2011-04-14 REPORTS: OK/TX/KS

[Connor McCrorey]

Chased in southeast Oklahoma with Brandon Sullivan and Donovan Gruner. After watching various supercells repeatedly try and fail to produce, we finally caught the Tushka tornado from about a half mile away. Actually had at least two tornadoes on the ground, but rain and baseballs made it difficult to keep track of! We then stopped the chase to assist in search and rescue in Tushka. I certainly won't forget today for a long time.

 

[Chris C Sanner]

​

Basic jist: Played the Sulphur storm first -- saw the rain wrapped likely large tornado. Dropped south -- second storm was underwhelming. Dropped even further south and filmed the Tuskha monster from inside of town and then slightly outside of town. Then had a large contingent of chasers helping out -- Brandon Sullivan, Connor, Cody Foster all went hiking through damage to clear houses. I'm sure others did too -- I admittedly stayed behind and relayed info on the incoming tornadic storms to a couple of different police officers. Thankfully that second round went a tad north.

Now back in Norman, going to sleep oh so very good.

 

[Jason Blum]

Watch video >

I apologize for the terrible video quality. I had several issues with my video camera yesterday (all operator error) and my focus was set wrong. I also missed the best shot, due to my internal memory being filled to capacity from a trip to Vegas! Ugh.

I am very open-minded as to whether the wedge-shaped cloud at 1:10 is the tornado or not. I personally believe that it clearly is, but we were on the NW side of the storm, so visibility wasn't great (not helped by my lens focus problems) and I'm open to rebuttal from more experienced chasers.

Anyway, here are the details:

After some debate, David Toner and I opted to go after the more southern dryline targets. When initiation first began occurring off the dryline, we were somewhere around Ada, OK.
We knew that the poor road options and data holes were going to be a problem, but the lack of roads ended up placing us on the wrong side of our target cell (near Fittstown). We tried everything to work our way around the cell so we could approach from the SE instead of the NW, which is where we were positioned, but just could not manage to find any acceptable road options. When we got a little too close and started seeing fairly dense debris swirling in front of us, we decided to play it safe and wait until the cell had passed us so we could then travel SE from Ada into our preferred position.

This turned out to be much tricker than we thought, because so many new cells were beginning to erupt behind our target cell. I've rarely found myself WISHING that storm motions were faster... but as we sat there for what seemed like forever, waiting for our cell to creep past so that we could duck south of it, I was actually wishing it would move a lot faster. (I also lost data and cell service at about this point, further complicating things.)

We ended up finally managing to head SE from Ada and soon found ourselves in Atoka, where we were just minutes behind the tornado which had done so much damage in Tushka. Since Dave and I are both paramedics, we stopped and he offered help... but they said that they had pretty much already cleared the damaged houses, and were not in need of any assistance. (Had we known about Tushka, we would have gone just a few miles SW and visited them to see if they needed any medical/triage help, but we had no idea there was damage or injuries there until a bit later).

 

[hduran]

I had the same experience as you Jeff. We initially left Tulsa waiting near the Yale area to see which cell would be the best option. We chose the second major cell to develop north of I-40. This storm tracked through Pawnee, Hominy, Barnsdall, etc. Saw what I believe was a short lived gustnado several miles South of Pawnee. headed East towards the Cleveland area and drove through a damage path of downed powerlines and buildings with moderate damage in Hominy along Hwy 99. Then our storm died down near Barnsdall and we decided to ditch it for a few cells near the Tulsa area. I was going to be very disappointed if I had missed an opportunity in Tulsa considering I could have stayed home! Traffic and torrential downpours slowed us down with this route and once we caught up with the storm it was outside of the Tulsa area and weaker. We decided to head towards Coweta to intercept the cell that passed through Okmulgee. But due to poor road options, we were stuck on 69 riding out the core at a gas station. By this time it was too dark and rainy to see anything. A lack of lightning wasn't helping either. And sure enough, this storm died down as well.

This seemed to be the common story for today. Cells were looking great but after only a few sweeps of the radar, things turned into simply a strong shower. Just about all the cells strengthened and weakened several times before finally weakening indefinitely. Even the hail that we ran into seemed underwhelming. I too wished we had taken a more southerly route. By the time we were comfortably chasing near Pawnee, a large cell was was forming near Davis. I felt like if we had taken a Southerly route, it would take us into more difficult chase terrain. I will take this as a learning experience and hope to have a more exciting chase experience in the time ahead. And I apologize in advance for any mistakes in my post as I am typing this on an iPhone.

 

[Elinor McLennon]

View attachment 6046
That is a video grab of the tornado north of Stroud, Oklahoma. We got on that storm and stayed with it until east of Tulsa and then called it a day. I am surprised at how sloppy and clustered storms were today over central and northeast Oklahoma coming off the dryline. Every time this storm would start to look like it was going to get its act together some convection would come in from the south and merge with it. It is hard to be upset with a tornado, but I was really hoping for a better storm today. Not bad though. Good stat padder day.

