2006 Chase
Summaries
May 3, 2006 -
May 31, 2006
Brian A. Morganti
MAY 3, 2006: Wed - Day 1
- Petersburg, TX:
After reaching our initial target in CDS we
decided to continue further south. The cold was pushing south and the area
near Abilene and Sweetwater had better instability and stronger winds at the 500 mb
level. A few weak showers developed as we approached Guthrie, but these
soon died out. A few turkey towers had developed to our west so we decided
to wait since we were just south of the CF and east of the dryline. Around
5PM we headed west on highway 82 towards a developing storm that soon became
severe warned in Lubbock County. Another storm just to our WNW also
prompted a severe warning but quickly died out. Two additional storms
formed to our south and began to merge with the Lubbock County storm. The
line began to segment, but every road south seemed to go directly thru the
heaviest core of each storm. While jogging north, west, and then south we
were able to observe several wall cloud occlusions with the LBB storm. We
were able to get in front of the western most storm just as its southern flank
began surging eastward just south of Petersburg. The gust front had a nice tilted shelf cloud which
produced a few suspicious funnel shaped lowerings. I grabbed a few
pictures and blasted south just before we were slammed by 70mph winds with debris
blowing across the road...including a rolling 10' diameter watering trough! We then made a brief attempt to intercept the Kent County supercell, but ran out
of daylight as new storms developed directly overhead. 399m

MAY 4, 2006: Thu - Day 2
- Garden City to San Angelo, TX:
After meeting up with the Tempest gang we hung
out near Stanton watching Cu towers percolate and lean over during the
mid-afternoon hours. An area of enhanced towers developed just to our ESE near
Garden City and we soon had a target storm to chase. We went south on
highway 33 at Garden City to avoid the core and to get south of the updraft
base. We encountered some nickel size hail at that point which was
reported to MID. While stopped further east we saw more hail approaching
our position as the distinctive sound of hailroar could be heard. As we
approached Sterling City (photo below) more hail (nickel - some larger) was
encountered as the storm began to strengthen and turn hard SE. The storm
went from severe to tornado warned as we attempted to drop SE in front of the
storm along highway 87 near SJT. We blasted west out of SJT on
highway 67 and were able to film a back-lighted wall cloud in the fading light.
No confirmed tornado but a fun chase for sure. 350m

MAY 5, 2006: Fri - Day 3
- Dawson/Martin, TX - Supercell & Tornado:
The 12Z ETA painted a nice bulls eye somewhere
near Andrews, TX with a very tight Theta-E axis oriented E/W running west thru
Andrews, TX into NM. As the afternoon progressed a storm formed near Hobbs
and we began to pursue this storm while keeping an eye out for any new storm
development to its south. We were able to stay parallel to the storms
southern flank via highway 62 east and watched the RFD dust and wall cloud
lowerings just to our north in extreme western Gaines county TX.

We continued east on 62 and got pelted a few
times with nickel to quarter size hail, fortunately no windows were broken but
several new dents were to add to my collection. The storm was starting to
trek southeastward so we cut south via 349 towards Patricia. This afforded us a
spectacular view of the barrel shaped updraft structure and backlit wall cloud
formations to our west.
Further south near Patricia we watched the storm
approach as the main rain/hail core slid off to our NNE. At the same time
an RFD cut was wrapping some precipitation around us just to our south as we
observed a large "gustnado" filled with tumbleweeds moving rapidly west to east
cross highway 349 just as we began driving south. About a half mile
further south I turned around and looked back north and saw a new and much
tighter red dust whirl developing about 200 yards to my NNE. I jumped out
the truck and filmed this ever tightening dust whirl as it barely drifted
eastward. The rotation was definitely anti-cyclonic and a barely visible
dust tube extended a few hundred feet about the whirl and probably was occurring
just north of the RFD. I could not see any funnel or tight circulation at
the cloud base overhead, but boy...this sure looked like a developing tornado.
Another chaser later confirmed that this was a tornado. He could see a "nub" at
the cloud base above the red dust whirl from his view from the NW looking SSE.
(Below are two video captures (sorry, no time to grab the DSLR). Time was
8:02 PM CDT.

We continued south another mile or two and looked
to our ENE to view the backside of the beautiful updraft structure!

