Day 4: A taste of Texas supercellsPosted May15, 2008 at 01:27 AMBROWNWOOD, Texas -- Wednesday was a long day, but a good one for our group of storm chasers. We targeted a region near Abilene and southward as we headed out from Weatherford, Texas, in the morning. We were not at all confident that anything stormy would happen, but some atmospheric parameters began to look more conducive to severe weather as we moved west. On the move, we altered our plan with new data, and kept going west to intercept storms in west Texas halfway between Midland and Abilene near Big Spring, Texas. We were treated to a beautiful supercell storm cycling over the open Wild West terrain. The storm's winds kicked up lots of red West Texas dust, blowing it in horizontal plumes and spinning some of it into whirlwinds known as "gustnadoes." Dave's van went right through one gustnado, and both vans disappeared into a red dust storm a couple of times. Some chasers got a real taste of Texas as the wind blew dust into their mouths. The storm dropped a couple of rotating masses, one of which we observed in front of us minutes before a tornado warning was issued as radar picked up what we were seeing. We ended up chasing that on a gravel road around mesas and buttes, but it did not drop a tornado, and raced on eastward. We spent the rest of the day trying to catch up with the storms racing away from us, but could never get far enough to go around it (or through it!) again for another good look. Instead, we settled in behind the storms southeast of Abilene to end the day. Our student chasers were very amped about Wednesday. The weather pattern from Thursday for several days forward is likely to shut down most thunderstorm activity in the central U.S. We may be swinging WAY south to try to find anything the rest of this week -- but as the last couple of days proved, plans can change on a dime. The audio soundslide will come later today. Even if you've seen it once, be sure and go back and look at the Day 1 audio soundslide again, as photos have been added. Follow Kevin's progress on this map. See previous video from May 14.
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About this blog
Kevin Myatt works on the copy desk for The Roanoke Times and is its principal weather geek, writing a weekly weather column and advising the newsroom on weather topics. He helps guide students on a storm chasing trip to the central U.S. each May and was an editor for "Hurricanes and the Middle Atlantic States." .....Advertisement.....
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Comments
[May 15, 2008 5:28 AM]
Seth Price : →http://www.n3mra.com