I was on that same storm. Got a late stat from OKC but caught up with it in Chandler. While in Chandler I would have been at the sw side of storm....towards the end of storm. As i was driving east on hwy 66 i saw alot of scud and unorganized rotation. Then, out of nowhere a white set of clouds began to come together into a funnel shape and came about halfway to the ground and disappeared as quickly as it started. I am just trying to understand what it was that I saw. I got one pic but it doesn't do it justice. There were people behind me that also came to a halt when this happened. Any of you veteran chasers have a clue what I'm talking about?
I gave up on that storm just before stroud!! I still had a good today just chasing, seeing some rotation and getting rained on! Man, OKC sure could use some rain!

 

[Aaron Locke]

4-14-11 SC KS

First chase of the year for me. Didn't get out of ICT until about 315 due to work conflicts. Headed for the cell that was Tor warned in Cowley County. We got on the storm 7 miles south of Latham near the Cowley County, Butler County line. Were were able to see a nice funnel that we saw get 3/4 of the way down. Due to hilly terrain we could not tell if there was any ground level rotation. After the funnel dissipated everything became very HP so we decided to call it a day. Reports were that there was a tornado on the ground from this cell at one time. Pictures taken by chase partner Joe Gray. I believe this funnel was after the one that Tim Segraves posted earlier. Rainbow was 5 minutes after the funnel.

 

[Brandon Goforth]

Well, my day ended early as I was trying to reposition myself on the initial storm in S OK coming out of Sulphur. Poor road options led me to make an absolutely STUPID decision SW of Stonewall, OK. Needless to say we were side swiped by a large, rainwrapped multi-vortex tornado. Debris started flying across the road, and then a full grown oak tree blew over on top of us. It took a chainsaw and tractor to get out of that thing. And my day was over before it really started. Fail.

 

[Sean Ramsey]

What an exhausting day. After starting out near Perkins I headed east then N through Ripley, eventually headed E and went through Cleveland and Hominy. I got a couple of good pics but the amount of rain and the terrain made visibility very tough. Finally decided further south was where the action was moving to so drove down to Sapulpa to catch that cell but couldn't ever quite catch up to it.

Snapped this photo west of Cleveland, but wasn't quite sure what to make of it.

 

[Brett Roberts]

After originally considering the BVO-CFV corridor, Brandon Lawson and I changed our target to the Red River Valley at the last minute yesterday morning due to moisture concerns and shear vectors much more normal to the dryline farther S. Starting out in Ardmore, we first followed the supercell whose circulation passed directly over Davis and Sulphur. It looked very healthy for about an hour, but could never quite get it done before additional updrafts to its S began to make things messy. Frustrated with the poor viewing conditions and storm interactions, we dropped it upon reaching US-377 and headed S for the next cell along the Johnston-Pontotoc Co. line. It wasn't long before it was impossible to resist the discrete nature and radar presentation of the tail-end Charlie, so we quickly blasted S again through Tishomingo. About halfway between there and Madill, we emerged from the eastern fringes of the hail core to find updraft structure so classic, it should be illegal:

This would impress me enough on a late May chase in western KS, nevermind the fact this was SE OK and the messiness of the storms immediately N of this one. The wall cloud in the center of the image was rapidly-rotating, and we eventually had to move a couple miles farther S as it approached. Contrast under the meso quickly became more problematic, but we think we may have briefly caught a glimpse of the stovepipe tornado reported by a couple others about ~7-8 NE Madill around 2325 UTC.

As everyone else on the storm knows firsthand, road options were abysmal to the E of this area, which required us to lose view of the base for some time while repositioning ahead of the storm. By sheer luck, the timing of our road choices worked out such that we approached it again as it crossed US-69 and produced the Tushka/Atoka significant tornado. The violence with which this entire low-level meso was rotating is difficult to describe. Here's a view of the beast approaching the highway from the W at 0025 UTC:

Unfortunately, damage in Tushka was quite significant and widespread, as well as in Bruno a bit to the ENE. The smell of fresh pine was immediately evident after the tornado crossed the road, and continued even into Atoka, a couple miles from the damage path.

 

[Eugene Thieszen]

NE Oklahoma Chase

Considered the SE Oklahoma target yesterday, especially since the dynamics were so good, but opted for NE Oklahoma because I didn't want to chase in the jungle. So we didn't see the destructive wedge, but we did catch a picturesque elephant trunk near Burbank at about 4:15 pm on a cell that developed SW of Ponca City and then caught some glimpses between the trees of a nice cone about 7 miles to our west as we traveled down SR 11 north of Barnsdall. By the time we found a decent clear spot to try and film, it had lifted.

Gene
for the WXtreme Chase Team

Here's some vid of the Burbank tor:

Watch video >

 

[Rebekah LaBar]

Short version: chased north of 40 in eastern Oklahoma due to terrain concerns and saw the Stroud tornado. Finally got my first 2011 tornado and first tornado east of 35 in Oklahoma (granted, I don't often chase east of 35 in Oklahoma).

Long version: see my chase log writeup (with photos) on my blog: http://www.greenskychaser.com/blog/2011/04/15/chase-4-review-bagged-my-first-2011-nado/

 

[Joshua Nall]

Caught the broad ground scraping circulation around Stonewall others have mentioned but before it crossed 377. Was hesitant to say tornado at the time I took the picture below, but there were likely tornadic winds up under this thing. It was really wrapped up.

