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I witnessed the entire life cycle of the tornado from Elk City to Hammon. We had 1.5" hail north of Sayer then a funnel on the storm. It then produced a thin tornado and morphed into a multi-vortex bowl and eventually a thick tube and hit the south side of Hammon. An industrial building and one house was destroyed. The house lost it's roof and all windows. Debris filled the house. I ended up searching for survivors. Luckily nobody was home. The tornado roped out just past town.
Video to be posted later tonight.
This shows the firs funnel just west of Elk City.
Here is my favorite picture north of Elk City showing a nice clear slot. I don't remember the structure being this nice.
I also saw most of the tornado's lifecycle with Scott Peake, Colt Forney, Amy Hendricks, and Kevin Rolfs. We were behind the tornado for the entire time, and we were able to catch up to it on the country roads. The closest we got was within 300 yards of the tornado. We saw a trailer home get completely destroyed by the tornado. The whole trailer was lifted from the top of a hill into a ditch.
We arrived at the house to find that the 3 people living there were able to safely get into their storm cellar. This was the end of our chase, as we stopped to help the family.
I have a lot of photos from the tornado, and I will post some more when I get back to Norman. Right now I'll link to one that I posted on Facebook.
Eric Sipes and I set out from Cordell at around 3 pm headed west toward the line of towering Cu in the hopes of getting storm or two. We first set up W of Sayre on 152 and watched some weak storms and then eventually moved north toward Cheyenne and then headed east toward Hammond. As we approached Hammond at about 5:15 we noted what we thought was a substantial funnel cloud to our S. In Hammond we headed south on 34 and by the time we were on the S edge of town we could see a tornado touching down. Set up about 1 1/2 miles S of Hammond and observed the tornado for the next 30 minutes, moving south a bit once when it seemed it might pass uncomfortably close. Watched as it hit Hammond (not a good feeling at all).
Here are links to a few pics:
I made my move this morning from NM and traveled to the intersection of 30 and 33 south a town called Durham in OK. After seeing some slightly better looking towers to the south and not having any luck with the broadband in the middle of nowhere, headed south to Reydon and then headed west to Allison. In Allison (middle of nowhere), I finally got some radar and found out the somewhat weak looking thunderstorm between Wheeler, Twitty, and Kelton TX was actually showing some promise on radar and was isolated. So, I went back into OK and set up in front of the storm in Cheyenne, OK were I got pelted with hail for 10 minutes. After seeing some of the structure up close, I bit and headed south on 283 towards Sayer. After reaching hwy 6, I continued and looked back towards ENE and noticed a funnel starting. I had noticed some lowerings but didn't notice a substantial amount of circulation. Needless to say, I stopped got a pic and pulled a U-ey. Not sure if was the same wall but after a few minutes going east on 6 toward Elk City, looked to the north and saw a nice fatty wall cloud and tornado. From there, continued on 34 north to Hammon, took a bunch of back roads and followed the wall north of Butler and then packed it in. Very happy for continued success, nice reward after getting back from a deployment, and great first chase that was suppose to be a warm up chase for the season. I forgot my usb cord to download the pics but will get it tomorrow.
Saw at least two tornadoes and perhaps a third, will have to see what the damage surveys say. Caught the storm in it's ENTIRE life cycle, from when it first was a baby tower to when it went tornadic, it was just an awesome chase. You can probably catch some of my vid on KFOR's website at some point, I'll try to get some YouTube action going tomorrow after I go buy an external hard drive. For now, I haven't ate in 10 hours, my head hurts, and I need some sleep.
Saw two tornadoes including the Hammon beast. Saw large satelite tornado wrap around larger tornado then witnessed rope out from within 25 yards. Then saw second pink tornado from 200 yards and I must say this was the prettiest tornado I have ever seen. Me and chase partner Brandon Sampson chased 575 miles on a very succesful first chase. Can't wait on rest of season and will have some video up soon.
