Last day out with VORTEX2, we targeted an area near Childress, TX where decent llvl moisture existed along with several preexisting outflow boundaries. Convection struggled to get going initially with several attempts across the eastern TX panhandle that soon failed to effectively break through the capping inversion. Eventually, a storm became sustained along an outflow boundary and developed into a supercell near Elk City, OK. We headed north to intercept and arrived to decent structure with a modest meso and persistent lowering. Riding with the CSWR mesonet team, we performed a few transects to collect data while continuing visual observations. The storm soon weakened with a second storm developing across the NE TX panhandle. This storm proved to be out of reach, and we called it a day observing a nice sunset behind the storm’s anvil.
Andy Bailey, Ryan Cutter, and I performed the damage survey from Milan, Mo eastward to the Adair, MO county line (just east of Kirksville, MO). Three separate tracks were found along the path, although we’ve received a few reports of possible satellite tornados observed as well (no damage was found from the possible satellites). Most damage along the three tracks was of EF1 strength with EF2 damage occurring east of Kirksville where a two story home and pole barn was destroyed.
Full write up can be found here.
Due to work obligations, I was limited to a fairly close radius around KC. Met up with Scott Blair in Ottawa, KS with a target along the cold front near I-35 thinking the strong cap would keep convection more isolated farther southwest. Headed west out of Ottawa on I-35, then north on Hwy 75 to intercept the initial cell approaching Olivet. A conical, then blocky wall cloud soon developed as the updraft approached our location. This feature soon became ragged and elongated as new updrafts began to develop on the southwest flank of the original. We dropped south again on 75 then briefly east on Old Hwy 50 to observe some brief broad rotation beneath the new updraft region. While repositioning south towards Burlington, observed walnut sized hail approximately 8 miles north of Burlington. We did noticed tightening cloud base rotation near a newly developing updraft region as we dropped south near New Strawn. This apparently was the feature which later produced the tornado southwest of Harris/Northeast of Burlington. However, we were unable to witness the tornado as precip obscured the area of rotation as we repositioned.
Caught back up with the storm east of Burlington as it made another attempt at more enhanced cloud base rotation. Scud rapidly condensed into the developing wall cloud as mid level banding became more impressive. However, this soon weakened and became ragged as upstream convection seeded the inflow region. Headed east toward Lone Elm while observing another round of walnut to golf ball sized hail. The storm then began to exhibit strengthening SRV (and soon a strong gate to gate couplet) as it propagated southeast toward the Moran/Bronson area. Rapid differential motion became evident along with several long inflow tails along hwy 54 west of Redfield. The storm had become HPish by this time and the area of rotation soon became obscured. Ended the day at sunset near Fulton while being treated to illuminated mammatus on the north side of the precip.
Departed with Blair for a single-day chase across the High Plains of New Mexico. We observed a supercell with some decent structure at times north of Roswell. However, this ended up being the storm that didn’t produce a tornado. We followed the storm along Highway 70 before it quickly weakened about one hour before sunset.
Got a late start on the day as initial convection developed near DDC prior to 18Z. Initial target was near the anticipated llvl moisture tongue beneath the upper level cold core near the KS/OK border (just north of Alva, OK). However while en route near ICT, a small storm developed about 30 miles to the north near Mt. Hope. Since this storm was so close and theoretically within a similar atmospheric environment, I decided to take a look. My intial view revealed a fairly robust updraft tower as the low topped convection propaged north along a residual boundary. Met up with Blair just north of Burrton where we briefly observed benign llvl structure. With little overall motion beneath the updraft region, we decided to sample the hail size within the core. We positioned along CR785 about 8 miles N of Burrton where we observed copious amounts of nickel to quarter sized hail as the storm intensified over our location. We continued to observe and measure up to 1″ hail near the intersection of CR556 and CR785.
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