MAY 26th Throckmorton, TX
The day's first turkey. South of Altus, OK.
Finally at the business end of the Haskell storm a ragged lowering pushes toward us.
We move east a bit and an interesting subsidence/RFD hole forms to our NW. As this pushes east a horizontal roll forms on the north edge of the hole. Cool!
Just NE of Throckmorton Seconds before a wimpy nader. Hi Tim.
As chasers converged NE of Throckmorton outflow finally focuses the meso just enough for a short lived dust whirl to our WSW. A video review even shows some multi-vortex action. As the circulation moves off to the ESE it broadens and weakens lasting only a minute or so. Not a pretty hose by any standards but interesting.
Later between Olney and Newcastle we're treated to a new lowering, lot's of blowing dust, and a terrific sunset. Great way to end a chase, huh!
THE CHASE ACCOUNT
We started the day in Amarillo, TX. after dodging 4.25 inch hail the night before. SPC had a moderate risk from central Kansas to Childress, TX. We focused on SW OK/NW TX with a target near Altus, OK. After talking to Mike Cohen on the cell phone we learned of a boundary that was visible on both radar and satellite stretching from near OKC to Hobart, OK. It was clear east of this boundary with cu already developing along it. This would be our initial target. We drove east on I40 initially intending to stage near Clinton, OK. but after looking at the map I decided that we should go south at Sayre, Ok on HWY 283 to Altus, OK. (I know, we should have gone on to Clinton.) We gassed in Altus and drove a bit west of town but hearing of echo's on radar down it TX we decided to head back to HWY 283 in Altus and a bit south where we stopped to watch the first TCU of the day. (And picked up several biting flies) With the TCU firing on the NE/SW boundary to our south we drove on to Vernon, TX. (Flies still biting) We drove a bit SW of Vernon on HWY 70 when we spotted a CB to our SW. A radio check confirmed it was beginning to rock and was the only show for the time. It was in Haskell co. and moving NE. We plotted an intercept course that took us down HWY 283 to Seymour, TX. The storm had begun to move east by the time we arrived at Seymour so we continued down 283 to Throckmorton, TX. and then headed west on HWY 380 toward Haskell, TX. As we neared Throckmorton we heard of a tornado on the ground 8 miles west of Haskell so we were getting pumped. As we approached the storm it appeared rather high-based and was outflow dominate. We watched a subsidence hole form to our NW and it seemed to focus the storms updraft a bit. We kept ahead of it all the way back into Throckmorton and gassed up. We ran into Tim Marshall and his wife and said a brief hello at the gas station. Then we all raced NE on HWY 79, stopping just out of town to look back. Here the outflow focused the storms circulation just enough to produce a very weak dust whirl to our WSW. This broadened and weakened quickly as it moved ESE. We drove on to Olney and then south toward Newcastle where we ran into another chaser convergence and a outflow dominate lowering, and a possible gustnado. The day ended here with a great sunset.