Day 10, May 24th 2002

Route: From Pampa, Tx to Altus, south western Oklahoma
Highlights: Chaser convergence with a lot of chatting but otherwise a heavy rain event
Text: Jules Geirnaerdt

What seems to be a very good opportunity with high chances for supercells in Texas and western Oklahoma, turns out to be a rainy day with hardly any tornado warnings to be chased. Not only for us, but for a big number of chasers, it's not the day we expected. The weather doesn't treat us very nicely.

At the morning weather briefing, it promises to be a day with a classical dry line set up in the eastern sections of the Texas Panhandle and western counties of Oklahoma. The wind profile in the atmosphere is very good and we see a good southeasterly flow of humid air into the target area, which is just on the border of these two "tornado states". The storm prediction center even talks about a good possibility of tornado's, which isn't the case very often.

Moreover, our area where we aim at is only an hours' drive away. So we take the morning off to do the laundry and we head east towards Shamrock, Texas. There, it's obvious we are not the only ones with this hobby. At the Subway/Texaco tank stop, about 15 chaser vehicles show up. Even the National Severe Storms Laboratory has a team sent to do research on the storms to come. Their cars carry equipment to measure wind, humidity and temperature constantly during their chase. After the chase is over, they use these data to improve their skills for predicting severe storms and improve the national warnings. And it's fun to see other chasers.

After the stop we drive into Oklahoma, where we await the first cumulus clouds to build. And they build quickly around 4 PM! Towers go high into the air and the first storms appear on radar. But to ours and everyone elses surprise, it's going so rapidly that the whole area gets rainy and thunderous. You would rather see a few nice chaseable supercells that give you a nice view and hopefully a tornado. The radar image is just filled up with showers!

But we don't give up. We get to a few good storms, but even these showers mostly produce rain and lightning. We have to stop a lot of times to change our plans. One time we even stop near a graveyard, where a lightning bolt strikes near our car. And during the best chasing hours (from 5 PM to 8 PM), we more or less drive through relentless rain. Mother nature didn't exactly deliver what she promised. But thankfully, we weren't the only ones that were surprised. This is just one of those disappointing days you have to swallow as a chaser. But you know how it goes: Doesn't matter what the weather is, try again tomorrow!