Virtual Storm Chase 3

[Paul Sherman]

A line of Thunderstorms are now developing from Lawton to South of Oklahoma City along the SE Moving Cold Front crashing into the Outflow Boundary, Bilz Get Ready!!

D Drummond is a great Chaser Kold, he has been bang on the money this past week, I was watching Tornado Debris Wanabee Reed Timmer earlier on a live stream getting nailed by the 4.25 Inch Hailstorm near Scotland, he survived but only just, car looks a mess though!

Paul S

[kold weather]

David's Cookie though its been a bit stop start in terms of stream quality, but he is chasing that cell in Throckmorton, he'd probably abut 30 mins away from it at current guess.

Paul, yeah I think the key for chasing is placing yourselves at the start in a place where you can get easy access to several different direction so if things happen a little bit away from where you plan you can get there without having to go round the houses so to speak would that be a fair assessment...just trying to get it all worked out in my head before you lot go out there!

As it happens Steve Miller looks like hes going for that cell as well so seems like we are all in agreement!

Edited April 3, 2008 by kold weather

[Nick F]

The storm near Throckmorton earlier has become pretty much isolated on its own (which is good) and will likely have an unhindered large supply of warm moist air, currently between Olney and Newcastle and headed ENE just north of Jacksboro my target

... question is, will the environment be now ripe for tornado development?

[Paul Sherman]

Thats about as Discrete a Supercell as you would like to see

Nick I see your question was will this cell head into the Ripe area, my main worry is its direction :o

IS IT HEADING TOWARDS THE "COW CAMP STEAK HOUSE" IN DECATUR

[kold weather]

Looks great no other inflows to compete with then Nick, a shame that helicity values weren't more like 400-500 otherwise we'd have huge fireworks with that cell!

[Cookie]

thanks for the updates guys

IS IT HEADING TOWARDS THE "COW CAMP STEAK HOUSE" IN DECATUR

:o

someones got their priority's sorted

[Nick F]

IS IT HEADING TOWARDS THE "COW CAMP STEAK HOUSE" IN DECATUR :o

Hope not ... if I was chasing this storm - i'd probably end up wanting to stay at Decatur for the night and wanting a nice steak for dinner.

[Cookie]

Hope not ... if I was chasing this storm - i'd probably end up wanting to stay at Decatur for the night and wanting a nice steak for dinner.

couldn't resit

[Paul Sherman]

Great Film that Cookie, shame about the Hollywood Influence!

Lone Supercell not looking so great at the Mo, the next course of interest is the Possible Cell merger of the Old Witchita Falls cell and a few new Storms moving North to make the merger on the OK/TX Border, Cell mergers do often produce Tornadoes, although this area now looking a bit grungy.

Going to call it a night soon as it will be a few hours before the Nocturnal Tornadic risk happens

Paul S

[Cookie]

well thanks as always for the updates.

I must have ago a picking a location at some point,

knowing my luck I would end up a few thousand miles away

[NL]

David Drummond is just about on that cell now, dark base, hope he scores on this one, he's been out for over 7hrs now..!!

[Hilton]

Another good day's worth of chasing.

Got to Wichita Falls just before the first warning there, then dropped off to the west for a bit to watch the big cell head up through Scotland towards Henrietta. Followed it that far (saw some pretty hefty hail on the road), before heading south through Bowie and Jacksboro for the cell heading up from Throckmorton. Saw some nice rotation under the base of that but nothing too spectacular. Followed it back up towards Bowie before heading home via the line around Lawton. More of the same next week please!

Pictures are: Ill-defined rotation on the back end of the cell SW of Wichita Falls; Precip north of Jacksboro from the Throckmorton storm; Base of the storm

[Roger J Smith]

I think today may turn out to be quite a severe weather outbreak across east central TX. Front is edging south approaching the DFW metroplex now, and should unleash some nasty storms there around 0900. Flooding rains may be the big story for these areas. Arkansas is also looking very flood-prone today.