The storm was now moving well off to our east so
we stopped and filmed the final show from highway 176 looking east towards Big
Springs. Another great chase day in Texas, making it three for three!
400m

MAY 6, 2006: Sat - Day 4
- South Central TX Bust:
The outflow boundary from DRT to SJT failed to
produce the severe storms that we had hoped for today...possibly due to weak
convergence at the surface and relatively weak wind flow aloft. Only a few
briefly severe storms were observed from a distance, none of which prompted me
to unpack my camera. 400m.
May 7, 2006: Sun -
Day 5 - SW TX - Permian Basin:
By mid-afternoon an isolated storm began to
struggle in our target area a little west of Lamesa. By the time we got on
its south side it had become LP in appearance and began to weaken. The
following two photos were taken just north of Spartenberg at 7:36 & 7:48 PM CDT.
`
Severe warned storms were in progress about 75
miles to our SSW between FST and MAF. We were able to intercept the
northwestern most cell in the the Midland/Odessa area looking south from highway
1788 just as the sun was setting.

The storm appeared to be a left split off an
earlier storm and was moving off to our ENE. We took our final
photos looking east about a half hour after sunset. Not exactly what we
were hoping for, but a nice ending to the day never-the-less. 425m

May 8, 2006: Mon - Day 6
- SW KS - "Tail End" Storms:
We got a late start leaving Midland and had a
long drive to reach the southern edge of what I hoped would be the best storms
of the day somewhere in SW KS. By the time we reached Canadian, TX around
4:30 PM an MD was issued for west central KS which was soon followed by a
tornado watch box...which was immediately followed by a flat tire---yikes!
Fortunately I was able to change the tire quickly and replace the damaged one in
Canadian in short order (thanks to the guys at the Pit Stop tire repair shop).
By the time we reached the KS border a messy line of storms was occurring in NE
KS with some weak convection breaking out to the southwest of these storms.
As we entered DDC we had a couple of developing storms to choose from just west
of town. The southern storm soon croaked and the one to our north rapidly
became the dominate storm. We followed this storm along E/W oriented
Barnett road north of DDC at sunset and had a good view of the structure to our
north. We observed at least one attempt at a clear slot and a brief but
strong plume of RFD dust below (video only). A large wall cloud loomed
briefly to the east of the dust plume. We then followed the updraft base
eastward in the fading light, but the show was over.

After a late dinner we noticed a new storm just
west of town and decided to film some lightning before going to the motel.
While watching a so-so light show the storm went from severe to tornado warned.
We looped around the backside of the storm as it progressed to the south of
Dodge City. We encountered a bit of nickel size hail and then watched
lightning illuminating the main updraft tower to our east. No lowerings
were observed. 650m
May 9, 2006: Tue - Day 7
- TX Panhandle Severe:
I opted to chase the Panhandle region today in
hopes of finding a late day sculpted supercell rather than drive to the jungles
of eastern Oklahoma for what could have been an explosive event. We hung
out with the Tin Man in Laverne until early afternoon and then went west to
Guymon to await a weak and broken line of storms approaching from the west.
We drove south on highway 136 into Hansford County Texas in order to keep in
front of the strongest cell to our WSW. The storms were linear and made a
brief attempt to produce a weak shelf cloud. The following photo was
perhaps our best view looking west.
We then drove east as several other cells began to form ahead of
this line and to our south. We eventually became interested in a cell to
our SSW and intercepted this severe warned cell just north of Shamrock from
Highway 83. At one point Threat-Net was showing 6 shear markers on the
storms southern flank. We could see a large flat RFB to our SW and CC/CG
activity dramatically increased.
The cell had become a hard right mover and was beginning to cut
off our path south of Shamrock. We blasted east a few miles on I-40 and
stopped to watch an incredible light show back to our WSW. We could see a
tight cone-shaped scud bomb preceding the core of the storm (no rotation was
visible). Meanwhile another storm further south near CDS had gone severe
and later became tornado warned after dark. This was the storm that
produced the damaging tornado that was reported by Sam Barricklow. If only
the storms wouldn't have waited until after dark to intensify. All the storms
north of I-40 were plagued by NE surface winds rather than the ESE winds progged
by RUC even as late as the 18Z run. 402m
May 10, 2006: Wed - Day 8
- No Chase: AMA - had the vehicle serviced
and ate at the Big Texan.
May 11, 2006: Thu - Day 9
- No Chase: OKC - Washed the truck and happy laundry
time!
May 12, 2006: Fri - Day
10 - No Chase: OKC/CDS - Visited OKC Memorial and
drove to CDS for long shot on Saturday.
May 13, 2006: Sat - Day
11 - CDS Tornado Damage & Haskell County TX TCu:
Alicia and I drove around Childress and
photographed the damage resulting from a tornado that impacted the NE side of
town late Tuesday evening. The damage path measured about 200 yards wide x
1/2 mile long. Most severely impacted was the high school gymnasium and
surrounding buildings.

