April 2,
1999 - Storm Chase
Team 1: Wayne Robinson,
Rob Ferguson and Putnam Reiter
Team 2: John Holsenbeck
Target Area: Southwest Oklahoma
Departure Time: 12:30
Return Time: 1999-04-03, 02:30
Miles Driven: 650
We headed for Lawton around
12:30. During the drive elected to head on west and got to Snyder around
15:00.
Met up with the KSWO-TV Storm Interceptor vehicle. Spent a while roaming around
there when finally the cap gave way.
Got on a storm coming out of
Wheeler Co. Texas and followed it past Sayre, north-northeast up to Carter
City. Gave up at that point as the storm was dying. Storm produced a wall
cloud near Sayre at about the time the rear flank downdraft came around.
Had dinner and was ready to go
home when word of another storm hit us around 20:00. We got in position for
this storm near Sentinel and saw a well defined wall cloud, illuminated
periodically by lightning. Storm produced a tornado about 20 minutes before we
reached it. Followed it for about one hour, northeast up to near Thomas. At
that point called the chase and came home.
Observations:
Engaged Storms: Yes,
1) Five miles east of Sayre on Highway 152, around 18:00.
2) Two miles west of Sentinel on Highway 55, around 20:00.
Hail (larger than 0.75 inches): Yes,
golfball size on the ground, 1 miles east of Highways 183 and 33
intersection.
Tornado: No --
Possible on Storm One; occurred with Storm Two, though was not visible to
our crew.
Wall Cloud: Yes, both storms.
Wind above 58mph: Yes (not measured),
1) Rear flank downdraft hit us on initial engagement of Storm Two, just
west of Sentinel.
2) Highway 7, two miles east of I-44 in Lawton, outflow from advancing
squall line.
Lessons Learned:
We didn't have a good idea of storm motion. When all was said and done, mean
storm motion was 210 at 35. Also, dryline retreated around 16:00 to the Texas
Caprock. You don't want to know how long we scratched our heads trying to
figure out where the cumulus deck went.
Credits:
Thanks to Marc Foster, David Underwood, Brad Stanley and Andy Wallace for data
support.
