May 24th certainly lived up to its High Risk billing. Supercells exploded along the dryline in western Oklahoma and quickly became violent. Numerous EF3 – EF4 tornadoes occurred with various supercells. We intercepted the Canton storm, which produced 3 tornadoes we could verify. Then we dropped south to Oklahoma City and intercepted two more storms that produced tornadoes as well. My heart goes out to all those who suffered personal losses this day. If you haven’t gotten involved or donated to the local Red Cross/or other agencies, please do so!
May 23rd, 2011 Homestead, OK Tornado
Things looked decent this day. However, due to high cloud bases, the tornado threat never really materialized. We went west from Enid, OK to play the dryline and encountered a nearly stationary supercell, albeit high based. This cell eventually dropped a slender truncated elephant trunk shaped tornado that was on the ground maybe 3-4 minutes. We later dropped south to another supercell that spun like crazy, and then abruptly died. Very wierd day, but at least we did catch a tornado. Thanks Rich Hamel for your use of your tight shot of the tornado. I had the wrong lens on my camera.
April 22, 2011 Southern Oklahoma Tornadoes
April 22nd took me to south central Oklahoma to play a dryline/triple point setup. Good shear, albeit a bit weak upper flow, excellent instability, dewpoints in the upper 60s and lift along the dryline would spark severe storms this day. Storms became HP fairly fast due to the weaker upper level flow. I intercepted a couple of supercells near Paul’s Valley, that later produced tornadoes near Stratford, OK. HP structure was good and they were extremely electrified. We also viewed 3 tornadoes from these storms.
April 14, 2011 Oklahoma Tornadic Supercells
Caryn and I took a group to Oklahoma for what appeared to be a significant tornado event. Even though we did see a tornado near Burbank, OK, it did not live up to the hype that had been built up this day. A weakness in the low level shear would result in lots of supercells that were rotating, but very few that actually did produce a tornado. We witnessed a tornado during the afternoon near Burbank as a supercell spun wildly and dropped the elephant trunk shaped tornado in the photos below less than a quarter mile from us. A fun day, but not as wild as anticipated. We were saddened to learn of the 2 fatalities in southeast Oklahoma from a strong tornado that did occur near Tushka.
April 8, 2011 Medford, OK Tornadic Supercells
We headed to northern Oklahoma this day for what appeared to be a high risk/high reward setup. By late afternoon a few supercells developed on the dryline and intensified as the evening progressed. The low level jet strengthened as stronger mid and upper level flow overspread the region, creating a nicely sheared environment. One supercell spun like crazy as a wall cloud formed directly overhead, while another became a classic monster after dark.
February 27, 2011 Northern Oklahoma Tornado Warned Supercell
I couldn’t resist the first chase of the year. A strong, but shearing short wave was forecast to emerge into western Texas/Oklahoma, and race east northeast. A lee cyclone was developing in southeast Colorado and was forecast to move eastward along the warm front. A strong dryline was moving east into Oklahoma and would be the culprit in developing the lone warm sector supercell west of Pond Creek by mid afternoon. We intercepted this storm in its formation stages and virtually had the storm to ourselves early in its life. As it moved into a moistening environment along the warm front it eventually became a nice supercell that rode and occasionally went north of the boundary. Finally, just northeast of Newkirk, OK, the storm produced a tornado, albeit fairly short lived. The storm had pretty structure through most of its life cycle.
June 13, 2010 Oklahoma Panhandle Tornadoes
June 13th was the first day of our historic Tour 6 (31 tornadoes total on this tour!). We were a bit late to see the first tornado from this HP supercell southwest of Slapout, OK. By the time we arrived, it was cycling, with several occlusions occuring before it finally cycled and produced a fairly stout, low contrast, partially rain wrapped tornado. A second small and brief tornado occurred after the first one wrapped completely in rain. Fun day, even though we were a bit too late for the most photogenic tornado of the day.
May 19, 2010 Oklahoma Tornadic Supercell
We intercepted a tornadic supercell in central Oklahoma near Dover, that produced a nice cone tornado. This became almost completely rain wrapped as it moved rapidly eastward. Due to the TIV and support crew blocking the road, we almost had a collision course with this tornado. We were very fortunate the tornado passed just to our south or else disaster could have happened. One of these days, chasers are going to die due to congestion, stupidity and irresponsibility.
May 11 and 12, 2010 Supercells and Brief Tornado
May 11th and 12th promised to be decent days. Decent moisture and instability were present, along with good shear. However a fairly stout cap was in place on the 11th, which was much weaker on the 12th. We intercepted a briefly tornadic supercell south of Woodward, OK on the 11th and then a monster HP beast near Clinton, OK on the 12th. The 11th’s storm was a wet LPish type supercell with pretty structure and a weak tornado not far from Strong City. The 12th’s supercell produced a tornado east of Clinton that we weren’t able to see, however the HP’s structure was quite nice.
May 10, 2010 Northern Oklahoma Tornado Outbreak
May 10th had huge potential with SPC issuing a High Risk. A strong deep trough would kick out a wave through the southern plains that would create strong moisture advection, increasing instability and strong deep layer shear. We chased one particular storm that formed well southwest of Cherokee, Oklahoma. It developed from a high based supercell that moved off the dryline into deeper moisture, lowering its base and becoming a beast. We intercepted it close to there and followed it toward Wakita where it produced numerous tornadoes. Later that afternoon we would catch another supercell near Ponca City that produced a slender elephant trunk tornado near Pawuska, OK. Being on the wrong side of the van as we raced east to escape a closing tornado west of Medford, I could not shoot any decent video, but here is a cool video that also contains two clips from Ruth McAvinia that shows some crazy behavior from a couple of chasers. Some of these pictures are from my guests Dr Ken Fitzgerald and Ruth McAvinia.
