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This was the day of the Ardmore tornado, which we now know
was on the ground for over 50 miles through N TX and
south-central Oklahoma. This tornado formed as a solid
squall line broke into discrete cells, with only the southern
one or two cells surviving and becoming supercells.
Another squall line formed in a very similar environment over
the far eastern part of the TX Panhandle and SW TX. An HP
supercell in this line was targeted by VORTEX. Good aircraft
and sounding data were obtained. The mobile mesonet was not
deployed for data collection; our operations plan calls for
deployment on fast moving storms only when a tornado is
occurring or appears imminent, or as a last-ditch
data-gathering effort prior to the end of operations on a
given day.
Clearly, the Ardmore storm would have made a much more
interesting target. Events of this day make it obvious (once
again) just how little we know about storm-environment
interactions. The squall lines appeared to be in similar
environments, but one broke into cells and the other evolved
into a solid line.
Erik Rasmussen
Jerry Straka