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April 3rd South Central OK and Northern TX

(Video of the Large Hail we drove into this day will be posted in this Posting next week)

Thursday April 3^rd 08

We left Elk City and made our way south to Lawton OK to make a new forecast, most of the setup and forecast from wed night early Thursday morning (1am) was similar, except we noticed that the surface winds were lower in the south central OK area and there was a southwesterly wind component a little further to our west.

We decided to wait for the initiation in Duncan OK. We saw development to our northwest but on the radar we noticed a cell
to our northeast, we considered chasing it but it exploded and
then just hauled northeast at 59mph.

We checked wx worx and we noticed a cell that was to our southwest moving NE at 35mph. This one looked promising and the other cell was gone. We wanted to intercept the southwest cell that was intensifying. We decided to try and get past it to get to the southeast side of the cell, so we had to get there quickly to avoid punching the core. We were making good time getting past it so we decided we might be able to even take a little bit of a shortcut. Well we were a little close so we ended up getting into the hail core. We ended up getting quarter to tennis ball size hail and my windshield is now destroyed, but we did get to see some decent structure and and a tad bit of rotation, we might have seen a wall cloud but there was a lot of evaportransportation so it was hard to see if there was anything. There wasn’t enough low level wind for that. We noticed a cell that was more isolated to the southwest and decided to hit that up since the northeast one was appearing to be clustered. We chased it and it had pretty much 0 surface wind besides the downdraft. It was in its dying cycle when we caught up to it.

This GVTS made some great photos and some entertainment as I was out dancing in the hail with my helmet on and then experiencing the RFD in my SUV. We got some good sunset updraft pictures of the cell shearing out and then we left hoping to get some lightning on the way to Elk City. On Friday April 4^th 2008 we stopped in Greensburg KS to show skinner and mark the tornado path and the rebuilding of the town. I met some nice people who were helping get donated toilets out to locals. They apparently have heard of the storms of 2000xx and the money that they got from the proceeds, they apparently like chasers and especially the ones who have been involved in the donations and volunteer efforts to rebuild/renew Greensburg KS.

(What use to be Pizza Hut)

Good Chase Potiential April 2nd 2008

Chase: S Central Oklahoma, North TX

Chasers: Ryan Shepard, Jon Skinner, Mark Farnik

Wed April 2^nd 08

We departed to Elk City OK to stay with Skinner’s friend for a decent looking weather setup for Thursday in South OK and Northern TX. Forecasted was a short wave trough, good instability and high cape values. Mid level shear was going to be favorable, higher levels were almost over done with wind shear, and temp/dew point spread was to be about 65/75. The main concerns were the early morning convection and low level winds coming from the southwest. SPC early Thursday morning moderate risk was still out, but the tornado risk was further east due to the jet that shifted more in the OK,TX,AR,LA borders area. We decided our best bet for Thursday would be the Wichita Falls area for the Southern Cells that would develop along the dry line and in front of the Cold front. There was more than enough warm moisture coming from the south. And the cells that would move east, the right splits and right movers off that area could pick up some of the better shear environment that came from the winds shifting from southwest to more southerly winds.

April 1st 2008 Goodland Kansas

Tuesday April 1^st 2008

I woke up in my car in Salina at another hotel parking lot and then started driving home to Greeley, CO. When I got to east of Goodland KS I noticed some small dust devils forming on a burnt grass field. I decided to pull over and get some footage just for fun. I ended up catching a beautiful dust devil that looked similar to a mini land spout tornado. Was a nice vortex that went up about 60 ft high.

March 31st 2008 OK & TX

Monday March 31^st 2008

Left Weatherford for far south central OK to a Moderate Risk for the entire southeastern part of Oklahoma, part of northern TX and parts of AR and MO. There was a 15% hatched area for tornadoes in the North TX, South Central, and Eastern OK. My chase target was Ardmore OK. I messed around in some cells developing along the front and then made my way down to Northern TX near Gainesville TX, then came up behind the Supercell from the south up Hw 377 and then paralleled the supercell to the east on Hw70, which had a lot of other chasers, local news stations, Roger Hill with silver lining tours and tornadovideos.net. The cell had good shear and reported a tornado at one point but I was late for that. It eventually went HP and died out, with the Squall line that was with the dominant Cold Front. On my way back west I had a close call when it got dark with some rotation in a cell that was apart of the squall line. I parked next to a couple fire fighters that were spotting. I showed them the areas of rotation to our west while emergency management got on the horn and told us to take cover. A few minutes later the rotation passed to our southwest so we were ok. I have to say though I did end up putting on my goggles and helmet because it was dark and the tornado risk had elevated. That same part of the county was tornado warned about 10 min later. It was time to go home, so I drove north watched some lightning and drove to Salina KS for the night.

March 30th 2008 Oklahoma

Sunday March 30^th 2008

Departed for Central OK at 2:30am to chase a Slight Risk in West Central Oklahoma with a small 5% tornado risk. The Carlson’s and Tony Laubach also took this trip. After taking a 3 hour nap early Sunday morning in Hays, I kept driving south towards Weatherford OK. Initiation started around 5:30pm near Cordell. A southern cell of interest near Cordell had good wind shear and started to develop a hook. This was a short chase because it was close to sunset but I did get some beautiful footage of the updraft with the sunset. Also a huge turtle was crossing the road and told me to take my lectures to a convention of people who like lectures. So I stopped and filmed him walking, he decided to turn and confront me and get into an offensive snapping position. After watching these storms, enjoying the first thunderstorm environment since October, I got out of the way of the downdraft and got in behind the cell. As it got dark another cell that developed to my southwest had some decent sized hail, it was traveling in my direction and I didn’t want to punch the core of the cell I was on to my east so I waited out the hail in a carwash. Tony Laubach didn’t make it to cover so his windshield got spidered. I then found a hotel in weather ford and slept for the night in my trailblazer in the parking lot.

New Hail Guard Invention

I have been trying to create hail guards to protect my windows in large hail. I started making ones for the side windows using PVC, Plexi Glass and attaching them to the vehicle via metal straps nose clamped to the roof rack and strapped to the frame through the wheel well. Well after spending hours on creating these guards, the driving tests failed as the plexi-glass shattered anyway. When I get a chance I will upgrade to Lexan (Polycarbonate) Aims has been kind enough to en corporate my roof mounted hail guard for the windshield to their welding class. Still working on attaching the Mesh to the aluminum frame and painting it, aims should have the main steel attachments finished tomorrow! I will post a picture once its on the car!


























(Windshield Guard)