Good shear, but limited moisture would be the problem this day. Storms formed along a cold front in central Oklahoma by mid afternoon, but were high based. We were watching a cluster of towers west of Lawton and hoped something would form from them. Later in the afternoon, they did just that. A supercell emerged and produced baseball sized hail. Early evening it became tornado warned. It produced a couple of funnels but was moving into capped air and weakened. The setting sun made for a cool image as the updraft evaporated.
May 6, 2026 Garden City to Brookhaven, MS Tornadic Supercell
A crazy day for us and of course the unfortunate good folks of southern Mississippi. Spent the night in West Memphis and targeted south of Jackson, MS. After a cluster of storms formed, became severe and tornado warned, they moved northeast and weakened. We decided to play a new cluster west of Nachez in an environment that was far better than MS. Higher dews, clearer skies and stronger flow would allow the cluster to consolidate into a large rotating storm. We dropped south, south of Sibley, MS to wait for it instead of trying to get across the Mississippi river and not having a return route due to the now tornado warned storm. As it approached us, rotation was seen and the CGs were off the chart striking every 5-10 seconds!!! We soon had to quickly get out of the way as the rfd wrapped around this massive bowl shaped lowering. It raced off east of us across the trees and planted a rather large EF-3 wedge tornado. This tornado became quite strong and a TORNADO EMERGENCY was issued for towns in its path. The supercell produced multiple strong class tornadoes for the next 100 miles as it churned across the southern part of the state. We approached it one other time and could see violent wrapping rain curtains and strong downward motion, showing us the rain wrapped wedge was very close and intense. Eventually due to darkness we called off the chase and went back to Garden City, MS to see if anyone needed help. Many downed trees, power lines and much debris blocked the highway. Several of us jumped in to clear the road and get to a woman who was injured. We had to use chain saws to cut through the trees as another tornado warned storm was approaching. An absolutely insane day and I am very proud of our guides and even some of the guests in getting their hands dirty to help others! Our hearts and prayers go out to those affected by this monster!



