5/10/10 DISC: OK/TX/KS

[Scott Weberpal]

[rant]What I find compelling about the fact that people were in the Wakita tornado is the lack of personal responsibility. No one forced anyone to drive underneath the churning meso of an already tornadic storm. After the first slender cone tornado, we made the decision to get just behind the action area so we could watch and drive from behind instead of trying to blast ahead an outrun a storm moving at 50+ mph. We had a very unique view as we watched numerous chasers trying to jockey for position very near the tornado (we were 1/2 to 3/4 miles behind it), with vehicles passing us at a high rate of speed to get closer to it. I have to problem with people wanting to get close safely, but to drive underneath a tornadic meso for position is just insane - regardless of the traffic situation.

It was painfully obvious, even before the "vehicles in tornado" situation that chasers, perhaps many, were going to get plowed over by a tornado as the meso loomed directly over the highway for many minutes as a stream of cars drove under it to get ahead. Traffic or not, stopped vehicles or not; the fact is, each and every one of those chasers made a conscious decision to drive directly underneath a tornadic meso. I mean seriously, it was moving directly over or very near the road for many many minutes and each and every chaser had to to slow down and let it pass or continue to stay ahead depending on where you started when it neared the road.

For the individual chasers, I'm of the opinion that they can do what they want as long as it doesn't affect me now, or down the road. As far as the chase tour is concerned, SHAME ON YOU! Shame on you for putting the lives of guests on the line, you should know better. Traffic is not an excuse for driving directly under a tornadic meso.[/rant]

 

[Andrew Pritchard]

A chasing tour got a direct hit today. Apparently this is because of a crazy chaser convergence with some chasers blocking the road. People got injured because of this

I am with Scott Weberpal on this issue. This tour van was not hit because of chaser convergence. It was hit because it pulled over and stopped on the side of the road with the already intense tornado moving down the highway at a high rate of speed directly towards them and not very far away at all. They were right behind us, and I had no intentions of stopping at all, but you can clearly see them in my video pull over to film the tornado. This was a TERRIBLE time to stop, thus you can not blame other chasers for this one.

Skip to about half thru my video, when the tornado is in progress behind us and you can see the tour groups fly off onto the shoulder of the road. Considering storm motions, and the potential significant nature of this tornado I can't in my mind understand why anyone would have wanted to pull over at that moment. Even when we gained some distance, I was not satisfied until we were half a mile further south of 11 and out of the tornadoes path. Think ahead! In a situation like that, don't rely on an open shot at the highway for an emergency bail out. With congested roads and fast storm motions you need to be planning well ahead.

 

[Von Castor]

My brother talked to a man yesterday who owns a car lot around Pole Rd. and 27th and the man said that he had 6-8 inch hailstones! His said they were the size of cantelopes. Several vehicles on his lot had to be hauled off because they were no loger drivable. If 8" could be verified that would be approaching record size. Hopefully someone saved a few.

 

[Chris Vagasky]

http://hoot.metr.ou.edu/text/?t=pns&f=KOUN_20100512165136_PNSOUN.txt

Damage surveys from some (10) of the tornadoes.

Of the ten surveys, six were of EF-3, 1 EF-2, and 3 EF-1 tornadoes.

 

[MatthewCarman]

I was being nice in my other post but I also agree with Scott that it was wrong to get close to a tornado with guests in the tour van. I would think their lives would be more important than seeing a tornado.

I don't like chaser convergances to begin with. In a few years there will come a time when 500+ chasers cause a massive road block when an EF5 tornado is coming and every single chaser gets wiped out. As much as I would like to see fewer chasers on the road I don't want to hear of anyone getting killed because of a chaser convergance.

 

[Marko Korosec]

My brother talked to a man yesterday who owns a car lot around Pole Rd. and 27th and the man said that he had 6-8 inch hailstones! His said they were the size of cantelopes. Several vehicles on his lot had to be hauled off because they were no loger drivable. If 8" could be verified that would be approaching record size. Hopefully someone saved a few.

This sounds pretty wild and interesting. I really hope someone saved some of those hailstones if thats not just an extragerration and a rumor. Would be interesting to see damage done by it as well.

