Date: May 16, 2017
Time: 3:00 - 9:15 PM CDT
Place: McLean, Wheeler, TX and Blair, OK
Distance: 712 mi (312 positioning, 239 chasing, 161 to hotel)
Camera: T3i, GoPro3, GoPro5, Sony RX100ii
Warnings: SVR, TOR
Rating: S5

Pre-Chase

8:00 AM MDT – 1:00 PM CDT: Today is the kind of chase day you clear your work schedule for. No setup is ever a sure thing, but this system might be about a close as you get. In the upper levels, a gorgeous western trough is bottoming out south of the US/Mexican border – spreading great shear from the Texas panhandle up into Iowa. We will be honing in on areas just east of Amarillo where a classic dryline play is setting up with near-explosive instability, great moisture, and excellent turning with height. The dryline/shear orientation also looks nice – meaning that discrete storms should be able to pop off the dryline circulations before interfering with each other too much.

As is firmly established tradition, we grabbed some morning Chick-fil-A in ABQ before striking out east on I40. As we drove between Santa Rosa and Tucumcari, the SPC boosted their outlook from enhanced to moderate in our target area – with a bump in TOR probabilities to 15%-hatched (superstitiously considered a kiss-of-death by some chasers – see April 8, 2015 as an example we experienced). The rest of the drive out to Amarillo was pretty uneventful. We made a brief stop by our old Wildarado abandoned 1960 Buick LeSabre for a pic – she seems to be holding up.

1:00 – 3:00 PM CDT: We drove straight through Amarillo and finally stopped at the Love’s gas station at the I40/Hwy 207 interchange – a classic chaser hangout. Already the parking lot was filled with hail-cage-encrusted vehicles and tour vans. Inside, all the booths were crowded with chasers huddled over laptop screens. You couldn't help but feel the anticipation. Adding a nice jolt of nerves, the SPC issued a PDS Tornado Watch at 1:50.

After gassing up, we crossed the interstate and got some slider and timelapse footage at the old VW Slug Bug Ranch (a more ghetto but I think more charming version of the Cadillac Ranch). By this point we were just east of the dryline in a deepening cumulus field. A lone supercell had gone up near Perryton, TX, but we held our ground. It was apparent the entire dryline was about to explode and we were right under the initiating Cu towers.

The Chase

3:00 – 4:00 PM CDT: The first hour of a chase is always critical. Typically, you won’t see tornadoes in that first hour, but early navigation decisions and storm choices can dominate how the rest of the day plays out. Despite my love of being under the initiating towers, it was clear we needed to get east and downstream of developing supercells.

Our first little cell of the day crossed I40 a couple miles to our east around 3:15. Despite only being about 20 minutes old, we noted a beautiful shear funnel dangling from the west side of its base (always a great sign – we’ve never NOT seen tornadoes when we see early shear funnels). We briefly followed this cell north before observing that it was likely a left-split, so we turned our attention to the next cell in line coming up from Paloduro. We clipped this growing supercell’s forward flank as we crossed through the McClellan Creek National Grassland, and by 3:35 we had an excellent view of the TOR-warned base from the FM2477/I40 intersection near Alanreed, TX.

Over the next 25 minutes, we were treated to a consistent barrage of positive CGs as the storm approached. Lots of little scuddy fingers and transient wall clouds reached down from the base, but no centralized area of rotation organized (reminiscent of the April 14, 2012 Pretty Prairie cell as it approached). Unfortunately, however, this supercell was fighting a losing battle as a sister supercell to the south was raining into it’s inflow region. So by 4:00, we made the tough call to abandon this storm and blast east to intercept the southern cell, which was free of interfering precipitation.

4:00 – 5:00 PM CDT: It only took about 20 minutes to reposition to the new supercell, which had already been tornado warned for 30 minutes. Despite the growing crowds, we found a great vantage point about 3 miles south of McLean where we could watch the entire supercell evolve and head directly at us. What followed was some of the nicest, most relaxed tornado chasing we’ve ever experienced.

Our position had us tightly hemmed in between the edge of the caprock to our south and the precipitation core to our north. We caught some sporadic, but decent-sized hail (>quarters) for the first 10 minutes or so. But after that we were in the notch and the air was clear of precipitation and lightning – giving very pleasant viewing conditions. A Minnesota storm chaser pulled up next to us and we chatted for most of the event (though at times like this, I’m terrible about remembering simple words, even worse with new names). Though we had a foreshortened perspective of the RFD cut, its intentions were made clear by a large conical funnel at its apex that lasted for about 10 minutes prior to touchdown. Not since Rozel have we been treated to so obvious a precursor.

At 4:40 the first wisps of dust spun up underneath the funnel; the McLean tornado was born. Less than a minute later, a gorgeous elephant trunk fully condensed about 2.5 miles to our WSW. At the same time, inflow winds dropped off to a light breeze – adding an eerie stillness. Thanks to its smooth laminar edges and lack of dust or debris being lofted, the tornado looked deceptively serene as it tracked NNE across the caprock valley. After a couple moments, however, condensation thinned near the base and we could observe wispy vortices carouselling tightly around the ground circulation – an absolutely mesmerizing sight and the clearest view we’ve ever gotten of the point of ground contact.

