The following are two posts to wx-chase about this chase:

DUDE!!! Freak me out - that was intense!  This is an update from the field.  I am near Haskell, Tx now but earlier was in Wheeler as the bad mama jamma wound up. I'll go into a more detail chase account  later, but for now suffice to say the forecast target was right on.  I  picked Childress at 18Z and Woodward at 0z and ended up cutting the difference at Wheeler near 4 or 5.  The storms developed quickly and I made the choice  of abandoning the further north target toward the OK/KS border which appeared to be lining out, for the cell to my west. Wasted some time checking data and before I knew it the storm with supposed 2 3/4" hail was almost upon me. (So I guess I have answered my own question about Woodsen the other day).   Broke south to get clear of the hail and realized that this storm was in perfect  position to make a big tornado.  As I raced south toward Wheeler the precip and hail core got ominously closer and dark, dark, darker.  I realized this  storm probably was making a big tornado near me.  Fortunately my net connection was working well and I found out a tornado warning had just been  issued for 7 SW Wheeler and inbound.  I was 7 to 10 north headed south!  I think I just barely made town as high wind, intense precip and flooding were occuring. I broke east probably just in time and raced as fast as I could.   There was enormously intense inflow like I have never seen!!  It went on  for miles and miles and I couldn't get clear of it.  Huge amounts of dust and tumbleweeds were flying across the road.  This wind was even higher  than last week near Sagerton with what I believed was RFD and rain-wrapped torn.  I don't really know how fast - but it did scare the crap out of me.  I wouldn't be surprised to find there might have been gusts to 90 across the road.  I turned the vehicle facing NW about 5 to 7 east of Wheeler and believe my dashcam might have caught a large rain wrapped torn.  I'll have to review -  things happened fast and I was still freaked from the close call in town.   Followed east toward Cheyenne and ran across definite tornado damage.  There were broken trees, wiped out signed, power poles down, and lines down. I  had decided earlier I wasn't going to night chase this time and risk so much as usual - so I broke off the chase early.  Problem is all the supercells to  the south of me were coming my way as I raced south to clear them all.  I was in front of every intense storm on my way and a couple of hours of it were in the dark.  Good thing my data was working - I know it saved me this time.  More details later.  Be interesting to replay the tape heading  into Wheeler for "the end of the world" effect.

This was a crazy insane chase! These were some very strong storms. Hope everyone came back safe.

Bill

Still no time for detailed account, but a few  comments.  First for those of you that know him I wanted to mention I ran  into Bryan Noonan (if that's how you spell it) off CFDG north of Wheeler on hwy 62 north of Briscoe.  He helped by mentioning the storms toward KS were  lining out and then a composite radar I downloaded confirmed that. He turned south before me, but not sure what happened to him.  I think I saw him  later on hwy 30 the road to Rankin / Reydon in Roger Mills cnty.  Anyway  based on Tim Marshall's pictures and account it sounds like it is a good thing  the torn roped before Wheeler because otherwise it would have been tough for me  8-). Funny that I had just passed Wheeler 30 minutes earlier and had considered  going for the back end of that storm. After I left Wheeler headed east and staying with the inflow jet I eventually stopped across the street from the  Channel 7 vehicle and pointed my car and dashcam NE.  I believe this was  just west of RR 592 or about 6 to 7 miles east of Wheeler.  Looking into the storm and filming it appears there is a large black wrapped up block  tornado.  I will have to review this more and also check on the location better.  Then again further east going up hwy 30 I filmed another possible tornado after crossing the damage path and shooting NE toward the tornadic portion of the storm.  This would have generally been in the area near and probably north of hwy 47 between Cheyenne and Rankin in Roger Mills cnty.
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Note: In the previous email account I mention the tornado roping out before Wheeler as reported by chaser Tim Marshall who caught that tornado. However based on additional data provided by Aaron Kennedy and along with radar I believe that the tornado Tim caught was part of a more northern extent of this storm.  Instead of roping out - my portion of the storm was just getting wound up as I approached and entered Wheeler.

Respect the Wind,

Bill
 

April 15th, 2003

Tornado Extreme Storm Chase