April 6 2001

April 6, 2001. This looks like the first major chase of the year. Right now, things look very favorable for a widespread severe weather event from the Texas Panhandle to Nebraska to Illinois. My target area (as of 12am April 5) will most likely be the northeaster Texas Panhandle. Storms will be moving fast. We will need to get in position well ahead of developing storms. It will be impossible to keep up with them once they pass us up. It is possible that a squall line will develop. Our goal is to find an isolated supercell either ahead of the line or tail-end-charlie.

Departure from OKC 11:45am Target NW Oklahoma.
We arrived east of Hugoton, KS about 5pm. The line was well to our west. Cells in the line were moving at 65 to 90 mph. One cell to out SSW was headed to us. It passed just to our west. One tornado was reported just NE of Hugoton. We could not see any cloud features at the time. As the line approached us, we saw a brief column of dust to our south. It may have been a gustnado. Then the squall line over took us. We tried to get back east, but no luck. It had small hail and high winds, but nothing too exciting.