July 12 "Last Chance" Chase
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Myself and Zack Biggs chased a marginal setup up into North Central and West Oklahoma. We weren't expecting too much, but we ended up observing 2 anti-cyclonic super cells, and an incredible HP super cell. All in all, an excellent "Last Chance" chase for July!
Colin was unable to attend this trip due to other commitments, but he did now cast for us a bit. Thanks Colin!
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Zack's initial target for today was around Clinton, OK in North West Oklahoma. SPC had been calling for a disturbance to swing through the area, and there was also a cold front from up in Kansas that was supposed to slowly drop into the area. We left Dallas around 11:30, and drove up 35 into Oklahoma. We were a bit discouraged, as there was a lot of rain and high based storms south of OKC due to a secondary disturbance near the red river. Upon reaching Oklahoma City, we stopped for a data check and some food. Nothing was happening near our original target, but there were some pretty intense storms up near Wichita Kansas. We were lured away from our primary target of Clinton (west on I40) towards these storms to the north in Kansas.
We made it as far north as Tonkawa before we started questioning our decision to head North. There appeared to be a ton of subsidence north of OKC due to the upper air disturbance to the south along the Red River. The environment north of Clinton started to look a little better as another disturbance began to push into Western Oklahoma, and SPC issued a Mesoscale Discussion for the area as storms started to fire with the expectation some would become severe... We headed back south to highway 412, and headed West. As we approached the Glass Mountains State Park area on 412, we observed a beautiful anti-cyclonic supercell approaching us from the South West. The structure on this cell was very nice, and it had a very well defined wall cloud for quite some time. It was at this point that we met up with Brendon Lindsey from Enid. Nice to meet you Brendon! There was also a second anti-cyclonic super cell that had formed to the south of the first one, and was taking an almost identical track.
Zack and I had a choice at this point. A large cyclonic cell had formed near the town of Putnam to the south of the two anti-cyclonic cells. We could have stuck with our original cell, or made the drive to the new one. Problem was, there were no direct routes to the new cell other than an hour long drive around to it. We decided to head to the new cell despite what looked to be a long drive to something that might suddenly fall apart. The whole time we were driving, we were able to observe the upper level structure of this beast of a storm. We were just praying that it would hold together till we got there!
We eventually made it to highway 183, which runs straight north south through the area. The storm was slowly moving directly down highway 183, which was perfect for observation. We met up with Ben Jacobi (http://www.photographybybenjacobi.blogspot.com/) here as we were observing the storm, and we decided to team up for the rest of the night. We spent the next hour watching this incredible cell slowly drift south. It had absolutely incredible structure throughout it's life, and many times looked as if it would produce a tornado and even wrapped up a funnel or two. As far as we could observe, there never was a tornado produced from it (but we couldn't see what happened to the rotation areas that wrapped up in the rain). We eventually found ourselves in Clinton (our original target) as the sun was setting. We decided at this point to abandon the storm and head home, as any further chasing would take us further from our route home. We said goodbye to Ben, who was headed home to Wichita Falls, and drove the four hours back to DFW. An excellent chase that almost wasn't (due to getting suckered up to the north).
Read MoreMyself and Zack Biggs chased a marginal setup up into North Central and West Oklahoma. We weren't expecting too much, but we ended up observing 2 anti-cyclonic super cells, and an incredible HP super cell. All in all, an excellent "Last Chance" chase for July!
Colin was unable to attend this trip due to other commitments, but he did now cast for us a bit. Thanks Colin!
**********************************************************************************************************
Zack's initial target for today was around Clinton, OK in North West Oklahoma. SPC had been calling for a disturbance to swing through the area, and there was also a cold front from up in Kansas that was supposed to slowly drop into the area. We left Dallas around 11:30, and drove up 35 into Oklahoma. We were a bit discouraged, as there was a lot of rain and high based storms south of OKC due to a secondary disturbance near the red river. Upon reaching Oklahoma City, we stopped for a data check and some food. Nothing was happening near our original target, but there were some pretty intense storms up near Wichita Kansas. We were lured away from our primary target of Clinton (west on I40) towards these storms to the north in Kansas.
We made it as far north as Tonkawa before we started questioning our decision to head North. There appeared to be a ton of subsidence north of OKC due to the upper air disturbance to the south along the Red River. The environment north of Clinton started to look a little better as another disturbance began to push into Western Oklahoma, and SPC issued a Mesoscale Discussion for the area as storms started to fire with the expectation some would become severe... We headed back south to highway 412, and headed West. As we approached the Glass Mountains State Park area on 412, we observed a beautiful anti-cyclonic supercell approaching us from the South West. The structure on this cell was very nice, and it had a very well defined wall cloud for quite some time. It was at this point that we met up with Brendon Lindsey from Enid. Nice to meet you Brendon! There was also a second anti-cyclonic super cell that had formed to the south of the first one, and was taking an almost identical track.
Zack and I had a choice at this point. A large cyclonic cell had formed near the town of Putnam to the south of the two anti-cyclonic cells. We could have stuck with our original cell, or made the drive to the new one. Problem was, there were no direct routes to the new cell other than an hour long drive around to it. We decided to head to the new cell despite what looked to be a long drive to something that might suddenly fall apart. The whole time we were driving, we were able to observe the upper level structure of this beast of a storm. We were just praying that it would hold together till we got there!
We eventually made it to highway 183, which runs straight north south through the area. The storm was slowly moving directly down highway 183, which was perfect for observation. We met up with Ben Jacobi (http://www.photographybybenjacobi.blogspot.com/) here as we were observing the storm, and we decided to team up for the rest of the night. We spent the next hour watching this incredible cell slowly drift south. It had absolutely incredible structure throughout it's life, and many times looked as if it would produce a tornado and even wrapped up a funnel or two. As far as we could observe, there never was a tornado produced from it (but we couldn't see what happened to the rotation areas that wrapped up in the rain). We eventually found ourselves in Clinton (our original target) as the sun was setting. We decided at this point to abandon the storm and head home, as any further chasing would take us further from our route home. We said goodbye to Ben, who was headed home to Wichita Falls, and drove the four hours back to DFW. An excellent chase that almost wasn't (due to getting suckered up to the north).
