Day 2, May 16th 2002

Route: From Paul's Valley through norhtern Oklahoma into northern Texas
Highlights: 2 supercells in Texas, with 1 fiercly rotating storm near Pampa.
Text: Jules Geirnaerdt

Thursday 7.20 CDT and I'm already awake. The first real chase of our season is about to start!

On our way to northern Oklahoma , we make a quick stop at the National Severe Storm Laboratory in Norman, near Oklahoma City. Eric's got a friend working there, so we all say hello to Greg Stump during a coffee break. We exchange chasing experiences and wish each other luck this season, but it's quickly on the road to get to the action in time.

However, this is a difficult day for chasers. There is an area favorable for producing strong storms in northeastern Oklahoma, and another one in northwestern Oklahoma. Cloud cover in the northeast and strong southerly winds in the northwest make us decide to go to the northwest. After all, you need diurnal heating (heat produced by the sun during the day) and strong wind to stand a chance of producing these supercell thunderstorms. But the atmosphere is doing strange things today, so we end up in the Texas Panhandle! Just across the state line, there's a nice thunderstorm to our south, but we can't reach it and it doesn't seem to be powerful enough to produce tornadoes.

Another one comes right to us near Pampa, some 55 miles northeast of Amarillo. And It's a good storm indeed, given the circumstances. We're right at the south side of the core of the storm. We see lots of lightning and a wall cloud forms right under the base of the storm. Jules is able to measure an inflow wind speed of 35 miles per hour, which shows in the pictures. Our position is so good that we even can put the video on the tripod and have a little discussion between one another, while the storm is raging right in front of us. At 8:30 PM, a tornado is due any moment, but it doesn't come to that final stage. All that rests is a magnificant sunset on the Texas high plains, 5 miles north of Pampa. Just a little further, this storm produced softball size hail and caused power outages.

For us, it's been a good chasing day, with lots of decisions to be made. We'll take the satisfaction of having found the strongest storm in the area. It's a big motivator to do even better tomorrow and the days to come.

Regards,
WeatherBug Stormchase Team 2002