Target Area: Childress/Plainview, Texas
Chase Area: Clarendon/Miami, Texas
Observations: a thunderstorm
Distance: 550 miles
Time: 13 hours, 45 minutes
Chase Team: Jeff Makowski and myself
SPC Convective Outlook: Slight Risk (downgraded to See Text in target area at 2000Z, but upgraded to Moderate in Illinois/Indiana) (Click to see SPC products, data, and storm reports)
Chase Setup: Due to a ridge over the Northern and Central Plains, there was very little, if any, upper-level support for storms in the Plains this day. A surface low was located in southeastern New Mexico, with a dryline extending southward and a stationary front running through west central Texas. A few outflow boundaries were in place across west Texas, following the storms from the previous day. Surface winds in west Texas were from the southeast with dewpoints in the low to mid-60s. MLCAPE in northwest Texas was over 3000 J kg-1. Effective SRH was around 150 m2 s-2 near the low.
Blog Entries:
Chase #15 Evaluation and Chase #16 (before)
World Wide Weather #6: Matador, Texas (before)
Chase Log: We sat in Clarendon for quite some time, watching cumulus clouds go up and down. Disheartened by how the day was not looking as decent as originally forecast, we debated just going to a nearby park or lake to pass the time.
Finally we saw a small storm pop up to our north, so we headed out after it. By the time we got there, there was nothing left; however, we saw another thunderstorm forming nearby. Once again, though, the updraft died as soon as we got there. Calling it a day, we turned our back on another thunderstorm that just popped up. That one strengthened a bit more, but we were happy to see it die fairly quickly as we were too far away.