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Eric's Blog

  • 5/26/08 Chase Report (My shortest ever)

    Current mood:accomplished

    While my chase partners were out chasing without me, I was stuck in Cordell watching supercells blowup just to die as another forms behind it and runs it over. After everything to the South and west died out I thought all hope was lost in seeing something interesting.

    Well, with the clock nearing midnight, I was readying myself for bed as a tornado warning was isued for NWern Washita County. So, I called Gene Thieszen and Johnny Hall, who were just returning from a failed chase in Kansas, and told 'em they weren't done yet. They came to pick me up and we headed west.

    As we were headed west down SH-152 we saw several mesos, none of which were the warned parts of the storm. We then headed North toward Burns Flat, OK where we took a quick look and decided to head back east to stay out of the hail. As we did, we saw a very active wall cloud to our north with a very large funnel. When we neared Cordell it tornadoed. It was on the ground for an approximate 5 minute duration before quickly disipating. At the time of touchdown, Johnnny was on the phone with an Emergency Management Official who relayed the report.

    A few moments later, tornado reports were coming in near Corn, OK. We then raced east to catch the rope stage of the tornado coming out of the rain. After this, due to the darkness, we called it a night.

    Two tornadoes in less than an hour. Not bad, if you ask me. It wasn't until later that I had relized that I got my first confimed Oklahoma tornadoes. Both, less than 20 miles from my home town.

    -Eric

    Sry, no pics. Crappy camera and no good light.

  • 5/23/08 Chase Report (Finally a Confirmed Tornado in ’08!!!)

    Current mood:relieved

    I started off my day like any other by checking the weather. Not seeing any significant severe weather threats, I went about my day not even giving it a second glance. Well, at about 3:00pm, Johnny Hall (a fellow chaser) raced into my driveway and started honking like crazy. I went out to see what the hell was going on and all he said was, "let's go!!!" It wasn't 'til we were racing out of town like a bat out of hell that he said where we were headed. Woodward, OK. Being I was attending an airshow the next day, I was kind of reluctunt to go that far. I thought about it for a second and said, "What the hell, why not?".

    As we pulled into Vici, OK, we started to see some really nice towers going up to the west so we changed course to Texas. After chasing this storm for what seemed like hours, it anchored in and we caught it in the Northern Oklahoma panhandle. We then followed it up into Kansas where it went tornado warned.

    While we watched the storm strengthen in SW Kansas we started hearing reports of tornadoes. We then tried to get in closer to see and started to come across damage paths from what seemed to be small tornadoes. There seemed to be multiple areas with trees and powerlines down. We even came across an overturned tractor-trailer but, couldn't see a tornado in the obvious wall cloud.

    When we neared Ashland, KS we started seeing what appeared to be a funnel in an ecluding wall cloud. Within a few moments, "Tornado!!!". We happened to be repositioning at the time so a good picture was almost impossible. By the time we got to a good vantage point, the contrast was low and, although still on the ground, it was no longer condensed to the ground. So I snapped a few pics and off we went to get a bit closer.

    We pulled in closer to the storm knowing that the tonado was no longer on the ground and had completely disipated as a new storm was forming in behind it. Thinking the Southern storm had completely killed the storm we were on, we were in for a surprise. We got to catch the very end of the rope stage right above our heads.

    After talking to another chaser for a bit, we followed the Southern storm (now the dominent storm)  toward Greensburg, KS. Due to very few road options it started to get away as a very large tornado was being reported 9mi. SW of Greensburg. By the time we could catch up, the light had begun to fade and, the tornado was no longer visible. At this point we decided it was best to break off the chase and head home.

    -Eric

    See my pics for pictures. Look for "5/23/08 Tornado 5mi. NW of Ashland, KS" and "5/23/08 Rope near Ashland, KS".

  • 3/30/08 Chase Report and why there is no report for 3/31

    Current mood:satisfied

    Well, things turned out better for the residents of Oklahoma than I had expected. Only Edmond got hit and it was only an EF-1 to low EF-2. Some houses tore up pretty bad and a few missing roofs is all that happened. I'm glad to say there were no serious injuries reported.

    As for me, it happened to late for me to get any tornadoes. We first got on the storm that formed over Dill City, Ok. After it became apperent that this wasn't going to produce, we moved south to Sentinel, OK were we observed a good wall cloud for the rest of the night. We followed it as it traveled east along the southern border of Washita County. It had great "spaceship" structure with a few funnels and reports of softball sized hail but, no tornadoes. The low-level shear was just not enough to produce. We gave up at dark and went home.

    -Eric

     

    Storm attemping to form a wall cloud SW of Cordell, OK.

    http://s257.photobucket.com/albums/hh209/ESipes89/?action=view&current=HPIM0659.jpg

     

    Great RFD shot W of Sentinel, OK. Most people would confuse this for a wall cloud but, it's just SLC (scary looking clouds) in the rear flank downdraft.

    http://s257.photobucket.com/albums/hh209/ESipes89/?action=view&current=HPIM0666.jpg

     

    Awsome "Spaceship" structure.

    http://s257.photobucket.com/albums/hh209/ESipes89/?action=view&current=HPIM0668.jpg

     

    Elevated wall cloud ESE of Rocky, OK with more great "spaceship" structure.

    http://s257.photobucket.com/albums/hh209/ESipes89/?action=view&current=HPIM0673.jpg

     

    We did get a tornado yesterday (3/31/08) in SE Oklahoma SW of Little City but, because of all the trees and hills, I have no pictures of the tornado. I just got structure shots.

    -Edit: The tornado on 3/31/08 may not have been. What we saw looked to be on the ground with dust underneath but, chasers a lot closer than us said there was no touchdown. So ATTM I have to call it unconfirmed.

  • Chase Report 4/24/07

    I had a long chase report but myspace had an error and I don't feel like typing it again. I'll fix it later.

    We had our first tornado of the day near Nickerson, KS and 4 mabye 5 more after that as the storm moved NE.

    -Eric

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    I travel with the WXtreme Chase Team headed by Eugene Thieszen and Walt Gish.

    For pictures and info on the WXtreme Chase Team go to:  www.geocities.com/genet_99

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