July 12th 2010 Wedding Cake and Waterfall

Ok, I've finally decided to put together the chase account for July 12th 2010. This was probably the most photogenic storm I have ever scene thus far despite being a somewhat low shear HP Supercell that had some organizational issues. Given that this event was so long ago I can't remember all of the details but I'll see if I can put together what I do remember.

My understanding of severe weather was not really the best at this time, but I did know that a fairly unusual trough was to sweep through Oklahoma about the second week in July.The trough was unusual in that it was so far south into Oklahoma. Generally, if you can get cooler upper-level air along with the faster winds in the upper levels from a trough with a July surface air-mass you can get some fairly severe weather.  I do remember talking to James about a week in advance of the event, discussing the likelihood that it would be the last chaseable event for a few months, and thinking we needed to keep a watchful eye on the potential.

The trough did verify, though it was a little shallower and weaker than I would've liked... but hey! I can't complain about an Oklahoma storm chase opportunity in July.

I must lament the fact that this would've been Justin Terveen's very first storm chase had there not been miscommunication between us and him around leaving time. We did get things straightened out... once we were north of Oklahoma City... oooops. Hopefully he will forgive us... though that is not likely given the images that are to fallow.

Alright, I do need to mention somethings about the set up. I posted the 700mb to 300mb maps above. At the surface there was a cold front (or stalled front) across southern Kansas that provided the focus for some fairly intense supercells in the afternoon (at least a handful of tornadic ones in the Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri  Arkansas four corners area). Prior to this a disturbance had been setting off thunderstorms in southern and eastern Oklahoma in the morning through the early afternoon hours. We knew we at least had to get away from the subsidence and clouds behind that mess.

Prior to the chase (maybe the night before) I had picked Clinton Oklahoma as my primary target. I wish I could remember why this was. It may have been that the NAM was consistent in blowing up thunderstorms along I 40 as another disturbance (along with the main trough access) approached. It may have been in conjunction with the expectation that the surface front in Kansas would sink well into Oklahoma. But, as we headed north on I 35 to get out of the mess to the south and east it became clear that the front was not going to make it into Oklahoma... except for maybe the Woodward area and we had no real desire to go that far north from Dallas. At this time being based in Dallas Texas Clinton Oklahoma was about as far as any of us were willing to go for a chase.

Well, the front was stalled in southern Kansas as we headed into 3:00pm and (other than the supercells in the four corners area of Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Arkansas) not much was going on. The storms further west in south central and southwestern Kansas looked like they were fighting a substantial cap... not that it really mattered given how far away they were from us.

We drove to Enid Oklahoma (the furthest north we had ever gone up to this time) and watched the struggle on the cold front that was too far away to chase anyway. Phooy. And when we saw the updated severe weather outlook from SPC we said another "Phooy". Junk to the southeast, now practically in Southern Arkansas, and some weak storms along the front chocking under what was probably a semi-stout cap were the only chasing options it seemed. What we really wanted were storms in West-Central Oklahoma.

I admit it. I probably prayed for storms. And there is probably some guy out there who, if he ever found out that I had, would likely want me to pay for his barn.

Well, God did give us storms and some of the most amazing I have ever seen. An outflow boundary which looked to be heading north from just south of I 40 seems to have partially been the culprit. And the rest was probably due to the main trough axis and associated lift combined with very unstable surface based air.

We headed west from Enid with heavy hearts when we noticed what we had been wanting to see all day: Towers exploding on the western horizon. Very interesting...
We charged into the Gloss Mountain area where an anti-cyclonic supercell was heading right for us. Boy were we excited.

Oh boy! oh boy! oh boy! oh boy! oh boy! 

It was beautiful and one of a very few strongly clockwise rotating storms I have ever seen.

While this storm was neat (with another anti-cyclonic cell coming quickly up on its heals) there was another Supercell to our southwest that was cyclonic, huge, and nearly stationary. Hmmmm... I really really wanted to try and make it to that cell. Unfortunately there were no roads that went directly to the storm... unless we wanted to core punch. I didn't really want to core punch too much... and James REALLY didn't want to core punch a potentially violent supercell (he was driving and it was his vehicle that would take the damage). So, we opted to make the hour long drive around to the southeast side of the storm.

I took a few more parting shots of the now shriveling anti-cyclonic storm and his little brother further west as we began the trip south and west.

While all this was going on our now good friend Ben Jacobi was in position on the monster HP supercell sitting near Putnam. He stuck with Clinton Oklahoma as a target throughout the day and it had really payed off thus far.

Here is a radar loop of the Putnam monster from about the time we arrived on it till about the time we
ended the chase. It really does not appear to have been very organized and cycles through mesocyclones fairly quickly. Even seems to make a brief transition to a bow-echo-like storm before developing a new meso. Whatever it was doing it did put on quite the show regardless, and even took out a barn (from SPC storm reports).

Boy was it a neat storm. At first the amazingness was probably only a moderate. But as it got closer the contrast increased and the mesocyclone tightnined up. Then amazingness quickly went off the charts.

Wow, things were really starting to look crazy. 

A developing microburst can be seen here.

Interesting circulation on the leading edge of the massive RFD gust front thingy. 

 Meso really began to tighten up and sometime in here Ben Jacobi met up with us for the very first time.

Somebody reported a tornado via ham radio. But it was never listed in the SPC reports. Still, it seemed possible that a funnel cloud wrapped back up in the rain. Really hard to tell though even with all the enhancements to this image.

I remember this being the first time I heard never ending thunder. That was quite an amazing sound. There were even a number of cloud to ground strikes fairly close by, though I didn't get a picture of one. They did, however, scare us further south a time or two.

Strange random microburst slams the ground just east of the mesocyclone creating this crazy image.

The amazing structure lasted for quite a while. I'm not sure how many stops we had made by this point. The storm was definitely moving south at a good 20mph now.

The last stop we made I believe was in Arapaho. The storm had begun to line out just a bit and redevelop again back to the southwest. We didn't really feel the need to stick around after such an amazing day and we still had a long drive back to Dallas Texas.

For more images from this Storm you can check out James Langford's page on Langford Photography.
A few of my images are in there as well. They probably don't look as good as some of the ones re-posted here because I messed up the color profile on most of them. Funny thing is the meso with the waterfall/microburst photo that I put on his site is probably more true to the original colors than the new updated one. Color is something I am still trying to figure out in my photography.

Well, that was an amazing day and one that has been very hard to beat. In a lot of ways it is still unmatched for photographic opportunities.