WOW!!! What a day. I almost decided not to go today because of the meager setup. Also, I almost went SE on 287 towards Childress, but I'm glad I stuck with my original target of Canadian, TX. I stuck around in Canadian twiddling my thumbs for about an hour, and thought real hard about heading back home. I looked at Grlevel3 one last time and noticed the cells to the SE of me looking better and better. I thought to myself, I might as well go after them since I'm out anyway. I hauled East on 33 to try to get to Roll and go south. As I got about 2 miles south of Roll, I got into some hail that ranged from peas to quarters. I called in the report of quarters and kept heading south. I met my buddies Brandon Green and Frank Blanscet and chatted for a few minutes. I was actually heading home when I saw the base to the SE and the funnel report on radar. I popped over another hill, and about soiled all lover myself! LOL! I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I really had to stop for a minute and tell myself that this was really happening. Anyway, I got video of it from just south of Cheyenne which was about 10-12 miles away from the tornado. Contrast couldn't have been better! I just wish I was a little closer, but I'll take it!
Oh, about halfway through the trip I noticed I forgot my still camera at home! I said to myself that something big would happen since my still camera got left behind. I wasn't quite expecting it to be this big. This may be the best tornado I've ever gotten on video.
Bailed on my original target of Sayre to chase the first wave of early convection. Was nearly rewarded near the intersection of US70/OK65 with a brief tornado but the shear-driven rotation couldn't get it done. Eventually we bailed on the first wave and went back west for round two. Mistake was heading SW instead of due west, which put us out of position to the south. However we never gave up, kept trucking north, and were able to grab the last part of the Hammon tornado (trunk/rope out) as well as the next top-shaped tornado. Later reports indicated a third brief touchdown from a thin funnel we also witnessed. We were 15 miles from the tornadoes but had a great open view and of course "zoom" ;-)
Work tomorrow so summary/images will be in a few days, when nobody will care anymore.
Left Plano with David Reimer at 11:00 or so, picked up Sonya Muniz who rode along in Denton about 30 minutes later, and then left for the Wichita Falls area. Same story as Shane from then on. Followed the first line into SW OK and saw a rapidly rotating funnel that just couldn't quite produce. Eventually gave up on that, and headed SW to Frederick before heading back north and catching what was apparently the end of the Hammon tornado, then the tornado that soon followed, and another brief third tornado! A great day, and an awesome way to kick off the Spring.
Added an account with video, including the Tornado going through Hammon from 1/4 of a mile away, on my site. It should be in 720p HD in an hour or so once it gets finished processing:
On another note, did anyone else notice the Satellite Tornado pretty early in the Tornadoes life cycle (3-5 minutes in or so just NW of Elk City)? Just wanting to make sure I wasn't the only one who saw it. I'm going to send my vid to OUN, but just wanting to know if anyone had confirmation that it was a second ground circulation or not.
(The above is a vidcap, which explains the grainy and blurry nature of the image)
(Aside from minor in-camera JPG processing, no saturation adjustment has been made to the above photo. The colors actually were that vivid!)
Click here for full-resolution video (video is ~10 mins in length)
Note: The early part of the video is a bit shaky as a result of strong winds, a lack of a tripod (which I accidentally left at home that morning), and my desire to take pictures and video concurrently. Later in the video, I'm able to shoot from my car, so I rest the camcorder on the door/window opening (which stabilizes the shot significantly).
Quite a roller coaster of "go - no go" for me... Starting late last week, I began to look forward to Monday as my first chase of the season. By the time the weekend came and went, however, the forecasts were looking considerably worse for low-topped tornadic supercell potential, and I went to bed Sunday night assuming that I wouldn't chase Monday. Well, when I awoke Monday morning, a check of sfc obs revealed that Tds were higher than previously anticipated, and the morning model runs suggested that CAPE would be a little greater than previously forecast. After some discussion with my usual chase partners shortly after 1 pm, and seeing the second band of convection moving across western Oklahoma and western north Texas, I didn't think I'd be able to make it in time to my "preferred" target of Stinnet - Canadian, TX. As such, I pretty much left the NWC around 2 pm with the mindset that I wasn't going to chase. However, as I neared I40, I made a last-second change-of-mind, and began trekking westward towards the TX panhandle border.
IIRC, I busted into the sunshine near Clinton. Near the time I got to Elk City, I could see healthy Cu (and occassional Cbs) to my west, and I decided to stop my westward progress at that time. The nascent storm was still organizing; sequential updraft pulses became progressively longer-lived. As the storm neared Elk City, I noticed a nice bell-shaped structure to the low-level updraft, and I made the decision to head east on I40 to the Foss exit. Since I was chasing solo, I made a concerted effort to "plan ahead" in terms of navigation, and I didn't like the lack of many east options if I decided to head northward out of Elk City; the presence of Foss Reservoir meant that paved east options were rather limited until one got to Hammon. With a NE storm motion, I figured that my "planning ahead" strategy of moving to the east side of Foss Reservoir would give me a better opportunity to avoid getting behind the storm.
