Tornado Intercept in Texas, First for 2007

Tour Type: Tornado: QuickFlight Non-Scheduled Tour
Chase Date: 2007 FEB 23
Target Area: Hedley, TX
Images: 19
Highlight Video: Yes

On February 23 and 24, 2007 we got a nice little surprise that created tornadoes, high winds, blizzards and dust storms in the United States as a deepening low pressure system ejected into the central plains.  After a rather bitter chasing season in 2006 and a winter that left me cold and snow covered, I was more than ready for any chance of tornadoes and I had been watching this system as it matured for more than a week.

On the morning of the 23rd, Friday, there appeared to be two viable target areas.  The first target was western Oklahoma and the eastern portion of the Texas Panhandle and the second being central Kansas between Garden City and Russell.  As usual both target areas had their pros and cons.  The failure mode for the more southerly target was the stratus deck that was lingering over the area, the failure mode for the northern target was lower dew points and less sheer.

After conferencing with Sarah Kogler (one of our meteorologist) I decided that the southern target had the best chances of tornado development and our group left Tulsa around 9:00 AM CST.  Once I got into the Oklahoma City area, the Storm Prediction Center had issued a MD for portions of the eastern Texas Panhandle.   As I neared the Oklahoma and Texas Border and Tornado Watch was issued for the area as well.

I stopped in Erik, Oklahoma and topped off the fuel tanks at a Loves gas station and just as soon as I was finished pumping nearly 30 gallons of high octane juice into the van – my credit card company had put a block on my card due to “suspicious” activity.  It seems that after being inactive for an entire winter they thought someone was using my card to buy fuel at various stations across Oklahoma.  It’s good they do this kind of stuff, but its very annoying when there are storms within sight and you have to spend 15-minutes on the phone with them proving who you are and that nobody stole your credit card.  With the problem behind us, we crossed the border into Texas on I-40.

A few storms begin to develop southeast of Amarillo and were tracking to the northeast towards I-40 near McLean, TX.   We sat at an exit ramp off of I-40 in McLean as the supercell moved into the area and watched it for about 20 minutes.  This was around 5:40PM and sunset on this day was at 6:20PM, so I was getting a bit nervous – I didn’t wait too long on a storm due to the sun soon to set and loosing my light.   A “tail-end Charlie” storm started to really get its act together further south near Hedley, TX and I decided to leave the McLean supercell and try to get a glimpse of the southern cell before we lost our daylight.

While en-route to the southern storm we heard radio communications that the storm we just left was producing a tornado.  We were already about halfway to the southern storm and with daylight moving away from us with every passing second, I decided to not turn around and to continue to pursue the tail-end storm.

We pulled over the southern storm in sight to our southwest and tracking towards us and we took the core of it with some penny sized hail and heavy downpours.   The storm had a bowl-shaped lowering that produced a funnel and made it about half-way to the ground (we thought at the time).  As it turned out there was an off-duty National Weather Service meteorologist who had a different viewpoint of this storm and he saw a “dirt swirl” on the ground underneath the funnel that we witnessed.  

I’m thankful that meteorologist was there, because without his verification we would have only of counted this as a funnel, but since he validated the report we officially got our first tornado of 2007 about 6 miles to the northeast of Hedley, TX!

With the next day’s target being in central Kansas we decided to make up most of the mileage that evening and drove back to Oklahoma City for the night.  The following morning we left OKC and headed up I-35 into central Kansas for a possible chance of tornadoes near the center of the surface low, which was moving into the area.  

As we moved into the Marian, KS area a few storms began to develop and heavily rotate, being just to the east of the surface low with strong backed winds, both storms were tornado warned very quickly.  Despite this, they just didn’t have what it took to hold together and they began to disorganize as the updraft got choked and dissipate.

We stayed in Kansas along I-70 until 5PM, hoping that something would get going again but nothing ever did.  Blizzard conditions were being reported along I-70 just to our west and it was heading our general direction.  The tornado watch was set to expire at 6PM so we called it a day and decided to get back into Oklahoma before the winds and snow hit.

SUMMARY:  Altogether, I can’t complain – we don’t usually get a chase attempt this early in the year and with our first tornado of the year already behind us now, I’m greatly looking forward to the next chase for 2007!

Storm Chasing Photos

Radar Imagery

Satellite Imagery

Surface Observations and Maps

Highlight Video