In 2022, I led two summer storm chase trips for SIUE. One was a part of the GEOG 429 Storm Chasing and Field Assessment course and the other was through our National Science Foundation (NSF) GEOPAths grant (Award #1911512). This is a summary of the GEOG 429 trip from May 23-27, 2022. Since the trip was planned for just a total of 5 days and the first and last days are usually travel days, this really gave us three possible chase days. The weather was not particularly cooperative for these three days. I am going to omit some of the meteorological background, but the week was dominated by an upper-level trough and associated cold front that dug southward across the southern Plains. The upper-level low eventually cut off over Kansas on May 25 before slowly moving eastward over the next few days. The upper-level low and cold front pushed the moisture and instability needed for thunderstorms out of the southern Plains and into areas that are less favorable for chasing due to trees (the deep south, and eventually into the Carolinas).
May 23: We departed Edwardsville and headed southwest along I-44 with the intent that this would be a travel day but with the possibility of some chasing if we could make it far enough to get into the Marginal Risk area in central Oklahoma. We hit very cold and relentless rain as we entered Oklahoma. It very quickly became clear that any severe weather was going to be much further west. A series of several tornadoes did occur near Morton, TX, but there was no way we could reach them. We arrived at our hotel in Lawton, OK and planned for the next day.
May 24: It was clear that May 24 was our best (and only) chance to intercept severe weather on this trip. Several shortwaves were moving through the previously mentioned upper-level trough across Texas, but with a “very complex convective scenario” per the 1300 UTC SPC Day 1 outlook. Essentially two areas within the broad slight risk were possible targets. The first target was a more “southern” target to the Edwards Plateau, while the other was a bit further west where storms were expected to initiate over eastern NM and track southeast. In either case, it seemed like there would be a very small window to see supercells before they consolidated into a larger thunderstorm complex (MCS). The storms were also working with a lot of moisture and were expected to be “high-precipitation” supercells with a lot of rain that would obstruct our view. From our starting position in Lawton, the southern target of roughly San Angelo, TX was a bit closer. We also felt better about targeting that area due to the interactions between the outflow boundary from morning storms and the dryline as mentioned in the 1630z convective outlook which upgraded the area to an “Enhanced” risk.
We drove south through intermittent rain with a target of San Angelo, stopping in Abilene for lunch and to examine data for around 1pm. By around 2:30 p.m., a severe thunderstorm watch was issued, with storms starting to fire southwest of San Angelo as we approached Ballinger, TX. Rather than continue southwest towards San Angelo on US-67, we decided to head almost directly south on US-83 from Ballinger towards Eden, hoping to stay ahead of the storm that was firing. We dropped south to Paint Rock, while a storm was starting to fire just to our north.
We continued south on US-83 and then headed east on Farm to Market Road 765, where we had a good vantage point of the storm to our north. The storm drifted fairly slowly to the northeast with several storm mergers between about 3:00 and 4:00 p.m., giving us a fairly long window to watch the storm with minimal repositioning to the east along FM 765. This was probably the most enjoyable part of the chase. We were ahead of and out of the rain associated with the cell to our west over San Angelo while at the same time maintaining a “decent” view of the storm to our north. At the same time, the road network really prevented us from getting a close view of the storm. The storm was roughly paralleling or just to the north of the border between Concho and McCulloch counties to the south and Coleman county to the north, right along the Colorado River and O.H. Ivie Lake. There were very few road options for crossing the river to get a closer look, and no road options that would allow us to parallel the storm on the north side of the river.
A severe thunderstorm warning was issued around 3:45 p.m. for the storm with a continued northeast motion. Over time the storm either latched onto one of the existing boundaries or developed a strong enough mesocylone to give it a more easterly component of motion. A couple other storm mergers occurred before the storm started moving east more rapidly around 4:30. We noted this and decided to approach the storm from the south, crossing the Colorado River on U.S. 283 where we again stopped to view the storm. At about the same time, a tornado warning was issued for the storm around 4:50 p.m.
The storm was tornado warned, but if there was a tornado it was not visible from our vantage point. After watching the storm for a few minutes, we dropped back south on U.S. 283 and continued east on FM 765. At the intersection with U.S. 377, we went north because I wanted to stay ahead of the storm and get across the Colorado River. We went east again at FM 586 until it ended at FM 45 and then went north towards Brownwood. This kept us out of the rain almost all the way to Brownwood, but as we approached town and the intersection with FM 2126, the supercell caught up to us and we were caught in extremely heavy rain. We followed FM 2126 east until the intersection with U.S. 84/U.S. 183, where we were finally able to go southeast and get out of the rain. In retrospect, I think we should have continued east on FM 765 to FM 45, gone north on FM 45 to cross the Colorado River, then immediately continued east on FM 574W. This would have kept us out of the rain, out of the direct path of the storm, and possibly given us a few more opportunities to stop and view the storm. By 6:00 p.m., the various supercells began to merge into a MCS.
We continued southeast on U.S. 183, stopping a few times to take a look back at the storm.
Above: Images of the shelf cloud as we retreated from the storm. Image 3 shows the storm approaching San Saba Peak in Mills County.
At this point we ended the chase and proceeded to our hotel in Temple, TX. The MCS caught up with us shortly after our arrival with torrential rain and a lot of lightning.
May 25: As expected, the cold front moved through overnight, shifting the severe weather risk to the east, from the Great Lakes through the Deep South. Any severe weather in chaseable locations was too far away for us to reach. In a bit of irony, there were a few severe weather reports in Illinois on May 25. We thought that there might be some severe weather chances to the east of the upper low across northern Illinois the following day (May 26) which we may have been able to reach but there was not a lot of appetite among the group to spend 10 to 12 hours in the van on the 25th to put us in a position to maybe intercept something on the 26th. We took a down day to do some Texas activities – eat BBQ, visit some historical sites, etc., and drifted northeast toward home, staying overnight in Mt. Pleasant, TX.
May 26: Essentially a travel day. We took the route less traveled from Mt. Pleasant through the Ozarks of Oklahoma and Arkansas, staying overnight in Springfield, MO. We stopped to snap some pictures in the cold under overcast skies. These below are from Three Sticks Monument.
May 27: We made the relatively short drive from Springfield, MO to Edwardsville to end the trip.
Final Mileage: A relatively low-mileage chase. I don’t have the exact values but around 2,200 miles.
Other Thoughts: Don’t forget something warm (jacket, etc.) when chasing! I needed it on the first day in the rain and again on May 26.
Dr. Alan W. Black 