"Super Tuesday" Chase: SW Oklahoma
Target Area: LTS (Altus, OK)
Chase Teams (C#):
C1:
C2:
C3:
Tim Jones
Matt Foster
Josh Boustead
Ryan Pfannkuh
Rodney Price
Despite the abundance of Presidential primary races taking place this day, the chase events that unfolded were anything BUT super.
Chase Teams 1 & 3 conviened at my residence a little after 8:30am. We looked at the latest weather data coming out of OK. Just as was the case in the 2 days leading up to the chase, we were concerned about the fast, unidirectional flow forecast above 700mb over the target area later in that afternoon. This flow would mean the storms would take a linear shape not too long after initiation and would be traveling very quickly. If we were fortunate enough, we would have a very narrow window of opportunity to perhaps see something interesting before the storms would form into a line and charge NNE.
The teams left ICT around 9:30am and arrived in target area shortly before 2pm. We met my chase partner Matt Foster (C2) just out to the west of Altus. It didn't take long to realize that we needed to get into some sunshine, so we headed west and into an area with more breaks in the clouds.
We arrived in Hollis, OK a tad after 3pm and staked out a spot at the Gray Ag Airfield on the north side of town. We were able to see some distant storms, but they were rather difficult to view due to low clouds and some dust. Eventually, we noted some stronger development to our north and decided (due to a lack of anything else interesting) to head that way. Around 4pm, we were located about 5 miles north of the OK 30/9 junction, and watched as the storms to our north maintained their spacing from our caravan. We simply couldn't catch up! However, some storms were closing in on us from the west and southwest. It was growing increasingly dark in that direction. Just then I happened to catch a glimpse of a rain free area that had been obscured by terrain. I shouted to the other team members, and started to run south down the highway. The others jumped into the vehicles, and headed just a bit down the road in the same direction and into an area that wasn't blocked by the hills.
Looking to our SW, we noted a ragged, rain free base/area. Within a few minutes, we had to pack up and head north. Just as forecast, the storms were moving very quickly NNE at approximately 45-50 mph! There may have been some weak rotation, but it quickly lost shape and we turned our attention to a storm just south of this one. We hoped to get south, then east and ahead of the storm, but it caught up with us before we could get into position. We were blasted by very heavy rainfall, and some pea sized hail but that was about it.
Finally, we got back to the OK 30/9 junction and got going east on 9. The pea to small marble sized hail along with heavy rain continued, but it was more bark than bite. We did manage to run into some 1" hail about 3 miles to the east of Reed, OK which Matt promptly reported via cell phone to WSFO OUN.
That was about the main action of the day for us. We were around Granite, OK when a brief tornado touchdown 6 miles east of Sentinel occurred. (We did not receive this report in real-time) We continued north and east toward OKC via state/county roads. Thanks to a small color TV in our chase vehicle, we managed to watch some tornado coverage from Lawton as the storms rolled into their neighborhood. They had some gustnado reports, along with large hail and high winds.
Upon getting within transmitter range of the OKC TV market, we began to pick up the coverage about the narrow squall line as it approached the OKC metro area from the west. More circulation centers/wall clouds were reported, along with high winds and hail. There was a Tornado Warning for Central/Eastern Canadian County (western OKC metro) but it was still a good 15-20 miles in front of us. We never did catch up with the activity, and it was already dark so we stayed behind the line.
The trip wasn't a total bust though...we did soak in the scenery at a local Hooters bar in OKC. Oh, and we got some tasty food there, too.
Here's some of the data collected early
that afternoon. Thanks to Andy Kula (WSFO
DSM)
for sending me these files.
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Copyright 2000 Storm Prediction Center.
Copyright 2000 WeatherTap.
Copyright 2000 WeatherTap.
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