5/11/10 REPORTS: OK

[Bill Schintler]

We chased the Woodward storms late in the day, after a short chase on a lone cell south of Elk City which dissipated as quickly as it went up. With the Woodward storm, we observed a large bowl-shaped lowering which produced a brief funnel about 20 miles south of Woodward. Video soon here:

http://www.kcrg.com/blog/weatherwatercooler

- Bill
www.twistertoursusa.com

 

[Willoughby Owen]

Enjoyable day in western OK today.

Awaited for initiation in Clinton for a few hours and headed south as showers broke out near Mangum. As we arrived it pretty much dissipated very quickly as it struggled, possibly with the cap. It left an amazing large anvil!

Headed north as punchy cumulus could be seen about around Cheyenne as the warm front pushed further north. Storms fired on the TX P/OK border and looked amazing as the sun went behind the anvil. Targeted west of Vici as that storm became the dominant in the area and had a look at it's be-hind from west of there but didn't see a whole lot.. went back east and took the road to Woodward. BEAUTIFUL corkscrew storm! Wanted to stop for some lightning shots but the low cloud put a stop to that.

Photos:
1st heading south for 1st storm, 2nd capped conv., 3rd was a storm to NNE but quickly weakened.


Storm looking W to the border, base west of Vici and corkscrew structure looking towards Woodward.

 

[cdcollura]

Good day all,

Today I was able to chase both of the targets, "the failed-LP" one in SW Oklahoma, and made it north for the later "triple-point" supercell and tornado. The latter was near Harmon, Oklahoma on Highway 60 and west of Vici.

Above: In SW Oklahoma near Carter / Cordell ... This LP storm rapidly weakened shortly after it looked this good (the cap / lack of forcing was the culprit).

Above: Now "this is more like it" looking west of Leedey, Oklahoma at the explosively developing supercell along the triple-point.

Above: Brief tornado north of Harmon and west (NW) of Vici at about 8:30 PM CDT.

Above: Weakening storm now about 12 miles south of Woodward with an impressive LP updraft.

 

[Brett Roberts]

Brandon Lawson and I also observed the brief Greer/Wa****a Co. "failure storm" around mid-afternoon, before drifting N the rest of the evening as short-lived updrafts irritatingly drew us further from I-40 and home. We were very tempted to give up after finding ourselves under widespread stratus along the WF in Dewey Co., but couldn't ignore the radar trends of the cell that initiated near Arnett. After following the hordes up to Vici, we decided to head N on OK-34 rather than continue W on US-60. While our view of the base was compromised by distance, rain, and haze for 15-20 minutes, the end result was a nice view of the jaw-dropping LP structure from just W of Sharon, pictured below.

 

[Kevin Rolfs]

Got a late start to the day, but it turned out to be a good thing. Watched the early storm south of I-40 go to crap on radar as I was making way down I-40. Then watched a couple updrafts fail before the main ones went up. Still playing catch up, I sped my way from Watonga to Ceiling, then on to Vici. Unfortunate, the storm to the east of the main storm blocked my view for most of the way until right as I got into Vici. Beautiful storm tho! Continued on U.S. 60 west of Vici a ways, then went north on a dirt road and took a few pics.

 

[Jason Boggs]

Started off in NW OK near Seiling, but decided to head south to I-40 at Clinton. Saw VORTEX2 in Clinton as I sat at the McDonald's waiting for storms to fire. Storms started going up SW of Cordell. I made my way to Cordell and saw a huge chaser convergence with VORTEX2, the TIV and lots of chasers. I met Ryan McGinnis and Kate Pfeister and we chatted for a while before parting ways.

The storm SW of Cordell died out but a new storm was forming to the NW. I made my way up SE of Seiling and stopped to chat with Jeff Snyder. As I was chatting, the Weather Channel pulled up behind my vehicle and started doing video segments with Dr. Greg Forbes and Mike Bettes. I took a few still shots and some video and chatted with them for a while. I then made my way closer to the storm that eventually became tornado warned. It was a nice LP south of Woodward that had incredible structure. I saw Warren Faidley and pulled up and chatted while taking in the awesome scene. It was a great day of meeting new people and seeing old friends. I never get tired of that. Storms are cool, but seeing and meeting new friends is awesome! Here are a few photos from the day:

The TIV in Cordell, OK

Dying storm SW of Cordell, OK

Dr. Greg Forbes and Mike Bettes doing a look live for the weather channel.