Later on when the front drifts as far south as Waco to Tyler, I expect some tornadic activity to develop, fairly early in the daily cycle as the event is already set up to go. Would expect the peak to come around 1600 to 1700 GMT near or just northeast of Waco.

[Nick F]

Thanks for the account Hilton

All 7 tornado reports have been in the last 3 hrs over the last 24hrs across central Arkansas ... seems they fired just ahead of the cold front in the warm sector. One tornado went over the NWS offices in Little Rock :o

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/reports/today.html

It would seem the low-level shear environment over N Central TX, where our targets were, was in the end not supportive of tornadoes to form in the storms along the dry line. The best SRH values were further east over Ern TX and AR - where sfc winds were alot more strongly backed to winds aloft.

Still ... some very large hail fell out of the storms we would have chased and which Hilton actually chased - and some good photo oppurtunities. An overnight stormy squall line/grunge fest is now ensuing all the way from north central TX NE up into the Ohio Valley - as the cold front moves SE.

[NL]

Security camera at a car dealership in Little Rock Arkansas captures a tornado ripping through..

http://www.todaysthv.com/video/news/player...id=63492&bw=

[kold weather]

Yeah shame the lower level atmosphere wasn't quite there but as you say Nick there was some decent hail and as Hilton showed some good photo oppertunties to be had given the discrete nature of the cells.

NL, thats awesome footage mate!

[Cookie]

the full list is below

There have been 7 Tornado Reports Today* | Yesterday | Storms | Hail | Wind

Time (Z) 	Strength 	Location 	County 	State 	Lat 	Lon 	Comments
0315 	UNK 	GRAVEL RIDGE 	PULASKI 	AR 	34.87 	-92.19 	BELOW
REPORTS OF DAMAGE ON JACKSONVILLE CATO ROAD WITH TREES ON A HOUSE ALONG WITH A FIRE. (LZK)
0310 	UNK 	NORTH LITTLE ROCK AIRPO 	PULASKI 	AR 	34.83 	-92.27 	BELOW
TORNADO PASSED OVER NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE OFFICE IN NORTH LITTLE ROCK AT THE NORTH LITTLE ROCK AIRPORT. DAMAGE TO BUILDINGS SURROUNDING THE AIRPORT ON AIRPORT PROPER (LZK)
0250 	UNK 	6 W DOWNTOWN LITTLE ROC 	PULASKI 	AR 	34.73 	-92.34 	BELOW
DAMAGE REPORTS AT MARKHAM AND JOHN BARROW...MARKHAM AND BROOKHAVEN...ALONG MISSISSIPPI AND ALONG CANTRELL. REPORTS OF STRUCTURE DAMAGE...CARS FLIPPED OVER...AND TREES A (LZK)
0225 	UNK 	BRYANT 	SALINE 	AR 	34.61 	-92.49 	BELOW
REPORTS OF DAMAGE AT HURRICANE LAKE ESTATES...ALONG WITH FIRES STARTED. REPORTED TIME IS APPROXIMATE. (LZK)
0220 	UNK 	BENTON 	SALINE 	AR 	34.57 	-92.58 	BELOW
WALL CLOUD REPORTED BY HAM RADIO OPERATOR JUST EAST OF EXIT 116 IN BENTON. (LZK)
0215 	UNK 	2 SW BENTON 	SALINE 	AR 	34.55 	-92.6 	BELOW
POWER LINES ARE DOWN AND AUTOMOBILE DAMAGED BY POSSIBLE TORNADO 2 MILES SOUTHWEST OF BENTON (LZK)
0210 	UNK 	LONSDALE 	GARLAND 	AR 	34.54 	-92.81 	BELOW
DEBRIS IN AIR REPORTED AT THE HWY 70/30 SPLIT NEAR LONSDALE. (LZK)

http://www.weathermatrix.net/stormmatrix/tornado/

[Paul Sherman]

All up to Eastern Kansas on Monday

DAY 4-8 CONVECTIVE OUTLOOK

NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK

0343 AM CDT FRI APR 04 2008

VALID 071200Z - 121200Z

...DISCUSSION...

