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I was lucky that this chase happened on a Tuesday. I don't have
Tuesday classes this semester. My classmate and Kappa Kappa Psi
Brother Grant Qualley went with me. We decided to leave early and take
our fishing gear with us. The plan was to fish until storm time, or if
the chase was a bust, we'd find a lake to fish. After analyzing the
data, we picked Woodward, OK, as a target.
Unfortunately, or fortunately (depending on your point of view), we never did get to break out the fishing poles.
Chase Target: Woodward, OK
Fishing Target: Fort Supply Lake, OK
Chase Partners:
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Grant Qualley
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| Location: |
W Oklahoma and E Texas Panhandle
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Miles Travelled:
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491
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Total Time:
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11 Hours
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At 11:00am, Grant and I left Norman and headed NW towards Woodward.
The plan was to get to Ft. Supply a couple of hours before initiation,
fish until something happens, then chase. We stopped at the Wal-Mart
in Woodward for Rain-X and lunch. After calling for a nowcast, we were
told to head east for Pampa. So, no fishing. Kepp moving. We ate
some chicken, applied some Rain-X to the car, and headed west to Gage,
OK. From Gage, we went south on US-60, then east to Higgins, TX. We
stopped just outside of town to gas up and make some phone calls. SPC
moved the tornado risk back in Oklahoma, so we decided to head for Elk
City. We headed south out of Canadian, TX, towards Shamrock, TX, and
I-40. Just outside of Wheeler, TX, I see some guy wearing and OU shirt
with an expensive-looking camera with a BIG lens around his neck. Sure
enough, it was Aaron Kennedy, one of my roommates. He was chasing with
a co-worker from WDT. We decided to hook up for the rest of the chase.
At 4:00pm, we headed south into Shamrock and
stopped at a gas station to try to get some data via mobile Internet.
At the same time, a monster supercell rapidly develops just to the west
of town. It already has a very well defined inflow notch and shelf
cloud (12.5 MB). The storm was moving NE at an insane speed. We headed north
again to try to get up on a hill to see if anything would happen. It
quickly developed rotation and was severe within minutes of birth.
About 5:15pm, Aaron and Grant spooted dust swirls on the ground below a
funnel. I ran across the road with the camer, but by the time I got
there, it's long gone...figures. We headed north again, then turned
east onto some Farm-to-Market road, which takes us to the SE of
Wheeler. A really nice wall cloud develops right in front of us, then
promptly falls apart (12.5 MB).
We pulled over and watch a really cool area of
rotation (1.2 MB). We also saw a really interesting lowering, which dropped a
real small, brief funnel. There was a little hump that I could I have
seen and videoed over if I was standing up, but according to everyone
else, there may have been a brief dust swirl on the ground underneath
it.
After the storm passed, we headed about 2 miles to
Route 152. There were some serious tumbleweeds going across the road.
One was as big as a door on my car. We continued eastward into
Oklahoma. We passed through the town of Sweetwater in a desparate
attempt to keep up with our storm, which was producing damage in
Cheyenne and Strong City, and had dropped a tornado near Leedy. As we
tried to keep up, another tornado struck Sweetwater and destroyed the
school and a few homes. We followed the storm through Cheyenne, but
eventually gave up, turning south to Elk City. By now, things had
developed into a major squall line with several embedded supercells.
With the loss of daylight and the crazy fast storm motions, we decided
to head east on I-40 back towards Norman through the wind and rain.
At about 8:00pm, we were about 5 miles west of
Clinton, OK, on I-40. A Tornado Warning comes out with a reported
touchdown near Burns Flat moving NE pretty fast. After doing some
mental math, I figured out that we and the storm will arrive at the
same points at nearly the same time. No bueno. I called Aaron and
discussed the situation with him. We decided to go for it, figuring we
could beat it and get out in front. Just as we arrive in Clinton, the
winds picked up to about 50-60mph out of the SE. In less than a
minute, they veer all the way to the west. Bad news! The rain and
hail started going horiztonal. No rain was hitting my windshield.
Instead, I was getting hail dents on the passenger side of my car. We
found a gas station to pull over and wait the storm out since it was
too hard to see to drive. After conferring with several chasers on
various positions on the storm and by using radar archives, we figured
the tornadic part of the storm crossed I-40 less than 4 miles behind us
and we wound up in the worst part of the precip core. That was way too
close. This is why I hate night chasing.
Anyway, with the excitement over, we headed back to Norman in some of the heaviest rain I've ever seen.
SUMMARY:
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Another successful chase for the year. Maybe I saw a tornado, or maybe
not. I don't know. This puts the streak at 0-37, or something like
that. I was around tornadoes and Tornado Warnings all day. If there
was a tornado on the Wheeler, TX, storm, we couldn't have asked for
better position. Also, our "close encounter" on I-40 shows the danger
of chasing HPs and squall lines at night. Next time, if I have any
doubt, I'm stopping.
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