2013-03-29 REPORTS: OK

[Terrence Cook]

After a truly challenging March in the SDS department, Greg McLaughlin and myself were truly relieved and overjoyed with how decent Friday's chase near El Reno, OK turned out. Considering all hope of a March chase had been stomped to death in previous weeks. Here are the highlight's of the day including a spectacular hail shaft that missed us by 50 yards!

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[Greg McLaughlin]

This was a fun chase. We initally jumped on the big hail producer near El Reno and chased it east across the open country north of the OKC metro. This supercell cycled at least two mesocyclones and thus became an efficient hail producer. As the supercell tracked further east it struggled to remain surface based. We decided then to let this storm go and make a run for the cell to our north. This was the supercell west of Guthrie, and it had very impressive low-level structure with a nice meso. At least twice this storm cycled and developed "infant" tornado cyclones. The second attempt I witnessed was quite impressive and appeared to be about 5 minutes away from producing when the next RFD gust kicked the density current out under the meso and killed the anchoring updraft/circulation. With dusk fading, the boundary layer quickly decoupled and the storm became elevated. This was a fun chase and a wonderful way to start the 2013 season. Here's to next weeks potential^^^