Andy Berrington
EF2
Surprised there is not a dedicated reports thread for this event yet, as it was one of the more impressive N OK tornado events in recent years. I'll get it started with my first post in a long time given this was a top 5 chase in my career.
I left Norman solo at about 2 PM and drove north on I-35 to SR-51 westbound to Hennessey. I could see towers forming on the dryline to my northwest, so I decided to wait at the SR-51/SR-74 junction for awhile. The typical preconditioning cycle was going on, although there certainly wasn't much in the way of cumulus ahead of the dryline in the warm sector, which definitely had me a bit skeptical about the chances for initiation. Surface observations looked reasonable enough though, with temperatures in the mid 80s and dewpoints in the mid-upper 60s. There was a point where I nearly bailed south when some of the towers had gotten quite mushy and it seemed as though initiation would not happen (around 5 pm or so).
Driving south to Crescent, I did notice some pulsing in the TCu in my rearview mirror so I decided to stop in Crescent and check satellite/etc. Upon doing this, I saw a message from someone at OUN stating that the ascent was approaching N OK from the west. Deciding that the dryline in SW OK looked too diffuse and cirrus was beginning to overspread, I turned back north, only to find that the TCu had grown markedly in the span of about 5-10 minutes; they were wider, and resisting the entrainment that had killed updrafts all afternoon up until that point. The southern cluster of updrafts eventually developed a very healthy flanking line of about a half dozen strong incipient updrafts, so I figured this was the play for the time being. This was the developing stage of the Braman supercell and was concurrent with an observation of 86/68 at Blackwell.
Eventually the storm intensified rapidly, there was ~20-30 kt very warm/moist inflow at the surface, and a large inflow band formed on its forward flank. A wall cloud formed quickly and began rotating quite strongly, to the point of producing a number of short lived ground circulations and one definite tornado with a bowl funnel. At this point, I figured things were about to go quite well, although it took quite a long time (to almost the point of frustration) for the main show to begin, during which time I relocated E to where I was SSW of Braman in a wind farm. Eventually, the main tornado formed as some precipitation with the RFD wrapped around the backside, and then had the satellite carousel around it, which was incredible to witness. The tornado morphed into a number of shapes and sizes as well, and I loved the dark base above it adding contrast to the below photos...
After watching this show for about 15 minutes, the tornado eventually got wrapped in rain and disappeared from my vantage point. While the storm was definitely transitioning more to HP at this point, I decided to follow it a bit east to north of Blackwell. However, a closed road prevented me from getting east, which actually turned out to be quite fortuitous. Realizing I'd be behind the storm, it was becoming increasingly HP, and that terrain started to deteriorate closer to Ponca City, I abandoned the storm and drove to Blackwell. Checking radar, I noticed the new TEC forming near Waukomis and it immediately exploded, which was of course the incipient Enid storm. Immediately, I hopped on I-35 southbound to Perry, then took US-412 west as this now massive updraft was filling nearly the entire western horizon ahead of me. Eventually, I saw reports of a tornado in progress near Vance AFB and figured based on the radar signature that it would be visible, although I did not know precisely the magnitude of the tornado nor what it looked like.
Knowing I needed to quickly position myself given fading light, I turned south on SR-74 again towards Covington and eventually got a glimpse of the tornado to my west (which predictably led to a number of emphatic expletives, to say the least). Even from around 10 miles away, the motion was evident. This was a very intense tornado. Hurriedly, I stopped at the first open vantage point I could find and snapped some quick shots that managed to turn out alright of my first official violent tornado. Fortunately, this was not a fatal tornado and very fortunately, it did not track about 3 miles north through the heart of Enid. The tornado absolutely reminded me of Chickasha 2011 (well, actually all of the violent tornadoes from 5/24/2011 except for Lookeba and El Reno/Piedmont).
This marked the first time I have ever seen separate tornadoes on different storms on the same day. Not sure how I pulled this off, but I ended up with a total of 5 tornadoes including the Braman satellites. The lightning from the Enid cell was also incredible and I watched it for a time after the tornado left my view. Towards the end of the evening, I came up to the SR-74/SR-51 junction again, which was being used as a staging area for EMS heading to Enid. I chatted briefly with one of the firefighters and let them know that the tornado threat had lessoned, before driving back to Norman tired, but amazed at what I had managed to witness. What a day.
