5/10/10 REPORTS: OK/KS/TX

[Russ Conlon]

Decided to make a chase of it in the city yesterday. Was going to meet my chase partner and head up to Guthrie but spotted tower going up over SW of city and decided to readjust target. Caught the Yukon rope tornado about 15 minutes later which roped out pretty quick and then tried to catch the circulation SW of Moore which wound producing the violent tornado that hit South Choctaw. Storm motions were just too fast. Felt somewhat fortunate we didn't get caught in the hail cores that produced hail up to 5" in diameter in some spots.

 

[Eugene Thieszen]

North Central Oklahoma Chase

Similar to others so I will be brief. The WXtreme Chase team initially set up in Enid and then went out to near Carmen to meet the Wakita/Medford cell as it developed and grew. Managed to stay with it until it got away from us in the chaser convergence along SR 11. But we felt good about documenting three tornadoes on what was a very fast moving cell. Made a try for the Ponca City cell as well, but not a lot to show for it since it was rocketing NE at incredible speed.

Here's video of the second tornado on the Wakita cell from SR 132 just south of the SR 11 junction. Really enjoyed the satellite and multiple vortex action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5dTczivHqk

Gene
for the WXtreme Chase Team

 

[Dustin Wilcox]

Managed to catch some tornado action and see some Baseball stones, all while avoiding the chaser convergences (outside of 2 miles of nightmare on US 11). All I really wanted to do was blast East on 11 real quick, but it became quite apparent the storm was seconds from producing, so I jumped North on a red dirt road, which put me in great position on the tornado, only problem, it was like driving a funny car open throttle through a corner, I knew I had my work cut out for me when I saw a 4x4 dodge stuck in the middle of the road...But somehow I managed to keep the car moving forward and on the road, until I started coming across rather extensive damage, had to battle a couple herds of disgruntle cattle, miles and miles of power poles snapped, trees blocking the road, ext... By the time I battled all that and got "back on track" everything was blasting East fast enough that I couldn't play catch-up. Kind of a cool tornado, but overall not an excellent chase for footage/photo quality, but it was kind of fun in a challenging and exhilarating way...Fortunately, I didn't come across any homes "Majorly" damaged, outside of roof, window and outbuilding type damage, and outside of some fresh new battle scars, I too escaped without any major damage...

Video will be uploaded this evening to www.severechase.com

 

[Mikey Gribble]

We targetted Perry, Oklahoma. We were parked at a hotel for a couple hours watching the vortex 2 group do whatever it is they do. That made the wait a little more entertaining. They had a super hot girl with them too which was probably the highlight of the day lol. No the storm was better, but seeing her was nice too.

We dropped southwest from Perry and intercepted the storm as it got organized and went tornado warned. When it got closer to Red Rock it had a nice lowering and spun up a weak multiple vortex tornado that lasted like 30 seconds. It was bush league, but a tornado none the less. There was another cone funnel that made it half way to the ground also.

We had to make a final stand east of Red Rock because the Arkansas River blocked us from staying with the storm. We got up underneath the updraft as it crossed the road. It was crazy. There was a coal mine that had some black dust pouring out of it and getting sucked into the storm. There was a nasty RFD wrapping around the back side coming at us so I had Ryan turn around to get the hell out of there. We jumped on a side road going east when the wind started whipping our car around. I thought there might be a tornado forming on top of us because there was rapid vertical motion and rotation in the base, so I opened my door to look up and the wind ripped the door out of my hand. I had to drop my video camera and pulled with both arms to get it closed. It freaked me out a bit. As soon as I got the door shut shingles started ripping off the houses next to us and debris was flying through the air. For about five seconds I was thinking, mother of god here it comes. I yelled at Ryan to turn the car into the wind. As soon as he did we got ripped by the RFD. Wind speeds had to be getting close to 100mph. There were shingles and all kinds of crap flying around.

After that we drove down the road and apparently became "everything that is wrong with chasing today". Here is a quote from Chris Sokol...

I would like to add this, hoping that these folks are members here. East of Red Rock...about 1.5 miles East of Hwy 177 on a dirt road. There were two vehicles stopped in the road with several guys out watching the storms as they moved on Eastward. You guys are a prime example of what is wrong with chasing nowdays. I was in the blue van that stopped to see if you were aware of what was going on to the south. Your arrogance and rudeness were absolutely unbelievable. You are a prime example of why some people dislike chasers so much.

