Chase Accounts from April 1st and 6th

April 1st near Childress Headed out with Gene Moore early Saturday  with initial target Childress to set up and monitor initiation. We made good  time. There in Childress we hooked up with Bill Combes and David Douglas and  stopped and grabbed some food. I had the pleasure of finally meeting Tim Marshall, and his friend Sean. I was expecting initiation near 21z and somewhere  around that time convection started to our southwest on cue. At this point I'd  like to say that pretty much all model products (least that I had looked at) had  indicated favorable potential for not only supercells but also tornadoes during  the day along the dryline. To keep it short, lets just say that all ingredients  appeared to be there on the model products as well as in much of the live data. Note before leaving Childress we had many readings of -13 to -10 lifted indices  south of our area per Goes quantitative satellite. We left Childress with Bill  and David in tow after providing them with a radio for communications with us.  Anyway we shot southwest and intercepted the first building cell on southwest side near Tell. As we approached the lowered base / wallcloud and town we passed  some chasers along the way including Jeff Piotrowsky on the side of the road. The setup looked ideal, and we were expecting quick intensification and a  tornado to form soon. Basically that never happened. The cell just started raining and outflowing on the southern end with a bit of lightning in the precip as well were underneath it. We managed to work our way a bit further  to the southwest of Tell Here my inverter started going on the blink, but with a  little effort managed to get it back on line. However I made a note to replace  it and get a better one - which I did yesterday. We followed this HP blob to the east as it worked it's way up toward Childress and Paducah. From Paducah  I believe we went north where there was an intense precipitation core in progress that was very dark and appeared to have some decent wind in it as well. I thought perhaps it was some type of microburst. We waited for that to pass and drove on up into it as it was trailing away where we found some good hail all  over the place. Largest stones that we measured were 3" and we took some photos of us holding them. Another cell was coming up to merge from the southwest and  it appeared some area to our east had some potential as Threatnet was also showing shear increasing in that area. We thought the merger might be favorable  so we cut back south and from Paducah took a road to the northeast that went  through Swearingen and on to Quanah. In this area we just drove on into the cores and precipitation was all around with light hail and flooding along the  roads, fields, and especially ditches on sides of road. At one point it appeared that Threatnet was all messed up didn't match reality, but it was confusing. We  decided to ignore Threatnet and go on what our eyes were telling us as Threatnet  also showing rotation directly ahead toward Quanah as it was getting dark.  Basically nada. Cut on over to Vernon and stopped at Brahms to eat, and then the long drive home as 1 tornado warning was finally occurring in KS. So,  April Fools I suppose - we got suckered. Not really a bust cause we got the fun of the chase, tested the equipment, met some good people, had good food, and  even got 3" hail, but still no tornado - which of course is my main end goal when I go out. I enjoyed it but would have enjoyed it better with some big tubes, and let me just say that I though Saturday appeared to have the potential that apparently Sunday ended up having. Even SPC got suckered, so we were in  good company. It was amazing to see all the parameters and indices just somehow  miss it. I think a good post analysis of why there was no tornadic on Saturday is in order. We did note that west of Vernon looking up at the towers  they didn't appear to be sheared, and they also didn't appear to be rock hard.  Perhaps it was lack of cyclonic curvature on the short wave, perhaps earlier storms had stabilized the area a bit? Perhaps the wave was really late (don't think so). I believe that somehow the storms weren't able to utilize a boundary to increase their effective SRH and go tornadic. That's all I can figure. Other  thoughts are welcome. April 6th Close to Home Well I can't believe I'm posting this  because I didn't think I was chasing today. I'll try and keep this short - but  you know how I am. Anyway I'm sitting  here about 6:00 at the house and David Douglas calls and says are you watching the Burnett storm, and I say 'What?'. Anyway about the only cell in TX (pretty large and severe warned) formed just northwest of my house in Cedar Park. I  could look out my back window and see it. I had been watching all the northern stuff on radar at the time. Anyway I decided to throw all the stuff in the car  and take a leisurely trip up (about 5 to 10 miles) to this apparent hail storm. This was the quickest I ever left because the vehicle is all set up. Just pick up a few things and walk out. Plugged some stuff in and away. Shot up to Liberty Hill near what is called Seward Junction where now on Threatnet the one cell had split into 3. The one in the back for awhile was indicating 3" hail. I moved around a bit trying to find the best place to watch. Finally I found a good spot on a hill just west of hwy 183 as the sun was just above the horizon with storm in foreground slightly oriented to south of due west. It was slowly approaching. I was watching the very intense light gray core just obviously dumping rain and  hail. However suddenly just to the left of that feature and emerging from it I  could see a much darker feature shaped basically like a cylinder and it was all the way on the ground. I was saying 'No way, it can't be'. I must have said that several times to my self along with 'What the!'. As seconds and a minute or so passed the feature got further away from the precip core and at the bottom it appeared to have swirling precipitation. This whole thing was estimated 7 to 10  miles (5 at the closest) away. I thought I could see small vortices at the  ground level swirling, but it also appeared to be violent motion. I went from  almost falling asleep to adrenalin pumping. I was on the phone with Bill Combes who was on his way up from my southeast but he was still pretty distant and  couldn't see that area yet. It looked so possibly believable that it made me  worried as it approached the urban area so I decided I better call it in - which  I did. I'm sure the guy thought I was nuts. I don't think it was showing much rotation at the time, but had been a meso earlier. Threatnet didn't have anything for it at the time - even any shear. I tried to explain it to the NWS dude and just told him - I'm not positive it's a tornado, but just keep an eye on it as this is very suspicious. The whole thing lasted a little over a minute  and I didn't bother to grab my camera or camcorder. I was just in awe, and was  really trying to figure out if it was legit. I didn't want to miss any of it  because if real I figured it wouldn't last long. It didn't either. After awhile it lifts above the ground and I can see clearer air underneath. It then takes on a wallcloud shape for awhile and finally as I'm talking with Bill Combes on the phone turns into what looks like a funnel. Anyway, I start headed over to where he is ( back to the south). I catch up and we are watching the 'feature' which he agrees is a wallcloud. Precip begins to fall and we start getting some  lightning. A few minutes later I decide to head home (almost directly on intercept toward the wall cloud) and immediately Threatnet give me a shear marker for the feature (area of interest) - sure enough at 69knots. Not much, but kind of confirms the whole thing as not some outflow crap. Oh yeah, the time I saw this tornado like thing was close to 7:45, but unfortunately (stupid me) I  forgot to look. Guess the NWS dude would know and I contacted him directly after  it ended. If his radar was delayed he wouldn't be seeing it until about then anyway. Hmm they probably aren't delayed much. Ok, so I take it on home with  severe thunderstorm warning and area of rotation approraching and suddenly the lightning starts getting intense. There are numerous cloud to ground with a few  violent staccato branching flashes mixed in. It begins to look a bit  intimidating. At that point hail starts falling and it was pretty much quite a  bit of nickel hail. So that's it! Excitement in Cedar Park when I  thought I was gonna get completely skunked. It's a shame the feature was distant  and I didn't get a vid cam on it to determine and show motion. Sometimes just somewhat ordinary storms produce tornadoes. This was actually a severe storm, and it actually strengthened and grew after what I saw was a potential tornado.  No, I can't say - definite tornado, but I am about 80% sure and I've seen enough of them to have a clue. It just blows your mind when you see something like this when you had absolutely no preconceptions. Hey if anyone has any radar  around this time frame ( I think 7:45cd) I'd love to see it. I would estimate it  to be the area 5 to 10 miles wsw of Seward Junction.

Tornado Extreme Storm Chase