Video of Dimmit, TX Tornado 05/25/2010

Found! The Needle in the Haystack - The Dimmitt, TX Tornado 05/25/10

I left Cordell about mid-morning to meet up with Walt Gish in Canyon, TX for a chase down toward the New Mexico border SW of Amarillo. The risk for severe storms was reasonable, but the tornado risk was progged as very low. However there was a remnant outflow boundary analyzed W to E across the panhandle which was forecast to lie from about Farwell to Plainview so I decided to take a chance. (For Walt the chase was more or less local).

As we worked our way down toward Farwell there were numerous storms moving N that were severe, but not tornadic. However a storm across the New Mexico border NE of Portales went tornado warned.

We intercepted along FM 1731 about 9 miles S of Bovina at 4:52 CDT. The storm had an obvious wall cloud but did not seem near to producing a tornado:

Video of Elmore City, OK Tornado 05/19/2010

Video of Leedey, OK Tornado 05/19/2010

Western/South Central Oklahoma Tornadoes 05/19/2010

The WXtreme Chase Team began the day in Cordell and moved on toward Sayre when towering cu began to show up on satellite just across the border in the Texas panhandle. After watching some towers attempt to go up, we moved back east to Elk City and headed north on SR 33 to intercept a storm developing near Arnett. We set up about a mile W of 33 on SR 47 south of Leedey to watch the storm develop.

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May 19th Chase Prospects

Storm chase prospects look good for the local area today. Cordell is a good place to start and the WXtreme Chase Team can adjust from there as more data comes in and the weather scenario develops.

Video of Wakita, OK Tornado 05/10/2010

Off to the Races - NC Oklahoma High Risk Chase 05/10/2010

May 10 looked to be an interesting day.  The forecast models and the SPC 1300 Day 1 pointed to a major severe weather outbreak in central and eastern Oklahoma, albeit the storms were forecast to be moving at 50+ mph.  Not an easy chase to be sure.



The WXtreme Chase Team gathered in Cordell and after reviewing the 12Z NAM model run and some discussion, left for Enid, OK at around mid-morning.  (The area WSW of Oklahoma City looked good as well but we weren't particularly interested in chasing fast-moving storms into the metro area.)  After getting lunch and checking further data we decided to re-locate just west of Pond Creek.  Before long activity began along the dry-line and we decided to move west to near Carmen and wait for the storms to approach.

Here's a shot of the storm we began to focus on at abt 2:30 CDT while it was still quite a way off: