Storm Chase: May 5, 2001

May 5, 2001

Stats: 480 miles

Duration: 11:30

Storms: One LP type supercell, and a mini squall line.

Tornadoes: Several distinct funnels.

The longest chase of the season! After looking at data, the general concensus was to head to NW Texas. So that we did. This time, Chris, myself, my roomate Thomas went in one car, while Dusty, Nathan, and Kyle went in the blazer. We left Norman at noon, and headed down to Chickasha via HW 9. From there we took 44 all the way down to Wichita Falls Tx. We reached there by 2:20. We then turned west on 277/82 and stopped in Seymour TX. We ate, called are nowcaster up and got gas. The dryline was getting pretty close, so we headed to a N/S route 283, east of Seymour. We camped out on 283 for a bit, and after watching the dryline, decided to head north. By this time it was after 4pm, and around Vernon TX, we ran in to the doppler on Wheels! Around now we saw a cell going up near Altus, so we took off in the trail of the DOW's to intercept. Unfortunately, a few miles past the OK/TX border, an Ok Highway Patrol clocked us going 80+ as we passed two cars. Ironically, the whole reason we sped up that fast to go around them (we were doing speed limit) was because we saw a black car coming. Only then we realized to late our mistake. He flashed his lights, and we both pulled over. The cop walked up and told us that he clocked our friends and that we were freet to go!! We didn't say much and left. At this point the chase became solo. Various times we tried to raise our partners, but to no avail. We went up to Altus and took 62W. Along there, all the DOW's were parked along with the caravan. We decided that instead of camping we were going to intercept the one lone cell, despite not looking to impressive, since there was nothing else to chase. Just W of Altus we took a dirt road, 2020N. It was halfway decent, but got pretty dang crappy at times. We took this all the way up to HW 6, and then kept going north. On HW 6 we stopped for the first time. The cell was LP and was growing crazily! We also noticed a wall cloud taking shape, and rotation. From here on, we continued on the cell going N/and E. Off and on it would drop a funnel, but from our position it did not touch the ground, and we did not see any debris clouds. After almost getting killed by a pickup that pulled out in front of us, we stopped for the last time on this cell on 55. Chris talked with some guys and got bogus data. We had a HP looking beast coming up from the north and we were smack dab inbetween the two! I wanted to continue east, since the cell still looked like it was growing, but because of bogus data about the cell to the south, we turned south. because of that we missed a tornado near Cordell a few minutes later :(. We headed south along 183 and stopped. Everyone in the world was here, and we got lots of great pictures of a setting sun behind the line. A bit later, we got word of a tornado warning up where we were (8:20pm), and wernn't too happy. We drove north, but it was easy to tell that we weren't going to get there. We took the quickest route to HW 9, and called it a day. We finally got back to campus at 11:30 and ended a great chase!

Highlights

Beautiful LP supercell.

Lots of funnels!

The crazy lady that stopped and wanted to know if her route was safe, cause storms give her panic attacks! (she almost had one there)

The incredible view in front of the line. Very eerie and breathtaking!

Running into the DOW's and realizing they were going the same way we were.

The store in Vernon, TX that sold wallpaper, furniture, and guns!