2003 Chase Logs
June "Friday The 13th", 2003
West Texas; Terry County
June 12th, 2003
"Northwest TX, Once Again"
Left the house at 3:30pm for a target of Throckmorton to Seymour, TX.
The first storm developed southeast of Seymour, but I waited on the struggling storm on the dryline/outflow boundry intersection west of Seymour.
June 11th, 2003
Throckmorton Co. Chase
Supercell between Munday and Haskell, TX.
June 10th, 2003
Throckmorton Co. TX severe storms at sunset.
May 15th, 2003
"TX Panhandle with Chris Overbey"
Tornadic supercell near Clarendon, TX at dusk.
May 7th, 2003
West Central TX:
Tornadic supercell near Baird and Cisco, TX. Baseball- size encounter on hwy283 west of Moran.
May 3rd, 2003
Northwest Texas; Lake Stamford Tornado; Haskell County
May 2nd, 2003
West Central Texas; Brownwood
May 1st, 2003
North Central Texas/Lake Whitney
A little chase today, 300 miles. Wasn't going to chase today but I got home around 1:30pm and did my daily weather forecast (didn't have time this morning like I usually do).
I noticed some good convergence along dryline over north central TX. If I could have been in eastern OK today, I would have. I mean, who doesn't like an outflow boundry intersecting dryline? Somewhere near I-40 would have been my target. But, I was only close enough to catch the N/TX storms, which were alright.
Here's a little scud in southern Johnson County
I did see some updraft too! Here's a hazy wall cloud over Lake Whitney (view is to the north)
This is where the storm became outflow dominate
. All that is left is scud
SCUD!
This shot
"looks" kind of like a wall cloud, but, this was entirely outflow.
April 23rd, 2003
Northwest/North Central Texas
April 19th, 2003
East Central Oklahoma; Mcalister
April 18th, 2003
Northwest Texas LP supercell.
April 15th, 2003
Fast-moving storms made for a very tough 484 mile chase. This, of course, is what I expected with this system, but couldn't pass it up. I never really liked the Kansas area much anyway. That is why I shifted my target toward Shamrock. I did play a little north of there though.
More to come!
April 5th, 2003
Chase started late @3:00pm. I couldn't get my car started so I had to take the "family" van. This turned out to be a BIG mistake.
Storms began developing near Snyder, TX at the nose of the moisture tongue near the dryline/warm front intersection. I left Graham and headed weston 380. As I got near Throckmorton, I knew this was the storm of the day. It was on the warm front moving east. About the time I got into Haskell Co. I heard that this was a tornadic supercell that had already produced at least one tornado near Aspermont. I neared Haskell, the storm had a gigantic, low hanging wall cloud and it was evident that this was a monster storm. The storm continued eastward. As I approached Stamford, out flow underneath the south side of the meso hit me and made driving straight impossible. The van was rock back and forth for about 30 seconds or so. It was like I was in the middle of a battle between the inflow and the outflow. It was definately scary.
Poor road network left me a long way from the storm. I had to loop down to Albany and finally caught back up with the meso on hwy283 and 209 west of Woodson.
This is where the fun begins.
I was watching broad rotation along the meso. I drove east on 209 toward Woodson, there was very isolated hail falling. Near Woodson, I noticed that the meso was getting a little far south of me. At this time the hail started to increase and get larger, about golfball size. I then knew that I needed to hurry because the storm has taken a slight right turned and placed me in thevault area of the storm. As I approached Woodson, the hail was increaing in coverage and intensity. Some of the stones were the size of baseballs. I turned right on hwy 183 toward Breckinridge, and softballs were coming down and there were a lot of them. My "family" van took quite a beating. Shattered windshield, that I forgot to get a pic of, and the back-right window busted completly out. Then proceeded, busted windows and all, to stay with the storm as it moved east to the metroplex and produced alot of significant hail. I made it to Weatherford before heading home to Graham.
Fantastic!
March 17th, 2003
TORNADO VID
STORM REPORTS
Chase started from home at Graham, TX. At 2pm, a storm was moving east from Throckmorton Co. toward Young Co. At about 2:15pm a severe warning was issued for the storm for Young Co. until 3pm. I took hwy67 toward Breckenridge where I could get a good look at the storm. It wasn't at all impressive at that time. As it moved east/southeast so did I. I traveled south on hwy 16 toward Mineral Wells. I was getting anvil precip most of the way down 16 stopping occasionally and getting pics of the storm and wall cloud. Between Graford and Mineral Wells I got some awesome structure pics on the supercell. This is where I met up with Chris. I noticed the RFD wrapping around the wall cloud and then a new base formed just N. of Mineral Wells. But this storm didn't last much longer as new development to the south was occurring and (i believe) using up the northern storms moisture supply. I was on hwy180 east of Mineral Wells then turned south on 113 through Millsap to I-20. At this time, the southern storm really got cranked up. It went from a small rain shaft to s supercell beast in about 10 to 15 mintutes! This storm was serious. I (with Chris in his van behind me) turned on I-20 west toward the storm. It was approaching Santo at this time. I stayed on the access road (thinking maybe I should have got on the interstate) toward the storm and stopped at the rest area about 2 miles form HWY 281. The storm was dumping copious amounts of hail near Santo at this time, but it was still high based. A few minutes later a tornado warning was issued for it. Not long after that abundant scud was developing underneath the based forming a low hanging and rotating wall cloud. Chris went east on I-20, I thought I would try to stay on the updraft side. The only way to do this would be to go west and get to 281 before the storm did. Rapid, low hanging, rotation wall very noticable just before I got to the intersection. I was at this time that I realized that I was racing a developing tornado to the intersection of Hwy 281 and I-20. As I approached the intersection so did the meso. Dust and debris was flying in toward the updraft. I went south on 281. At this time, I believe Tim Marshall saw a dust whirl cross the interstate. I began to head toward Lipan so I could get ahead of it. Eastbound on hwy 4 toward Lipan I saw a small vertical tube backlit by the sun, TORNADO! It was very brief. I continued to 1189 toward Dennis to was the storm fade away toward the east. On my way back home, I drove through some hail on the ground near Santo. It was marble size but about 4 inches deep.
Very nice chase with some great storm structure.
More Pics To Come!