LATEST MEDIUM RANGE MODEL GUIDANCE IS IN REASONABLE AGREEMENT WITH

LARGE SCALE TROUGHING ACROSS THE WRN U.S. EARLY NEXT WEEK. IN

PARTICULAR...ONE STRONG SPEED MAX IS FORECAST TO DIG SEWD ACROSS THE

4-CORNERS REGION/SRN ROCKIES...THEN EJECT NEWD INTO THE PLAINS WHERE

ASSOCIATED SHORTWAVE TROUGH WILL EVOLVE INTO A STRONG NEGATIVELY

TILTED FEATURE AS IT MOVES TOWARD THE MS VALLEY. THIS SCENARIO

WOULD DRAW MOISTURE RAPIDLY NWD ACROSS TX INTO THE SRN PLAINS DURING

THE DAY4 PERIOD WHICH SHOULD RESULT IN AN EXPANDING THREAT OF DEEP

CONVECTION FROM N TX...NWD INTO ERN KS/WRN MO. ALTHOUGH THERE ARE

SOME DETAILS THAT HAVE YET TO BE RESOLVED...SUCH AS THE QUALITY OF

BOUNDARY LAYER MOISTURE/INSTABILITY...UPPER SYSTEM APPEARS MORE THAN

STRONG ENOUGH TO WARRANT A RISK OF SEVERE MONDAY. QUESTIONABLE

INSTABILITY RETURN AT MORE NRN LATITUDES OVER THE MID MS VALLEY WILL

PREVENT A DAY5 OUTLOOK ACROSS THIS REGION. HOWEVER...IF WARM SECTOR

RECOVERY IS GREATER THAN ANTICIPATED THEN A SEVERE RISK WILL NEED TO

BE ISSUED FOR THIS REGION FOR TUESDAY.

[NL]

Storms still very active around NE Arkansas(Garland) and NW Missouri (Tate),TVS spotted

[NL]

Plenty of rotation showing on a cell North of San Antonio TX heading NE, Has already

been TVS warned.

[kold weather]

Just saw this on another forum, impressive straight windspeeds!

SEVERE WEATHER STATEMENT

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE JACKSON MS

1242 PM CDT FRI APR 4 2008

MSC049-089-121-123-041815-

/O.CON.KJAN.TO.W.0123.000000T0000Z-080404T1815Z/

HINDS MS-RANKIN MS-SCOTT MS-MADISON MS-

1242 PM CDT FRI APR 4 2008

...A TORNADO WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 115 PM CDT FOR SOUTH

CENTRAL MADISON...WESTERN SCOTT...NORTHERN RANKIN AND EXTREME

NORTHEASTERN HINDS COUNTIES...

...THIS IS A TORNADO EMERGENCY FOR THE WARNED AREA...

AT 1242 PM CDT...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE METEOROLOGISTS AND STORM

SPOTTERS WERE TRACKING A EXTREMELY DANGEROUS TORNADO. THIS TORNADO

WAS LOCATED NEAR FANNIN...OR 6 MILES NORTHEAST OF FLOWOOD...MOVING

EAST AT 50 MPH.

THE TORNADO WILL BE NEAR...

8 MILES SOUTH OF PISGAH BY 1245 PM CDT...

PELAHATCHIE AND 8 MILES SOUTH OF LEESBURG BY 1255 PM CDT...

MORTON AND 8 MILES SOUTH OF BRANCH BY 100 PM CDT...

