2011-04-08 REPORTS: OK

[Jeremy Jones]

Had to work until early/Mid afternoon, so I got started late, but I started my chase at US 51, just a couple miles East of Hennessey, OK. Didn't have to wait long before seeing the building CU field around the area. I chose to head E. to US 74, then N. again , but ended up just N. of Garber, OK, and was to far into the storm, and barely avoided the bigger stones it was laying down. Had to drop back S. to US 412, then E. again to catch up, luckily it wasn't traveling to fast, and I easily caught back up to it. The image below was shot just W. of I-35 on US 412.

 

[Jordan Hartley]

Add Kansas to the thread. Draining chase. Most drama filled chase ive ever had. SC Kansas just got blasted. Here are preliminary hail reports so far. Wicked day for hail. Im a roofer was headed to Kansas City for the year. Think ill stay close to home.

Anthony-Baseball size hail in the town.

Arkcity-Golf ball size hail in the town. I was 3 mi N 1 mi E of town and saw 2.25" measured with measuring tape. BTW rfd was very warm and moist, caused complete white out conditions due to fog with a couple of inches of ice covering road and ground. Storm was wraping up so I crept at 10 mph but still ended in a ditch. Luckily a local quickly had me out and I ended my chase and came home.

Benton-Windows broken up to 2" hail in town.

Derby-Golf ball to baseball size hail throughout city.

Rosehill-2.5" to 3" hail in town. Extensive damage to entire town. Reports of base ball size hail from 1 mi nw of town all the way to 3 mi east of town.

Wellington- Baseball size hail in the town.

Winfield- golf ball to egg size hail reported in town.

 

[David Reimer]

After debating the legitimacy of the threat, I decided I might as well head out and see what would happen. I left Dallas at 1 PM and quickly made it up to my target of Perry, Oklahoma just before 5 PM. By then, a decent CU field was putting up a decent tower every few minutes. It didn't take long to get several towers to break through the cap and of-course, we all know what happened after that.

Skipping about two hours forward, I ended up just north of US-412 on I-35, at the rest stop, and sat there for a while filming the storm as it produced a decent lowering. I though it had potential there for a few minutes, It was good to see again. After that, I made the choice to head up to US-15 and blast east. In the process I went through some hail, but nothing overly impressive. However, it was enough to get drivers on I-35 to stop on the highway under the bridges. After that I headed east and played around with the roads for about 45 minutes, getting a few nasty hits to the windshield in the process. I uploaded my video earlier tonight, which includes a nasty hit to the windshield with that dreaded cracking noise of a destroyed windshield.

You can view the video here - or by URL: http://www.texasstormchasers.com/past-chases/2011-2/april-8-2011/

 

[Sean Ramsey]

After hanging around I-40 at El Reno til nearly 5:30pm or so I headed north as soon as I saw the first signs of initiation near Hennessey. Since I couldn't really catch up with the first cell that went through Enid I ended up staying back and catching the second and third cell and ultimately ended up in Goltry. Went through some dime size hail and a lot of rain and got a few decent photos. Given the lack of activity so far this season it was a welcome chase and I was glad to be out.

 

[Joe Acord]

We were driving back from Kansas, and stopped to pick up hail along I35 around say... 630ish. We found a wide range of golf ball to baseball sized hail. The shapes were all over the place, but for a good 1/4 span, the hail was the largest we saw along the interstate.

 

[jeremy wilson]

Documented at least two tornadoes from about 10 miles west of Blackwell,OK to Kay,OK last night. Tornado warned storm had impressive structure at times with a sculpted meso viewable in the frequent lightning. We vault chased this beast at night when the core caught up with us around Kay and blew our car sideways and nearly into the ditch. Shortly after this we came across some damage with sheet metal and building material wrapped in trees and scattered about.

Got a nice foot long crack from baseballs earlier in the day. Very nice chase day. Now it's on to Iowa for round two.

Will post video of night naders soon.

 

[Eugene Thieszen]

Picked up the storm that developed NW of Watonga and stayed with it until we broke off the chase at I-35 at Tonkawa even tho at some points in its life it looked very disorganized. Once it went tornado-warned SW of Medford we travelled down SR 74 toward Lamont, noting a funnel cloud to our west at one point and then eventually set up 1 mile E of the SR 74/Hwy 60 junction. The following video captures are from that location. Not very high quality, but good enough to explain what we saw:

Possible tornado looking NW at abt 9:40pm CDT:





Funnel cloud to our NNE at abt 9:45 CDT:





Although a small cloud of debris was visible in the lightning during a couple of flashes I was unable to locate a frame that showed it well. Here is a capture of the one point (with a rather dim lightning flash) when the tornado was briefly, fully condensed. Not easily seen in this cap, but the condensation extends from the obvious cone funnel down to toward the light on the horizon:



Gene
for the WXtreme Chase Team

 

[Doug Drace]

Due to a stupid decision to reposition closer to I-40 at the last minute yesterday, when I was in Hennessey, I missed out on the gorgous Enid Supercell. However all was not lost as I was alble to get on the Supercell near Fairview from intial development, and was treated to a beautiful sculpture show. Unfortunately it remained elevated throughout its lifecycle, so there wasnt much of a tornado threat with it. At the end of the day I dropped SW to the Dewey County Supercell, and watched it try and try to produce as it sucked in some scud and developed some small funnel clouds south of SW of Cheyanne Valley, but again it appeared too elevated. All in all a satisfying first chase of '11.

Canton, OK Supercell

Dewey County Supercell

NE Dewey Co...Funnel just before dark

 

[Tony Laubach]

I intercepted the Enid storm and enjoyed the HAIL out of it.. had countless reports of hail ranging from 1.0-3.5" during the entire course of my chase which included a total of six core punches! Full write up here...

 

[Chris C Sanner]

​

Little late to this, but here's the video from the day. Had that brief moment near Braman where it looked like things might get a little insane -- but just ended up being a rather nice supercell. Nothing wrong with this day minus the lack of a tornado.

 

[Colt R Forney]

Had a fun day on Friday with a nice funnel in the afternoon by Billings, OK and saw a couple tornadoes after dark west of Blackwell, OK and just north of Ponca City, OK. Here is some vid of the funnel by Billings and the tornado by Ponca City around 11pm.

Watch video >

 

[Joshua Nall]

I got behind the first storm that popped up near Enid, but was in good position on the second storm later that night to get a few interesting shots:

Storm as it was just N of Ponca City, well after dark. High ISO with lightning and city lights gave this pic some color. Missed the tornado if there was one.

Later.... east of Kaw City

In this next photo got a CG strike just under the meso and associated wall cloud type feature

This is a crop from above. I noticed looking at this after I got back home that there could be a possible funnel here.

Next got a really nice CG right under the Meso as it was getting fairly close. No editing except to sharpen a little and really didn't even need that. Got to love it when once out of a hundred shots that happens and everything is framed up nice.