Australian Severe Weather Forum

hi gang

     Sat morn saw Cindy and I travel from SW MO across OK and up into the panhandle area.
 there was a very long line of towers going up from deep in TX across the handle and into SW KS
   one of the nthrn ones wlooked quite good for an hr or so creating a good anvil, till it died out
with the lack of any new inflow
  We turned south and stayed around the Perryton, TX area and watched 2 nice LP cells go by
the second one had a good base and was causing some decent swirl ups of dust from the paddocks below it

we observed later on the satellite visible image loop that the largest cells were still to the south of us
and heeding what some of the guys we were chasing with several days ago said  that its always worth chasing the
 tail end charlie cells as they often are more discrete that ones further nth up the line

  This influenced my target area for sunday (28th) and we headed south to Shamrock on I-40 / Hwy 83 jnct.
By 1430 Hrs CDT the towers had started going up along the dryline and we headed west along I - 40 to McLean
and sth on Hwy 273.
  btw ... east of the dryline the DP = 65+ deg west of it the DP was only 20-25 deg

  I have lost track of the number of times we travelled up and down Hwy 273 today as we tracked each new cell that
traversed the area in a generally NE direction.  there were some 8 cells in total that we tracked ...  some hi base LP
some low based and HP some had good lightning  CC and CG  others had very little lightning.
 the last cell put on a wonderful mammatus display to end the day and our stormchase time in the USA for this time

  As the sun set and with a tear in our eyes, we drove westward for accomodation in Armarillo and late dinner

  will put pic's up on my www site for the trip when I get home
  we fly out of Los Angeles on thursday

take care Jimmy, Dave and Co  have a good chase time for ur remaining time in Tornado Alley

cheers
Dave and Cindy Nelson

Panhandle chasing is a nice way to end your trip.

We have been chasing the Panhandle 27th and 28th too. Couldn't be bothered with the big drive to the Dakotas given it was a marginal set up. The dry line is a treat to watch. Yesterday afternoon at 2pm the weather was almost clear with just small cumulus and by about 3.30pm we had golf ball hail.

The prognosis is for more Panhandle chasing this week.

Jimmy's photos for 27th May are here:

http://australiasevereweather.com/photography/photos/new/jd2006052904.html
http://australiasevereweather.com/photography/photos/new/jd2006052905.html

thanks Michael,
  nice pix from Jimmy,   where was he chasing on the 27th ?  ie.  where were those pix taken   ...
I would assume he was up in NE or the Dakotas area ?


   hey nzstorm,   what's ur first name ? you dont sign any of your posts   
  ok on also being up in the panhandle area.   it looks like it really fired up there again today
with one of the biggest cells being up in the KS -OK bdr  jst NE of Woodward  hope u were still
there to enjoy the fun

 0ver 630 miles travelled today from armarillo TX to winslow AZ and through 3 time zones
my body clock is totally screwed  hahaha 

cheers
Dave and Cindy N

 

Hi Dave - you'll have to wait till Jimmy posts - I just get the photos with no comments about where : )

nzstorm is Steve Williams.

cheers, Michael

Dave, I am so glad you have been out on the plains and I agree there is nothing like the Texas Panhandle, Oklahoma Panhandle, and western parts of Kansas. Don't you love the extreme lapse rates where storms just explode upwards!

We have been in the Dakotas and chased a couple of violent storms 28th May. We had targetted the area but was a little undecided whether we should be in position for activity further east. Once the ridge set in, we opted for western South Dakota. What was about to unfold was a piece of high plains magic. The first storm was photogenic and reasonably lightning active. The cells that followed were storms from hell. Wind and a deluge of hail pounded the vehicle. Hail sizes were predominantly 3cm with some larger stones in diameter. The winds shook our vehicle during strong gusts. The lightning was constant given that the upper trough was taking effect. The second storm just south of this cell became tornado warned given it's strong rotation. It was interesting to observe the veering winds as we neared this storm. The storm structure gradually became exposed by lightning with less precipitation obscuring our view. Then the wall cloud became clearly viewable. A possible funnel was observed though scud obscured most of the view of the base. Yet another extremely lightning active and well structured storm followed in its path. Given we had all the fun, we gave up trying to chase this storm into the early hours of the morning.

We are heading towards the Oklahoma Panhandle today 29th May.
Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

A couple of Jimmy's photos for the 28th:





More here:

http://australiasevereweather.com/photography/photos/new/jd20060603.html

MB