Summary: observed 2 or 3 different storms. Each tried to produce a tornado, but failed. Sampled only sub-severe hail. Some hectic moments on US 177 south of I-44.
Full: Left Norman just after 3 PM with an initial target of Stillwater. By the time we got to Guthrie it was apparent the front was going to shove our play southward, so we went east on OK-33 towards Cushing. A storm pretty much developed right on top of us (actually just north of 33) as we were near Perkins. Before there was even 40 dBZ on that storm, moderate cloud base rotation was visible, despite the high base and lack of precip core. It was impressive to see, especially since we were almost right under it. That storm tried to produce a tornado at least one or two other times later on. As we headed north on OK-108 near Ripley, the storm made a good strong attempt at tornadoing - there was moderate-to-strong upward motion with vapor strands going right into the mesocyclone (there wasn't much of a wall cloud with it). A solid RFD push gusted it out shortly after tornadogenesis failed. The RFD air was pleasantly warm and moist, but that didn't matter on this day. The storm strongly weakened after that (just as the storm just west of Tulsa was starting to go crazy). We popped out on OK-18 north of Cushing where we decided to head back southwest towards new storms firing just NE of OKC.
We made it to Chandler, then headed west to US-177 near I-44, where we witnessed our second storm with surprisingly decent supercell structure. It even had a somewhat persistent skinny lowering (puny excuse for a wall cloud perhaps) under a rather high base. We went back and forth on US-177 between there and Carney trying to decide if it was worth it to core punch. By this point the storm was losing its identity and the cores were starting to form, mature, and die out in rapid sequence, leaving it difficult for us to get to a core before it weakened. After noting a lot of violent and turbulent motion southeast of the core (over the RFD/FFD gust front) and a lack of organization back in the precip, we went back south. We were going to go west on 66 to go back to Norman, but a new and absolutely nasty looking core had developed over the road. It was some of the darkest overall light and some of the most saturated teal hue I have ever seen. Decided against potentially getting very large hail and went south on US-177 to get around it.
The next 12 or so road miles were a mix of frantic driving and brief stops to see an absolutely mean looking dark green core chomping up the road behind us as we pushed south. We were straddling the gust front the entire time, so we would switch between NW and S winds. At one point the horizontal vorticity along what was really the shelf cloud at that point was among the most impressive I had ever seen. One end of it looked to be tilting into the vertical to our immediate southwest, so we figured it was time to bail. We pretty much collided with whatever it was (probably a gustnado) as a large spray of dust and very strong winds went over us just a mile or so down the road. Also at some point along this I glanced at my phone's radar and back to the road to see some moron driving at full speed the wrong way on the shoulder on OUR side of the road...AND with their headlights off!!! That's exactly how Andy G. got killed (RIP, Andy). It bothers me to see that kind of ridiculous behavior in a situation like this. In general there were way too many people driving around without their lights on during a time in which it was almost as dark as night under the storm. I don't normally harp on things like that, but this was clearly a situation in which headlights were necessary for safe driving around storms.
Anyway, we went all the way down to Shawnee to OK-9 to avoid the storms coming east out of OKC. We saw some white dust column while driving west on 9 west of Tecumseh at some point. It persisted for a few minutes, but it was distant and the low light made it difficult to discern. Could've just been an outflow surge, but it could've been a gustnado, too. There wasn't really much obvious structure above it, so I doubt it was anything tornadic.
Overall an enjoyable chase given the environment and the expectations. It felt great getting out there for the first time this year.
Addendum: Since 13 April 2012 I have now missed four tornadoes that struck Norman or Moore while I was out chasing. My personal tornado drought is now at 675 days (last tornado: 19 May 2013 in Kansas).
