My girlfriend Bridget Geaughan and myself observed 9 tornadoes between Bison/Perry, OK today. This was easily in my top-three chases of all-time.
We got a late start (planned to chase but I was caught off-guard by the early nature of the event). We managed to intercept the storm along Ok51 east of Hennessey, and witnessed our first tornado of the day southeast of Bison, about 2-3 miles north of the highway. This tornado was a large stovepipe, and reminded me a lot of the October 9, 2001 Foss Lake tornado. We moved east and saw our second tornado, a small funnel about a quarter of the way down, with dirt/dust underneath. This tornado was very brief. We moved east to get better contrast on the huge rotation. We turned north on OK74, and drove north until a gigantic wedge came into view. At first we couldn't tell exactly what we were seeing, because the southern edge came into view first, and we thought that was just the wall cloud...then it kept coming more and more into view, until we could see a "slant" all the way to the ground. Then I looked north and saw the other side. I don't know how large this tornado was at its maximum, or even how long it was truly a wedge, but for at least a minute or so, we were staring at one of the biggest tornadoes I've ever seen, easily a mile across if not more.
This large tornado wrapped in rain and dust, and I honestly couldn't tell when it ended. However, minutes later, the wall cloud re-emerged from the rain, and we had a murky (but doable) view of the next tornado, our fourth, which developed quickly from the southern edge of the parent rotation, and quickly became a stout stovepipe/near-wedge. We videotaped it for as long as we could see it, then bailed south after it became wrapped in precip and vanished from sight. We moved back south to OK51, then hauled it east to OK77, turning north towards Orlando. We moved through town, and found a nice spot on a hill a few miles north of town, and were joined by friend Rocky Rascovich, as we just sat in awe of this once-in-a-decade storm. After it started getting too close for an escape, we hauled it back south to OK51, then moved east under I-35, and stopped about a mile east of the interstate. Both times we went through Orlando, there were people standing around outside in their yards, and both times I yelled "TAKE COVER" as we went by.
The original rotation moved off to the northeast, as the southern edge of the storm began to get wound up. KOCO's guy was doing a live cut-in, and during this, a tornado formed rapidly, about 4 or so miles to our WNW, very near Orlando. It was quite obvious and had full condensation to the ground, however, the channel 5 guy never mentioned it at all...it was on the ground at least 35-45 seconds. Since it was seemingly missed by media, I called it in to OUN as soon as it dissipated. As I was on the phone, another tornado formed briefly, before being wrapped in rain, obscuring the entire lowered/rotating area. I mentioned this one as well, since I already had them on the line. After these two tornadoes, we moved back west and turned north onto I-35.
We went a few miles, then pulled over as another tornado developed from the southern rotation (there were two by this time). As I videotaped this awesome tornado just west of us, a second one formed to the northwest. So I sat there for several minutes, swinging the vidcam back and forth between the two, just grinning like the cat who ate the canary. This was a dream.
After these tornadoes ended, we moved north to try and see the tornado now being reported southeast of Perry. We saw what we are pretty sure was the tornado, which appeared as a stovepipe/barrel looking thing, moving east or southeast, as a dark, then white mass. (The reported position of the tornado and the direction we were looking matched well enough that we're fairly certain this was it). After this we went back south and then east, intending to swing around through Stillwater and then back north to get in front of it again. However the storm seemed to be weakening, so we bailed about 10 west of Stillwater (still never been inside the city limits of that town).
We went back west to check out new development, but this was nothing compared to what we'd seen earlier, so we called it a day. My first career HAT TRICK, and it feels AWESOME!!!!!
