We went in a 3-vehicle convoy today, targeting Blackwell, OK. Eric Collins (who was in OK an extra day at my insistance before his trip back home tomorrow) and myself were in his Jeep, my girlfriend Jo and Angie Norris were in Ang's car, and Chad Lawson and Susan Walling were in their car. Upon our arrival, it was obvious we were too far east, but driving west was hard to do because of the crappy surface conditions. Today we'd have to be patient and watch our cells develop, then move towards us into the better air.
After sitting in Medford for over an hour watching cells develop all around the area, we finally decided to target the cell in Dewey Co OK, which looked to be tracking right down I-40. We'd made about 10 miles worth of progress on this intercept (from quite a distance NE of the storm), when Dwain alerted us to a new tornado-warned cell in northen Woods CO, OK. We immediately switched track and turned back towards the NW and this Woods Co cell.
We intercepted it near Hazelton, were the storm had an obviously-rotating updraft base but seemed to be having trouble getting its act together. We felt the storm was a sure bet for tornadoes as it moved east.....and we were not disappointed.
First tornado of the day was weird, began as a horizontal tube under the wallcloud, and rapidly rose into it, as the eastern edge tilted vertically and reached to the ground. As soon as it touched, it began to go "helicial or whatever the term is, as it visually "tied itself in a knot" upon dissipation. I recorded the times via my wristwatch during all of this, but we just returend home and I've yet to watch the video. Location for tornado #1 was about 6 miles NNE of Waldron, KS.
Tornado #2 was a classic, textbook, put-everything-down-and-just-look-at-it tornado, which stayed anchored in one spot for 20 minutes. We have the entire sequence of tornadoes 1 & 2 one tripod, save for about the last 5 minutes of the stovepipe, because we were needing to reposition further east for the next round. Despite this move, we were caught well-behind tornado #3 as the storm snuck in a cycle well east of us as we drove noth to Anthony.
Tornado #3 was a large barrel/wedge in bad contrast to our northeast, and we would've been able to drive right up to it had it not been for YET ANOTHER road closure in Kansas, in the middle of BFE. A small bridge expansion of maybe a few hundred yards was blocking our perfect path east to this tornado....we could see the driveable highway on the east side of this construction (destruction?) but could not reach it. So we back-tracked west through town, hitting about a dozen frame-bending caliber dips. We found KS 2 and blasted north.
Once clear of town, we could see a large tornado to the distant east; not sure if this was a continuation of #3 or #4. In a few days when ICT gets their damage tracks online, I'll have to use those to find the actual count for today. Hit Harper on KS2, then turned east onto US160 headed to Davenport. The circulation was just in front of us to the east, as we made great time (despite a TON of people who seemed to want to drive 10-15mph and almost pull off the road, but then decide not to) getting right behind it. A debris cloud (not sure if it was RFD or rotation) flared up to our southeast, and shortly after a nub funnel appeared above it.....not sure if this was a tornado or not, but the funnel was definite. The way this storm was - I'd imagine it was.
The area of concern shifted to just north of US160 as we continued east towards Argonia. We had trees blocking our view for about a mile, but we could see snakey funnels writhing rapidly in violent fashion, as a voice on the scanner said "you got one on the ground right now." This area kept spinning rapidly, violently, and as we cleared the trees briefly, our view to the ground showed a large dust bowl in progress under the rapidly rotating wallcloud.....tornado #?????.
We continued east to Argonia, where the rotation continued to increase and tighten up. We stopped as a merry-go-round low-level meso spun rapidly, practically a huge tornado. I looked away long enough to grab the map....and in that instant, a huge stovepipe tornado developed, and it was strong. This tornado continued to fluctuate, nearly reaching wedge status before disappearing.....about 20-30 seconds later, it re-appeared (or was a new tornado) and once again, took on the stovepipe shape, then grew into a wedge, then back to barrel, then stovepipe....basically going crazy. Thios one seemingly vanished, and then I saw something I'd only read about on WX-CHASE from Gene Moore.
A new tornado developed, then moved WEST.....rotating around the periphery of the entire merry-go-round meso....we could predict its movement once we figured out what it was doing. The thing would moe west, then seemingly sit still (moving south at us), then shoot east and then dissipate. After one of these, suddenly we had multiple tornadoes at once, all single funnels spinning around the meso, as Gene Moore desrcibed witnessing in the TX panhandle years ago. I honestly don't know how many tornadoes we actually saw....will wait for ICT track map to figure out an "official" count.
The last tornado to form in this vicinity anchored into the main meso, and became the largest of the day, a massive wedge at least a half-mile wide. This tornado was very near Ewell, KS, but fortunately we don't know of any major damage to property (save for a house that another chaser reported seeing) and best of all - no injuries that we could find out.
As the giant wedge was in progress, I looked west and there was what appeared to be a roping out tornado, but I hadn't seen a tornado in that spot. I glanced back there a minute later, and the rope was now a snake, roping out to dissipation. I video this one for a few seconds for documentation purposes, then went back to the wedge, whkich was now becoming rain-wrapped.
We moved east on US160, then north on KS49, seeing either a continuation of the wedge or the next tornado, NE of us and very close, maybe less than a mile away. The road was blocked a few miles north of 160 by a cop, so we turned east onto a crap road and went maybe a quarter mile (as far as we dare with impending darkness). This white cone tornado moved NE as it eventually disippated. By this time it was dark, our only good raod option was blocked, so we called it a day.
We saw at least 7-8 confirmed tornadoes, and there's more that I have to sort out in the video. I'll post a follow-up report once I have the final stats from this amazing day.
NOTE: I was very pleased to see a post from Rocky on here before I went to write this post; obviously he, D, and the Fam are okay, despite a (what we heard was) a very close call. Hope things are all okay with the Rascovich gang.
LJK.
