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Storm Chase: May 10, 2008

Some may have call me crazy for attempting to chase in the hilly and tree-dense terrain of eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to try given that we had radar data on-the-go. Besides, my advisor Dr. Jerry Straka was already going to go out, so I decided to join him (and Amanda as well, who is also a student of his). Also, our initial target was Little Rock, AR and areas east, which would have put us in better chase territory. However, the events of the day lead us to ambandon our original plan for areas closer to home (relatively speaking).

After meeting at Jerry's house, we decided that I would drive for the sake of comfort (we didn't want to cram three people into the front of a pick-up) and gas mileage. Jerry served as the primary naviator with the radar data, and Amanda was responsible for the paper maps.

At 18Z, the 300 mb divergence fields favored eastern OK and western AR.

500 mb winds were decent, but the best forcing was over OK, where there was more clearing. However, we were hoping to set up in AR to catch any storms that develop later in the afternoon. Unfortunately, today was another cloudy day (surprise surprise).

The clouds were mostly due to the 850 mb transport of moisture.

At the surface, a low was deepening over north-central Oklahoma.

Dewpoints were in the low 60's, but steadily increased throughout the day. LCL's were low, however, because of the lower temperatures. It was actually a bit chilly at times.

Backed winds were not a problem in AR, but they were a bit more veered in central OK, which was another reason why we decided not to stay back towards home. After a lunch break at Subway in Ft. Smith, AR, we chased a supercell that had paralleled us to our north earlier when it was non-supercellular. However, we gave up about an hour later when the road network became steep and mountainous. In fact, the storm had entered the Ozarks!! We dropped back south toward I-40 and decided to head back toward Oklahoma where the dryline was surging east. "Look at this confluence line here," Jerry said as he pointed toward a visible satellite image in eastern Oklahoma. "I like that."

Around that time, the SPC issued an MD indicating supercell development in the region of AR that had finally experienced some clearing. However, we decided not to pursue that option because of the distance. As it turned out, activity did not occur there as early as forecasted, so we made the right choice of heading back west toward OK. After a brief bathroom/fuel stop (and thanks to Amanda for picking up some Wendy's Frostys), we pursued the OK dryline. Storms had begun to fire, and one of the cells had become tornado-warned. The excitement picked up rapidly as individual discrete cells all along the dryline became supercellular! Within 30 minutes, we went from nothing to not being able to decide which storm to chase!! On route 59 south, we had to stop briefly to decide whether we should chase the northern storms or the southern ones. Our gut instinct lead us to the southernmost storms on the dryline.

There were other chasers as we raced south, but we were just focused on our goal of reaching the second supercell from the bottom of the line before it crossed into the Ouachita Mountains of southeast Oklahoma. The adrenaline rush was immense, and we were borderline yelling at each other as well as just yelling for no reason.

A tornado was later reported that may have coincided with the above radar SRV couplet. Here is a larger-scale view of the entire line of tornado-warned supercells that we were watching. It was incredible!



Unfortunately, just as we were about to intercept one of the supercells, my cell phone signal died, and we had to go completely visual in poor visibility. I took a sip of water before continuing. The road slowly transitioned into mountainous terrain, and we had to slow down. Because of this, we inadvertently core-punched the storm. However, we only witnessed some small hail before exiting out through the back side of the storm. Those were a few heart-pounding minutes though! Although our safety was never seriously jeopardized as we proceeded with extreme caution, the lesson learned from the event was how easy it is to underestimate the time to a storm while traveling on a curvy road. We emerged close to Talimena National Scenic Byway...which was a sign to go home. There was no way the storms could have been pursued further. It's a great place to go hiking though, from personal experience!

On our way back west, we were treated to a display of the back side of the dryline cumulus heading east/southeast.

One of them developed into a potent Cb, but it was well out of range and in terrible chase terrain (photo above is looking toward the south). We had dinner at Pete's Place, an amazing restaurant that served Italian home-cooked meals where each party was served in separate dining rooms. It was located in the town of Krebs near MacAlester. When the waitress found out we were storm chasers, she told us about a friend of hers who was in the local Wal-Mart when the tornado warning was issued, and he/she was able to take a photo of the tornado with a cell phone.

Upon review, the chase today was full of "if only" statements...

If only we stayed in Norman longer, we would have been able to reach the dryline sooner.

If only we decided to return to Oklahoma sooner, we would have been in good position to see the MacAlester tornado.

If only we decided to chase the storm on the northern flank of the dryline instead of of the southern flank, we would have been in better chase territory and would have potentially seen an EF-4 tornado.

If only we were 30-45 minutes faster at arriving at the supercell we were targeting, we would have been in perfect position to intercept it, yet if we had arrived only 10-15 minutes sooner, then we may have found ourselves caught in a bad position under the meso.

The chase today provided a valuable lesson of checks and balances. There is no way of knowing the final outcome of a chase, but we must make our best forecast and go from there. Luck plays a significant roll in this activity, as none of the above "if onlys" could have been foreseen given our forecast. Timing is king. Too fast or too slow may both be keys to success or failure, depending on the situation. Unfortunately, there were several deaths reported with the tornadoes today. We left with some valuable lessons under our belt, but with lives lost, it only goes to show that there is more work to be done in our forecasting and research communities.