April 5, 2003 Chase

(with one small 10 second funnel)

This chase (for me) started in Oklahoma City where I first drove to Wichita Falls to pick up Robert. From there we headed southwest toward Seymour, TX as the main storm of the day had already started much further southwest. We intercepted the storm first near Stamford, TX after the storm apparently had produced the only large tornado of the day further west near Aspermont, TX. Map below of where we ended up going southwest.

We let the storm get past of us in an area with no eastward road options. We ended up coming up behind the storm and then racing east on US 380 to Graham so that we could get back in front on the speeding train in time to safely cross the hail path. A map....

Reaching a position just northwest of Mineral Wells, we were able to watch the south end of the storm along with a ragged and inconsistent lowering.

After the majority of the precip and huge hail passed to our north, we could see a more substantial lowering approaching us. Vidcaps below:

The lowering above briefly produced a funnel about 2/3 of the way to the ground seen below.

Also, CLICK HERE for short video of feature below!! (372 KB windows media)

or... CLICK HERE for same video (527 KB "real video")

A well executed chase, except for getting started too late, and getting stuck with no east running roads in southern Haskell County.

My driving total 570.4 miles. One very puny tornado.

Kenneth