IN ADDITION TO THE TORNADO...THIS STORM IS CAPABLE OF PRODUCING

QUARTER SIZE HAIL AND DESTRUCTIVE STRAIGHT LINE WINDS BETWEEN 90 AND

110 MPH. THIS IS AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUS SITUATION...TAKE COVER NOW!

Anyway Tuesday night looks slightly interesting as a strong upper low moves through the plains with a pretty tight gradient on its eastern side suggestive of a pretty strong jet streak present. There isn't much instablity present BUT if something does kick off near the tight gradient expect tornadoes to be possible I'd have thought, whether or not its worth going all that way east towards the far eastern states of the plains I'm not sure but it could be worth watching. Also Thursday-Friday at the moment look suggestive but its too early to say about that really.

[Cookie]

5 so far today!!

there have been 5 Tornado Reports Today* | Yesterday | Storms | Hail | Wind

Time (Z) 	Strength 	Location 	County 	State 	Lat 	Lon 	Comments
1955 	UNK 	EUTAW 	GREENE 	AL 	32.84 	-87.89 	BELOW
NUMEROUS TREE DOWN ACROSS THE ENTIRE COUNTY. (BMX)
1738 	UNK 	FLOWOOD 	RANKIN 	MS 	32.32 	-90.11 	BELOW
POSSIBLE TORNADO TOUCHDOWN AT DOGWOOD FESTIVAL MALL AT LAKELAND AND OLD FANNIN (JAN)
1735 	UNK 	MADISON 	MADISON 	MS 	32.45 	-90.11 	BELOW
PROPERTY DAMAGE - TREES ON CARS - POWER LINES DOWN - HOUSES DAMAGED EAST WEST COUNTY LINE ROAD IN RIDGELAND. ALSO TREES AND POWER LINES DOWN LIVINGSTON ROAD IN MADISON (JAN)
1732 	UNK 	RICHLAND 	RANKIN 	MS 	32.23 	-90.17 	BELOW
ROOF OFF OF SOUTHERN TRACTOR IN RICHLAND ON 49SOUTH. POSSIBLE TOUCHDOWN OF TORNADO (JAN)
1643 	UNK 	3 S VICKSBURG 	WARREN 	MS 	32.29 	-90.87 	BELOW
*** 1 INJ *** TRAILER DESTROYED BY 4 FT DIAMETER OAK TREE ON WARRIORS TRAIL. MINOR INJURY TO OCCUPANT. (JAN)

[Nick F]

Will probably decide later tomorrow where to target for Monday - probably the Vernon (TX) to Altus (OK) area the way it looks atm - but the area may shift east a little like previous days risks, some doubts to whether the expected shortwave will move in to co-incide with best daytime potential though - but wind shear should be good - otherwise could be another late evening jobby:

DAY 3 CONVECTIVE OUTLOOK

NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK

0228 AM CDT SAT APR 05 2008

VALID 071200Z - 081200Z

...THERE IS A SLGT RISK OF SVR TSTMS FROM KS/WRN MO INTO NCNTRL

TX...

...SRN/CNTRL PLAINS...

LATEST GFS/ECMWF ARE CONSIDERABLY STRONGER THAN 00Z NAM WITH

EJECTING SHORTWAVE TROUGH INTO THE CNTRL PLAINS MONDAY. THIS

FEATURE WILL UNDOUBTEDLY FORCE RAPID BOUNDARY LAYER

RECOVERY/MOISTENING ACROSS THE SRN PLAINS AS WARM FRONT RETREATS NWD

ACROSS OK INTO SRN KS DURING THE OVERNIGHT HOURS. GIVEN THE

EXPECTED STRONG HEIGHT FALLS ACROSS KS IT APPEARS THE GREATEST

FORCING AND CONCENTRATION OF THUNDERSTORMS WILL DEVELOP/SPREAD

ACROSS KS/NRN OK INTO WRN MO DURING THE OVERNIGHT

HOURS...MODULATED/ENHANCED BY STRENGTHENING LLJ ACROSS THIS REGION

AFTER DARK. IN ALL LIKELIHOOD MUCH OF THIS ACTIVITY SHOULD BE

ELEVATED IN NATURE...THOUGH CONSIDERABLE ELEVATED CAPE SHOULD

ENHANCE ELEVATED SUPERCELL/HAIL POTENTIAL.