By 4:46, the tornado was just to our west and becoming shrouded in rain curtains. The chaser hoard began following north back towards McLean, and after a few more minutes so did we. But the McLean tornado had one last surprise in store. About half a mile south of the interstate, I noticed some other chasers pulled off the road and pointing cameras west. And sure enough, the tornado had re-emerged from the rain as a slender rope. It lasted only about 2 more minutes, but with the McLean sirens wailing in the background, it was an incredible final ropeout.

5:00 – 5:50 PM CDT: After helping push a stuck chaser out of the mud, we then decided to pursue the McLean supercell as it tracked northeast. To catch back up, we needed to jog east 20 miles on I40 then blast north on Hwy 83 to intercept near Wheeler, TX. As we made our final approach from the south, I glimpsed a faint power flash and a low-contrast right edge of a new, much larger tornado. The Wheeler EF2 was about a mile in front of us, but just barely visible. We stopped short south of where the tornado was crossing the road, now completely shrouded. The left-to-right motion in the rain curtains was some of the most violent I’ve ever seen – all the creepier knowing a beast was lurking just behind them.

After a few minutes, we crept cautiously north to see what damage had been done. Initially it looked like only a few big tree branches had been brought down, but at the intersection of Hwy 83 and FM16 we were blocked by a row of downed power lines. We also came upon the most heartbreaking sights I’ve ever seen on a chase: three wet, disoriented horses were huddled between barbed-wire fence and a fallen power pole. One’s nose was bleeding and it was obvious they had all ridden out the tornado’s passage. We had barely registered this sight before another incident nearly ended our chase. A semi approaching from the north at full speed was unaware of the power lines down across the road. As it neared, its tall left exhaust pipe snagged the dangling power lines and began whipping them violently back into the road and towards our Crosstrek. With only a couple dozen feet to spare, the semi finally ground to a halt – tangled in a snarl of powerlines and tree debris. I pulled up briefly to ask if the driver needed any assistance, but then we quickly got out of there – aware of how complacent we’d been about the dangers of a fresh tornado path on a major highway.

5:50 – 7:40 PM CDT: Reevaluating our chase options, we were no longer in position to keep up with the McLean / Wheeler supercell, which was becoming very HP anyway. So we maneuvered south and east into Oklahoma to catch the next supercell headed towards Elk City. But after evaluating road options and radar presentation, Toni and I both agreed that it also looked too HP and was too crowded with chasers as most of the McLean contingent was coalescing around this storm. Instead, we targeted a developing supercell 35 miles further south heading towards Blair, OK.

We clipped the Elk City supercell at 6:50 in Sayre and caught some quarter hail in the rear of the hook – cementing our decision not to proceed into the core to intercept that storm. We made good time through Mangum, OK and by 7:30 we were set up for an intercept just north of Blair. Unfortunately, despite decent radar presentation, our target storm looked quite lackluster in person without any lowerings or interesting motion under its laminar base. I still wanted to get some timelapse in the fragrant Oklahoma field by the highway, and I picked up a couple ticks for my trouble.

7:40 – 8:50 PM CDT: As rain started to impinge on our position, we scrambled north and east to keep up. What followed was an hour of difficult driving as we fell into the center of the supercell’s forward flank and struggled unsuccessfully with the rain and road options to pull back in front of the storm. Finally, in Gotebo, OK, we put some distance between us and the precipitation, but again we were greeted with the same uninteresting, flat storm base. Lightning had picked up a bit, but some other ingredient was still missing. Our storm just wasn’t maturing as I’d hoped. So by 8:50 we let the core envelope us once more and I called it a chase.

Post-Chase

8:50 PM – 1:30 AM CDT: After gassing up in New Cordell, Toni got reservations at our typical Elk City Hampton Inn. By this point, we knew a significant tornado had clipped the south side of town, but we figured the reservation wouldn’t have gone through if the hotel had been hit. Approaching town from the south along Hwy 6, it was immediately apparent that we probably should have chosen another town to spend the night – dozens of emergency vehicles were still present and the highway was completely blocked off. We spent the next 45 minutes negotiating the road grid southeast of town trying to find a path that was clear of debris and power lines.

Upon arrival at the Hampton Inn, we were met with a surreal sight. Power was still out to the entire south side of Elk City, including the hotel. Inside, guests and some folks whose houses had been damaged were huddled around lanterns scattered about the otherwise pitch-black lobby. Even though we’d just spent the better part of an hour picking our way through the damage path, it was this sight that finally hit home the human factor to this tornado.

I briefly spoke with the lady at the front desk and she suggested we try the La Quinta 25 miles east in Clinton. So once again Toni booked reservations, yet once again upon arrival the power was completely out throughout Clinton. Apparently, the Elk City tornado had taken down some critical transmission lines that serve the region. Rinse and repeat once again at the Weatherford La Quinta (again guests were huddled around lanterns in the dark lobby) and we started to wonder if we’d ever get a hotel for the night (by now it was nearing midnight when online reservations get weird to book).

East of Weatherford, we finally started seeing power on throughout the area, but now the problem was that hotels in the area were already booked up – filled with people displaced from further west or visiting for high school graduations. Finally, around 1:30 AM we pulled into the Comfort Inn on the east side of Oklahoma City (!!) after 4 hours looking for a room. As we checked in, a nice little squall line passed over with some ferocious straight-line winds – a final treat for a most eventful chase day.

Recap, Filmmaking Notes, and Lessons Learned