Evan Bookbinder, Jay Antle, and I decided on a chase target in the eastern TX Panhandle in favor of eastern Colorado mainly because I enjoy taking a chance every now and again, and I thought we could get an isolated beautiful supercell somewhere east of Plainview/Lubbock given the not-so-hot 700mb temps, great deep layer shear, and the nose of moderately high CAPE. The result of this decision was a bust. We were fairly excited about a storm that formed northwest of Silverton during the late afternoon hours around 4:30pm CDT or so. Unfortunately, the storm died a horrible death as it moved away from its source of convergence and into higher CIN airmass to its east. We were also watching an area near Floydada to our south where a mesolow developed. Some aggressive attempts at congested cumulus were noted, but in the end — nothing. It was sort of painful watching supercells thrive in southeast Colorado, the more obvious upslope play today. We took a gamble at something isolated and largely to ourselves (the majority of other chasers were up in Colorado) and we lost. Below are a few images if the little storm that couldn’t:
We are heading in the general direction of Amarillo. The storm we
were watching north of Silverton never amounted to anything more than
a postage stamp updraft. Nothing initiated on the meso low/dryline
bulge near Floydada. I think this is a bust now that there is nothing
out there in terms of substantial towering cu. Therefore, we are
heading to Amarillo. There is a small chance that something may form
near Amarillo on the retreating convergence axis, but that is more
wishful thinking than anything. Seeing the nice supercells on radar
right now east of Pueblo stings a little, though.
–
Mike Umscheid Photography
http://gallery.underthemeso.com
mesomike@gmail.com
the small storm that developed northwest of silverton had lost its
steam and out of the convergence area. A more impressive convergence
area has developed near floydada with a mesolow / dryline buldge. New
sharp updraft towers have formed at this mesolow to our SSW and this
is our new target. If this fails, then another new convergence area
near Canyon may initiate as well to its north. Time will tell which
area will develop a signficant storm, if at all.
–
Mike Umscheid Photography
http://gallery.underthemeso.com
mesomike@gmail.com
Storm is struggling to develop to our northeast from a location near BRice TX
(Sent by Mike’s Alltel Blackberry smartphone)
(Sent by Mike’s Alltel Blackberry smartphone)
Looking nw from silverton tx
(Sent by Mike’s Alltel Blackberry smartphone)
We are going to hang out in Silverton, TX and monitor the north-south
convergence axis extending from Canyon south to about 10 W Plainview.
This is the most interesting area to us at this time. We see the
exploding storms east of Abilene, but that is way out of our
reach/target area. More later.
–
Mike Umscheid Photography
http://gallery.underthemeso.com
mesomike@gmail.com
Watching some cu congestus developing to our south and southwest. This is a good sign for later on. We will be in silverton around or after 3pm.
(Sent by Mike’s Alltel Blackberry smartphone)
Our latest forecast thinking is that an area from AMA to LBB seems to
be the most likely region for quality surface-based storms after 4pm.
We are planning on a tentative target of Plainview, TX. It is clear
across much of W TX with only a few cirrus clouds evident. A weak
convergence line is setting up around the Plainview/Lubbock area which
is the area of most interest at this point. Very good deep layer
shear across this region with high CAPE as well as dewpoints in the
mid-upper 60s are poised just southeast of LBB. -Mike
–
Mike Umscheid Photography
http://gallery.underthemeso.com
mesomike@gmail.com
Pawnee City, NE Supercell & Oregon to Amity, MO Supercell
Robin and I left North Platte around 9:30am with a target of Hebron, NE in mind. I really didn’t envision us ending the day along the I-35 corridor in northwestern Missouri, though! …but it was worth it. We photographed two photogenic supercells, the first of which developing near the KS-NE border southwest of Pawnee City. This storm showed some signs of tornadogenesis early on when it was southwest of Pawnee City, however it struggled against some of its own outflow. Nevertheless, this was probably the most photogenic supercell I’ve photographed in southeastern Nebraska. We had a decision to make as we continued east on Hwy 8 on approach to Salem and Falls City — do we continue our intercept of the original storm or do we go after much better looking development east of us — a much more difficult intercept. The atmosphere made the decision for us. The southern supercell took over while our original storm was falling apart. The backside of the southern supercell was spectacular. The convection was like an atom bomb going off in front of us. As we crossed the Missouri River at Rulo, we continued to get closer, approaching the hook echo region of the supercell from the back side. We got into some of the precipitation as we approached Oregon. None of the precipitation was hail…. but as we drove into Oregon, that’s all we saw on the ground. Lots of giant hail. We didn’t stop in town in favor of trying to get ahead of the storm, but in retrospect, I wish we would have stopped to photograph some of these hail stones. They were absolutely huge, and we didn’t miss this hail fall by much — maybe as little as 5 to 10 minutes.
We reached I-29 with the hail core just barely to our east, and we managed to make it to Hwy 36 at St. Joseph where we continued east. We then headed north on Hwy 6 toward Clarksdale where we refueled and continued on our way. We stopped a couple miles south of where Hwy 6 curved to the east (about 6 miles west of Amity) where we photographed the supercell structure and wrapping rain curtains. The wrapping rain curtains to our NNE was significant. There was likely a substantial ground circulation amidst this wrapping rain curtain area, but it could not tighten up into a tornado circulation. It was close, though! We back-tracked to Hwy 36 and continued east, stopping at times to photograph the structure to our north. This was some of the finest storm structure I’ve ever seen this far east — certainly the best Missouri storm structure I’ve photographed. I was impressed — it was almost like chasing a storm on the High Plains — very contrasting colors with good visibility. As we approached I-35 it was getting to be close to 9:00pm and we had to end the chase given the drive we had to make back home. I had a very fun time these past 3 days chasing with my good friend Robin Lorenson. Certainly another reminder for sure how much easier it is to multi-task having a chase partner — since I chase solo so often. Thanks Robin! Some images from this chase below:
