2013-05-31 EVENT: KS, OK, MO, IL

[Bob Schafer]

I don't know, but I will assume that the reason they were there was due to a lack of any other road options. You are correct, in that NE of the tornado is generally not ideal, especially if you'd like to stay out of baseball-size hail.

 

[Shawn Schuman]

Ok so essentially there were a lot of people in the "bear's cage" who couldn't get out when the tornado turned? I'm just not used to seeing so many people positioned on the northeast side of the circulation, it doesn't usually seem like the best location. Now I am by no means an expert and am not starting a flame fest but I do think a conversation about everything that happened May 31st is worth having

The tornado appeared to have a southeasterly movement at first, and eventually turned east and then northeast right around or just before US 81. It looks like there were at least a few road options, but I can't speculate on what may have caused so many people to be so close to that tornado.

 

[STexan]

Ok so essentially there were a lot of people in the "bear's cage" who couldn't get out when the tornado turned? I'm just not used to seeing so many people positioned on the northeast side of the circulation, it doesn't usually seem like the best location. Now I am by no means an expert and am not starting a flame fest but I do think a conversation about everything that happened May 31st is worth having

I think that statement essentially answers itself .... there was a lot of things unusual about this setup that snuck up on a lot of experienced chasers. Where it's genesis was, how fast it developed, where most were pre-positioned and approaching from, the road network, the massive rains and hail delaying and impeding approaches from key directions. Unless you came up from the south or Southwest, this setup presented a lot of unique challenges, coupled with what to me appeared initially as a NE moving cell but the worst parts of it that were very rain wrapped were moving east and southeasterly. It was hard to know what you were or were not looking at in the beginning as I approached from the north. I admit I may have "studied" the storm from the east and northeast about 3 minutes too long, and the rain/hail quickly enveloped the entire area and a heavy-haul project had my southerly plan A route blocked and had to double back putting me back to the interstate right as the inflow winds became severe making travel impossible for about 3 minutes.

I can only speak for myself and the fact I initially tried to intercept a NE moving cell headed for Kingfisher then gave up on it to move south the the El Reno storm. That turned out to not be an ideal decision although the first 2/3 of that chase seemed and was perfectly manageable, but then things quickly changed. Not so much the direction, but the entire dynamics of the storm.

 

[bradjones]

Can someone please explain why this tornado surprised so many chasers? I am saddened by the death of those chasers and what is scary these men knew what they were doing with so much experience and still were victims. I like to think I'm an observer as I do chase but many would call me and myself included a chicken when it comes to even thinking about getting close to those storms. One rule I always have had is never chase a metro storm I'm scared to death I will get stuck in traffic. So can someone tell me what happened where so many chasers were almost killed? Tornados are always unpredictable but this storm was not that unique was it? Thanks for listening.

 

[MClarkson]

Can someone please explain why this tornado surprised so many chasers? I am saddened by the death of those chasers and what is scary these men knew what they were doing with so much experience and still were victims. I like to think I'm an observer as I do chase but many would call me and myself included a chicken when it comes to even thinking about getting close to those storms. One rule I always have had is never chase a metro storm I'm scared to death I will get stuck in traffic. So can someone tell me what happened where so many chasers were almost killed? Tornados are always unpredictable but this storm was not that unique was it? Thanks for listening.

I can't comment about traffic conditions or road decisions, but this twister (judging from both the radar indicated rotation and preliminary storm track) moved further from its initial track than most such storms. I was watching radar at the time, and its radar indicated motion surprised me.

 

[STexan]

It wasn't a metro storm at it's peak, far from it, and I doubt any had any intentions of following it into OKC. The roads and geography in the beginning were "ideal" but if you lost your position of keeping 2-3 steps ahead, or you ended up in front of the storm even for a short time while trying to get into a better southerly position, you quickly found yourself out of options. I guess you had to be there.

For me, I guess my biggest mistake was I had to chase by myself that day and my initial assessment was a ENE to NE movement and I didn't make mental corrections as radar updates kept coming in with an overall expansion of the precipitation boundary that sort of misled me to continue thinking any tornadic activity might still be moving more in a NE'ly direction. That, and the fact I tried to get out in front and around, from the north which was a challenge in itself.

 

[James Gustina]

Can someone please explain why this tornado surprised so many chasers? I am saddened by the death of those chasers and what is scary these men knew what they were doing with so much experience and still were victims. I like to think I'm an observer as I do chase but many would call me and myself included a chicken when it comes to even thinking about getting close to those storms. One rule I always have had is never chase a metro storm I'm scared to death I will get stuck in traffic. So can someone tell me what happened where so many chasers were almost killed? Tornados are always unpredictable but this storm was not that unique was it? Thanks for listening.

