5/13/09 OK - Gracemont & Anadarko

[Peter Wharton]

SCUD?!

We were 1.5 mile east of Apache in direction of Ciryl.

We have no doubt, its a Tornadoes and its the Anadarko Tornadoes.

Hi Niccollo - I've no doubt that you sighted these tornados and that they are in fact tornados and not scud. Our visual sighting is confirmed by your photos that accompanied your original post.

However, your original post said they were NW of Cyril, Oklahoma and that's consistent with your location 1.5 east of Apache and our location a 1/2 mile south of Apache at exactly the same time - about 9:45pm. I'd estimate they were 2-3 miles west of our position, and they had exactly the same structure and presentation as in your photos. Unfortunately our video/photos aren't of the same high resolution as yours.

Storm movement at the time was almost directly south or SSE - so I'm still not convinced that the tornados that we both sighted actually caused the damage in Anadarko which was located to the NE of both our positions and the location of the tornados that we sighted.

I suspect that a separate tornado was responsible for the damage in Anadarko for two reasons - 1) the tornados we sighted were in open fields and entraining large amounts of dust; 2) they didn't last long enough for them have tracked that far south of Anadarko, and anyway weren't on the right storm track.

We probably will never know what actually caused the damage in Anadarko, without more accurate GPS data on both of our sightings.

None of this discussion/debate detracts from the fact that you captured some fine photos - and that has helped our group confirm our visual sighting that night - great chase result.

 

[Brandon Goforth]

SCUD?!

We were 1.5 mile east of Apache in direction of Ciryl.

We have no doubt, its a Tornadoes and its the Anadarko Tornadoes.

Brandon, I'm sorry, but I do not want to continue this argument, the Tornado of Anadarko has been filmed from us, and the damages filmed from many televisions, have been made a Report on SPC. Which test still serves to you? Creed is not the case to make controversy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SB5uv_wQ2P0&feature=related

http://www.koco.com/video/19463457/index.html

Hi Chaser!

Yes, scud.

There is no doubt that a tornado was embedded in the mess that went through the eastern sides of Anadarko, and I stress the word "mess". However, the majority of this damage was from the RFD, and most of the damage seems to reflect this as well as the OUN report. Now, let's take a step back and analyze a few things here:

1) The Anadarko tornado was wrapped up and not visible. I was in a bad spot for viewing, but I was just a couple of miles to the west of Anadarko as it was moving into town. I could not see ANYTHING but power flashes. Most of these were from straight line winds, but there was a more concentrated area on the NE side of town...I can only guess that this is where the tornado would've been. There were quite a few chasers around town (a few even IN town while it happened), but yet I haven't heard anyone say that they were actually able to see anything. Visibility was poor.

2) You said that you were 1.5 miles east of Apache looking toward Cyril, and, you are correct in that the remnants of this storm moved down into that area...however, there was practically no rotation in the storm at this point...in fact, it weakened VERY quickly immediately after hitting Anadarko. Cyril is 15 miles SSE of Anadarko (10 miles east of Apache). The whole complex at this point was outflow dominate...and while the storm was going through Anadarko, I actually backed off to the west (bad road options) and then south into Apache. If you were filming that as it approached Cyril, then I was actually in down town Apache at this exact same time...I saw nothing but scud, and there was a lot of it. The outflow was pushing well out ahead of the storm at this point as well.

3) There are quite a few hills, some large, in that area immediately to the north of the Wichita Mountains, and are evident in your video. This totally blows your visibility at night...which is already bad enough.

4) You're account claims to be filming the Anadarko tornado from Apache...this is not only questionable...it's impossible at roughly 20 miles away on a straight line, and with poor visibility (and I don't see the power flashes). So, your radar loops are from when the storm was moving from Gracemont to Anadarko, yet your pictures were from Cyril at best, and when the storm was no longer tornadic.

5) Your pictures are stills taken from your video, and then cropped. Looking at the video itself, it is clearly not a wedge tornado. There is scud across the horizon throughout the video, and it is just sitting there. If we were looking at a wedge, that would all be rapidly streaming toward the tornado...in this video, it does not. The stuff to the left would be screaming to the right and you'd see stuff to the right being pulled back to the left. But, everything there is slowly drifting to the right, and is behind a hill. It's quite characteristic of scud along the outflow.

6) There are actually more homes and structures in this area than one might think. A large, long lived tornado would've created a damage path all the way to Cyril...it did not. In addition, the environment was really not supportive of large, long track tornadoes at all.

