Storms were expected to fire up along and ahead of the dryline.
Tornado Watches were issued for a large area extending from the Texas Panhandle northwards to about central Nebraska.
After assessing the situation, we decided to head a bit further south to Woodward, Oklahoma. Another set of storms was brewing over the Texas Panhandle around Amarillo, Texas and heading eastwards. These storms were tornado warned at times.
Unfortunately the area we were in in Northwestern Oklahoma had a HUGE DATA HOLE. We went about 4 hours with no data available on the wireless so it was hard to know what was coming in terms of storm activity.
Once in Woodward, we were able to get data from the local McDonalds and noticed a large bowing segment on radar heading right towards our location. The area was under a Severe Thunderstorm Warning.
When the radar image takes on a bow echo like the left side of the image above, that indicates very strong winds associated with it that are literally pushing the precipitation ahead near the centre of the echo. Winds can gust in excess of 100km/h and can cause some damage.
A very pronounced shelf cloud was associated with the advancing gust front.
Once the shelf passed, winds became very gusty and the rain came down in sheets. A local storm spotter reported gusts of 60mph or 100km/h. We also had some small pea sized hail with this storm.
Temperatures dropped from 28°C to 15°C in a matter if minutes. Shortly after the storm passed, temps shot right back up to 30°C.
That was about the best action we got that day as all other storms around our area that had tornado warnings, had since diminished.
It was time to head north and find a place to sleep before the big drive to Denver, Colorado on Thursday. Once we got back into Kansas, we were in a pretty good DATA area... thank god.
Stayed the night in Liberal, Kansas at the Quality Inn. Liberal is right on the border of Oklahoma/Kansas
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