I left Norman solo at about 2 PM and drove north on I-35 to SR-51 westbound to Hennessey. I could see towers forming on the dryline to my northwest, so I decided to wait at the SR-51/SR-74 junction for awhile. The typical preconditioning cycle was going on, although there certainly wasn't much in the way of cumulus ahead of the dryline in the warm sector, which definitely had me a bit skeptical about the chances for initiation. Surface observations looked reasonable enough though, with temperatures in the mid 80s and dewpoints in the mid-upper 60s. There was a point where I nearly bailed south when some of the towers had gotten quite mushy and it seemed as though initiation would not happen (around 5 pm or so).
Driving south to Crescent, I did notice some pulsing in the TCu in my rearview mirror so I decided to stop in Crescent and check satellite/etc. Upon doing this, I saw a message from someone at OUN stating that the ascent was approaching N OK from the west. Deciding that the dryline in SW OK looked too diffuse and cirrus was beginning to overspread, I turned back north, only to find that the TCu had grown markedly in the span of about 5-10 minutes; they were wider, and resisting the entrainment that had killed updrafts all afternoon up until that point. The southern cluster of updrafts eventually developed a very healthy flanking line of about a half dozen strong incipient updrafts, so I figured this was the play for the time being. This was the developing stage of the Braman supercell and was concurrent with an observation of 86/68 at Blackwell.
Eventually the storm intensified rapidly, there was ~20-30 kt very warm/moist inflow at the surface, and a large inflow band formed on its forward flank. A wall cloud formed quickly and began rotating quite strongly, to the point of producing a number of short lived ground circulations and one definite tornado with a bowl funnel. At this point, I figured things were about to go quite well, although it took quite a long time (to almost the point of frustration) for the main show to begin, during which time I relocated E to where I was SSW of Braman in a wind farm. Eventually, the main tornado formed as some precipitation with the RFD wrapped around the backside, and then had the satellite carousel around it, which was incredible to witness. The tornado morphed into a number of shapes and sizes as well, and I loved the dark base above it adding contrast to the below photos...
After watching this show for about 15 minutes, the tornado eventually got wrapped in rain and disappeared from my vantage point. While the storm was definitely transitioning more to HP at this point, I decided to follow it a bit east to north of Blackwell. However, a closed road prevented me from getting east, which actually turned out to be quite fortuitous. Realizing I'd be behind the storm, it was becoming increasingly HP, and that terrain started to deteriorate closer to Ponca City, I abandoned the storm and drove to Blackwell. Checking radar, I noticed the new TEC forming near Waukomis and it immediately exploded, which was of course the incipient Enid storm. Immediately, I hopped on I-35 southbound to Perry, then took US-412 west as this now massive updraft was filling nearly the entire western horizon ahead of me. Eventually, I saw reports of a tornado in progress near Vance AFB and figured based on the radar signature that it would be visible, although I did not know precisely the magnitude of the tornado nor what it looked like.
Knowing I needed to quickly position myself given fading light, I turned south on SR-74 again towards Covington and eventually got a glimpse of the tornado to my west (which predictably led to a number of emphatic expletives, to say the least). Even from around 10 miles away, the motion was evident. This was a very intense tornado. Hurriedly, I stopped at the first open vantage point I could find and snapped some quick shots that managed to turn out alright of my first official violent tornado. Fortunately, this was not a fatal tornado and very fortunately, it did not track about 3 miles north through the heart of Enid. The tornado absolutely reminded me of Chickasha 2011 (well, actually all of the violent tornadoes from 5/24/2011 except for Lookeba and El Reno/Piedmont).
This marked the first time I have ever seen separate tornadoes on different storms on the same day. Not sure how I pulled this off, but I ended up with a total of 5 tornadoes including the Braman satellites. The lightning from the Enid cell was also incredible and I watched it for a time after the tornado left my view. Towards the end of the evening, I came up to the SR-74/SR-51 junction again, which was being used as a staging area for EMS heading to Enid. I chatted briefly with one of the firefighters and let them know that the tornado threat had lessoned, before driving back to Norman tired, but amazed at what I had managed to witness. What a day.
