High Plains Drifter

Two Mid-Late Evening Supercells:  Roby to Anson to Nugent, TX

Here is part 2 of the two-part chase account for May 1st, 2009.  After the Rule to Stamford supercell dissipated, I remained in Jones County near Lueders watching struggling towering cumulus to my immediate north and northwest {2342}.  The towers showed very little sign of doing anything other than tilting severely to the east in the strong shear, and I really did not expect this localized area of towering cu to do much.  After watching a clumping cumulus field on visible satellite continue to grow to my west toward Rotan and Hamlin, I decided to head in that direction.  I did like this area due to the fact that it was A) still far enough south of the surging cold front and B) mid 60s dewpoints lurked southeast of the development in the Abilene area.  I stopped to refuel in Anson and continued on my way west on Hwy 180 {0009}.  There was an east-west line of somewhat aggressive towering cumulus growth with echoes showing up on radar.  My plan, obviously, was to target the best of these initial pulses, but my eyes were most set on the western-most of this small area to the north of Roby, near Rotan.  There was another storm to the northwest of Rotan, southwest of Jayton, however it appeared to be too far north, too close to the front, and given its east to northeast storm motion, this was not a viable option for a target storm.  I did reach Roby and noticed the electrical activity increasing to my north.  About this time, radar on Stormlab was showing continued growth of this new storm with a hail icon by 7:32pm {0032}.  I decided to drift north of Roby about a mile or so and stop there to photograph {0043).   This was a good decision as the storm developed very nicely before my very eyes to my north-northeast.

Cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning was photogenic, both within and just outside a concentrated rain core area beneath the storm.  I photographed from that spot for nearly 20 minutes — roughly 7:35 to 7:55pm {0056}.  Just before I left the location, the storm began to show much better organization, even taking on some supercell structure.  I then headed back east on Hwy 180 to follow the storm.  Fortunately, it appeared as it right-moved, it would more or less parallel the highway.  I stopped again about 5 miles east of Roby along the highway to photograph more.  The storm grew into much better structure with striated banding and a mid-level inflow feature on the southeast quadrant {0106}.  There was aggressive scud development as well which formed into a wall cloud at times.  I set the Nikon D200 on a tripod with the lightning trigger in hopes of capturing a CG with the storm structure.  I succeeded.  Some cows roaming in the pasture in front of me provided a nice little foreground element addition to the scene.  I sat there at that location until a couple minutes before 8:20pm.  This would be the best structure this storm would have to offer, for as I continued east…the storm began a slow decrease in intensity as it headed east.  All this time, another supercell was developing nicely to my northeast near Haskell {0133}.  I stopped one more time to try to photograph dangerous staccato CGs being spit out from my slowly dying storm to the northwest…but the lightning was too close and too dangerous to get out of the vehicle…so after sitting there for a few minutes, I decided to hell with that storm and continued east back to Anson.

By this time, though, it was starting to get dark, and there was no way I’d be able to intercept the new Haskell supercell with any daylight left {0147}.  I was still going to follow this storm, though, since it was an extremely easy intercept, plus I had my eyes set on Abilene for a place to stay for the night.  This storm was very electrical off to my northeast and was quite impressive on radar {0201}.  A couple of other storm chasers closer to this storm reported low, rotating wall clouds at times east of Stamford.  Eventually, as this storm approached Hwy 180, other cells began to develop on the southwest flank and the storm became this giant monstrosity of a storm with an incredible amount of CG lightning (both visually and what I was seeing on the Stormlab display! {0242}).  I managed to get some CG stills, but nothing all that jaw-dropping.  I had a hard time finding an area to concentrate on since there was so much electrical activity everywhere.. it was quite impressive.  There was a lot of lightning upstairs, too, and combined with increasing low cloud cover ahead of the storm, made for an interesting “strobe” effect, although sucky for photography.  Eventually, I made it to Hwy 351 where I dropped southwest to get into a better position for the storm, the core of which was still off to my northwest at around 10pm {0300}.  The storm re-organized into one coherent “blob” of a supercell with a decent mesocyclone, but the visibility sucked where I was, and the hilly terrain northeast of Abilene didn’t help matters either.  I was getting kind of tired at this point, too, so I was becoming increasingly impatient with this storm.  About halfway to Abilene on Hwy 351, I lost internet connection, which tested my patience even further {0305, the last upload until I got to Abilene).  As the storm got closer, I did notice a few instances where distant lightning revealed what appeared to be a concentrated rain-wrapped area of interest, however the lack of frequent lightning illumination prevent good observations.

