11/10 REPORTS: OK

[Jeff Snyder]

Quick report here...

Went on a spot chase after seeing a nice wallcloud on a storm just to the southeast of Norman about 4:40-4:50. Watched from home for a bit, with some very (very) intense cloud motion. Headed out to the east of Norman, and caught brief glimpses of a couple of nice wallclouds near and west of Shawnee. Overall, couldn't find a single spot to stop safely to get some pics/vids, due to the hills and trees. CERTAINLY wasn't expecting to do a quick spot-chase on a day with 400-600 J/KG CAPE, that's for sure.

 

[Adam Atkins]

Front porch chase

I too watched the disorganized cell which crossed over Norman shortly after 430-5. The storm had several bases and updrafts, with the main updraft and associated wall cloud VERY disjointed from the precipitation shaft. There must have been extreme 0-3 km shear. Quite a bit of turbulence underneath the storm base. Intense vertical motion was observed beneath the wall cloud, which was not rotating, and was very small, characteristic of the "mini-supercell." The OKC storm was much better organized as viewed via helicopter footage on the local news stations. Impressive updrafts for a November day in the mid-60's. If we only had the thermodynamics...today would have been great with mid/upper-60's dewpoints and temps in the uppper 70's, low 80's. I've got the tornado fever again, at the worst time of the year.

 

[Earl Faubion]

Re: Front porch chase

The OKC storm passed near my home in the southwest part of town and then crossed the downtown area before dropping relatively small tornados east of the city. Thanks to rush hour traffic I opted to not chase. The circulation was clearly visible from my front porch at 4:06PM when I took the photo linked below.

http://members.cox.net/easyroll/111004a.jpg

 

[Shane Adams]

Today was a bad day for a chase, since I'm in "Winter" mode and have nothing prepped for chasing. I hadn't planned on going at all because (1) every time I bite on these Fall systems I end up driving around in rain for a couple hours and (2) I've got a bad tire on the left rear. But when the storms all fired up suddenly, and close, we figured it was worth the risk (with the tire). Because we're in Norman, we opted for the McClain county storm and ended up chasing it down hwy 9 and northeast of Bethel Acres. Not surprisingly, the main storm furthest north (and closest to the LOW) started going nuts, but we had no chance of catching up to it so we stayed with our storm and hoped for a miracle. Right before dark we stopped along hwy 102 between hwy 9 and I-40, and noted persistant, moderate broad scale rotation - by far the best I've ever seen in November. Unfortunately, it never got its sct together and before long we had to move to avoid being rolled by it. Betwen that, darkness, and the plentiful bounty of hills/trees, our day was done, as quickly as it started.

It only took about half of the drive back to Norman to get over it, many swears and a couple good screams made me feel better. It's always sucky to hear all the stuff you're missing with the live play-by-play on the scanner. But that's chasing

 

[Bryce Stone]

Got off work too late to catch the OKC cell. Ran out anyway, hoping the cells farther south would produce. After driving for a while, I got caught right under the cell in Pott. county just as it got dark. I heard the tornado warning go out over the radio and they said the circulation was near Romulus. I looked up right at that time to see the city limit sign for Romulus. It was getting dark, and 177 was absolutely CLOGGED with traffic. I couldn't see a thing for all the headlights and blowing rain. Needless to say, I was slightly nervous. Made it out okay, though, and none the worse for the wear.

Saw what might have been a brief touchdown in Pottawatomie county, but I was too far away to verify it. This would have been the cell near Macomb and Tribbey. The odd thing is that I told a person at work today that there might be tornadoes later, and they thought that was funny. I had a feeling we were overdue for a little severe weather here in central Oklahoma.

 

[Sam Sagnella]

After watching the OKC storm drop tornadoes on TV, frustrated by the fact that our normal chase vehicle was 'out of commission,' I figured that I would be stuck watching it unfold from Walker Tower. Later however, an opportunity presented itself, and me and a couple fellow frosh metr students ( :roll: ) opted to chase the storm that passed over Norman around 445 (amazing motion). I agree that the storms were haulin it and we, after leaving around 505ish, were unable to catch up to it until around 6 in Pottowatamie (sp?) Co. The storm had great structure (mini-sup), but were a little weary of the fact that the dusk light was waning, and SE of Shawnee we decided to call it quits.

I had fun.

 

[Greg Stumpf]

I hadn't planned to chase today (had an awful stomach virus Sat-Tue), so I went to work with no gear. At 345pm, I just couldn't let that nice updraft go that was just NW of Norman. Got first view at I-240 and May, but then realized that I may have placed myself too far west. Can guess what? Played catchup for the next 45 minutes, trying to get through rush hour clogged N-S and E-W grid streets in Midwest City as the RFD began to cut through overhead and to the north. Saw some nice rapidly rising scud fingers on the leading edge of the updraft base. But in a few minutes, from my vantage point at 15th and Sunnyvale, it looked like the storm had blown itself out - too much cold air. I was wrong. Trees, buildings, and low cloud bases obscured my view of a cranking meso about 3 mi to my NE.