HP-ish supercells tend to do their own thing (e.g. forward flank tornadoes on occasion). Like Jeff Duda stated earlier, it had cycloidal movement and even though it stuck to the mean-storm motion for much of its life, it took some hard turns probably due to aggressive RFD wrap. It also looked like it took a wonky turn as the mesocyclone occluded after the first cycle but I could be wrong about that.

As to the positioning issues, most people probably would have been fine if this had been a "typical" supercell, but the few unpredictable moves it made and the strange orientation of the entire storm caught people with their pants down. When you have components of the same supercell complex moving in all different directions it can be incredibly disorienting. That's just my two cents though.

 

[Jake Orosi]

I like to think I'm an observer as I do chase but many would call me and myself included a chicken when it comes to even thinking about getting close to those storms.

Greetings from a fellow chicken. We will likely never be famous, you or I. I'm all right with it, though.

 

[B Doss]

Chris, having chased it (see my report) I think you'd want to envision the events of Friday as two different stories.

The first was early on while the storm was producing the siggy tor invof El Reno and W of Yukon. From what I have read thus far the tornado took a big and unexpected turn in its path, and that seems to be how the chasers got struck. The "parking lot" was nowhere near that scene.

Do we have any images from the vicinity at the time of the NE shift in the tornado's track to verify that? I haven't seen any. But I have seen many tenured and respected members of the community and of this website place themselves in needless jeopardy to capture dramatic footage. I think it's just business, naivety, thrill-seeking, or exaggerated confidence in technology. Whatever the reason(s), I have seen vehicle convergence near the periphery of the circulation increasing over the past decade and a coinciding sharp increase in number of close-range "WE'RE IN A TORNADO!!" type of videos in recent years, and not even the majority of them are your Joe-Q Public variety; chasing behavior itself seems to have changed for many in our community. I am not saying that this was the case yesterday, as Tim Samaras, whom I did not know personally, seemed to be a safety-conscious-and-oriented storm chaser. It's tragic - every death was, but I don't feel surprised. I'd like to know more facts. I chose this "hobby" (soon to be my life's work, after I complete this degree) - I didn't take up Mahjong or fishing, and I accept this outcome as an uncommon but absolute possibility every time I go out there. I can't control the motivations and actions of others, and we cannot control the erratic track of a storm or make a road bend the way we need it to, and given these variables and all this uncertainty - it just comes down to individual responsibility and how much you think you think know and how much confidence you're willing to place into your technology, knowledge, and your experience - and at what cost?

Tim and his team contributed a lot to this profession, to our knowledge, and to safety-awareness. It's a horrible loss for our community, but I find it comforting that he left us doing what he and the rest of us love to do. It seemed that storm chasing was not just a hobby for Tim, it was his passion and life's work. God's speed.

 

[Bob Schafer]

Do we have any images from the vicinity at the time of the NE shift in the tornado's track to verify that?

Verify what? My friend, I am not trying to be provocative or start a flame war, but what else do you want to know? I'm telling you I was there. There was no traffic jam anywhere near I-40 at that time. The NWS (SPC?) tornado paths that others have posted clearly illustrate the sudden trajectory shift of the tornado.

 

[STexan]

The chasing community is becoming "highly competitive" the last several years. And this probably has a subconscious effect of causing some to do things and go places they wouldn't have the season before to try and keep some sort of "inside track" in the media market. Add in some "experience factor" that causes some level of new confidences in some, then add in this was in the backyard of probably half of the regular chasers and we all would like that unique, photo or video, instead of the one a hundred other chasers got, I suppose there could have been some other factors at work besides a very unusual storm.

 

[Rob Gardner]

The chasing community is becoming "highly competitive" the last several years. And this probably has a subconscious effect of causing some to do things and go places they wouldn't have the season before to try and keep some sort of "inside track" in the media market. Add in some "experience factor" that causes some level of new confidences in some, then add in this was in the backyard of probably half of the regular chasers and we all would like that unique, photo or video, instead of the one a hundred other chasers got, I suppose there could have been some other factors at work besides a very unusual storm.

I dont want to derail this thread too much, but why is up close video considered so valuable? I mean, watching Sean Caseys intercept from a couple days ago, it was an intense as close as you can get intercept and it looked like fog. Was not breathtaking, impressive, or something I would pay money for. No offense to him or anyone else, I don`t get it. Some of the best footage is the footage that shows storm structure, and last time I checked cameras had a zoom feature.

My first tornado intercept I ended up closer to an EF3 than I wanted to be, a Tornado was on the ground 6 miles to my west moving north east, the storm back built to the south, I had to bail on a south road and my map was wrong. I ended up at a T that I took east, only to see a multiple vortex in my rear view. The road curved back south a quarter mile only to turn east and then turn back to the north. I had to stay on this jog and wait as the tornado passed less than a half mile to my north.

Even when prepared things can go wrong. Living in Illinois I am always jealous of oklahoma storms because in early tornado genesis there is often opportunities to see the tornado from miles away, a luxury we rarely experience here. I hope that some value returns to getting some long range shots, and people find the zoom button. I also truly believe that storm chasing has saved more lives than it has ever taken, and we will only know on the other side how many lives were saved by the work of team twistex and others...

(as an aside there is a huge difference between the true scientific research that was taking place, and thrill seeking chasing).

 

[E. Clark]

A couple of thoughts:

1) While I don't doubt the soil is poor in some parts of Oklahoma, the entire state? I have friends in Arkansas City, KS (2 mi. north of border) with basements and one in Comanche Co., Kansas (5 mi. north of border) with a basement. The Flint Hills of Kansas are known for their limestone (heck, there is a mine in Butler Co.)but, again, homes and commercial buildings in the Flint Hills have basements. I just don't buy the "soil is poor" argument over every square mile of Oklahoma (and, yes, my friend in Tulsa tells me he doesn't have a basement because "the soil is poor").

I have been in multiple homes in Ok - old and new. The older ones (60+) all have storm cellars under or beside the house. Some call them 'mud rooms'. But old people in Ok used to say "You dig a storm cellar now or you dig a grave later on." And that's all she wrote.

 

[Jake Orosi]

Do we have any images from the vicinity at the time of the NE shift in the tornado's track to verify that? I haven't seen any. But I have seen many tenured and respected members of the community and of this website place themselves in needless jeopardy to capture dramatic footage. I think it's just business, naivety, thrill-seeking, or exaggerated confidence in technology. Whatever the reason(s), I have seen vehicle convergence near the periphery of the circulation increasing over the past decade and a coinciding sharp increase in number of close-range "WE'RE IN A TORNADO!!" type of videos in recent years, and not even the majority of them are your Joe-Q Public variety; chasing behavior itself seems to have changed for many in our community. I am not saying that this was the case yesterday, as Tim Samaras, whom I did not know personally, seemed to be a safety-conscious-and-oriented storm chaser.

I might ruffle a few feathers by mentioning this; but two of the most widely-lauded tornado-chasing teams there are, even among chasers themselves, are famous for building specially-modified vehicles whose sole purpose is to get directly hit by tornadoes so that their occupants can see what it's like and get the neat INSIDE A TORNADO footage you've mentioned. That's their entire raison d'etre. Take people inside a tornado because why not? Mr. Samaras invented remote instruments that were perfectly good at getting everything of scientific import out of the inside of tornadoes (including useful video footage), but that wasn't good enough.

And now thanks to the ubiquitous "armored vehicles", Everest has been climbed. Practically the only thing that's left is driving straight through a twister with some normal vehicle; and slowly, that's what people are moving towards - and no matter what some of us would rather believe, most of them as you observed are NOT "local yahoos". Take a look at the names of the youtube channels.

A few of us quietly condemn this "TOO CLOSE BUT SO AWESOME" footage here; but I suspect a greater number ooh and ahh over it at chaser conventions. Until our community starts resoundingly and unambiguously putting down this kind of footage and the tactics used to obtain it, particularly within our own ranks so to speak, the downward spiral is going to continue.

 

[STexan]

. Until our community starts resoundingly and unambiguously putting down this kind of footage and the tactics used to obtain it, particularly within our own ranks so to speak, the downward spiral is going to continue.

Not sure what you mean when you say "our community", but Fox News and TWC and other major media slobber when such events happen with titillating video to go along with it ... they get some kind of ad premium I suppose. Who in the chaser community is calling or asking for more exciting video? The [or an] individual chaser may be pushing their own bounds to "rise to the top", but I don't get any sense that the "community" is actively promoting more careless actions.

Yes, the expectations and the bar has to be raised as records are broken and feats are accomplished as you mention and as I mentioned in an earlier post. It's the growing sense of competitiveness that is being fed by both personal desire to "advance", and major media concerns. There are going to be be "evil Knievil's" in every venture that involves danger, and for the most part they are driven internally (personally), or by outside forces, rather then their own "community".

Bottom line, it's about personal responsibility. I'm saddened about the loss of respected chasers, but it has happened in the past and it is/was bound to happen sooner or later so long as violent weather continues to manifest itself. Chasing is not an exact science and outcomes can not be pre-conceived to a 100% guarantee of outcome success going in. Maybe it's a bust, maybe it's damaged vehicles, maybe it's injuries, maybe it's death. The only way to guarantee no incidents is to abandon chasing all together, and that's not going to happen. If you have family and dependents, you probably shouldn't be chasing, if you do, you are assuming ALL risks involved and whatever happens is on you, not the chaser community. That's my 2 cents.