Beautiful LP storm near Woodward, OK

MORE PHOTOS CAN BE FOUND ON MY BLOG: WXONFILM

EDIT: Here is a video clip from the day: VIDEO

 

[Brandon Goforth]

Also chased the storms in northwest OK that seemed to struggle forever until finally a small cluster exploded in the Canadian River valley in the Ellis/Roger Mills/Dewey County area. The most western cell became the dominate one, so that's the one I jumped on fast and setup shop on a large hill just NE of Harmon in time to catch a very brief, needle tornado just north of Harmon on the Ellis/Woodward county line near sunset. Full condensation funnel all the way to the ground, but didn't last more than a couple of seconds. It was literally one of those "blink and you miss it" tornadoes, but still a tornado nonetheless. The storm was absolutely incredible as far as structure goes. What was looking a bit discouraging for a while turned into a very fun chase with awesome LP structure and a brief tornado around sunset. I'll try to get a couple of pics up later.

 

[Alex Fisher]

This day looked like it had a lot of potential, with excellent shear and extreme instability, however the cap looked to be an issue. We went to Sentinel, Oklahoma, where we caught a small thunderstorm that looked to have broken the cap, but then proceeded to split and die almost as soon as it went up. After that we blasted north towards Woodward, Oklahoma and caught a spectacular LP supercell in the waning light. Although this supercell was tornado warned and we were in perfect position, we never saw any rotation under the base. Interestingly, this storm, while clearly rotating in the mid levels and producing hail, contained little to no lightning in the later part of its lifespan.

 

[Ron Riemersma]

Pretty much the same as everyone else this day. It was amazing (and disappointing) to watch the first storm evaporate from the bottom up... only to leave an orphan anvil. We got to the base of the second storm just as it became tornado warned. Although brief, this funnel appeared to have a helixal (sp?) vortex. (See first pic)

We then followed the storm and saw the backlit updraft. Kind of wished we had stayed back a little further and got some of the structure shots that others did, but overall a great chase for us. Pics courtesy of Brian Hastings.

 

[Stephen Locke]

The Woodward Supercell

The Woodward Supercell by Stephen Locke

http://vimeo.com/11776269

 

[Laura Duchesne]

Ron Gravelle and company, and I intercepted a beautiful LP supercell near Woodward. It was the most amazing barber pole updraft I have seen to date.

Did anyone manage to see a fairly good sized cone halfway to the ground close to sunset? I tried to get pics but it disappeared.

http://laurawx.blogspot.com/2010/05/structure-freak.html

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

Wow, really late posting this -- haven't had much time to work on images as I've been on the road. Vortex 2 caught the LP Woodward storm; I have a full blog account with lots and lots of pictures here:

http://bigstormpicture.blogspot.com/2010/05/vortex-2-may-11-2010.html

Camped out in Cordell, OK for a while, working on suntans and waiting for initiation:

(Karen Koshiba in DOW 7)

(Dennis Sherrod looking pretty cool next to the DOW)

Watched the first cell pop and die, then rode north to catch the LP on the warm front.

(CSWR probe headed to intercept)

(Tim Marshall and Shawn McQuinn waiting for the meso to slide across the road as Japan's NHK films them. These guys are following Tim specifically, so Tim can now officially claim that he's big in Japan.)

(Meso slides across highway, but nothin' doin'.)

 

[Ben Holcomb]

A little late to this thread... But I, like everyone else, chased the storm near New Cordell that produced an orphan anvil, then headed north to the Woodward cell.

http://www.benholcomb.com/Chase-Accounts/20100511

 

[Dennis Oswald]

A shot from the Woodward LP storm as we intercepted it a little late.