Yesterday’s chase was incredibly intense and unfortunately the storm we were chasing tore through Elk City destroying homes and leading to at least one death. Although we are out here to see severe weather we never want to see it cause damage and loss of life. My thoughts are with anyone affected by the Tornado outbreak and hail storms yesterday.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=A9ilx9cbDWs

Yesterday’s Chase

Yesterday had all the ingredients required for severe storms and Tornados and the forecast proved to be accurate, this brings with it additional challenges. Good prospects mean we see a convergence of chaser’s making the roads busy and in cases congested. 

This map from the SPC show’s the risk of tornados. Shamrock TX was our target

With an easy drive from Borger TX to Shamrock we were in the perfect position to start the chase by 1pm. The biggest challenge being the art of knowing when to stay put and do nothing, not chasing the first thing on radar.

Storm chasers waiting in Shamrock. The truck pictured is a mobile radar from the University of Oklahoma

At around 3pm chaser’s started to head out, with storms forming to the West and South our next target was McClean TX.

We were the blue circle

We initially set our sites on the storm immediately to our West bumping into a fellow chaser Jock McGinty along the way.

View of the storm over Howardwick.

We tracked this storm South until the challenging road options in the Eastern Texas Panhandle prevented us from chasing. We decided to target the storm to our South as a result. This storm did however put down a tornado shortly after we had committed to the Southern most storm.

The updraft column of our second target for the day

As we got closer this quickly picked up a tornado warning.

The dust on the ground is more than likely a downdraft from cold air descending out of the storm. We did think it could be Tornado briefly.

Although we didn’t see a tornado the storm was producing funnel clouds.

If you look closely you can see a needle like funnel cloud dropping down from the storm

As we drove on into the storm we ran into hail and rain making for some very interesting driving. Along with some very strong rotation above us. 

The whole sky was moving & rotating around us it felt like a tornado could drop on us at any second.

Shortly after this we were back on the road making sure we kept an appropriate distance from anything that looked like producing a tornado.

The sky that was rotating around us as we did some storm fleeing

Below is a short video from inside the car as we drove through a hail core. The hail was around the diameter of a quarter.

After driving through the hail we started to get a view of the storm ahead. On radar the storm heading for Elk City looked very severe on radar.

Just South of Elk City, somewhere hidden in the rain and hail was a tornado. (This photo was featured on the weather channel)

After the road ahead was clear we raced towards I-40 to get further east and away from the storms path. After producing several tornados and dropping hail the size of golf balls this storm was starting to reduce in severity. We got off I-40 at the town of Clinton which had lost all power as a result of the days severe weather. With daylight running out the chase was over.

The final view of the storm from Clinton OK.

We ended our day back in Shamrock TX and the prospect of a well earned rest. The damage caused to Elk City re emphasised the danger present when chasing severe weather and the very real impact it has on people’s lives.

Day 5- Blue skies in Dodge City

No severe weather was forecast for today so with a late start we headed toward Dodge City to set up for the Storms forecast for Thursday in Kansas and Oklahoma. 

A very similar set up to Tuesday but further North and East. Lets hope whatever we see tomorrow is somewhere remote and unpopulated