I enjoy reading reports, but I think we should all do our best to keep them as accurate as possible. Niccolo, you created a new thread for this account and asked for comments, and this is mine. This account is more deceptive than it is anything else, which Peter has already mentioned given the confusion of the location.

 

[Brandon Goforth]

I never saw this supposed wedge, but when we were entering OKC on the east side facing south that night, we saw what looked like a skinny funnel going to the ground on an angle, it was fairly defined and did appear like a column for a time before totally dissipating. I was a bit skeptical at first, but then saw this report. Makes sense since we were facing in that direction....

0341
3 NW STANLEY DRAPER LAKE
CLEVELAND, OK
3536 9739
THIS TORNADO DEVELOPED ON THE NORTHWEST SIDE OF THE LAKE
AND MOVED SOUTH SOUTHEAST ALONG THE WESTERN SHORE OF THE LAKE.
THE PRELIMINARY RATING IS EF0. (OUN)

Laura, you're right in that what you saw was a small funnel that briefly touched down and caused minor damage on Lake Stanley Draper, but the storm Niccolo is referring to was the Anadarko storm that was about 50-60 miles to the southwest.

 

[Greg Stumpf]

Niccolo,

If you could provide your exact location (lat/lon), time of the photographs, and best estimate of the direction of the shot, I might be able to replay the high-resolution CASA radar data to see what lines up with your images. If the location and time is not during the surveyed tornado at Anadarko, and if there is a substantial velocity signature in an area that was not surveyed, it might require a belated damage survey in the new area to verify your photographic observations. Gotta hope that the area is accessible, and there are still damage indicators evident after nearly one month.

The real key is that if there was signficant damage and/or a radar signature at the location of the object in your photos, it might conclude it was a tornado. If not, then you have a pretty-convincing and dramatic tornado look-alike.

 

[Niccolò Ubalducci]

Hi Chaser!

Yes, scud.

There is no doubt that a tornado was embedded in the mess that went through the eastern sides of Anadarko, and I stress the word "mess". However, the majority of this damage was from the RFD, and most of the damage seems to reflect this as well as the OUN report. Now, let's take a step back and analyze a few things here:

1) The Anadarko tornado was wrapped up and not visible. I was in a bad spot for viewing, but I was just a couple of miles to the west of Anadarko as it was moving into town. I could not see ANYTHING but power flashes. Most of these were from straight line winds, but there was a more concentrated area on the NE side of town...I can only guess that this is where the tornado would've been. There were quite a few chasers around town (a few even IN town while it happened), but yet I haven't heard anyone say that they were actually able to see anything. Visibility was poor.

2) You said that you were 1.5 miles east of Apache looking toward Cyril, and, you are correct in that the remnants of this storm moved down into that area...however, there was practically no rotation in the storm at this point...in fact, it weakened VERY quickly immediately after hitting Anadarko. Cyril is 15 miles SSE of Anadarko (10 miles east of Apache). The whole complex at this point was outflow dominate...and while the storm was going through Anadarko, I actually backed off to the west (bad road options) and then south into Apache. If you were filming that as it approached Cyril, then I was actually in down town Apache at this exact same time...I saw nothing but scud, and there was a lot of it. The outflow was pushing well out ahead of the storm at this point as well.

3) There are quite a few hills, some large, in that area immediately to the north of the Wichita Mountains, and are evident in your video. This totally blows your visibility at night...which is already bad enough.

4) You're account claims to be filming the Anadarko tornado from Apache...this is not only questionable...it's impossible at roughly 20 miles away on a straight line, and with poor visibility (and I don't see the power flashes). So, your radar loops are from when the storm was moving from Gracemont to Anadarko, yet your pictures were from Cyril at best, and when the storm was no longer tornadic.

5) Your pictures are stills taken from your video, and then cropped. Looking at the video itself, it is clearly not a wedge tornado. There is scud across the horizon throughout the video, and it is just sitting there. If we were looking at a wedge, that would all be rapidly streaming toward the tornado...in this video, it does not. The stuff to the left would be screaming to the right and you'd see stuff to the right being pulled back to the left. But, everything there is slowly drifting to the right, and is behind a hill. It's quite characteristic of scud along the outflow.

6) There are actually more homes and structures in this area than one might think. A large, long lived tornado would've created a damage path all the way to Cyril...it did not. In addition, the environment was really not supportive of large, long track tornadoes at all.

