Occluded meso near Weinert, Tx as supercell is preparing to cross the road in front of us.

Video: North of Haskell, Tx Viewing Meso

1:55pm CDT near ‘Y’ of Hwys 277 / 203 looking NNE as wrapped up wallcloud area crosses our path. Already cut off we decide to hug this feature close by zig zagging first on an east road, and then going north to Goree where we rejoin hwy 277 on the way to Bomarton and Seymore to the NE.

Video: North to Goree and Hwy 277

Video: Northeast of Goree Near Bomarton

About 2:39 pm CDT, near Seymore we stop to take pictures of hail on the ground and wallcloud features to our almost due east. This is the view. At this time the Seymore wedge tornado is just about to begin near this area. If this isn’t the actual wallcloud that produced the wedge tornado, then it would be just to the left in the darker precipitation area. Of course we are unaware there is a tornado beginning here, much less the fact that it is wedge shaped, but being aware of storm structure and features we sense this is the correct area, and we’d like to get down there as soon as possible.

Video: Seymore Wallcloud Before Wedge

Almost to Seymore we encounter lots of golfball+ size hail and in Seymore we see baseball sized hail. For awhile as we approach Seymore while the wedge tornado is in progress to our ESE we drive through hail fog.

Video: Hail Fog and Hail Nearing Seymore

Additionally after we leave Seymore we head to the south east as another new flank and meso approach from our west. We stop and observe a lowering in cold outflow, but know it’s non-tornadic

Video: Lowering South East of Seymore.

Following Are Some Detail Information I Gathered Regarding This Chase:

Stamford stop for gas at Shell - 10 minutes (1:25 to 1:35)

Rule Tornado 1:45

We are just on the south end of Haskell at 1:45

We exit Haskell and observe dust or 'gustnado' to our wnw at 1:49

First paused to observe approaching meso and wrapping rain at 1:55 to our NNW we resumed after about 1 min

We paused again at 2pm intersection of 277 and 203 (We resumed nearly 3 min later at 2:03)
2:06 turned down FM1720

Arrive at north turn on Ranch 1720 at 2:14
2:27 turn northeast at Goree for Seymore on hwy 277
2:39 - pause at CR 436 (I believe we were looking taping hail, and wallclouds here)
Resume moving at 2:42
Paused again at 2:48 for 1min 28 sec on 277 at CR411
Arrived Seymore at 2:52
Exited Seymore on hwy 114 at 2:54

Seymore tornado - 2:40 to 2:45

At 2:44 we are 5 miles south of Seymore on hwy 277

Eugene Theiszen - 3 miles se Seymore on hwy 114 observed torn 3 miles to wsw (2:40 to 2:45)
Tony Laubach - near Amos Maglioccos position of Seymore on hwy 183 observed to his immediate east / northeast
Tim Marshall was in similar position to us at Weinart (but apparently ahead a bit) and tried to follow
 the same way but encountered big hail so went back to Throckmorton & missed the wedge
Amos Magliocco - reports his position as 4 to 6 south of Seymore on Hwy 183 with wedge nearby crossing to
 ENE & most violent near Ogden Road and 226 and surely grazing the C Lazy T Ranch on 222
Bill Mudd - Believes he saw it from 20+ miles down by Throckmorton
 

Post Analysis:

After this chase I began to ponder the storm, it’s movement, our road options, times of the tornado, times it was observed, our time, and the time of other chasers at certain locations. I was curious what if anything we could have done better to catch this tornado. This took a bit of effort, but I did have fun doing it, and I believe I am the wiser for it. Following are three maps discussing all of these elements, and the possibilities:

1) In the first map we are just leaving Haskell and witness what I believe are the remnants of the Rule tornado to our west - primarily as lifted, blowing dust, but it does seem to have some element of rotation in it. With this option, regardless of what the storm was doing, i.e. hail, tornado, etc we would choose to just punch on - hail or high water so to speak through the rain wrapped meso, Weinert, Munday, Goree, Bomarton, to Seymore where we would catch hwy 183 south to be in front of the tornado. Along the way we would encounter high wind, intense rain, a possible rain wrapped tornado, and hail varying in size from pea to baseball. There is a good chance we would lose a window to large hail near Seymore. This approach shows us showing up at the place where other chasers witnessed the tornado by 2:30 which is 8 minutes in advance of the tornadoes first appearance at 2:38. However these times are projected based on standard highway driving in clear air, dry conditions. I feel we would likely lose at least 8 minutes had we gone this route for one reason or another. This would mean if we continued to pursue this course we would likely either come out of the storm at Seymore near / in the tornado, or we would have been late regardless.

One alternative option along this route would be to take a rural road east at Bomarton, but since this is a small farm to market road, there is a good chance this road would be flooded. Additionally a thick covering of hail would likely slow us down as well. We would also have an intercept course with the tornado as we head east and the tornado is coming up from the south west. A tornado approaching from the right rear of the vehicle might be difficult to notice. Once it was moving up behind us quickly we would basically have no other road options to get out of the path if we needed to. If we encountered flooding, or slow driving we would be in a bad scenario safety wise. If instead we saw the tornado coming and chose to move in behind it and follow it on the road from Bomarton, then once again we’d be behind the radar hook and wrapping meso precipitation and likely wouldn’t have been able to view it long anyway. I suppose it’s also possible it could have formed directly on top of and around us had we chosen this route also.

2) In the second map our option is to go around in a round about fashion in order to get back in front of the storm. This is the approach that Tim Marshall attempted and failed. At first, when we were in the field I considered doing this; however the distance is 50 miles and would take about 43 minutes. From our starting position which we were already at in reality we would arrive at 2:57 and the wedge tornado would be gone and dissipated. So this approach I now know doesn’t appear to work here. Of course we didn’t know there was a wedge about to take place but we knew this was a likely tornadic storm and that is where we needed to be. We didn’t want to leave our storm for long, because typically while you are away that’s when things happen. This option works in many cases, but not this time I don’t believe.

This map shows the positions of a number of chasers. Those on hwy 183 and hwy 114 saw the wedge. Our position (denoted ‘OP) shows how at 2:38 and 2:39 we were directly adjacent to viewing the approaching / developing wedge tornado  to our due east. I believe this lends some credibility to the idea that the wallcloud I videotaped and took a picture of was part of the wallcloud that soon became the wedge. However Gene tends to think there was a stronger wallcloud wrapped up behind the area of precipitation directly to the left of the area I was videotaping when I shot the wallcloud. At the time, this is where we thought something might be rather than just off to our east so I think this probably makes sense. So there is a good chance that the wallcloud I taped wasn’t the actual one. Does that mean two mesos? Maybe. What does the radar show? Follow the next link for a bunch of radar images of this event.

Radar Link: Click Here to View Radar For This Event

Conclusion:

After all this analysis I really don’t think we had a shot at this wedge tornado after we left Haskell. Both directions illustrated above show the difficulties. There is a chance we could have taken the road at Bomarton, but I think that is still a somewhat low probability and a potential risky move. It was a no win situation. Apparently this was a Kobayashi Maru scenario similar to that humorously described by Tony Laubach back on May 12th 2005 due to the fact that it seems unwinnable. Kobayashi Maru refers to the original unwinnable test scenario presented to Capt James Tiberius Kirk in Star Trek 2 and historical to other doomed unwinnable situations.The only good move, would have been to originally go from Albany to Throckmorton rather than Albany to Haskell, but that was counter intuitive at the time. I should add that many of the other chasers that were successful this day claim they only showed up south of Seymore because they were running low on time, and hadn’t gotten west quicker. So there was also an element of luck. So while they enjoyed ‘Lucky 13’ this Friday The 13th chase for Gene and I was apparently hindered by ‘bad luck’.

© All images on this site Copyright  Bill Tabor unless otherwise noted