OF LESS CERTAINTY IS THE PROSPECT FOR WARM SECTOR THUNDERSTORM

DEVELOPMENT ACROSS WRN OK INTO NWRN TX. SRN FRINGE OF SHORTWAVE

WILL GLANCE THIS REGION AFTER DARK...THOUGH GREATEST LOW LEVEL

CONVERGENCE SHOULD BE NOTED ALONG WARM FRONT ACROSS SRN KS/NRN OK.

FORECAST SOUNDINGS ALONG DRY LINE SUGGEST CONVECTIVE TEMPERATURES

WILL BE REALIZED AS TEMPERATURES WARM INTO THE 80S.

HOWEVER...TIMING OF UPPER TROUGH WILL NOT BE PARTICULARLY FAVORABLE

FOR LATE AFTERNOON THUNDERSTORM DEVELOPMENT. FOR THIS REASON IT

APPEARS ANY SUPERCELLS THAT DEVELOP WILL BE ISOLATED IN NATURE...AND

THESE COULD BE SHORT LIVED IF THE UPPER SHORTWAVE IS DELAYED.

NEEDLESS TO SAY...STRONG SHEAR/MODERATE INSTABILITY WILL DEVELOP

ACROSS MUCH OF THE SRN PLAINS BY LATE AFTERNOON/EVENING.

THUNDERSTORM INITIATION/MATURATION IS STILL SOMEWHAT QUESTIONABLE AT

LOWER LATITUDES. LATER OUTLOOKS WILL ADDRESS THESE CONCERNS AND

ADJUST RISK AREA/INTENSITY ACCORDINGLY.

..DARROW.. 04/05/2008

Looking good for day 5 over the Sern plains, not sure I fancy a day 4 chase over Misery (MO) though:

LATER ON DAY5...SLOWER ECMWF SOLUTION IS EXPECTED TO RESULT IN

SEVERE THREAT ACROSS MUCH OF CNTRL/NRN TX INTO OK. HEIGHTS WILL

BEGIN TO FALL ACROSS THE SRN ROCKIES WITH STRONGER MID LEVEL FLOW

EXPECTED TO SPREAD INTO THE SRN PLAINS...ATOP MOISTENING/UNSTABLE

WARM SECTOR. WHILE STRONG WARM ADVECTION WILL LIKELY DRIVE A

CONSIDERABLE AMOUNT OF CONVECTION WEDNESDAY ACROSS NWRN TX INTO

OK...TRUE WARM SECTOR DEVELOPMENT IS ALSO POSSIBLE DURING THE LATE

AFTERNOON HOURS ACROSS WCNTRL TX. SEVERE THUNDERSTORM POTENTIAL

SHOULD THEN SPREAD ENEWD TOWARD THE LOWER MS VALLEY IF UPPER TROUGH

EJECTS AS MODELS PROJECT. GIVEN THE UNCERTAINTY IN LATER PERIODS

WILL NOT OUTLOOK SEVERE BEYOND DAY5.

[Paul Sherman]

4 Days of Severe Weather coming up for the Plains, could be quite a few Tornadoes reported between Monday and Friday!!

SPC Not going with the Models at the moment with regards to tomorrow, GFS, NAM & RUC Showing output that would result in at least a MODERATE For tomorrow but SPC Just not buying into this which is strange but could have something to do with the downgrades of the past week, if the SPC Jumps onboard then the Update at 820pm tonight could see it go Moderate for tomorrow. Early indications show a NW Oklahoma or W Oklahoma Dryline set-up at present, will post a target tomorrow Morning after more model runs

Paul Sherman

[Hilton]

We have an exam on Tuesday that we really should be spending Monday revising for, so that should help to make storms tomorrow a definite!