I enjoy reading reports, but I think we should all do our best to keep them as accurate as possible. Niccolo, you created a new thread for this account and asked for comments, and this is mine. This account is more deceptive than it is anything else, which Peter has already mentioned given the confusion of the location.

Hello Brandon, Optimal analysis yours, effectively the characterized zone was indeed a lot of hills and the visibility did not allow us to see beyond a sure height. I'm glad that you have mailed your comments, your experience are precious for us that could have contact only occasionally with this type of phenomena. I hope however that ours reportit has your approval.

A salute

 

[Niccolò Ubalducci]

Niccolo,

If you could provide your exact location (lat/lon), time of the photographs, and best estimate of the direction of the shot, I might be able to replay the high-resolution CASA radar data to see what lines up with your images. If the location and time is not during the surveyed tornado at Anadarko, and if there is a substantial velocity signature in an area that was not surveyed, it might require a belated damage survey in the new area to verify your photographic observations. Gotta hope that the area is accessible, and there are still damage indicators evident after nearly one month.

The real key is that if there was signficant damage and/or a radar signature at the location of the object in your photos, it might conclude it was a tornado. If not, then you have a pretty-convincing and dramatic tornado look-alike.

Hi Greg,

The position its: 34.900222, -98.315706 and we are looking to NNW for the first big and longlived Tornado. From the same position 4-5 minutes later, the second touchdown were WNW less far away.

After another 3-5 minuet we were started in direction of Cyril where a big scud going fast WSW.

The firt Tornado image was timed 9.21 PM and we have photoes till 9.46 PM.

I want however to verify the correctness of timetable in the Exif of file RAW.

Thanks

 

[Elinor McLennon]

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. The pics did not seem to add up to the reports from that area. I had questions about those pics when they were originally reported in the report forum after the storm went through Anadarko. It just didn't add up with the other reports from chasers and media. But I am new to this and I am willing to admit that sometimes when looking at photos I can't tell what I am looking at yet. I'll be interested to see what Greg Stumpf comes up with if he can replay the radar.

 

[Dan Robinson]

This resource page by Roger Edwards may or may not be relevant here:

http://www.stormeyes.org/tornado/faq/notahose.htm

 

[Brandon Goforth]

This resource page by Roger Edwards may or may not be relevant here:

http://www.stormeyes.org/tornado/faq/notahose.htm

This is a good page to look at with non-tornadic examples similar to what we've see in this thread.

 

[Peter Wharton]

Hi Greg,

The position its: 34.900222, -98.315706 and we are looking to NNW for the first big and longlived Tornado. From the same position 4-5 minutes later, the second touchdown were WNW less far away.

After another 3-5 minuet we were started in direction of Cyril where a big scud going fast WSW.

The firt Tornado image was timed 9.21 PM and we have photoes till 9.46 PM.

I want however to verify the correctness of timetable in the Exif of file RAW.

Thanks

I think we're getting closer to an accurate version of events here - as I previously posted we sighted these same structures to the west or wnw of Apache - some several miles away - this now seems to link up with the direction and distance of the shots that Niccollo has noted above - and certainly means that these are not what caused the damage in Anadarko.

I've gone back again and reviewed in detail the stills that Niccolo originally posted as NW of Cyril, and have to say that I'm getting less convinced that there were actually tornados - it's so difficult with lightning back-lit views at night to assess rotation, and although we thought on the night that these were tornados - on review now I'd have to day that the stills look like organised scud rather than well-defined funnels/rotation that are attached to the parent clouds.

 

[Payton Gannaway]

Tornado, scudnado, sheriffnado that first still pic is awesome looking.

Agreed, absolutely stunning video and pictures, regardless of where or what they are of. Great job sir!

 

[Greg Stumpf]

The position its: 34.900222, -98.315706 and we are looking to NNW for the first big and longlived Tornado....(deletia)

Niccolò,

I plugged in your position on our WDSSII display of the high-res Cyril (KCYR) CASA radar data, which had the best view of the locations in your photographs. I've annotated your position (white arrow and red/white dot) and encircled the Tornadic Vortex Signature (TVS) of the Anadarko tornado with a purple icon. This image is from 9:34 pm CDT, in the middle of your time period. Other radar data from 9:21 to 9:47 were also analyzed, but are not shown here, and reach the same conclusion.

