Chase: April 23^rd 2004 Haskell, Throckmorton, Young Counties

Kicked out of the Motel 6 in Denton somewhat earlier than I was ready and headed west down hwy 380 toward Haskell, TX. As I recall I was shooting for the low-pressure area located here and was going to play the frontal boundary intersecting the low on the northern side.  If that didn’t work out I was going to drop south and play the dryline. Lucky I got kicked out early because convection and tornadic storms started early out west this day.

By the time I got to Throckmorton there was already a tornado warning out for the area in Haskell county just a few miles north of Sagerton and it was moving toward Haskell.  I continued on to Haskell and got to within a mile or two and could see the town. There was a very large storm in progress, which had mixed characteristics. At times it appeared outflow dominant but then it would re-form and strengthen. There was a large rain-free base extending from mostly the area over Haskell to the south.  The storm kept moving east fairly quickly and so I retreated a few times, but stayed right underneath the cloud features most of the time.  At one point I was facing west and I believe south of the road and caught a weak dustwhirl stage tornado. This one was very weak and I’m sure there would be a debate about gustnado or not.  However this particular whirl was under the actual rainfree base, and I could clearly see associated cloud material above the whirl moving along with it as it traveled.  By my best guess of if it was a tornado I’d say yes, but the winds were questionable as to being the damaging F0 type, and I had no way of gauging those.

I continued west and on the northern side of the road once again under the base a much larger dustwhirl tornado formed.  I don’t believe I have footage of the associated cloud material above this one, but it was strong and appears to be under a rotating wall shaped structure above – IMO tornado #2 – though another cheap one – LOL!

The storm was often showing a TVS as it moved east and the TVS portion started moving more northerly. At the same time new storms were forming as expected along the dryline to the south of the low. I got to the town of Throckmorton, and tried to assess my choices.  In some ways I liked the discrete cells further south and I thought they had potential.  I had run into another chaser that I met east of Haskell who was from Norman. We kind of hung out together and chased together – having a grand time. I showed him the radar and he had been wanting to go south because he thought the storm looked too outflow dominant and disorganized, but then he realized it had a TVS still showing. I was about to choose the south option but to my surprise he changed his mind and said north. So we decided to quickly jump down the road to Olney before the big precip core (now almost fully on Throckmorton) caught us. We took hwy 79 toward Elbert and Olney. As we approached Elbert the storm seemed to be restructuring.  The outflow stopped and a mild inflow began.  We began seeing multiple wallclouds.  There were about three of them. We finally stopped at about 5pm and about a mile or so east of Elbert and I videotaped a tornado with a condensation funnel in progress to the north approximately 5 miles extending from one of the wall clouds. I zoomed with my VX2000 and tried to do a decent job, but I forgot and actually zoomed into the digital range, which tended to make it a bit fuzzy. My newly acquired chase partner announced that it appeared we where about to have three tornadoes on the ground at the same time, and indeed for awhile it looked like that was the case. However that tornado dissipated while another wallcloud lowering extended a funnel that tried to reach the ground. It didn’t make it however.

We continued east toward Olney and the very dark clouds and wallcloud filled skies followed us. The Olney fire dept and it’s local spotters were out and I let them view my radar. They were trying to determine if they should sound the siren in Olney if it looked like something was on the ground and coming. I believe a tornado warning had been ongoing for some time, but I’m not sure.  It would be nice to know what warnings were issued this day.  I’ll have to look it up. Anyway, we stopped a number of times, and at one point were very near the wallcloud of a potential developing tornado.  The guy I was with seemed content to do this, but I thought it was not too smart so I moved on into Olney to get a shot of the structure from the east. I got a lot of good video of these wallclouds / funnels and it appears they got close to the ground at times. As my photos show, some are hidden by veils of rain so it is difficult to tell if a funnel may be close or on the ground. 

I parked just inside town in the roadway interchange with hwy 251 south right to my left and behind me.  While driving into town the siren was wailing and then it went silent for some time. I continued to monitor as the tornadic portion of the storm approached. It appeared to be getting stronger and closer to the ground. At this time the siren started up again. Large bolts of lightning were striking nearby. And then without warning my notebook computer went dead. I kept messing with it trying to get it to work, but it was no use. I couldn’t fix it.  To the northwest I could see a quickly moving curtain or rain (probably RFD related) racing for the southern edge of town. As most of you know the RFD often is the kicker to cause the tornado to finally form.  I was under a very large wallcloud that extended all over town and it was very dark. Probably this was not the place to be and normally I wouldn’t do this. Not sure why I was, I guess it was just so cool to watch!  At this point I figured with possible developing tornado overhead, and rain wrapping curtains, no gps, or radar - that it was time to bail.  Fortunately I had the south road option to Newcastle that I had parked on and remembered. There are about six roads exiting in or near Olney so it can get confusing. I took the south road and raced to beat the precip. I didn’t make it and was pelted for awhile, and some moderate winds too. I was hoping it wouldn’t get worse because it looked like it would, and then at the last minute I broke into the clear again.

After this I headed on back to Austin. It had been a fantastic chase!

Tornado Extreme Storm Chase