lol that is one side of the story. First of all we were pulled off the road not on it and it was a dead end.
Notice he doesn't cite us for actually doing anything wrong. We were just "rude". We parked off the side of the road about a quarter mile from a dead end road in the Arkansas River bottom. This minivan comes flying by us while we are standing outside our car filming the storm heading towards the dead end. Apparently he didn't know that was a dead end immediately in front of him because there was no reason to drive down that road. We were already at the crest in the hill and it just dropped down into the river bottom ahead of us and dead ended so its not like you could see anything from down there. So this guy turns around and comes back and stops this time. I was on the other side of the car so he wasn't talking to me. He was talking to the other guys that were with me and said "they just tornado warned that storm by OKC". How are you supposed to respond to that lol. Those guys said okay and he took off driving again. That was literally the extent of it lol. How that translates to us being everything wrong with chasing is beyond me. It is so stupid I thought it was funny. What in the hell are we supposed to do. Say thank you sir, jump in the car and peel out towards OKC. He was talking about a storm that was literally 100 miles away and moving 60mph. Not a whole lot I can do about that. We also have radar up on the laptop in the car, so we were plenty aware of what was going on.
That whole deal is just retarded. I fully anticipated getting called out on stormtrack for behaving like a jackass some day, but I didn't think I'd ever be referred to as everything that is wrong with chasing when I didn't even do anything wrong lol.

 

[Jacob Ferden]

Well, I expected to fail epically, and I somehow managed to do even worse. My friend Sarah and I left Norman about 3:30 PM and took I-35 N to I-240 W as storms developed to the southwest of Oklahoma City. Went SW briefly on I-44 and then west on OK-37, where we reached the rapidly developing supercell, which was moving NE at about 60 mph. Raced it north to Mustang, but terrain wouldn't let us get a good look underneath, and precip wasn't helping. Eventually gained a view of a RFB from the Lowe's parking lot in Mustang, as we experienced some light anvil precip. Went east on OK-152 towards Will Rogers Airport, and this is where I made my big tactical blunder: instead of going east past the aiport, we went north on Meridian when reports came in of a tornado near Yukon. Reached the Meridian Ave. / I-40 junction, and could see a ragged lowering off to the west. However, traffic became a major issue at this point, and I realized that we had traffic in front of us and a hail core chasing us. Slowly moved north on Meridian for another mile or so as roughly quarter sized hail began to fall. The wind began to kick up, and the hail grew larger, so took shelter under a Shell station's canopy and let the storm blow over us. Experienced about 10 minutes of extremely heavy rainfall, and marble to near-golfball sized hail. Knew the game was over at this point, so made our way back to Norman and saw the damage on I-35 in Moore, as well as considerable damage in Norman. Learned later that the Norman tornado was visible from my apartment complex. All in all, a bust of the very worst kind...

 

[Richard Vorhies]

LaFontaine, KS

Left Topeka, Ks. at 2:00 p.m. and targeted Independence, KS. Noticed Tornado warned storm by Dexter, Ks. and tried to move into position by LaFontaine. Storm totally disapated just before getting to my position. Hit the cold air inflow. Caught the Severe storm in Yates Center heading home and took 70 MPH straight-line winds in Yates Center. No Tornadoes or wall cloud seen, but saw good structure on severe storm that was by Council Grove, but pics not very clear so won't post them.

 

[Winston Wells]

I arrived at my target of Blackwell, OK mid-afternoon and almost immediately headed west on SR 11 to intercept the Wakita/Medford cell. These photos were taken between Cherokee and Medford from a side road just to the north of SR 11. I'm looking due west here.

I then joined the crowd in moving back east on SR 11. I opted to head north on US 77, but I was unable to catch back up with the northern cell. I did encounter some tree, structure, and sign damage in Arkansas City, KS but county officials had the situation well in hand as I passed through.

My thoughts are with all who suffered losses in yesterday's storms.

 

[Logan Karsten]

I thought my chasing experience was a mildly bad one, but apparently I wasn't the only one that had a bad experience this day. I was with Jeff Duda, and we made the mistake of leaving Ames, IA at 9:00 A.M. Granted, this was my first chase this far south into the plains. Next time I come this far, I am leaving at like 3:00 AM or something crazy like that. We basically came down I-35, and passed through Wichita just as the Wakita storm was beginning to really take shape. We blasted south on I-35 because we were in a race to try to blast by the core without punching through it. Unfortunately, we couldn't avoid the hail. It started out pea size on I-35, then started to grow to 1 inch diameter. So, we got off at and blasted East towards Arkansas City to avoid the monster hail, which was a good move on our part. We stopped quickly on a hill with lots of trees to try to see if there was anything to our west. However, as we stood there trying to see through the trees, inflow winds started to really ramp up, and the low clouds above us were just screaming into the storm, so we quickly got the hell out of there, due to we didn't know if something major was immediately in front of us that we couldn't see. Basically, we kept going east and stopping to see anything. We saw some lowerings, and rain-wrapped rotation, but nothing never really that major. However, the area we initially stopped at did have a tornado report, so it may have also been a good decision to get out of there when we did. Was yesterday a bad chase? I don't think so, even though I didn't see a tornado. I did manage to see a good HP supercell with killer inflow winds, so I have at least that.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Video stills just don't tell much of the story on the motion under the Wakita Oklahoma storm. Vorticies on crack is what those things were.