By the time I exited I40 and made my way through the town of Foss, I could see what looked like a funnel at least 1/2 of the way to the ground. I eventually found a good site to setup and watch/film/photo the tornado a few miles N of Foss. From a photo standpoint, this was a pleasing location, with a big wind farm in the foreground and the tornado in the background. Unfortunately, the tornado looked to be moving considerably more northward than eastward, which left me viewing the tornado 8-12 miles E of the tornado for most of its life. In hindsight, had I known that the tornado was going to be down for 30+ minutes, I could have taken Rte 73 westward on the south side of Foss Reservoir to get closer to the tornado (at least to see the ground circulation), but I never imagined that the tornado would exist for so long. As such, I just stopped at every opportunity I got to shoot video and take pictures. *shrug*
I couldn't tell if the tornado was on the ground the entire time, as the condensation funnel would lift at times and take on various shapes. There was a really neat rope-out (with a slithering rope that slowly disappeared) to my west when I go N of Foss Reservoir (a few miles S of Butler); see the ~7:45 mark in the above-posted Youtube video. I continued Nward to and from Butler, following the next low-level meso as the storm moved to my northwest. There were a couple of attempts at tornadogenesis NW of Butler, and one successful attempt to my northwest that manifested itself as a nicely-colored dental-floss condensation funnel in contact with the ground. This tornado was relatively short-lived, and I let the storm slide off to the northeast. As the sun was nearing the horizon, I was treated to an absolutely spectacular sight when the orange hues of the setting sun lit the backside of the departing convection.
Overall, can't be much other than pleased (except, of course, to hear that damage occurred with the Hammon tornado), especially considering how close I was to sitting this one out. On the down side, I had zero, zilch, nada AT&T service west of El Reno all afternoon and evening. I probably tried 100 times to send text messages, make voice calls, or get internet data, to no avail. The phone showed 2-4 bars at times, but the connection never went through. Obviously, watching the tornado develop N (NW?) of Elk City in the absence of a tornado warning without the ability to call in the report was extraordinarily frustrating.
EDIT: I didn't intend for this REPORT to get so lengthy, and I imagine most folks skimmed through it as a result. Oops.
Obviously, watching the tornado develop N (NW?) of Elk City in the absence of a tornado warning without the ability to call in the report was extraordinarily frustrating.
Wouldn't have made much difference anyways. I rode along with Bart Comstock and Denton Sachs. We witnessed the entire lifetime of the storm and we tried several times to tell NWS at OUN that we had a funnel, than funnel down halfway to the ground, than finally a touchdown when it finally reached the ground. Even after all these reports that we gave them, the cell still did not get warned until about 20 minutes after the tornado had already been on the ground, this was just baffling to me!
After witnessing the continued decrease of involvement in the SpotterNetwork staff in serving SN members with troubleshooting issues recently, I have unilaterally decided to terminate the relationship between SpotterNetwork's support and Stormtrack. I have witnessed multiple users unable to receive support weeks after initiating help threads on the forum. I find this lack of response from SpotterNetwork officials disappointing and a failure to hold up their end of the agreement that was made years ago, before I took over management of this site. In my opinion, having Stormtrack users sit and wait for so long to receive help on SpotterNetwork issues on the Stormtrack forums reflects poorly not only on SpotterNetwork, but on Stormtrack and (by association) me as well. Since the issue has not been satisfactorily addressed, I no longer wish for the Stormtrack forum to be associated with SpotterNetwork.
I apologize to those who continue to have issues with the service and continue to see their issues left unaddressed. Please understand that the connection between ST and SN was put in place long before I had any say over it. But now that I am the "captain of this ship," it is within my right (nay, duty) to make adjustments as I see necessary. Ending this relationship is such an adjustment.
For those who continue to need help, I recommend navigating a web browswer to SpotterNetwork's About page, and seeking the individuals listed on that page for all further inquiries about SpotterNetwork.
From this moment forward, the SpotterNetwork sub-forum has been hidden/deleted and there will be no assurance that any SpotterNetwork issues brought up in any of Stormtrack's other sub-forums will be addressed. Do not rely on Stormtrack for help with SpotterNetwork issues.
Sincerely,
Jeff D.
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