We then drifted south of town in hopes of finding
one last storm for Alicia. A few weak storms formed south of I-20 near
Abilene, and a new area of towering cumulus formed just to our SE in Haskell
County, TX. We pursued this area of convection until sunset but the bases
remained very high due to shallow moisture and a large dew point depression.
At one point the temperature reached 101F with a dew point of 61F. CDS-SPS
350m

May 14, 2006: Sun -
Day 12 - No Chase - Travel Day to OKC:
May 15, 2006: Mon - Day
13 - No Chase - Orientation Day T2:
May 16, 2006: Tue - Day
14 - No Chase - TT2 Day 1: OKC to TAD - Today we observed 1 dust
devil, 17 pheasants, 4 turkeys, 1 jackrabbit, and one very dead armadillo...the
pathetic weather pattern continues. 560m
May 17, 2006: Wed - Day
15 - No Chase - TT2 Day 2: TAD
to Alamosa, CO. Witnessed weak mountain convection and visited the Great
Sand Dunes National Park north of Alamosa. Day 8 with no storms!
175m.
May 18, 2006: Thu - Day
16 - No Chase - TT2 Day 3: Alamosa to Lakewood, CO. Visited Royal
Gorge and then headed north to Lakewood for the evening. A weak mountain
storm near Colorado Springs spit out a few distant lightning bolts. Day 9
with no real storms. 268m
May 19, 2006: Fri - Day
17 - No Chase - TT2 Day 4: Lakewood, CO to Imperial, NE.
A few weak storms moved eastward off the mountains and produced gusty winds and
blowing dust as they died out. Day 10 with no significant storm.
272m
May 20, 2006: Sat - Day
18 - NE PH/WY - TT2 Day 5: Although no severe weather
was encountered, we at least witnessed a real thunderstorm or two as we traveled
north thru Kimball, NE to north of Lusk, WY. A few storms put on a
semi-decent lightning display at times and it was nice to hear our first real
thunder in 11 days! We finished our chase about 40 miles north of Lusk in
an attempt to reach a "tail-end" severe-warned storm to our north in Westin
County. The convective cloud towers from that storm were soon obscured by
lower clouds, but a new storm formed to our west just as the sun was setting.
495m
May 21, 2006: Sun - Day
19 - Lusk, WY - TT2 Day 6: Today was almost a repeat
of Saturday's activity. We started the day in Scotts Bluff, NE and ended
up on an isolated storm about 15 miles north of Lusk along highway 85. We
seemed to be in the right place according to model progs and surface
observations, but once again meager moisture prevented this storm from reaching
severe limits. 208m

May 22, 2006: Mon - Day
20 - Northeast CO - TT2 Day 7: A frustrating day given
the hopes we had for a severe weather outbreak somewhere in the tri-state region
of NE CO, SW NE, and NW KS. Shallow moisture and timing of upper level
support were the likely culprits today. A line of messy severe-warned
storms formed along the I-25 corridor in Colorado and moved north with the
strong southerly flow in the mid and upper levels. We stayed further to
the east and north near the best surface convergence and instability axis and
wound up with a few isolated storms that tried to get going in extreme NE CO
near Holyoke.
A line of storms developed just to our west near Julesburg after sunset and
displayed a little structure and some lightning, but overall the day was a big
disappointment. 505m

