Storms in the Texas Panhandle and Western Oklahoma

Storm Chase Details

Chase Recap:

The 29th was a day with high hopes and ended up being quite the bust. SPC had a Moderate risk with a 15% Hatched area for tornadoes over the eastern Texas panhandle and Western Oklahoma. After the bust the previous day and missing Bennington, we were ready for some redemption.

Waking up in Dodge City was a little slow due to the mass quantities of alcohol consumed the night before, but soon we were on the road to Canadian, TX.

On TX-152 between Pampa and Mobeetie

We sat for quite awhile in Canadian, TX before heading towards the storm coming out of Amarillo. It had great structure and a brief funnel cloud as we observed it between Pampa and Mobeetie on TX-152.

JR was a driving ace and drove us through some crazy winds and dust to get us back in front of the line on OK-152.

As we entered Western Oklahoma, we kind of gave up hope already as the storms were lining out. We got on I-40 and started heading east. I got a text from Dick McGowan mentioning that the southern most cell was starting to look better.

Heading to Erick Storm

So we turned back to I-40 west and headed to Erick before dropping south on Oklahoma Highway 30. The storm we were on remained mostly discrete as it crossed from Texas into Oklahoma. Hail started falling, and we had pieces of over 2 inches.

Brief Dust Whirl under Rotating Wall Cloud

We had a hard time calling it a tornado, but we observed dust swirling under a rotating wall cloud. JR radioed into the NWS. Judge for yourself in this video.

Wrapping up near Sayre

Eventually we followed the storm north and east to south of Sayre where the storm got pretty wrapped up again. We saw power flashes, but I am not convinced it ever touched down as the wall cloud seemed pretty ragged at this point.

End of night and pulling Gabe Garfield out of the mud

We ended the night back near Sayre where we had to pull Gabe Garfield out of the mud on a side road near the Sayre Airport.