At about 10:30pm, I called the San Angelo office and talked to my former WFO-DDC colleague Mike Lacy about the storm, relaying to him my observations.  He was telling me the best circulation was somewhere between Hamby and Nugent.  At that time, I was just on the outskirts of Abilene, so after hearing of this, I decided to backtrack northeast on Hwy 351 toward Hamby to see what I could find.  CG lightning around the area of interest was lacking, and low cloud cover around was not helping me figure this storm out one bit.  I felt a light northeast wind and eventually noticed a lot of low scud approaching me.  I came to the incorrect conclusion that what I was witnessing was near the area of rotation on radar that Mike was telling me about, and given the northeast wind, thinking this thing was either outflow dominant or undercut by the front, so I was not excited about tornado prospects.  I say “incorrect conclusion” for this reason:  A tornado DID eventually form about 20 minutes after I made this observation…not more than a few miles northeast of my location on Hwy 351!  Since I thought the storm was outflow dominant at the time, I packed it in for the night and headed back to Abilene shortly after 10:30pm.  What I was observing at that time around 10:30pm was activity along the rear-flank gust front that was approaching my location.  The true area of significant rotation was well back in the occluded portion of the supercell, in an area I just simply couldn’t see given the low clouds around and lack of good lightning illumination.  I learned of the ~ 15 minute tornado northeast of Abilene from storm chaser Colt Ray Forney who managed to successfully document the event after 11pm as he was positioned on Ranch Road 604 {0418, after I was already in my motel room in Abilene}.  I was totally oblivious to this event even a couple days after it happened!  Oh well.  The tornado he photographed was somewhat wrapped in rain, however it was a fairly stout looking tornado during its mature stage with a fairly nice rope-out he also managed to photograph in the few lightning flashes that occurred.  All in all, this was a fine chase day with a number of keeper images for my portfolio

South-moving afternoon supercell from O’Brien to Rule to Stamford, TX

This is part 1/2 of this chase account… as I observed supercells at two different times during this chase.  This account focuses on the O’Brien/Rule/Stamford, TX supercell that developed mid-afternoon west of Knox City around 20z (3pm CDT).  I left Dodge City shortly after 8:30am for a target from Vernon to Seymour, TX.  The main problem for this chase day was the cold front.  Plain and simple.  It was moving south at a fairly good clip, and the challenge was to get on a storm far enough south of the cold front such that it would not become severely undercut by the front.  It was because of this that I decided to hedge south (Seymour).

I arrived in El Dorado, OK around 1pm with a growing cumulus field just along and ahead of the front.  This was a good sign that storms would probably develop over the next couple of hours given the extent of the agitated cumulus field.  I was monitoring obs closely and was interested in the near-90 degree air from Paducah to Aspermont.  I figured a storm would develop at the nose of this hottest air since the cap would be broken easiest here, so I was closely watching hi-res visible satellite imagery for towering cumulus growth in this area.  I arrived in Quanah, TX and was tempted to just head straight south to Benjamin.  Given the lack of substantial cumulus growth at that time in the area of Benjamin, I decided to just head southeast instead to Vernon.  From Vernon, I headed south on Hwy 183 to Seymour.  Along the way, cumulus was continuing to grow across all of this small region from Vernon south to Seymour…and even west toward Benjamin.  I arrived in Seymour around 2:40pm, and it was at this point that towering cumulus was most impressive southwest of Benjamin, which was some 45 miles to my west-southwest {1946}.  I immediately decided I wanted to target this new growth, so after a quick pit-stop in Seymour, I was on my way southwest on Hwy 277 toward Munday {2007}.  Once I reached Munday, I decided to continue west-southwest to Knox City as this development was very slow moving…and whatever movement there was, was almost straight south… so I had to keep heading west.

I reached Knox City with tornado sirens blaring in town, which I found quite interesting given the fact I didn’t see any warning on the storm at that time.  I headed south on Hwy 6 to O’Brien which was just a few miles south.  When I got to O’Brien I could observe a high-based well-defined nub funnel cloud looking almost due west.  I had to keep heading west, and fortunately, Ranch 2229 road was there to go west on from O’Brien, so I took this road out of town and found a stopping point a couple miles west of town.  This funnel persisted and continued to stretch to nearly halfway to the surface from cloud base.  I had to stop here and get the shots before it dissipated.  I managed to get some decent images of this well-defined funnel cloud.  For the first minute or so of observation, I just thought it was a funnel, but I eventually noticed a small debris cloud beneath the funnel.  The images I took were between 3:39 and 3:41pm {2031}.  I feel fortunate to have observed this event before many of the other storm chasers arrived on scene.  About a half hour after this time, the “chaser hordes” arrived.  Many, many storm chasers arrived on the storm finally — many of which were either staging in Wichita Falls, Vernon, or Seymour — arriving from the northeast {2045}.

