May 25, 2015

Statistics

Initial Target

Start

End

Storm Intercepts

Tornadoes

Hail

Wind

Features

Miles

Ardmore, OK

Dodge City, KS 7:35 AM 5/25/2015

Ardmore, OK 4:10 PM 5/25/2015

None

0 mph

Gust Front

513

Summary

Warm front play on the Red River. Targeted Wichita Falls initially, but went after cells developing to the east on river. Crossed into Oklahoma but hit flooding and road closures which ended chase east of Ardmore.

Crew and Equipment

Chase partners: Jennifer Brindley Ubl, Mike Brown, Sean Casey, Justin Walker, Herb Stein. Equipment: Canon 60D, Canon t2i, Canon EFS 10-22, Canon EF 50mm, Sony HDR-xr500v.

Video

Map

Details

Our fourth day out with the TIV and Doghouse, we had a warm front play on the Red River. Flooding from multiple days of storms looked to be an issue, however. We decided to make a run for it anyway, leaving Dodge City, KS early in the morning expecting early initiation as the cap was forecast to be wide open, which would also make for a messy storm mode.

Ground Clouds
4 miles NNW of Minneola, KS
8:08 AM

Surreal morning vistas in Kansas, with clouds coming off the ground in sunny but nearly saturated air. A pretty and hopeful start to the chase day.

Dramatic TIV
11 miles WNW of Electra, TX
12:20 PM

Passing under some morning elevated and outflow dominate lines of cells made for some dramatic gust front views with TIV.

Flooding
Madill, OK
3:09 PM

We continued east out of Wichita Falls, TX. We hoped to play south of the Red River initially, but we were forced to cross the Red into Oklahoma, heading east out of Ardmore. TIV got a flat fire. A nail was stuck in the tread, so we left it behind with Herb Stein tending to it by himself. Justin and Sean piled into Doghouse with Brindley, Mike, and I to continue the chase. We hit some floodign in Madill, OK, but traffic was making it through no problem.

We were heading after a tornado warned supercell on the eastern edge of a massive mess of training storms. We were in perpetual green, rainy skies, making slow progress toward the storm as tornado reports started to come in. It was game over when our chase route was closed, however. We headed down the highway anyway despite the "BRIDGE OUT" sign. Sure enough, it was indeed completely flooded over when we got to the bridge. We called it a chase and headed back to Ardmore to meet up with Herb and the TIV and grab grub and lodging for the night.

Conclusion

A pretty gloomy chase for us given the long miles, flat tire, pea soup skies with no decent storms, only to fall short of intercepting our target storm due to road closures. That's what happens when you gamble with targeting and chasing a flooded area, however. We likely missed some tornadoes from our storm, but I don't recall seeing much in the way of photos or videos so hopefully we didn't miss much.

Lessons Learned

Pick a secondary target if flooding is an ongoing issue at your primary target.

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