May 23, 2006: Tue - Day
21 - Northeast Nebraska - TT2 Day 8:
After reviewing the 18Z RUC we finally settled on heading north from Grand
Island to the "northern" target somewhere in Northeast NE or possibly further
north into SD. Along the way storms began initiating to our northwest and
we made several stops to watch new storms forming to our immediate west. Bill
Reid, Scott W., Brad C., Kinney A., and myself all agreed to continue moving further north
into an area shown to have the best instability and backed winds on the SPC
meso-analysis page. A line of storms soon formed to our west and we could
only hope that it would break into more discrete cells as the day wore on.
When this didn't happen we began to target the stronger cells within the line to
our SSW to the west of Columbus. We just started on trek south when a cell
to our immediate WSW started to look much better on Threat Net and displayed a
shear marker. We decided to check this one out and stopped to have a
better look along Highway 275 about 3 miles west of Meadow Grove. Jack
Corso was already capturing photos to his south of a large orange/brown dust
cloud being blown out ahead of the gust front to the east. At
approximately 6:50 PM CDT the following three photos were taken looking south.
A rather tight dust whirl can be seen on the ground to the east of a small
cone-shaped funnel located to the west of the dust whirl and pointing eastward.
It appears that the gust front's outflow winds were pushing the circulation at
ground level off to the east. I'm surmising this could be called a forward
flank tornado in the gust front region. At this point I switched to video
as the blowing dust took on a "haboob" look and the dust column tightened to
cloud base. This feature was imbedded to the west of the leading edge of the
blowing dust.

The dust whirl continued moving to the NE and
crossed the road in front of us as the tornado sirens wailed in Meadow Grove. Threat Net kept good track of this
circulation with the shear marker moving off to our northeast. We
continued to stay ahead of the line and found another cone-shaped lowering with
a dust whirl below about 3.5 miles west of Pilger. We pulled off highway
275 onto a dirt road looking south and captured the following two photos at 8:09
south. This circulation raced off to our NE and produced a couple of
intense black dust whirls as it crossed highway 275 about a mile to my east.
Quite a bit of tree-debris was encountered at the point where the dust-whirl
crossed the road. We didn't find the discrete supercell we had hoped for,
but not a bad day either.! 495m.
May 24, 2006: Wed - Day
22 - South Central WI - TT2 Day 9: Today was the last
possible chase day for the tour 3 folks so we wanted to do our best to try and
find them a good storm. We targeted far eastern Iowa to start and watched
a line of towers develop to our west near Dubuque. We opted to cross the
river into Illinois in order to stay ahead of any developing storms and soon
found ourselves heading east on Highway 11 across southern Wisconsin. We
managed to stay with or just barely ahead of the southern storms of a long line
of storms that stretched off to our NNE. The most excitement occurred as
we were headed south along highway 51 (near Janesville) to the east of a notch
in a storm to our west that showed a shear marker on Threat Net. We could
see rapidly moving rain curtains racing eastward to our south when Bill R.
announced a possible tornado forming to our west...although none of us could
confirm any circulation for sure. 585m
May 25, 2006: Thu - Day
23 - Springfield, MO - TT2 Day 10: Bill Reid, Scott
W., and Brad C. took most of the guests to southern IL/IN to catch a piece of
the moderate risk area while I took the remaining 5 guests back to OKC. I
needed to be back to pick up another group on Friday and figured we may get
lucky and find an isolated storm along the boundary somewhere in western MO or
eastern OK. By 6PM a long line of somewhat isolated Cb's stretched back
from the Ohio Valley into eastern MO and we had fun watching the towering Cu
bubble to our south. At the same time an isolated storm prompted a severe
and subsequently a tornado warning about 100 miles to our WSW just south of I-44
near Springfield, MO. The storm kept initiating new updrafts over the same
region until we arrived on the scene about an hour and a half later. The
sun was just beginning to set and we were treated to a fabulous display of the
exploding towers just to our south. 785m

May 26, 2006: Fri - Day
24 - OKC - Arrival Day NG Tour: Preparation day for
start of the NG Tour...no chase, traveled to Elk City, OK for the night for
possible DL chase on the way north to target region for Saturday.
May 27, 2006: Sat - Day
25 - Elk City - Oakley, KS NG Tour Day 1: Only a few weak storms
initiated on the DL to our south in the eastern TX PH while we were in route to
our nights stay in Oakley, KS. 500m appx.
May 28, 2006: Sun - Day
26 - Hemingford, NE - NG Tour Day 2: Although
the prospects for daytime supercells diminished with each model run we continued
to target NW Nebraska for the best chance to at least witness a severe storm.
We were not disappointed! Several runs of the ETA and RUC were consistent
in showing a moist east/west axis pointing westward along the western SD/NE
border with a surface low moving northeastward from NE CO to SW SD.
Surface analysis showed meager moisture values in SW NE but were a bit better in
the NW. We hung out in VTN until late afternoon and finally decided to
head west via highway 20. Storms had already initiated in eastern WY and
one lone cell tried to go up among an agitated cu field in north central
Sheridan County...but it soon croaked. We then committed ourselves
to storms moving northeastward into southern and central Sioux County. We
got in front of the lead cell near Hemingford and watched a shelf cloud form to
our west from highway 385 & 2.
The main storm to our west began to weaken and
move northeast as a new cell rapidly strengthened to our SW. This storm
created a large dusty gust front and started heading our way!