The directions in which you took your photographs (NNW, then NW, then WNW, shown by the large triangle) do not line up with the Anadarko TVS, and unless you misreported your information, they are not pictures of the Anadarko tornado. There are no obvious vortex signatures in the CASA radar data at those locations/times. There is however, and advancing bowing gustfront. Perhapos you have pictures of rising scud being ingested into the leading gust front. The scud is probably the result of rain/hail cooled air.

 

[Niccolò Ubalducci]

Niccolò,

I plugged in your position on our WDSSII display of the high-res Cyril (KCYR) CASA radar data, which had the best view of the locations in your photographs. I've annotated your position (white arrow and red/white dot) and encircled the Tornadic Vortex Signature (TVS) of the Anadarko tornado with a purple icon. This image is from 9:34 pm CDT, in the middle of your time period. Other radar data from 9:21 to 9:47 were also analyzed, but are not shown here, and reach the same conclusion.

The directions in which you took your photographs (NNW, then NW, then WNW, shown by the large triangle) do not line up with the Anadarko TVS, and unless you misreported your information, they are not pictures of the Anadarko tornado. There are no obvious vortex signatures in the CASA radar data at those locations/times. There is however, and advancing bowing gustfront. Perhapos you have pictures of rising scud being ingested into the leading gust front. The scud is probably the result of rain/hail cooled air.

Hi Gregg, I'm really sorry, but I've now watched your data, we are watching on NNE direction fot the first long lived Tornado, and ENE for the second, I'm sorry but I have confused W to E. I can confirm this thing because, going from Apache in East direction towards Cyril we have made the photographies from the snout of the car towards Anadarko and then more towards East. Your images with high resolution confirm me to 100% that is own of the Tornado of Anadarko, the same TVS visualized it on mine VX Worx with Shear Heavy and on my Grlevel 2 with a TVS much obvious own in that direction, I ask excuse all for having confused West with East. I thanks all for the comments, now are indeed sure thanks to my imagei that own of the Tornado of Anadarko has been dealt.

 

[Brandon Goforth]

Hi Gregg, I'm really sorry, but I've now watched your data, we are watching on NNE direction fot the first long lived Tornado, and ENE for the second, I'm sorry but I have confused W to E. I can confirm this thing because, going from Apache in East direction towards Cyril we have made the photographies from the snout of the car towards Anadarko and then more towards East. Your images with high resolution confirm me to 100% that is own of the Tornado of Anadarko, the same TVS visualized it on mine VX Worx with Shear Heavy and on my Grlevel 2 with a TVS much obvious own in that direction, I ask excuse all for having confused West with East. I thanks all for the comments, now are indeed sure thanks to my imagei that own of the Tornado of Anadarko has been dealt.

Ehh...huh?

So, just for the record...after our discussion here...your conclusion, after all the facts have been presented, is that you filmed a rainwrapped tornado that was 20-25 miles away from behind a hill?

Alrighty then...

 

[Chris C Sanner]

I followed this storm with great interest on Radar and was initially rather suprised when I heard someone had caught the tornado on film and after reviewing your videos and pictures, it was painfully obvious they were not of the Anadarko tornado, which you described they were initially. In fact, you said you caught two wedges on film in your original post in the 5/13 thread.

After changing your story, you said the tornadoes were near Apache, when there was no tornadic circulation present in the area, just a gust front where the scud formations you described were occurring. After viewing the video, it was also painfully obvious you cropped the initial stills in order to take the hill out to make it appear you were looking over flat land at a possible tornado. The initial stills were somewhat intriguing, but the video was nothing more than you aiming the camera up a hill at scud illuminated by lightning from time to time.

Now after the story seems straight, you have changed it again to try to indicate you saw the Anadarko tornado. However there are more than enough problems with this claim:

1)The storm was 25 miles away or so and was behind the hills which are east of Apache. There was no way you could see the circulation.

2)The tornadic area of the storm would have been completely wrapped in rain from your vantage point you indicated on the map, so even if you were somehow 15,000 feet up looking back at the storm, there is very little chance you saw the tornado occurring.

3)Last but not least, the scud formation which you call the tornado in your film lasted only 3 minutes while the Anadarko tornado was on the ground for nearly 25 minutes.

I'm very glad you were able to see some interesting storms while out on the plains, but on this night you for sure did not see a tornado. I think you need to realize that because the more you continue to change your story, the less future reports by you will be eyed with a skeptical eye. I remember when I started off I wanted everything to be a tornado, and I also know this has been a tough year for seeing them. However, sometimes science and good old fashioned common sense take over.

Watch out for those Tornadoes in Italy, looks like you guys are getting more action than we are on the plains anymore