that is more than a casual reader of this blog has probably noticed that I complain about the computer models a lot. For about four days the models were relatively consistent in predicting that Thursday would be a very promising chase day. Generally, when the models predict the same outcome for several consecutive runs, one begins to buy into their solution. As of Wednesday evening the models took a horrible turn that almost assured tornadoes were out of the question. I had already taken Thursday off from work, so I deluded myself into thinking maybe the models were blowing it.

We set out on what would be a 480 mile journey to Ardmore, OK and eventually Gainesville, TX with chase partners Robert and Karen Hall. True to the tale predicted by the computers the winds were veered from the southwest and nothing behaved well. I’m not sure why when the models predict crud, they are generally right, and when they predict tornadoes they are often wrong. I did shoot some nice hail video about 10 miles SW of Ardmore in a cemetery that did make it to air on KTUL. Final fun for the day was changing a tire in Atoka, OK after hitting some roadside hazard.

I made a promise to myself that I would not chase the usual March junk that is moving 70 mph and never seems to work out. My first chase of the 2008 season was a 440 mile journey to Madill, OK with chase partners Karen and Robert Hall. On the way to Madill, we encountered a reasonable amount of quarter size hail in Ada, OK. There was a lowering reported in Little City, OK about 2 miles from our location in Madill. I misread the map and did not realize that we had a road option that would have allowed us to intercept and avoid Lake Texoma. All equipment worked well and considering this was the first shake down chase of the season things went well.

It has been a busy week with a 440 mile chase to Madill, OK, a 480 mile chase to Gainsville, TX, and the migration a new Hosting Provider. So far this seems much improved. If you see something strange or notice the improvement, please leave a comment.

There should be a couple of new features in a week or so as well.