1995-05-07: Ardmore , Ok tornado

[Jason Young]

I will start out by saying I did not chase this storm.

This is the Storm that dropped a Tornado in Noth Texas then moved through
Love co. Ok. ( Killing 3 ) then moved through the west side of Ardmore and lifted on the north side of town by I-35. It is the 4th costlist tornado in Oklahoma history at 100+ million. Luck for my family my dad was working on a house in the Plainview area and got out minutes before it arrived . The two story house was no more than a slab after. In my shock I watched a local tv station coverage of the damage , when the sirens here in Sulphur sounded. The cell that hit Ardmore dropped a beautiful set of white twin's north of town . Odd to think this cell and the 2-10-09 storm moved so close to the same path and both was while a Vortex mision. Would love to here if any of the older chaser's chased this event.

 

[jeremy wilson]

Didn't chase it as I was only 17 but remember the day clearly. I was at my grandmas in southern Love county having a sunday lunch and remember towers going up everywhere. Tornado warnings went up for montauge county in N. Texas as we watched from the north. The vault passed over us with hardly a drop of rain ever falling. When the tornado came over the Red River hills it was a huge white wedge nearly a mile wide. When it hit the river the bottom half turned red. It got so close we could here the roar and see violent motion at the base. We were probabaly 1/4 of a mile away. Me and my dad were standing on the cellar when limbs from a mighty oak started ripping of and flying south. We never went into the cellar and watched big debris from two of our families good friends fly up and around the beast. One of the elderly ladies that were killed was well known to us and my aunts house was wiped clean in the falconhead area.
Scariest thing I've ever witnessed and a major contributing factor in my passion for chasing.

 

[David Conaway]

I remember this day well. Just two days before was the famous Ft.Worth hail storm. This day was categorized as a high risk day by the NWS. I started the day around noon in Weatherford, Tx. All that I had with me was a hand held NWS radio.

The storm quickly developed and was moving NE at 25 mph according to the NWS. I figured that I would be able to intercept the storm between Bowie and Gainsville. I was driving at times of speeds between 80-90 mph but could never make up any ground on the storm. It turns out that the storm was really moving to the NE between 40-50 mph. As I got on I-35 at gainsville I was getting close to the storm as I started to see the lowerings on the backside of the storm. I continued to speed toward the storm and then I had a highway patrol on my tail. As I slowed down to pull onto the shoulder, the highway patrol continued past me. I then realized that the tornado must have crossed the highway up ahead. I could see the wall cloud and funnel to my north but there was a lot of damage on the interstate. There were cars/trucks that had been flipped over and parts of the Michelin Plant were all over the highway. My chase stopped there because of all of the debris on the roads and traffic was at a stand still. I decided to pull over and assist anyone that I could.

This was the only significant severe weather reported in this portion of TX/OK on this day. The storms out west solidified into a squall line that ran from Kansas to the Mexico border. As a result, most everyone got the high winds, heavy rain and small hail.

David Conaway