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Oct. 4
Oct.
4, 1998 Oktoberfest in Oklahoma
The morning started off with a bang as warm air advection storms exploded in
NE Oklahoma and SE Kansas, some of which became severe with hail up to 2
inches in diameter. Brian Stertz and Kathryn Ray were set to chase with me this
day. Brian was very excited about the morning convection since this is similar to
what precluded the April 26,1991 outbreak. Today was not of that magnitude or
scale, but still he was optimistic that this was a sign of things to come later. We
organized our gear and finally left Tulsa around 10am. We originally targeted the
Wichita area for the best chance of supercells- later we would regret our commit-
ment to head to Wichita(details will be explained later).
A moderate risk (strongly
worded) was outlooked for much of C. and E. Kansas
as well as portions of N.Oklahoma. A deep surface low was expected to eject
n-ne from EC Colorado into C.Nebraska by later in the evening. Since the low was
forecast to lift n-ne, a slow eastward progression of the dry-line was expected by
the Storm Prediction Center. The warm front was also expected to move slowly
northward towards the Nebraska/Kansas border by evening. Warm advection
storms over C. and E. Kansas during the morning stabilized the airmass in that
area, but much of W. and C. Oklahoma remained storm free until late morning.
This allowed for this area to heat up slowly, but enough to cause an unstable air-
mass to develop. A pronounced cap was located across the southern third of
Oklahoma and over the majority of Texas. This would ensure two things. Heating
would be significant and allow for a rapid destabilization of the airmass there.
Also, this airmass would be allowed to stream north uninterrupted/unchanged by
any storms south of I-40. By late morning, the surface features were slowly on
the move. The dry-line extended from Hill City, Ks to Dodge City, Ks to near the
town of Childress,Tx. The warm front was bogged down on the eastern segment
over C. and E. Kansas, but was heading north over N.Kansas. The warm front
extended from just sw of Hill City to near Newton Ks to near Chanute Ks. A triple
point was just west of Hill City at this time, The surface low was becoming quite
deep and was located very near McCook, Ne.
We headed west on the
Cimarron turnpike(412) to reach I-35, our road to Wichita
and our initial target zone. We passed several small storms on our way to I-35,
and were not too happy to see these taint the atmosphere. Also we frowned when
we heard that the dry-line was already popping storms along the Oklahoma and
Texas Panhandle border. Much too early for this to be happening (11am)!! We
did notice that the core of the low-level jet was centered along I-35. This was a
factor in the development of the small but occasionally severe storms aligned
with I-35. The movement of these storms was north at up to 60 mph.Further west,
a line of storms,some severe, extended now from near Pratt, Ks to the Canadian,
TX area. These storms were very linear in structure, and eventually produced an
outflow boundary. This outflow boundary would later focus the Carmen tornadic
supercell as well as numerous others . We continued on to Wichita really unsure
of where the best chase area would be. Central Kansas was definitely a no go
but the area of N. Oklahoma and SC Kansas still intrigued us.
As we approached Wichita,
we learned that a storm had exploded over N.Harper
Co. Oklahoma- this was 120 miles to our southwest!! We had a lot of distance to
close on this storm to intercept, but we figured that this might be the start of some-
thing big. Kansas was not the land of oz today; the airmass just remained to cool
to support supercells. The dense low clouds would not help either. We blasted
southwest out of Wichita on K-2 to the town of Harper. We could then pick up a
road option west which would take us towards the distant but growing storm. All
along the way, we monitored radar closely to see if it would maintain itself. The
storm moved northeast into Comanche Co. Ks, and then split into 2 distinct cells-
both severe. The north cell was heading towards Medicine Lodge, while the cell
further south started tracking e-ne. Radar indicated rotation on both storms, but
the southern storm had more impressive structure. The north storm looked like
a wrapping bow head circulation had developed as it was going to pass just to
the west of Medicine Lodge. The south storm had a large "screaming eagle" hook
structure, complete with a large inflow notch. This storm was over rugged open
country so spotter reports would be very limited. We approached the Medicine
Lodge area very quickly to get a closer look. The north storm looked extremely
linear but did have wrapped up/rain embedded wall cloud to our north-northeast.
