April 7, 2002

April 7, 2002-FINALLY!! I got a chance to chase on a decent day for the first time in 2002. A moderate risk was in place in NW Texas early in the day and my chase partner, Charley Kelly, and I had targeted Abilene, TX for where we wanted to set up. We got a bit of a late start but at the end of the day we were thankful that we did.

My first chase of the year had the potential to be a good one. It had been a slow start to the year for chasing in the plains. Up until then, the number of tornadoes that usually occur was down by two-thirds. My chase partner came down Saturday night and spent the night for the chase day ahead. We got up an hour or so late and quickly got our things together and headed west on I-40 to OKC, down I-44 to Chickasha, and then south on Highway 81 to Marlow where I visited a freind, Harry Sanders. Harry was gracious enough to use his computer to get an update on how things were setting up. When we looked on the net, we saw that there was already a watch and a couple of MD's out for NW Texas. After seeing that, we said goodbye to Harry and went south as we were really behind now.

We headed west on Highway 7 and then went south on Highway 65 until we took a left and went west on Highway 70. From there we took another left and got back on I-44 and went through Wichita Falls. As I was driving, I got radar updates from a local repeater. On there I was told of a cell that was in Haskell county, roughly an hour SW of our location in Wichita Falls. We knew that storms had already developed all over the Abilene area and would be out of our reach so we decided to go after this newer one. From Wichita Falls we went SW on Highway 277 to Seymour and then south on Highway 283 towards Throckmorton. We saw the storm to our west as we were about ten miles north of Throckmorton. After driving out of the rain a few miles to south, we noticed a rain-free base to our west. We went up a dirt road about a mile and parked on top of a hill. We were starting to wonder if anything would happen when it all started coming together.

We noticed some increasing circulation to our west. It decreased for a little bit but got going again a minute later. You could notice a few minutes later the RFD punching in and a few fingers were coming close to the ground. Then it happened. A vortex reached the ground with a couple of smaller vortices dancing around it. It went up into the clouds, but didn't stay there for long. It got itself together even more and put a bigger funnel on the ground, where it stayed for a minute or so. It briefly went up and touched back down again, where it would stay for an awesome 15 minutes or so. It took every shape you could think of:elephant trunk, stove-pipe, almost a wedge. After observing for about 7-8 minutes, the rain started coming down harder so we had to get back on Highway 83 and head back south towards Throckmorton. On the way, the camera was accidently put on standby so we didn't get video of it at it's peak width. We got out of the rain a couple of miles north of Throckmorton and parked on the side of the highway where we met a local Skywarn member and exchanged greetings. After a few minutes, the tornado started to rope out. It was a classic rope-out stage and was a beautiful sight. There was a new point of circulation to it's immediate north. A funnel came out of it but never touched the ground. Noticing that the storm was getting too close to us, we decided to go through Throckmorton and head east on Highway 380. Nothing new ever formed as we were now being chased as to being the chasers. We called it a day shortly after that as everything was forming into a line. We gassed up in Graham and started the long ride home back to Bokoshe.

You couldn't have asked for a better chase. We were thankful for being as late as we were. I saw my first tornado in two years and my partner saw his first ever tornado on his first ever chase. It was a beautiful sight as you couldn't ask for a better tornado. It didn't hit anyone as it made it's trek in the rural part of NW Throckmorton county. Many thanks go out to my freind Harry for letting us visit and use his computer. The trip covered 800 miles but was well worth it. Pics can be found here.