So today we had our official May 25th tornado track update from Josh and Karen. They analyzed radar data, lat/lon coordinates, Scout 1 mesonet data, the house damage and more to establish the "real story" of last Friday night. We all had our own versions; how we saw that night in our minds as we remembered it. As with any eyewitness testimonies, we all had certain aspects of the event that were truth and some that may have seemed differently than they really were that night. Adrenaline and shock play a huge role in the way we recall traumatic experience. I am proud to say that my memory actually passed this test fairly well. So here's the scientific story...
Scout 1 got hit twice by the tornado believe it or not. In my post I mentioned two periods of really high winds that our vehicle took on. The first go around, we received 70mph winds from the developing tornado on the strong southern edge. The tornado then dissipated a bit, jogged back west, and we moved up the road farther North. When we were about 230m from DOW8, at the intersection where the house was, the tornado redeveloped and headed due east...right at us. We received a direct hit with cross winds out of the west at around 100mph. The tornado then headed up the road due north before jogging east one more time at the intersection. DOW8 received winds from the weak side of the tornado, but at its peak intensity. Pretty crazy stuff.
Once again, I am updating from the car fighting very spotty internet connection so unfortunately this post won't have any more pictures. I'll try to add some tonight since we will be staying in Amarillo (a big city with wifi!) Two days ago we chased in Texas and got caught in some gnarly outflow. There were 40mph winds and blowing dust that limited visibility to zero in some places. The sky was that green color you always hear about on television and movies. There was some fairly large hail too. In fact, the last couple of days we might as well have been hail chasing rather than tornado chasing. Yesterday, Ronan left to go on to his next job. I had a bit of a sad day because he was the one person I felt the closest to on this trip (a big part of that being the experience we had Friday night). But the chase goes on. Yesterday we were in Oklahoma, which is quickly becoming my least favorite state to chase in. We had the most beautiful and "perfect/textbook" supercell yet but the cell phone and therefore internet coverage is really spotty and there is always this major chaser convergence! It is impossible to drive anywhere because of the chaser traffic. But we did get to see a brief rain & hail wrapped tornado. Unfortunately we couldn't deploy because we were a bit too far away but it was still pretty awesome! Then on our drive home, the supercells morphed into an MCS bow and we got caught in some large hail. There were a few tennis balls falling. Somehow we escaped without any damage to our instruments or vehicles. The driving was rough though because we were on the interstate and there were major traffic jams as people tried to stop under the overpasses. So dangerous.
Today, something went majorly wrong in the models and storms initiated well southwest of where most people forecasted, including the Storm Predicton Center. The next few days look bleak as well, soooo....I'm cringing as I write this....back to Boulder??
No comments:
Post a Comment