May 30, 2001 Ada to McAlester Tornadic Supercells
Storm chasers generally prefer to avoid the forests of eastern Oklahoma at all costs, and this with good reason: poor visibility and limited roads. You are very lucky, indeed, if you manage to reel off a shot of a tornado rampaging through a heavily forested area. Our luck this day was not good enough to do so but we were able to film at least one good funnel cloud and get close enough to a tornado on the outskirts of McAlester, Oklahoma to see debris raining out of the sky. To read the complete chase summary click here.
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| Funnel cloud forms beneath rain-free base of supercell. Looking southwest from Hwy 270 3 miles SE of Calvin, OK. | Same funnel cloud, slightly wider-angle view showing the RFD (rear-flank downdraft) slot cutting into the base from the west. | Close-up of funnel cloud | This is about the closest to earth this poor little funnel will get! |
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| Later on, we intercept a new supercell storm east of McAlester. Unfortunately, due to trees, the fact that we were attempting to play catch-up and numerous road blocks, we never did see the tornado. Note bits and pieces of housing insulation lying in the road. | Beaver tail cloud streaming into the McAlester supercell from the east. We are now northeast (ahead) of the storm on Hwy 1 east of Hartshorne, OK. | We stop near Yanush, OK over a lake and watch the supercell continue towards us. This is one of many lightning bolts that illuminated the storm. Shortly after this image was taken, we abandoned our vantage point because it was dark and we could see a wall cloud heading for our location. Ten minutes after we left, a tornado was spotted where we had been sitting! |