A new storm exploded on the tail end of this storm just south of Medicine Lodge.
We decided to watch this as it was fresh convection and isolated. The storm was
severe from the get go!! Golfball hail soon pounded the west section of Medicine
Lodge and frequent cloud-ground strikes zapped our location. Before long, a
large scuddy lowering formed and organized into a nice wall cloud. We thought
for sure this was going to put a tornado down. Rotation was moderate and never
was able to get into a tight/violent circulation. We soon watched the cold air from
the intensifying core undercut the updraft. As a result, the storm wound down and
spared the town of Medicine Lodge which would have been in the direct path!!
We left this storm and
decided to somehow track the isolated supercell which by
now was near Hardtner Ks. This storm also started to indicate to us a slow gust
out trend on radar. We headed south on U.S.281 anyway hoping to get a better
look at the storm's structure visually. Brian also noticed a small isolated dry-line
LP storm to our west and southeast of Coldwater Ks. The storm was striated from
base to anvil but unfortunately was too far behind the outflow boundary to get a
good supply of 60 dew points!! We soon noticed a rapid development of severe
storms near the Gage/Woodward area in NW Oklahoma. This was great news for
us as the Kansas storms were struggling, and we could intercept the storms very
easily. We decided to head south through Kiowa Ks to catch these storms. We
just hoped that they would not start dropping tornadoes yet!! Not so lucky!! The
supercells quickly developed strong circulations on radar, and tornado warnings
soon were issued for Woodward, S.Woods, and NW Major counties. A tornado
was indicated near Waynoka moving northeast at 35 mph. The tempo of this
storm chase was now on the upswing again. We hoped we would intercept the
storm in time- that was our major concern!!
We were at Burlington Ok
by now and the tornado was expected to track towards
the town of Carmen(a favored area by the way). We had to drive through the core
to get to this storm and the core was dumping very large hail in Cherokee Co at
this time. By the time we reached the town of Cherokee, numerous reports of a
tornado were broadcast on K-101 Woodward. The tornado was positioned west of
Aline OK and was continuing to track towards Carmen. This information was very
valuable to us though frustrating since we were still 15 miles away. The spotter
reports increased in number as the tornado approached Carmen from the south-
southwest. The reports indicated a substantial cone tornado was visible to the
southwest of Carmen. We emerged from the core about 6 miles north of Carmen.
We could see what all of the excitement was about now. The large supercell had
dramatic inflow wedges jutting into the updraft from the east. Also the storm did
have a highly sheared appearance at low levels. The supercell was the classic
kidney bean on radar and it was quite expansive visually. We had northeast
winds at about 25 mph and as we tracked south on Ok 8, the winds veered to an
e-se direction. Reports now indicated damage in Carmen so we decided to pull
up for video as the tornado was going to track to our west. Our position was 5
miles north of Carmen at 3:35pm when we stopped. The tornado was starting to
track on a more northerly course so we were okay safety-wise. As the tornado
was leaving Carmen, we finally saw the very hazy outline of the cone shaped
tornado at 3:40 pm. The tornado tracked due north and rain curtains around the
tornado limited our viewing of the tornado to just 3 minutes with poor contrast.
We soon ended our chase of this tornado, as it became rain wrapped and was
moving in an area of little available roads.
The storm continued to
track northeast and still indicated circulation . We chased
the storm to near the town of Nash, but the storm was looking very much gusted out.
We were oblivious to the fact that a supercell was bearing down on the town of
Watonga, and that numerous other supercells were also erupting over C. Oklahoma.
We could have easily been intercepting the supercell which was approaching Watonga
as this was a mere 40 miles to our southwest!!
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