The first chase day for us for 2015! After a long drive from Denver, Caryn and Roger ended up near Stillwater, Oklahoma where several storms developed. Following the first supercell towards Tulsa, which weakened, we dropped southwest towards Moore, Oklahoma to catch this highly striated supercell at the tail end of a line. This storm produced another damaging tornado in Moore, which had been hit several times by violent tornadoes in the past 15 years.
What a fun chase day this was! We intercepted several storms in northern Texas and one in particular near the town of Henrietta would become one of my favorite supercells of 2014! The structure was top notch, it’s motion was nice and slow, and it was extremely photogenic! Although not tornadic, it came close a couple of times to producing. Later, a second supercell formed west of Wichita Falls, Texas and moved north across the Red River into southern Oklahoma. This storm was extremely electrified and also tornado warned. Both supercells produced hail baseball sized as they churned across the countryside.
June 3rd was an interesting day. Poor moisture, but decent shear would result in a cluster of outflow dominant severe storms. Many were quite electrified and pretty. Most produced marginal severe hail and severe outflow winds.
Last day of Tour 4, so we stayed close to home (OKC). Several storms formed as the environment continued to prime for the culmination on May 31st (which we couldn’t chase due to commitments to be back in Denver that day!). An active dryline spawned several supercells, of which most were tornado warned. From Chickasha all the way down to the Red River south of Ardmore, it was a treat even though no tornadoes actually occurred.
April 26th was a surprise day for me. I wasn’t figuring on much happening, however nature gave us a pretty supercell west of Clinton that had decent structure, hail and was tornado warned, despite limited moisture and shear. Here’s a few shots of it.
The hype of April 17th didn’t live up to its billing. Only a few brief tornadoes occurred, and most were not very visible or photogenic. We chased a supercell near Lawton that produced a messy tornado in town, and then dropped south to the Red River of a near dark supercell that produced a small tornado before we could get there.
April 22nd took me to northwest Oklahoma to play a dryline/cold front intersection. A couple of intense supercells formed near Enid and northward across the Kansas border, but we waited till the dryline storms formed by early evening. A magnificent supercell formed southwest of Woodard, and turned moving southeast towards Leedey. The structure of the storm was simply stunning, with the best photography occurring just as dusk as intercloud lightning illuminated the highly striated updraft!
May 29th, what else can be said. I have seen so many tornadoes in the past 20 years on this date. It is like the holy grail for tornadoes. This year would be no different either. We sat near Fairview, Ok watching a cluster of towers go up in a great environment. Good shear, good moisture, great instability and the triple point play. What could go wrong? A storm eventually emerged from the cluster of towers and became an intense supercell. We stayed in front of it from Okeene to Kingfisher and all the way to Yukon. The structure steadily got better and it became tornado warned near Kingfisher. Finally, with help from a left moving cell from the south, our storm produced a weak tornado north of the Yukon/Piedmont area. The best thing about this supercell was definitely its structure!
After a long break in the action, May 4th provided a high based supercell with decent structure near Walters, OK. This storm produced hail baseball sized and maintained a nice striated appearance for a couple hours before dissipating. I don’t have a lot of shots from it due to a malfunctioning CF card. Here’s the two I was able to grab.
April 14th was a day that held great promise of long track violent tornadoes. SPC issued a High Risk for the area. We decided that we’d play the dryline down wind to allow storms to intensify as the raced at 50-60 mph towards us. The ultimate goal was to end up in northwest Oklahoma by mid afternoon, by dropping south with each storm until we got to within an hour of initiation point. Only thing is, nature would have the last laugh with us. We captured a tornado warned storm near Macksville that was racing towards Salina. When we saw it, it had weakened considerably, so we let it go. This would be the storm that RE-INTENSIFIED and produced several photogenic strong tornadoes near Salina. So, we dropped further south to a pair of tornado warned supercells heading towards Kingman. First one weakened as well, but briefly intensified and produced a short lived truncated elephant trunk shaped tornado. The second supercell pulsed up and down and produced two brief tornadoes not far from Pretty Prairie. Finally, seeing the storm of the day develop and immediately start producing tornadoes east of Woodward, we blasted south and made Manchester, OK right at dark. A very strong cone, then wedge formed and passed within 400 yards of us and raced into southern Kansas. We stayed with the storm, crossing multiple damage paths and witnessing several more tornadoes before we couldn’t stay up with it as it approached Wichita. This storm would produce anywhere from 15-20 tornadoes along its path from Woodward to northeast of El Dorado. Here’s a few pics from the day, overall a great deal of tornadoes intercepted, but what could have been in daylight for us, just wasn’t meant to be.
