Painting with Light and an Unexpected Chase...

Yesterday, severe thunderstorms formed a long an advancing cold front that moved through central OK. These storms (some tornadic) produced all kinds of severe weather. There was 4.25" hail, wind gusts exceeding 70mph, and heavy precipitation. These storms left several outflow boundaries and as the cold front continued to push south thunderstorms formed and latched on these boundaries. A few supercells were spawned and I ended up on a night chase near Lake Kemp, TX.

Thanks for viewing!

-Ben

Using my LED flashlight I was able to illuminate the foreground any way I wanted. This technique is known as "painting with light". Some of the first convection that moved through the area.

Underside of the anvil and stars in the background.


The storm starts to really get organized. At this point it was reported to be dropping golf ball-size hail.

I beat the storm to Vernon (barely) and head south to get in better position for structure. This is the cell. You can see the updraft base/developing wall cloud in the lower left, a nice healthy core to the right, and helical striations above.

Quick radar image. These storms were moving in a SE direction.

That developing wall cloud had me intrigued, so I check the velocity scans. It shows a broad area of weak rotation.

A few minutes later and the structure starts to look better. Nice lowering with left to right movement.

Something makes this storm die out and it starts to look less impressive on radar.

But it has some killer structure! Dissipating wall cloud in the lower left.

This storm dies out, but there is a beast of a supercell that has attached itself to an outflow boundary and is heading my way.

One more quick structure shot from the dying thunderstorm.

Supercell with a hook echo moving my way.

Beautiful structure on this cell too! Nice lowering near the bottom with persistent rotation.

A little wider shot. Mesocyclone is visible now.

The storm rides the boundary as long as it can. The cold front catches up to it and the storm starts to become more linear, forming a bow structure.

Looking back NW here is the bow echo and struggling wall cloud.

I head back home to Wichita Falls, the storm is looking sloppy and unorganized. For a moment there, the storms head some serious rotation and potential. I'm not complaining though. There is always another day. Take Tuesday and Wednesday for example, another strong upper level storm system is expected to make its way through OK and western north TX. Looks like some really nice chase days in the week to come.

SPC Probability for severe weather event for Tuesdsay May 18th

SPC Probability for severe weather event for Wednesday May 19th.