I had decided not to go and then to go and then not to go and then finally I decided to go. I do not have trouble making decisions. I make lots of them.
The models showed that the greatest angle between the dry line and the upper jet was going to be over northern Texas but I thought southern Oklahoma would be good enough. I took I-40 to eastern OK and then went south on 377. The cold front went first in KS and northern OK. Norman’s 88d could detect the front and dry line and it was interesting to see the trends of both boundaries. I had decent data 90% of the time through the entire chase. The OKC area tempted me with isolated cells during the early afternoon but I thought the front would ruin the setup that far north. I was pretty sure SPC would put a tornado watch out from the KS border to the Red River and that eventually happened.
All through the afternoon I could see the junk to the southeast that had been precipitating since I reached the state. Temperatures in southeastern OK to the northeast under the cloud shield were in the 70s. Meanwhile, 90s were pushing into southwestern OK and I though the south central part of the state was the best spot.
I watched the dry line sputter for a few hours. Storms were more successful in northern Texas, to the west of DFW and vicinity, which disappointed but did not surprise me. Through all of this, I knew the biggest negative of the day was the timing of shortwave #1. The sky overhead my location east of the dry line, looked like a well-capped airmass. I counted on the air behind the dry line to start things off, so I did not head south.
Anyway, there were two isolated cells in Texas that did not look especially impressive on radar but had plenty of daylight. The front in OK was overtaking the dry line and convection was building southward linearly. At or near 6pm, a “very brief touchdown” occurred from a cell with a good notch in southern OK, but I was in no position to see that.
I continued to hedge southward for the south end of the line, just in case, but this was looked more and more like a lightning chase. There were cells in the line, but nothing had the character of the storms in northern Texas. Mercifully, darkness fell on schedule and I decided to let the line roll over me in Sherman while I had a salad in the car. Rain, no hail, no damaging straight line winds, no tornadoes. And when it moved on, no good lightning either. I recovered to Durant and spent the night at the Comfort Inn with no tv and no internet.