OK/TX Day 2

April 26th

After spending the night in our Target town (Shamrock) we awoke early to drift NE to see if the initial wave of convection would provide for a decent show. After a quick little drive, it seemed like the blink of an eye and we found ourselves on Tornado Warned storms near Coldwater KS, the storms gave it one shot, but quickly began to look like something you’d expect to find along a CF. At this point is was about midday, and we were somewhat surprised at how far we had got “suckered” from our original target. At this point it became decision time, the obvious play was to back track and get back to our original target area, the kicker was we had to be back in NE by early MON morning, it was doable, as I had intended on chasing down there originally and making it back, however at that point while W OK still looked decent (high risk after all), the threat was seeming less and less worth the drive back to the SW and then the all night drive home. So Somewhere NW of Coldwater we broke off from the rest of the chase group; Jeff and Terry (who were staying in OK) made the trip back SW and we just continued NE towards Wichita. I’m glad Jeff and Terry, and it sounds like Brian, Rich and Ryan all got to see the tornadoes in W OK. We did not stop chasing entirely however, and we did intercept more tornado warned storm near Wichita, however these storm too were real “cold” looking, and IMO not something deserving of a tornado Warning. The failure Sunday was not the result of a poor forecast, in fact surprisingly the forecast verified almost perfectly (Shamrock area for initiation, with the biggest meanest storm near Woodward at 21Z) but the failure was more a result of not sticking to the forecast, and trying to do and see to much early in the day.

Just East of Protection KS in the late morning, watching storms grow to our West.

A couple of the storms actually attempted to tornado, radar indicated a huge hook with strong velocities, and the storm was tornado warned it just wasn't very impressive visually.

It was quickly becoming apparent these storms weren't going to do anything to exciting...

Getting severely undercut here...