We soon had to blast north and east to keep from
being eaten by this beast, but had to stop a mile or so north of the highway 87
and 2 intersection to look back to our SW and SE to have a better look at
the incredible dust cloud (haboob?) that was headed northeast in our direction.

We once again blasted NE along highway 87 just as
the storm became tornado warned, likely induced by a false report as there was
nothing rotating in this beast that we could see. We had to take one last
stop to look back at this incredible sight...definitely the best "cow
catcher"
dust plume clouds I've ever witnessed! What a fun chase for what would have
appeared to be nothing more than a bunch of junky storms on a radar screen.
550m

May 29, 2006: Mon - Day
27 - Blackwell, OK - NG Tour Day 3: We needed to get
as far south as possible so that the NG tour folks could be in OKC Tuesday
morning for their flight home. Fortunately, south central KS appeared to
be as good a place as any to find a severe storm ahead of a slow moving frontal
boundary. As usual the best upper support was well separated from the best
instability which resulted in weak updrafts struggling until the late afternoon
hours. A small cluster of cells maintained a severe warning near Woodward,
OK and ever so slowly drifted ESE. We targeted these storms for intercept
and were treated to a decent CG display for about an hour after sunset as the
main storm cluster drifted off to our south. 600+m.
May 30, 2006: Tue - Day
28 - Roger Mills-Beckman County, OK: After
dropping the NG tour folks off at the OKC airport, returning the rental van, and
re-hooking everything up in my SUV Kinney A., Nancy and I headed up the NW
passage towards Woodward as fast as we could. We wanted to get at least as
far as the western OK PH by early evening in hopes of finding a pretty supercell
moving eastward out of NE NM or SE CO. Along the way we kept our eye on a
persistent "tail-end Charlie" storm that appeared to stay in place over Roger
Mills County, OK. I kept thinking that maybe we should investigate this
storm but I didn't want to get suckered too far away from our target region.
Kinney and I decided to make the final call when we reached the intersection of
highway 270/283...aka "The Tin Man". We studied the data and Threat Net
but still couldn't decide. There was only one thing left to do...consult
the "Tin Man"!
We noticed that the "Tin Man" was looking directly south right at the Roger
Mills storm...well, that was as good a sign as any to head south immediately! We
decided to head down highway 283 in order to stay on the eastern flank of this
storm. Nearly four and a half hours after we originally spotted this storm
we were finally right next to it as it slowly drifted south. ThreatNet
continued to show off and on shear markers with values to 102mph. Just
north of Sayre we stopped to film the base structure and various wall cloud
occlusions off to our west.
We continued south below Sayre and I-40 and were
treated to a nearly constant CG barrage for over an hour. The final bolt
was about as close as I ever want to be to a direct hit! We heard a weird
sonic boom crack and sensed the heat from the flash...a sort of "what the hell
was that" effect before realizing a CG had zapped a tall TV antennae next to a
farm house 100 yards to our north. By the time I looked in that direction
all I could see was a shower of sparks falling from the top of the antennae.
Kinney captured the flash and sound on his camcorder (I had just turned mine
off...dang). We were out there rather quickly after that!I'm glad we
stayed with this storm as it gave us a nice show for a couple of hours...almost
like chasing in slow motion. 400+m

May 31, 2006: Wed - Day
29 - Genoa - Seibert, CO: Like most everyone else
today we decided to target an area east of Limon along the Palmer Divide for the
best chance of seeing a supercell based on the best juxtaposition of surface and
upper wind flow, instability, and moisture values. Soon after we left
Lamar we had a target storm to chase that would be approaching the Limon area.
Actually the main storm was aligned with other cells and was undercut by the
time we got into a good viewing position. That being said the storm did
not disappoint us as it did offer rather dramatic base structure views from time
to time. We followed the storm to Seibert and left it go a few miles
south of town along highway 59. 540m

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