Topic: Tornado Alley Chasing 2011

[Jimmy Deguara]

Hi,

I came here to Tornado Alley for a short stint and am en-route for return. Thanks to Dan for allowing me to chase with him!

The storms were as per usual clean in most cases and tornado producing. Had three consecutive days with tornadoes and out of the 5 days chased. Some spectacular structure, wall clouds and lightning though the chasing on a couple of the days was fast and furious.

Below are the best pictures for your viewing.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Jimmy Deguara]

Chase 23rd April 2011

Chased northern Texas and intercepted two supercells. Incredible clean supercell structure with a rotating wall cloud that was very close to producing - perhaps a funnel was observed before the storm was let go. We tried to head to another supercell though the storm wrapped up and although producing some rotation, nothing was observed in terms of tornadoes.

23 April 2011 Photo Gallery

Wall cloud

[Jimmy Deguara]

24th April 2011

Photo Gallery 24th April 2011

Scored a rope tornado near Baird Texas




Tornado

[Jimmy Deguara]

25th April 2011

Photo Gallery 25th April 2011

On this day, we scored another tornado.





Funnel cloud - this mesocyclone with strong rotation eventually led to the tornado


Tornado suddenly appears





Next supercell explodes to the south


What contrast!





The next supercell

[nzstorm]

Amazing photos Jimmy. April looks to have been very active for the south.

[Jimmy Deguara]

26th April 2011

Photo Gallery 26th April 2011

High risk event prior to the high risk in Alabama. We chased about 11 mesocyclones dropping from one to the next. I lost count of the number of hooks produced on this day!

First hook echo region:





Hook region to our east


The TV crew with Tim Samaras



New hook region separating from main storm to the east










Occulsion and rope-out





Next supercell south



next supercell base to the west





Next supercell south



Looking at a hook region at night


Lightning from these cells were powerful and dangerous




Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Jimmy Deguara]

30th April 2011

Photo Gallery 30th April 2011

Supercells near and east of Dallas. Strangely enough due to decreasing light and the fact I had to be dropped off at Oklahoma City Airport, we had to leave a developing cell that eventually became tornado warned and persisted during the night for several hours. The cell near Dallas eventually collapsed once the cold fron undercut it.









Wall cloud or outflow - regardless it got undercut in this process:


Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Jason(pato)]

Awesome set of pics Jimmy!!.I'm just hoping next year is as active as this year has been for when I get my chance to chase the US plains in search of tornadoes. Certainly has been an epic start to their season over there!

[Mike]

Beaut images, Jimmy.  Now that's the kind of season you want to start with when you travel abroad!!!  Spectacular turbulance in some of those images and the amount of funnels shown is very nice.  Envy you guys over there, stay safe for those still there and hope to see a lot more.  Could some soundings or something be shown at times when you intercept these storms.  Would be interesting to see the profiles of such things as you chase them. 

[Jimmy Deguara]

Mike et al,

I have already returned - these images were from 5 chases - 3 days had tornadoes out of those 5. I think it may be the first time that I have had tornadoes on 3 consecutive days.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Jimmy Deguara]

Hi,

I wanted to comment on the lightning bolts above. I am wandering whether these may be examples of smooth channel lightning. David? Difficult to ascertain given the low bases.

Edit: In discussion with David, it seems these are those smooth channel lightning associated with tornadic supercells.




Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Jeff Brislane]

Hi Jimmy, I was going to mention the smooth channel lightening when I saw the first images. Very nice examples photographed.

[Mike]

More likely positive types Jimmy.  Lack of branching gives them away.  Was there any distinct continuing current associated with them and how many times did they return stroke?  There's no discernable polarity type with supercells, some are highly charged, some are not.  Broader scale cells usually emit more positive types than negative purely due to their structure and polarioty set up.  Nice clean flashes though...tornadoes and lightning!

[Jimmy Deguara]

Hi guys,

Finally have been able to place the tornado video online - the processing required is painstaking due to the high resolution video format.

The tornado you will recognise is the one at Mabank, Texas above. The tornado occurred on 26th April 2011.

Strong tornado complete with mesocyclone

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Brad Hannon]

Hi all, continuing the tradition of Aussies invading the plains each year im over here with John Allen and we've had a very hectic start to our chasing.  Our first 4 days yielded 2500miles, 6 states and 3 chase days with supercells on each and some satisfying results!  Here is our blog which has now finally been updated:

www.huntersofthunder.com

Brad.