Dan Dawson, Robin Tanamachi, Jana Houser, and I punted around with the OKC area storms. Though my initial target was N TX (Gainesville to Denton area, chasing eastward from there), we noticed a few storms developing SW of OKC by the time we got out of Norman. Being only 1:30 pm, we opted to head west towards I44 to get a look-see at it. The 1st storm rapidly organized into a supercell as it headed through the SW side of the OKC area, so we jumped N from I44 to Hwy 74 (Lake Hefner Pkwy). By the time we neared Lake Hefner, we could see a rather large wallcloud to our immediate west. As we exited Hwy 74 onto eastbound Kilpatrick Turnpike (a relatively elevated exchange), we were hit by very strong winds, and we noted some debris at relatively high altitudes to our immediate north (just north of Hwy 74 - Kilpatrick exchange). Rain curtains were streaming northward very rapidly to our immediate east, and we headed E to I35 to get northward for better positioning. Per radio reports, KOCO was going bonkers over a developing tornado on the northwest side of Edmond (only 5-7 miles from my house!), though we had issues getting a visual thanks to hills and trees. We ended up pullling off at the gas station at the I35 - Seward Rd exit, and we saw the tornado to our SW. We watched the tornado until it dissipated (maybe 3-5 minutes; we missed the first few mins of it driving on I35 between Waterloo and Seward). First tornado of 2009, in early-mid February, and less than 10 miles from my house.
The storm visually ramped down after the tornado dissipated, so we made the decision to drop back S on I35 towards I44 to catch the next supercell coming up. We watched the 2nd supercell to our west from a location near I35 and NE 122nd, and, though we saw a wall-cloud with it, the visual and radar appearance wasn't too impressive, and we knew that there was yet a 3rd supercell with a reported tornado back SW of this one (near Yukon). So, we abonded this 2nd supercell to head back W on I40 towards Yukon. Back up I44 and Lake Hefner Pkwy (Hwy 74) for a 2nd time in an hour... This 3rd supercell looked "cold" and rather "outflowy". Much of the low-level cloud motion was away from the storm, so we weren't too confident in the tornado potential. The storms were beginning to merge into a quasilinear MCS by this time, so I don't remember all of the details of the various cores... I think we let this 3rd one slip by to our north as we awaited the 4th one coming up from our SW. We knew we were in trouble when, still ahead of this 3rd storm, we felt cold, northerly surface winds... Regardless, we repositioned to the Kilpatrick - Rockwell area (with piles of hail nearby), and watched this storm come up from the S. Again, it looked outflow-dominant, though an interesting hook / appendage (presumably along the RFD) provided something to look at for a while. We stuck with the storm until I35 and Waterloo when we essentially let it run over us. The area immediately ahead of the storms was looking more stable and storm mode was more MCSish, so we opted to call it a day and head back to OUN.
Overall, this was a pretty good chase... Never did it cross my mind that I'd be chasing in the western and northern OKC area today, given my initial target of N TX. However, I'm glad we bit on the "1st storm" strategy, since it, and subsequent storms, provided us with a parade of supercells. And hey, a tornado on the 1st chase day of the year? No complaints for me!
I'm not surprised to see that the only sustained storm that went up EAST of the dryline/front (i.e. the storm that moved across the Red River SW of Ardmore) became a vicious supercell. I think there was the potential for many more tornadoes today if we could have gotten a few more storms to move through the area of higher instability in S OK and N TX. Instead, and somewhat unexpected for me, most of the storms trained near and W of I44 in Oklahoma, with only weak or short-lived storms occurring in the "open" warm sector across SC/SE OK and adjacent areas of TX. For the most part, the structure (and low-level rotation) of the OKC supercells weren't terribly impressive. We did end up seeing several wall-clouds (some rather large), but contrast wasn't too good. Visually, many of the supercells that we saw (or the supercells at the times that we saw them) looked rather cold and "wet".
EDIT: I just wanted to say "Thanks!" to the OUN NWSFO for their excellent service of providing valuable information to spotters in the field. I've chased in many CWAs, and the OUN NWSFO has always had one of the best (if not the best) presence on area spotter / ham radio repeaters. The information that goes through the main OUN Skywarn repeaters (e.g. 145.410 in OKC) is amazing; I find the frequent radar updates, reading of warning decision updates, and so forth to be highly valuable.
