Justin Teague
EF3
I usually don't post chase reports, but I thought that I would add my input concerning the "dust cloud". Joseph Tyree and I started out around Snyder and moved to intercept the line of cells that developed to the west of Altus. We enjoyed watching them from several miles away, as everything seemed just a little more beautiful than normal. Maybe it's just been too long since I've seen solid, daytime convection, but something about these storms seemed unique from the start. We noticed that the base on the southern cell was lowering in and decided to move in to have a look. We pulled off onto a County road to the west of Blair and watched the storm as it moved towards us. We noticed rotation in the lowered base, but didn't really give it too much thought/credit until we started to see dust "whirls" in the outflow. We decided that they were nothing more than gustnadoes and would probably be the highlight of our chase, so we focused our efforts on chasing these gustnadoes.
The first unique occurence was near the small town (probably a couple of buildings in reality) of Warren, which is to the SW of Roosevelt. We were paying close attention to a broad circulation, which we believed was nothing more than an eddy, when dust began to kick up beneath it. I was a little confused at this point because there wasn't any precip and I didn't think that the rotation was a meso, which would rule out RFD (in my mind). After watching this feature for several minutes, I decided that it would probably be safe to "intercept" it. We positioned ourselves in it's path and let it overtake us. We registered a gust of 54mph, but the anemometer seemed to be having issues, so it's quite possible that the winds were higher than that. It continued on for a short way and seemed to dissipate before reaching Roosevelt. We were treated to a beatiful rainbow next to the magnificently contrasted shelf cloud and decided to make a break for Taco Bueno in Lawton before the gruelling drive back to Tulsa (in the rain). We stopped off along the way to watch the sunset behind the shelf cloud. I saw Amos and a couple of others pull into a small drive across the street and we all (unbeknownst to them) enjoyed a nice sunset and a beautiful shelf cloud with occasional CGs.
Back to the dust whirl..... Personally, I would never in a million years call that a tornado, but like Amos, I believe that it was unique and I haven't come up with a good explanation for it's occurence. Even if it was some weird tornado, it didn't satisfy my tornadic desires one bit, so it's a moot point for me
The first unique occurence was near the small town (probably a couple of buildings in reality) of Warren, which is to the SW of Roosevelt. We were paying close attention to a broad circulation, which we believed was nothing more than an eddy, when dust began to kick up beneath it. I was a little confused at this point because there wasn't any precip and I didn't think that the rotation was a meso, which would rule out RFD (in my mind). After watching this feature for several minutes, I decided that it would probably be safe to "intercept" it. We positioned ourselves in it's path and let it overtake us. We registered a gust of 54mph, but the anemometer seemed to be having issues, so it's quite possible that the winds were higher than that. It continued on for a short way and seemed to dissipate before reaching Roosevelt. We were treated to a beatiful rainbow next to the magnificently contrasted shelf cloud and decided to make a break for Taco Bueno in Lawton before the gruelling drive back to Tulsa (in the rain). We stopped off along the way to watch the sunset behind the shelf cloud. I saw Amos and a couple of others pull into a small drive across the street and we all (unbeknownst to them) enjoyed a nice sunset and a beautiful shelf cloud with occasional CGs.
Back to the dust whirl..... Personally, I would never in a million years call that a tornado, but like Amos, I believe that it was unique and I haven't come up with a good explanation for it's occurence. Even if it was some weird tornado, it didn't satisfy my tornadic desires one bit, so it's a moot point for me
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