So, as I criss-crossed the grid of roads to Spencer, I started to view the meso to the NE. I couldn't catch up on these roads, until I hit a diagonal paved road (Spencer Jones Rd.). I eventually caught up to the meso just NE of Jones, and caught the tail end of the tornado reported SW of Luther. A skinny condensation finger between ground and cloud for about a minute, and then another brief "touch" about a minute later, lasting about 20 seconds. Just as I got the meso about 1/2 mile to my north (bases almost scraping the trees), I noticed a new lowering and rising motion about 4 miles NE - the meso jumped. The old meso quickly occluded and detached from the fast-moving storm. And then the pavement and sunlight ran out and I went home.

One interesting storm structure note - even though these updrafts were *severely* sheared (60 degrees from the vertical is not an exaggeration), the wall cloud edge on the south and southeast side of the meso was still vertical!

My "tornado calendar" has now officially been exteneded into November (Mar - Nov), but I have no "proof"! (Also, first tornado I've ever seen w/o cameras)

 

[Charles Allison]

Caught this near Jones, OKlahoma around 4:45pm

Windows Media
https://eallisondesigns.com/Video%20Clips/OKCNov10.wmv
Real Media
https://eallisondesigns.com/Video%20Clips/OKCNov10.rm

 

[George Flickinger]

OKC area tornado pics

Charles, you are already on here?! :lol:

I hooked up with Charles Allison in Chandler, and we headed to OKC where we observed this storm going up. This chase was a weird experience because we were in the heart of Central Oklahoma, and saw no chasers for a good while!

Picture 1 is of the wall cloud as viewed from north of Nicoma Park. At this time, a Severe T'storm warning had not yet been issued. We got 0.5" hail.

Picture 2, the tornado is on the ground about 1 mile to our SW. It appeared to last about 1-2 min. I may be wrong, I don't believe a TOR was issued yet, and we saw no other chasers.

Picture 3, Impressive low level rotation from the low-topped Supercell. Rotation was fast and near the ground. On video, you can see the tornado is on the ground though it's hard to tell here. A SE wind was blowing into
the Meso here at about 25-30kts

Picture 4,5 Tornado appears to reform .5 mile ahead of us and crosses road. We videotape trees being thrown in the air. Later driving across damage path, it looks like low F1. Shortly after, Val Castor went zooming by us....

 

[Scott Currens]

Today was a very frustrating day. I left Norman around 3:30 and headed to SW OKC. At Will Rogers Airport the developing supercell had a large oval updraft base with no discernable rotation. Just as the updraft base moved east of my position I noticed thin rain-bands rapping around a developing meso. At this point I had to make a decision, take city streets and watch the meso while it looks interesting, or take highways through the core and get ahead of the meso and miss the current action. Unfortunately I made mistake #1 and chose the former and got stuck in pre-rush hour traffic. When I finally reached I-35 the meso was about 5 to my NNE. At this point I made mistake #2 and gave up because I didn’t think it would be worth chasing into the trees. I headed south for two minutes before OUN NWS started reporting power flashes and a tornado on the east side of OKC. The rest is history!

Scott Currens
2004 Highlight Video Preview:
www.mesoscale.ws/video

 

[David Schuttler]

Not being able to lock the doors at work till 5 pm , made for to late of a start. I made it to the east side of Drumright as the storm approaced from the sw . I managed to see RAIN by that time. :x

Did get a free burrito and pizza pocket at a local station there ..

Nice vid on FOX Charles & George, congrats

 

[Melissa Moon]

I wasn't feeling well today, so I sat and watched all of the action on TV. Kind of disappointed that I couldn't get out and go try to experience the action firsthand, but I must admit that I enjoyed "chasing" via my couch and my warm blanket.

So, yeah, that's my "chase report". Enthralling, huh?

 

[Charles Allison]

Put a few more clips from yesterday up.
www.oklahomalightning.com

 

[Greg Stumpf]

Here's the NSSL WDSSII Rotation Tracks image for 11/10/2004 in Central Oklahoma. Looks like a tail of three mini-supercells. The strongest event coincides with the tornado in NE Oklahoma County. Other strong tracks are just west of Shawnee Reservior on the Cleveland/Pott county line, and from McClain-Southern Cleveland-Pott county.



Here's a "smoothed" version for the media types. Uses a 5 km Cressman kernal.

 

[Melissa Moon]

Thanks for posting that image, Greg! 8)