28 MARCH 2007: TEXAS PANHANDLE TORNADOES


~2355z tornado crossing the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River on March 28, 2007

(These are video captures from my chase on March 28th in the Texas Panhandle, easily the best March chase of my life.  My chase partner
Eric Nguyen took amazing stills and his images and a full report are located here.)

Eric Nguyen and I chased this event and witnessed around six tornadoes between Silverton and McLean, from 6:29 PM until we broke off the nighttime stovepipe about 8:25 PM.

I was excited about this chase a few days in advance because it seems like a long time since we've seen a vigorous dryline circulation mix into extreme instability. Feels like we've been plagued with pre-frontal surface troughs and veering winds ahead of the lift creating weak convergence. Not so Wednesday.

We began in Claude, bored enough chase that first "sucker" storm well east of the dryline, but turned around in time to follow SR 70 southbound on the "tour of tornadoes". We were lucky to find good vantage points at the right time.

Like others that night, we found ourselves in a precarious spot while northbound on 273 as a new tornado devloped beneath a meso immediately east of the road. Momentarily we mistook strong RFD into this developing tornado for the stovepipe's circulation.
 

 
 


2303z


2305z
Our first tornado took us by surprise, appearing in the distance approximately 1 mile northeast of Schott Mountain, by our estimate.  We observed this from one mile south of Brice, Texas between 2303z and 2305z.
 
 

2339z
~2345z
~2348z
~2349z

~2354z
~2355z
~2356
~2356z

~2358
~0z
~0005z		  
This tornado above began at the top of a ridge (from our vantage point) around 2339z.  It morphed and shifted and emerged in sunlight then took a dip in the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River, encircling itself in water and red, sandy loam. Gorgeous!  Tornado lasted until 0010z with an extended rope-out stage.
 
 

0057z		      
Who belongs to this tornado?  Appears to be the beginning rope-out stage of a rather impressive tornado.  I would place it at the intersection of 291 and County Road 0, or approx 8 miles northeast of Clarendon.  I don’t have particularly high confidence in this location, however, since we were moving and didn’t call out the spot.  The tornado lasted only a few minutes from the time we spotted it.  No idea when it had started.
 
 

0102z
0104z
0105z
0112z

0114z
0114z  (RFD blowing into eastern meso)
0115z   (RFD blowing into eastern meso)
0117z

0119z
0120z		    
The famous McLean "west" tornado as it gets rolling and lumbers northeast from around the SR 291/CR1 intersection in Donley County (about 11 miles south of Alanreed) up to I-40 between 0102z and our last sighting around 0120z (tornado continued beyond this time, however).  McLean "west" lifted and dropped several times, but we confirmed it again at 0109z about 6 miles sw of McLean.  At 0113z we saw golf ball hail on SR 273 when we ourselves were about 7 miles south of McLean.  At 0114z, Eric Nguyen saw the first wisps of a new tornado to our immediate EAST, confirmed by OU grad student Bob Fritchie.  We didn't see this eastern tornado again and cannot confirm anything else about its evolution or path.  At 0115z we experienced strong RFD approximately 4 miles south of McLean, likely associated with the meso/developing tornado to our east, which raked the eastern edge of McLean and struck a remote weather station.  At 0119z we spotted the “McLean west” tornado again when it was a stovepipe and very close to I-40.
 

Cyclone Road