Are there any other news about it? Those would indeed be near (or) record hailstones and I am surprised we don't see more info or discussion about it.

 

[Tim Vasquez]

Just a few quick photos as I still don't have electricity or Internet and am posting this from a friend's house. This is a photo I took of the tornado immediately after fleeing south on Harrah Rd (looking NNW) and the remainder of the pics are of the damage in my subdivision in Little Axe. These leveled homes are only about 200 yards from my own house, and I am still in shock that we were spared... not even a broken window. Whenever the power comes on I don't know how I'm going to enjoy it with all this devastation right next door.

 

[Lanny Dean]

Mods: please feel free to move this if needed.

As a chase tour owner myself I certainly understand "getting the action" for your guests however, there is NO EXCUSE FOR PUTTING YOUR GUESTS IN DIRECT DANGER! We were on the same storm with a full tour, a production company and media following us and although we filmed the funnels we did not get the tornadoes simply because I did not feel comfortable putting my guests in a situation like that.

For those that know me, you know that I have NEVER come on this forum and talked about any other tour company....no need to explain the reasons or why but after taking a look at the video I felt that a post was in need. The fact of the matter is that this could have been a possible fatal situation for those folks on tour due to the ignorance and lack of knowledge from the guides/owner of said tour company.
That lack of knowledge and ignornace would/will no doubt have a major impact on the tour business as a whole including mine. I do not care how many "true"
meteorologist and "experienced" guides you claim to have....fact is this action was caused by people who do not have enough experience and knowledge about basic weather not to mention how to run a tour in a safe mannor.
My guests and I heard about the event last night and of course I am pissed off about it, so much so that I had a long talk with my guests today and tried to reassure them that we (Extreme Chase Tours) do not and would not be taking those kind of actions.

I have lost respect for this tour company and will be addressing this situation on my blog after our current tour is over. I will also no doubt be passing the word on to all of my current guests and well as past. I know there are other tour company owners who are members of this forum and I would encourage all of you to do the same.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

I forgot to mention this in my account and just remembered it. There's no one chasing or operating a tour in a limo are they? After the tornado and massive hail producing meso slides just east of me I bail south fast, real fast, in pouring rain and roads starting to pond big time. I could barely see then all the sudden I see headlights coming up behind me. I'm like, damn, what the hell. They go to pass and you seriously couldn't see crap. I thought, wow talk about crazy chasers! Then I see headlights coming. I was letting up just so they could pass quicker in that and if I hadn't, it's quite likely this car would have nailed the oncoming tuck. But what do I see when I look over as it goes by? A NICE long stretched black limo! It was just a lot odd coming south out of Wakita. Hmmm, now I wonder about that Twister II rumor. Or is this not an odd location and time for a real nice stretched limo to be racing south 90mph in extreme rain. I guess there was that whole hail part lol. Then they get to 11 and stop at the stop sign and sit there so I had to go around them. Saw the chasers stopped there with the windows blown out by the downed poles. Surely they saw this thing.

 

[Kevin Ash]

Tornado merger near Little Axe, OK

As a long-time OKC and Norman resident now living far away in FL, I have been compelled to find as many videos/photos/descriptions of this day's event as possible.

Below are links to two videos from different angles that *appear* to show two tornadic circulations merging near Little Axe, as described in the NWS damage survey. Neither has audio of high quality, but I wanted to see what the merger looked like and I think these may have captured part of that event. Judge for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ54XaY4MU8&feature=related
Watch closely beginning at about 1:00. A tanker truck passes, then watch the horizon on the right of the picture. It looks like a second tornado races from right to left toward the main circulation in the center of the picture.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZ5iDgxmZIE
The portion of interest begins at about 3:30. At 3:48 a small funnel appears suddenly on the front (left) side of the main circulation followed in rapid succession by another vortex. Both features become indiscernible from the larger tornadic circulation by about 4:05-4:10.

