May 22nd, 2008
Zack Biggs and I chase a large HP supercell near the town of Clinton, Oklahoma.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Zack and I were without our chase partner Colin for this storm. We were itching for some chasing after the storm on the 1st set our hopes high, so we decided to go up into Oklahoma again. Conditions looked favorable for supercell development, and we initially targetted the Oklahoma City area.
After getting through some very heavy traffic in OKC, Colin informed us of large cells coming out of the Texas Panhandle and into Western Oklahoma. We decided to head that direction. Soon we were under the huge anvil of the storms ahead of us, and the visibility was not that great. As we approached the town of Clinton, the wall of the HP cell loomed up before us. It was tough to make out much structure, but there were incredible mammatus clouds in the anvil overhead.
We went North out of Clinton and found a nice hill to observe the storms for a while. While there, we had a discussion with the local Emergency Manager about the storms. He spent a bit of time checking out our radar on my Centro. The storms were streaming to the North and East, but making very little actual progress to the East. At one point, a very clear "Cow Catcher" shape formed, and I was able to get pictures of it. There was a lot of lightning in the cells, but most were buried back in the storm and not visible.
The line of storms finally started pushing East, and so did we. We dropped back 30 miles or so to our East, and again stopped to film the lightning. We only had a few minutes before needing to move again. We headed south on a little road back towards I40, and stopped one last time to shoot lightning. The lightning instensity was really picking up at this point, and we were able to get some neat pictures of CG strikes under the base of the storms.
The drive back to Dallas was quite long, and it was close to 2 am by the time we got home. It was an excellent and fun chase.
Read More--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Zack and I were without our chase partner Colin for this storm. We were itching for some chasing after the storm on the 1st set our hopes high, so we decided to go up into Oklahoma again. Conditions looked favorable for supercell development, and we initially targetted the Oklahoma City area.
After getting through some very heavy traffic in OKC, Colin informed us of large cells coming out of the Texas Panhandle and into Western Oklahoma. We decided to head that direction. Soon we were under the huge anvil of the storms ahead of us, and the visibility was not that great. As we approached the town of Clinton, the wall of the HP cell loomed up before us. It was tough to make out much structure, but there were incredible mammatus clouds in the anvil overhead.
We went North out of Clinton and found a nice hill to observe the storms for a while. While there, we had a discussion with the local Emergency Manager about the storms. He spent a bit of time checking out our radar on my Centro. The storms were streaming to the North and East, but making very little actual progress to the East. At one point, a very clear "Cow Catcher" shape formed, and I was able to get pictures of it. There was a lot of lightning in the cells, but most were buried back in the storm and not visible.
The line of storms finally started pushing East, and so did we. We dropped back 30 miles or so to our East, and again stopped to film the lightning. We only had a few minutes before needing to move again. We headed south on a little road back towards I40, and stopped one last time to shoot lightning. The lightning instensity was really picking up at this point, and we were able to get some neat pictures of CG strikes under the base of the storms.
The drive back to Dallas was quite long, and it was close to 2 am by the time we got home. It was an excellent and fun chase.