I also saw the stove pipe South of Milburn as I dropped to the southern most cell. This next picture is a sampling of some of the awesome structure this storm displayed. There were two other very brief funnels/tornadoes that formed with condensation nearly to the ground after I got pulled over but from my vantage point it was hard to tell if they were down. Time lapse of these forming and then quickly dissipating as the whole mass is churning up under this awesome structure is pretty cool. Just a really great opportunity to witness it all at one time.

Another structure shot as the storm got closer. I left about a minute after this shot and paralleled the storm for several miles.

After driving backroads for seemed like 30 minutes, I hit the highway South of Tushka and came upon this scene. The tornado is the dusty area behind the tree that is sticking up there by itself just to the right of center. I was focused on the part of the collar cloud, I guess you would call it, in the center of the image when I first saw this.

Anyway I drove on up the highway and came upon all the damage. There were people pulled over everywhere. I ended up turning down a back road and clearing some debris from the road and seeing what I could do. Did that for an hour or so keeping my eye on the next cell hoping it would stay to the north. I then headed back toward AR unaware that my adventures had just begun, haha.

I'll try and keep it short... I ran into the back side of that little cell in far SE OK on Highway 3 with the intention of stopping if the RFD got bad. The couplet was intensifying in front of me... and it was tracking right down the highway so there wasn't much else to do. Well it started getting pretty bad so I stopped to let it move on up the road in front of me, surprisingly it got more and more intense, then my ears popped and there was a shift in the wind comeing from the N to coming straight at me out of the E then really intense wind coming out of the N again. All within like 10 seconds. I ain't gonna lie... that gave me a good scare. I was thinking it had to be some sort of little vortex in the rfd. Anyway, I wait 10 minutes or so and move on... there were small limbs down everywhere then a few trees... then power lines down over the road... all the way across just off the ground... no way to get around. I go down a side road to try to drop south to highway 70. That's blocked.. trees down everywhere. I back track and try another back road and come upon a truck crashed up into a tree. A guy walks up to my passenger door, I just open it say where do you need to go. He gets in, blood all over the half of his face and down on his shirt. Nothing major but there was blood all over him. He says to take him to his momma's house so I do. He gets his momma and wants to go somewhere else cause she lives in a trailer house. I was willing to help him however he needed me to, so they pile in. It was really quite a sight if it weren't for him being hurt... all of everything that was in the front seat of my truck. I couldn't even work my shifter.... had to shift from first to third a few times before his momma offered to hold some of my junk. We try to get to his buddies house, but all the roads are blocked. He wants to go back to his mommas so I take them back and they start talking about not having a flashlight. I give him my flashlight. Dude remained calm the whole time, but yeah, what a night... totaled his truck, couldn't get anywhere. Now they have to sit in a dark house with one little flashlight. He didn't want to go to a hospital and I couldn't see any big cuts. Ended up having to back track several miles before I could drop south to 70 to get home. I'm not sure what it was, but I'll give those couplets a little more room next time.

 

[Brendon Lindsey]

Chased with Chris Wilburn, Got on 4 tornado warned storms. Lost the Tushka storm due to Muddy roads. 4WD couldnt surpass on Butterfield Crossing RD that heads East from Coleman. Here is a few pics, and an HDR.

 

[Scott Hammel]

One of the worst chases of my life. I started the day in Salina and went down I35 south of Wichita not sure whether to stick in Kansas or fully commit to Oklahoma. That indecisiveness really put me behind the 8 ball for the rest of the day. I was right there on the dryline for initiation but once every storm went up at the same time, I got wishy-washy on which cell to go after. I decided to try to get as far out east in front as I could to see which would have the better shot at producing but then I ran into that amazing SE KS road network. After going down countless gravel roads that either dead ended or didn't go the direction I thought they would, I knew my chase was toast. I finally got out of the wash and observed a scuddy lowering/possible wall cloud SW of Independence, KS. Then I couldn't get back to Denver because I-70 was closed due to a blizzard. I'm definitely ready to forget this day...

 

[Fred Dearborn]

We started out near Shawnee and were on our way to the first cell to the north to go up,but after seeing the cells to the south going to be more discrete,we picked the cell west of Ada and moved down the line over the afternoon to the last cell west of Tushka.We managed four wall clouds,rain wrapped trn,and the big girl just west of town.We ended up on rough roads behind the cell and finally made pavement only to watch everything unfold before our eyes.Debris flying,roofs gone,modile homes missing and trees blocking our path.
We ended our chase just shy of town where we found a soft ditch and parked it for a bit till we were pulled out by locals..thank you guys.Kudos to the chaser that helped the elderly lady take her cat in the pet taxi and her to open road from her home on the hill.My wife and I give our thoughts and prayers to the people that lost loved ones as we have witnessed this so many times over the years.Special thanks to the people who cut there way to us and pulled us out as well as the emergency crew working to get to those that needed help.Nice talking to the chaser from Tx and the three from Norman as we sit on our little spot of pavement.Havent even viewed our pic/video yet.Pulled in the driveway at 4:30 this morning..