The tornado finally dissipated and it was time to continue south.  I did so following county and ranch roads south…to the west of Hwy 6 by about 2 or 3 miles.  I stopped intermittently to shoot structure shots.  The structure evolved into a classic soda-can supercell updraft with a small lowered wall cloud in the center.  The whole storm was rather high-based, so if it was going to produce another tornado (a more classic supercell tornado) I was thinking it would have to do it fairly quick because of the high-based nature and potential forward flank downdraft undercutting problems in its not-too-distant future.  I finally reached the town of Rule and regained internet access after about a 45-minute downtime from west of Rochester to Rule {2127}.  It was at this point that I began to leap-frog a lot of storm chasers on Hwy 6, once I finally reached this highway.  I stopped for a little bit along Hwy 6 south of Rule and watched a beautiful rear-flank downdraft occlusion develop.  A tornado cyclone circulation was evident with fairly tight rotation in the wall cloud at around 4:40pm looking to the north-northwest from a few miles south of Rule {2131}.  My next stopping location was along a farm road about a half mile east of Hwy 6 where I setup my Nikon D200 on a tripod with the lightning trigger.  I managed to get one good cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning image within the supercell core looking to the north.  By this time, a rear-flank downdraft surge was heading my way and it was time to bail south.  Hwy 6 then turned southeast toward Stamford, and I followed this a few miles southeast to a stopping location to observe the next interesting aspect of this storm.  A rather rapidly rotating wall cloud developed to the north with some small dusty spin-ups beneath it initially.  Some storm chasers claim a brief ~ 30 second tornado here with this feature based on their accounts, but I am uncertain, because immediately after this, a huge surge of dust was kicked up in the next rear-flank downdraft surge…which was actually quite dynamic to photograph.  The copper color of the dust contrasted well against the storm structure from my vantage point.  This whole sequence occurred between roughly 5:26 and 5:32pm {2227}.

I then drove through a dusty town of Stamford shortly after shooting the previous scene just northwest of town.  The storm was on the demise after that point.  I continued southeast then east on some county roads to follow the now decaying storm.  My last images of this storm were around 5:53pm looking northeast at a small saucer-shaped updraft base with a neat looking wall cloud as the whole thing was beginning to shrivel up and die {2251}.  Now what to do.  There was another supercell well to the north-northeast of me approaching the Seymour area from the northwest.  The chaser hordes went after this, and it was funny watching all the chasers taking the same route to this storm at around 6pm or so {2309}.  Me, on the other hand, I’m not a follower.  I stayed put.  Small updrafts tried to form near and over me between Stamford and Lueders along Hwy 6, but none of these small updrafts made it very far at all and ultimately bit the dust.  I looked at visible satellite and noticed that the best looking clumping cumulus was off to my west still.  This interested me because it was still just far enough south of the cold front and there were mid to upper 60s dewpoints not too far southeast of this area.  This was my new area of interest:  Roby to Rotan, TX (Fisher County).  Not following the chaser hordes turned out to be a very wise decision:  My new target exploded into supercells and the storm the hordes went after ultimately died when they all arrived on scene!  See part 2 of this chase account.

My decision to chase the unconventional target paid off yet again, however my tactical decisions in the field cost me the potential for much better shots of the high-based marginal supercell structure, as I know it had a beautiful high-based saucer shape if I was just positioned farther southeast when I still had light.  My target was Hobbs, NM — I had lunch there and hung out in and around town for the better part of the afternoon up until at least 5:30pm or so (CDT).  All these crappy virga showers kept forming in my target — but I have learned in the past that on the high plains…sometimes virga showers with high bases turn into something much better if you are patient.  Patience was really trying me, and the southernmost grouping of virga showers and high, flat bases was located northeast of Carlsbad, so I made a trek southwest from Hobbs in that direction.  I drove about 50 miles southwest of Hobbs and watched a group of really high bases struggle mightily.  This area, in retrospect, was too close to the hot, dry air that was impinging on the Carlsbad area.  After sitting there along highway 62, the action area was finally developing off to my northeast… just north of Hobbs!  I guess I wasn’t patient enough.  I had to drive back to Hobbs, and eventually the southernmost storm from the small cluster north of Hobbs took on some interesting supercell structure on radar.  I was southwest of the main area of interest the whole time, and given the fact I had fallen behind, I had no time to stop for images.  I finally managed to stop for some shots after I had lost pretty much all of my light (it was about 9:20pm CDT by this time) about 15 miles south of Seminole, TX.  This storm raced off to the east, but I noticed another healthy storm off to my northwest, to the northwest of Seminole, moving in the direction of Seminole.  I drove back north into town then went northwest just a few miles outside of town and got some nice staccato lightning images with a gas processing plant as a horizon line subject to the lightning.

Real brief for now.  I intercepted 3 supercells on Friday, May 1st.  The first supercell was the mid-late afternoon supercell which formed in Southwestern Knox County to the west of Knox City.  I observed a several-minute tornado west of O’Brien as the storm was organizing into a supercell.  This occurred around 3:40pm CDT.  This storm went on to become largely outflow dominant given its high-based characteristics.  Another marginal tornado probably occurred northwest of Stamford later in the storm’s life.  It kicked up some amazing red dirt which I got good images of.  The storm then died, and instead of joining the hordes to go after the Seymour storm, I loitered around northeastern Jones County. This paid off.  I intercepted another photogenic supercell toward sunset near Roby.  A third, even more impressive supercell formed after sunset with it becoming dark… in western Haskell County.  This storm dropped south-southeast toward Anson and eventually southeastern Jones County northeast of Abilene.  The lightning was prolific with this storm… rather amazing.  This was a very satisfying chase.  The two images below are of the tornado at the beginning of the chase.  The 2nd image is a severely contrast-enhanced version of the first, revealing the faint dust column that my Nikon camera picked up on (which I didn’t realize at the time).  Timestamp on the image below is 3:41pm CDT.  This is looking almost due west from an observing location ~ 2 miles west of O’Brien, TX: