FRI 29 MAY
Initially the plan was to chase between Amarillo TX and Lubbock TX. Given this was close to our starting position in Amarillo, we had a nice slow start to the day, went to the Big Texan for breakfast and then sat in a park by a lake for a bit. It was very warm (28C) but with a dewpoint in single figures, and overcast skies from weak elevated convection, it didn't feel particularly "stormy". By this point it was becoming clear northern Oklahoma may have a decent supercell and tornado risk, given significant CAPE, strong low-level shear and the presence of an old outflow boundary. However, deep layer shear was a bit meagre.
After debating for a bit, we opted to ditch the west Texas risk, where model output had never really been particularly enthusiastic on supercells (more like multicells with strong outflow winds given high LCLs) and decided to drive 4 hours through the afternoon into Oklahoma. Cells began to fire en-route, and the SPC also started to acknowledge the risk. We made it to Enid OK by early evening, although by this stage the initial storms, which looked visually impressive, had generated a substantial cold pool radiating across north central Oklahoma, and effectively undercutting most of the storms.
We hung around Orlando OK for a little bit, then some new cells went up to our SW and became organised with some decent structure, wall cloud etc, but then this fizzled - it seemed that the cells were struggling to become sustained for any length of time. As the sun began to set, we decided to head north towards Salina KS for our hotel for the night (in the direction of where we needed to be for the following day), whilst being treated by some fantastic lightning displays at times from marginally-severe storms that kept popping up nearby.
Also, turns out aside from a couple of supercells near Amarillo, much of west TX was a complete bust! So I'm glad we made the decision when we did to change our target.
No comments:
Post a Comment