March 23, 2009
Storm Chase
Central Oklahoma
Editor: Putnam E. Reiter
Forecast/Setup -
Risk Area: Enhanced Moderate Risk
Initial Target Area: Hinton, Oklahoma
SPC Products:
SWODY1
16:30z -
Risk
Area -
Tornado Prob -
Hail Prob -
Wind Prob -
LSR Plot
-
LSR
NAM 00z Initialization:
Surface Pressure
- Dewpoints -
CAPE
- MLCAPE
- CIN
- 0-3 Km Helicity -
Surface Temperature
-
850mb Dewpoints
- 850mb Wind
-
700mb Wind
- 700mb Vertical
Velocity -
700mb Relative Humidity
- 500mb Temperature
- 500mb Wind
-
500mb Vertical
Velocity -
500mb Relative Humidify
- 500mb Vorticity -
250mb Wind
- 250mb Relative
Humidity -
00z Norman Sounding
SPC Case Review
After the March 9th system, an Arctic cold front
moved through the region. Little activity
weather wise occurred across Oklahoma, other than
the usual ups and downs of March. The setup
for this day was pretty clear at first and then the
models got involved. The GFS was the first to
switch solutions to a closed low wrapping up over
the central U.S, followed pretty quickly by the
ECMWF and then the NAM. While closed lows
aren't the best severe weather producers, there did
seem to be decent opportunity for severe
thunderstorms. A big if was the ridge along
the Gulf coast. My forecast was for 60F
dewpoints to return to Oklahoma as the ridge moved
off during the day. However, this did not
occur and meager moisture was all that made it to
Oklahoma. Despite this, CAPE values still
reached 1500 J/Kg under nearly clear skies.
Storms did develop early in the afternoon in
northwest Oklahoma. These storms were elevated
but also formed in an area of enhanced moisture
convergence. Mesonet data clearly showed a
west-east convergence boundary in northwest
Oklahoma. The dryline was situated to the
south of this boundary and remained inactive much of
the afternoon. By late afternoon, storms
became more numerous in northwest Oklahoma as they
moved off the dryline. One storm moved through
southern Kansas with three brief tornado reports.
Another notable storm moved through Kingfisher
County where it was essentially rooted as it entered
Logan County. A tornado warning was issued but
no verified touchdowns. The dryline popped up
with storms developing along it by late afternoon.
The storms looks elevated and most moved northeast
at 50mph. Two storms moved slowly east in the
Altus and Lawton areas widespread wind damage
occurred in parts of Lawton with one of these
storms. I've done a 16 hour RADAR loop to few
the evolution during this time period and
afterwards.
Today was not the best day in the world, although a
lot of chasers did head out. GR2 was lit up
like crazy with all the chasers. I think after
looking at the evening model data, there just wasn't
enough lift to balance against the shear. The
two storms that did the best in KS/OK had
assistance. Conditions just didn't seem that
good in west-central and southwest Oklahoma in
hindsight.
The Chase -
Team 1 - Brett
LaBare and Putnam Reiter
Miles Driven - 160 - Gas spent $9.00
Departure Time - 15:00 CDT
Return Time - 21:00 CDT
Track Path
We left northwest Oklahoma City and headed for our target
area. Storms had been ongoing in northwest Oklahoma for a few hours, but
nothing major had developed. We took I-40 west to Hinton and hung out
there for a long time. After fighting some software problems, we had radar
to look at. Storms started developing south of I-40. These storms
looked a lot like the ones to the north. Strongly sheared and elevated.
One storm developed decent structure as it got north of us, but we figured it
was too far gone to catch. This one would go through Kingfisher and into
Logan County. We drove up and down HWY 281 between Hooker and Lookeba.
Seeing some better activity to the south, we drove to just north of Gracemont
and hung out. This didn't look much better, so we turned around and head
home. We took HWY 152 to HWY 81 and then I-40 back to the city.
Overall it was disappointing because we didn't get any storm structure and just
drove around for a few hours.
Lessons
Learned -
- Hum, maybe forecasting??? Well, several
other chasers were out, so we had good company.
- Oh and to carry
aspirin!
Multimedia
-
Oklahoma City RADAR -
WMV Format - this is 11MB but is a 16 hour loop.
Encounters
-
Engaged
Storm: Hinton, Binger, and Gracemont
Tornado: No
Funnel: No
Hail (larger than 0.75 inches): No
Wall Cloud: No
Wind (above 57.4 mph): No
