Chase Log: March 30th, 2006
Click on any of the SPC products below (Convective Outlooks, Watches, or MCDs) to see the SPC's "Severe Thunderstorm Events" page pertaining to this event.
Total Distance: 440 miles
Target Area: Duncan
Chase Area: Marlow, OK, to McAlester, OK
Maximum SPC Risk category: Moderate
Watches:
Mesoscale Discussions (MCDs):
I waited around OUN to see if the convection in southwestern OK would break up into discrete storms. I (with Jana Lesak, Gabe Garfield, Justin Walker, and *forgot the name,,, sorry!*) were originally planning on hitting up the storm near I40 to the west of OK, as it appeared to be becoming discrete. However, as we were leaving OUN, the cells in southwestern OK looked to be breaking up a bit, so we headed south in hopes that some insolation down there would help the cause.
The first storm we hit was northeast of Chickasha. It looked kind of outflowish, and it appeared as though the storm to its south was raining into that storm's inflow. So, we dropped south, eventually ending up two storm south in Pernell. We sat there for a bit and watched some nice RFD and wallcloud action to our west. We stayed with this storm through east of Wynnewood. Rotation was evident from time to time, but it didn't look too impressive. At some time, another cell developed to its west, near Paul's Valley. We watched this storm as we moved with it through Ada. We did stop somehwere west of Ada and watched some incredible rotation. The rotation of the rain bands and wallcloud is some of the most intense I have ever seen, and we all thought that the storm was going to produce. Well, it didn't.
We kept with the storm through Ada, where road network options became an issue. Here again, however, we did see some very nice, very wet RFD action. We ended up having to head into the forward-flank downdraft core for a bit, and we got some penny-sized hail for a while. Through the rest of the daylight time, we followed this storm through east of McAlester. Road network was a problem, as were hills and trees. We did have a time where we were north of the strong rotation and south of the larger hail and main core (in the 'bears cage' as some refer to it as), and there was at least one time where the storm possessed a very low, very large wallcloud. However, even then, the wallcloud(s) didn't look all too organized. We called off the chase northeast of McAlester.
Overall, I was slightly disappointed with the chase. We were able to get on two nice supercells, and there were a couple of times during which I really thought we'd see tornadogenesis (particularly that time when we were 10-12 miles west-southwest of Ada). However, something was obviously missing. Speaking of missing, I'm not sure how we missed the tornado near Velma, since we were watching it, but I assume it was a precip-blockage issue. I was also surprised that, despite sampling almost all parts of that supercell, the largest hail we experienced and saw was penny-size. For whatever reason, the supercells largely looked HP, with very wet, precip-filled RFDs (though they both had clean RFD occlussions once or twice). It was good to finally chase west of McAlester. Roads were pretty bad, trees were abundant, and hills got in the way. This area wasn't HORRIBLE, and I don't think I'd avoid chasing there if there was a supercell there, but it certainly isn't what I would consider to be "good" chase territory, that's for sure! I'll probably throw some pics up tomorrow.
I should note that, as usual, OUN was on the ball in terms of their presence on area ham radio / spotter/skywarn repeaters. There was quite a bit of play-by-play on the Cyril and OKC repeaters (also some good info on a freq that I have labeled as "Ardmore", but most be somewhere nearer Pauls Valley or Ada). Awesome job keeping everyone on the ball -- chasing and spotting is much easier when we have that good information!
My cellphone data worked intermittently, largely because I left my external antenna at home. Grr.
03-30-2006 Chase Video
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TIMELAPSE (~4MB WMV)