 

[Jay Bell]

I forgot to mention this in my account and just remembered it. There's no one chasing or operating a tour in a limo are they? After the tornado and massive hail producing meso slides just east of me I bail south fast, real fast, in pouring rain and roads starting to pond big time. I could barely see then all the sudden I see headlights coming up behind me. I'm like, damn, what the hell. They go to pass and you seriously couldn't see crap. I thought, wow talk about crazy chasers! Then I see headlights coming. I was letting up just so they could pass quicker in that and if I hadn't, it's quite likely this car would have nailed the oncoming tuck. But what do I see when I look over as it goes by? A NICE long stretched black limo! It was just a lot odd coming south out of Wakita. Hmmm, now I wonder about that Twister II rumor. Or is this not an odd location and time for a real nice stretched limo to be racing south 90mph in extreme rain. I guess there was that whole hail part lol. Then they get to 11 and stop at the stop sign and sit there so I had to go around them. Saw the chasers stopped there with the windows blown out by the downed poles. Surely they saw this thing.

You know....I saw that too. It was at the intersection of 11 and the highway to Wakita (11a I think). I thought the same thing....I even did a double take. If it IS a tour, I wonder if they serve champagne in the back whilst you chase??

Jay Bell

 

[Robert Rohloff]

I saw the limo also and along with everything else that went on there along Hwy 11 I thought maybe the tornado hit me and I was in OZ.

A station in Tulsa interview some young kid, looked about 18 who stated this was his first time chasing and he was hit up on Hwy 11 and the windows blown out of his vehicle. My take was he had no idea what he was doing. I did bail south when it came down on Hwy 11 but several vehicles did stop to take video with the tornado right on top of them.......Had this been stronger on Hwy 11 we would have needed rescue to get people out of their wrecked vehicles.

 

[Tim Vasquez]

Below are links to two videos from different angles that *appear* to show two tornadic circulations merging near Little Axe, as described in the NWS damage survey. Neither has audio of high quality, but I wanted to see what the merger looked like and I think these may have captured part of that event. Judge for yourself:

I am just now getting some Internet connectivity so I haven't yet looked at any stuff. But I will share my own observations. Just after the tornado hit I was really puzzled at how Country Boy took all that damage (including a 400-ft radio tower collapse... Country Boy had two of them, and there's only one now) yet how there was also damage well to the north on Running Deer. I was not able to resolve these two and just figured that Country Boy got some sort of tremendous RFD downburst on the south flank of the tornado.

Once I got to thumbing through my pictures, I realized that near Hwy 9 & Harrah Rd (192nd) I saw a huge rotating debris cloud to the west, but I didn't have a good feel for how far away it was since I had to keep my eyes on the road. I estimated it was probably 0.5-1 mile away. Then I spent the next 3 minutes driving south and finally stopping. It was at this time that I saw a tornado to the NNW, basically traversing the same location as above. After thinking about how fast all this mess was translating northeast it's pretty clear that these were two separate vortices. Yesterday Daphne Zaras showed me the Norman phased array radar images and this seems to be pretty much what happened.

Structurally I'm not sure what I was looking at, but my impression was less that of a multivortex tornado and more of there being some sort of pre-existing WNW-ESE boundary across the Etowah area which contained ripples of vertical vorticity and were stretched in the inflow area. I may be completely out to lunch here but that's sort of the hazy impression I've gotten so far from looking at shreds of data.

Running my Internet off of the car inverter... amazingly I have phone and Internet but still no electricity yet. I can hear the OEC crews on 154.625 and the trucks doing their business out there, though.

Tim

 

[Tim Vasquez]

Also this is a quick sketch showing what I know of the damage. The x's are structures that I recall specifically from memory as being seriously damage or leveled. The F at the top right is the fatality (Tammy Rider) and 3 injured children. I was not able to look at anything on 180th as the road was closed off for a long time due to downed lines. If there is any interest raised about the eccentric circulations in this storm I will go out and take a closer look at the tracks later this week.

I will say the area near where the two tracks merge is heavily deforested... I don't have a good feel for what the tracks are like in there and I haven't yet found any aerial/helicopter pics at all, but it's a real mess.

Tim

 

[Tony Perkins]

My friend was on this tour, I think it is F5 but not sure about that. One of the two vans got a direct hit. All windows blew out and most people inside got cut injuries. She was in the other van.

They got stuck into chaser convergence with some chasers blocking the road and they couln't get out of the way.

Here is their video on TWC, including the moment the window blows out.