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A nice enjoyable chase with far fewer problems (hordes, 'skeeters', car issues, navigational goofs, etc.). This was a very early morning with my head into the 'Garages' sections of the Childress, TX Yellow Pages. It turns out that Childress is a town with a lot of garages, as 287 is the main route between Dallas and Denver. After getting a bearing on some locations I headed out around 7:30 a.m. and started to check out the options. After rejecting a few, I arrived at Eddies Auto at 8:00 a.m. just as Eddie was pulling up. I explained things to Eddie (who, what, why, and that there may be reason for me to want to chase later that day) and he said he'd be happy to look at me first. As soon as his mechanics arrived they took the wheels off and it was soon clear that the pads were shot. He thought there was enough metal left on the rotors to turn them (and you could see the wear). He had the pads in stock and had the rotors turned and everything ready to roll at 9:08 a.m. (total $77.45 USD with tax)! Thanks Eddie!
I went back to the motel where John Monteverdi and Chuck Doswell were already looking at data. John was kind enough to provide me with a real printed sfc map - thanks John! I recall Chuck was not overly optimistic for the day (with best opportunities E of I-35). I felt I wanted to play the good moisture/high CAPE south of the Red River from roughly Wichita Falls to Gainesville, TX , so I bid all adieu and hit the road down 287. Al Moller called from AMA and mentioned a possible play in extreme NE NM/SE CO, but I decided to stick with my plan. I spoke with Lon Curtis who liked the region from The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex to Abilene/The Big Country. He planned to head to Fort Worth for data and map analysis. I continued on to Wichita Falls for lunch and meandered around south of town as really like the cu field overhead (depicted in the satellite image below).
05-30-2001 - W TX weak sfc low/trough with good sfc moisture south of boundaries along and north of the Red River. |
05-30-2001 - Cumulus development around and along boundaries from central OK trough north TX and back towards southwest TX. Better shear to north in central Ok (as evidenced by billows/ripples - nicely depicted in the Hi Res Image). Lon Curtis still liked the Big Country and parts NE and I had moved down US 287 and E on US 82 to Ringgold, TX where I sat for hours (and received some updates from John Moore in Phoenix). I related to Lon that the cu looked better N of the Red River and he adjusted his target further NE to tentatively center on Jacksboro. I wish I hadn't been so earnest in hindsight, as it was no better N of the Red compared to that along the boundary SW of me in TX. I eventually took the plunge and crossed into OK and headed as far N on US 81 as US 70/Waurika, OK. Lon followed and headed E on OK 32 to a hilltop W of Grady. I followed down to meet him and we sat and watched things try a bubble up. It became clear that the cu to our W was better at sustaining the development and we started back towards Ryan, OK (stopped and said hi to some OU students). One cell quickly became dominant to our W as we neared Ryan and started south back towards Texas. The storm had matured very quickly with a pronounced inflow tail from the E (we had no time to stop for pics). A Tornado warning was issued based on spotter reports of a tornado near Joy - and I was not over joy-ed that I hadn't stayed at Ringgold, TX where I had hung out for so long (or stayed south of SPS where I was also hanging out earlier or had met Lon at Jacksboro). Such is chasing - you get over it or quit! I got over it! We headed west on US 82 and maneuvered around the SE of Henrietta and S on TX 148 - stopping for pictures about 5-7 miles S of town. |
05-30-2001 - Here is an altered image of the updraft of the storm E of SPS as taken from about 5-7 miles S Henrietta on TX 148. Note this image has been adjusted for brightness and contrast to fix up an under exposure - and I have slightly over adjusted to highlight morphology. |
05-30-2001 - Lon very quickly picked up on the back building along the boundary and urged we promptly move west to keep perspective on the new updrafts. I was clear from the time we were on the updraft side that the tornadic potential had really dropped (e.g. we never saw another inflow tail) but we were happy to just enjoy the aesthetics the cells offered! We saw quite a few chasers on this one, but everyone was well spaced and well behaved (except for some yahoo dog - i.e. canine - that insisted on getting in Lon's way - he avoided the dog). This image shows some scud during a rapid rise that resulted in a non-rotating wall cloud. Image looks to the north and was taken from FR 172 as we moved to the west between Bluegrove and Scotland, TX. |
05-30-2001 - Image taken somewhere along the route mentioned in the text for the previous image)! A horseshoe shaped updraft with rain curtains and sunlight make for a nice combination in this image of a storm that's threat was limited to outflow winds and baseball sized hail. I liked this scene/image nonetheless! |
Light was fading as Lon and I headed W of Scotland and towards Archer City. At Archer we decided to call it a day. Shortly after we split a Tornado Warning went out for the storm to the east near Windthorst, TX. I found a high view to the east on a west Archer City residential street and could clearly see the big blocky non rotating wall cloud over Windthorst. I began taking video and an senior gentleman came off his porch (people all knew about the warning - but I can't recall if they were using the sirens). I gestured that come over and take a look, which he did when I explained there was no tornado danger. We watched though the houses as he explained that he saw a tornado south of town (I think he was talking about the year before but can't recall for sure - maybe it will be picked up on the video soundtrack). The residential street I was on took me back to the main street (TX 25 I believe) which had a restored theater that looked suspiciously like the one in "The Last Picture Show", but I can't say for sure! On the way back to SPS I called the null report into Roger Edwards. Both OUN and SPC can expect copies of the event when I overcome the issue with my VCR and am able to produce them (and I will hopefully add some video captures to better relate the scene when I can access the tools to do so).