Northwest side of Wakita storm.

Same spot.

I have a few more and a longer worded account of the day here: http://www.extremeinstability.com/2010-5-10.htm

Some might find the 3 frame gif of 3 larger stone splats interesting lol. The stones making those splats didn't even look as big as the very few "bowling balls" lol.

 

[Robert Rohloff]

I took Hwy 132 north out of Nash on the storm crossing the Great Salt Plains, just SW of Medford. I went west on Hwy 11 and had some video shots of the storm producing funnels.

It appeared to start making a turn more East than NE, I thought that heading towards Medford would work. I was solo and lost visual on the rotation as I headed east. Thank you to everyone that shot video when it came down on Hwy 11. I was trying to see it when I looked in my rear view window and saw the multi vortex right on Hwy 11 right behind me..........It was like something right out of the movies.

I was able to duck back south on Hwy132 and get some video from south, when I made it back to Hwy 11 I observed power poles snapped and a chaser vehicle that looked to have taken a hit. It was a green SUV and all the windows were blown out, everyone was out of the vehicle.

All most impossible to catch these after they passed. I eventually dropped south and took some damage video from Brewers Bend Park in Muskogee County. Several trailers were destroyed with 4 persons trapped and injured, injuries did not appear life threatening, however they were very lucky. Witness stated a tornado was "hopping up and down". I had to walk a mile back into the site but it appeared to be tree top level when it hit.

 

[Paul Stofer]

[FONT=&quot]We started the day sitting in Guthrie, Oklahoma pouring over forecast models. It appeared the dryline was a little further West than planned today, which was good for us since it put us in more chase-friendly topography. The warm front was racing North making dewpoints in Central and Southern Oklahoma skyrocket. We decided to go West on Oklahoma Road 33 out of Guthrie towards Kingfisher. While traveling West we observe storms rapidly form to our West and Northwest. We flew North on 81 through Dover and into Hennessey, Oklahoma. While traveling North on 81 we observed funnels drop multiple times. These funnels almost looked like little fingers, and were very high based. We continued to race this storm by moving East on 51, stair stepping our way along. We went North on I35 then East on 412 into Perry where we observed quarter size hail. The storm we were on was moving into non-chaseable terrain and several rivers made repositioning difficult. With the storm speed we were unable to keep up. We continued to move East on 412 and watch the storm to our North where we observed a tube funnel extend half way to the ground and then disappear quickly. Again, this was very high based. We decided to drop back south and catch up with the storms further south pushing off the dryline. We took 177 to Perkins, then east on 33. We went back South on 18, where we happened to pass a deployed sticknet probe shortly after the crew had placed it, all the way to Shawnee on I40 then followed 3 distinct supercells with tornado warnings trekking along I40. Along I40 we observed multiple wall clouds and a funnel near the town of Wilson. We continued to watch a rotating storm to our North while traveling East. The wall cloud on this storm was almost hugging the ground by this point. When we arrived in Henryetta the storms had almost lost their supercellular characteristics so we went South on the Indian Nation Turnpike. While on the turnpike a line of storms with embedded tornado warnings passed to our South. We pulled over and let the area of rotation pass in front of us while we watched the rain and wind shift directions. This was the end of our chaseday. No tornadoes today and 50-80 mile-per-hour storms led to a frustrating day. It was nice to be back out chasing, maybe better luck next time.

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[Andrew Pritchard]

A few photos and some video from the Wakita, Oklahoma area. It seems that some people are pretty okay with a significant tornado rapidly approaching them from the rear, as we had a hell of a time getting to a south option on Hwy 11 as chasers just leisurely drove east on the highway, swerving all over the road, hitting their brakes, wanting to pull over, then pulling back into the road, all while a significant tornado rapidly gains on us. Luckily caught a south option and got out of the way of that thing. Wish we'd had more time to stop and film, but that thing really spun up fast. Tried tried and tried, then BAM.

First little rope tornado:

Finally south of the tornadic circulation. I love power lines!

Definitely not a day that still images to any justice at all.

 

[Trey Atterbury]

Started the day in Enid Oklahoma. After the storms fired up to the west we decided the chase was on. Made it onto SR-11 and shortly after this a big red shoe flew by us! Caught the multi vortex beast along the highway with us trying to get away from it. Not too much trouble with traffic. We then decided to try to catch the storms to the south. They were just moving way to fast! Sorry to hear about the losses.

 

[Rejean Boudreau]

I just looked at Trey's video.. Who was that white truck going so slow to jam the traffic - holding many chasers directly in the path of the approaching funnels/tornadoes/rfd.

It's the second video i'm seeing today showing that same truck going very slow in the middle of the road. Man you're a danger to others. Hit the side of the road if you want to take pictures.

 

[Michael O'Keeffe]

Here is my video of the Wakita, OK tornadoes as well as a few video stills.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcW1_oYaDws