Fabian, Elton, Craig, and I left Des Moines at 4 AM and headed down 71. We took off discussing Tulsa, which we stuck to (discussion of the sharp forecasting the other three did is in the DISC thread). Of course we're northerners and looked (and hoped) a ton more at the northern option than if we, say, came from NE Texas; we simply lucked out as some things verified as the hours went on, and we decided to gamble. At the very least we were going to look forward to large hailers and not have to be in a TOR in a dangerous terrain none of us knew very well. We thought all down 71 was gonna get pounded, but we didn't wanna be in it - ironically, we ended up "in it" twice yesterday.
Theoretically, our little northern gamble should have paid off.
It was still sticky in the morning north of the warm front even though it was cooler, and it didn't take long for something to fire up. We got our first taste of the quick storm motion over unsuitable territory early in the day, when we dropped the idea of lunch at 11 AM to chase a storm developing twenty miles south of Tulsa. We chased it in hopes of some good hail grabs, and we saw patches of hail fog rising from the hills as we began to significantly slow down, wind around the mountains, and watch the storm pick up speed and bullet off into Arkansas.
We still had plenty of time for the day, however - we turned around and drove back to just outside of Tulsa, stuffed our faces with half of a truck stop Subway's stock, thought briefly about Oklahoma City, but determined to not head anywhere at all when we (read: them with me struggling to understand) still thought the big severe threat could extend up to our position.
Bored, we eventually went north of Tulsa to the Bartlesville vicinity at around three or four, where we saw towers go up under a weak cap.
Although we were cautious of cheering off at the birth of the first DBZ, we discussed the possibility of intercepting what would be the infant stages of that horrible monster, even though none of us at the time expected it to be as powerful as it turned out to be. We just wanted another storm grab. Like the AM hailer we caught, we simply thought we'd get some baseballs and have enough time left to head south to where we thoughtstorms would be, as the afternoon pressed to evening.
And yep, we all fell for a storm to the south instead, and pulled off the eventual history-maker. We were in Bartlesville, watching to our NW the soon-to-be killer storm turn into a monster, but we decided to go back to that other rapidly developing storm over Tulsa - where, we thought, it would be in a more favorable area to snag more goodies.
Our storm by Tulsa bulleted E. The other beast was no more than twenty miles to our north and moving ESE at the time, so we looked out of our car windows and watched them roll alongside us like escorts.
Once we got to Nowata on 60, the Kansas stuff experienced the back end cell running into the first two, and weakening. Maybe, we thought, that was the end of the north's story.
By the time we were in Vinita, the northern storm of course turned wicked, two virtually simultaneous WX reports came in (at around 5:30), and both the reports had the exact same message: that a "violent tornado" was on the ground, one for the north storm, one for the south storm.
Looking at the warning archive, Tulsa broadcast the Picher warning at 5:34 and the Strang warning at 5:35. We had a chance for either, and were in the exact area where, given our information, we had to basically flip a coin on whether to go south to the Strang storm or north to what turned into the eventually damaged area. We chose Strang; we made our bed and we decided to lie in it.
Apparently a tornado was on the ground when we arrived at the area, according to an SPC spotter report, but we didn't see it as it passed. We attempted to maneuver to the south and east creatively without getting cored, by use of a country road, but when we got there the country road was blocked off and the whole game was lost. Turning around for a different route meant backtracking with a 50mph storm going away from us, so we went forward - around the Grand Lake of the Cherokees, and behind a truck dragging a horse trailer. Ten cars, whose passengers all looked very unhappy to be in their position, weaved frustratingly behind him, and for fifteen minutes our car became the caboose to the traffic problem and, as a result, we unfortunately lost more ground on the storm. Nothing could be done - it was just bad luck.
Once we got back on track for our cell, we attempted to catch up regardless of the approaching Arkansas terrain but couldn't do it - and although another cell developed behind its flank and quickly went TOR south of our position, we couldn't detect a funnel (or any rotation for that matter) in the Decatur, AR area at the time a different spotter called in a tornado on the ground for it.
On a day where we were lucky enough to have our gamble target verify, we were unlucky enough to pick the wrong villain from the two reachable TOR with "violent tornado on the ground" warning descriptions. Oh, and the terrain, as many others have said - it's really awful and very dangerous. I'm never going back to eastern Oklahoma again, at least not until the next risk for it.
The damage we saw heading home on 71 brought us back to reality and seriousness, and I know Craig and I both are going on 36+ hours of no sleep now thinking about all the people who were unaware of the storm until it swept on them with those incredible speeds ...
