Ponca City area
Well, I really didn't think I was going to get a shot at anything last night. I watched the cells west of OKC jump up and then watched another one over Enid. Unfortunately, I was waiting to hear from a guy about taking photos of his champion dogs. Soon enough, I heard of a cell that was barreling into the Tonkawa area. Knowing the photos of dogs wasn't going to happen, off I went. Started out on US 60 about 4 miles west of Ponca. I generally stop in here to meet up with a storm spotter I know. He was at US 60 and I-35, so I stayed put here
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After watching the rain curtain move in my direction and hearing reports of golfball hail, I decided discretion was the better part of valor and moved north up to Hubbard Road and started moving west to get on the backside of the storm. Hooked up with my storm spotter friend and watched a cell forming up over Lamont, Oklahoma. Of course listening to Ponca EOC and their spotters, it sounded like the storm that I had just driven through passed to the north of Ponca and made it's way to Kaw City. Though it was severe, it never did really have a good potential to drop a funnel. The cell over Lamont was cycling through low and hi ends though. It was pretty much isolated and I thought that due to the fact the other storms had rolled through just ahead of it, it probably wouldn't get enough energy to really get going. I was wrong.
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This is looking at a cutoff (?) inflow band just west of I-35. Watching this storm gather power was really awesome. It looked to be heading due east into Ponca. Ponca EOC was playing the radar and reported to major rotation. However, looking at this, I would say the radar was not picking up the lower level rotation we were looking at due to the distance. There was rotation there. Spotters were reporting it and it almost sounded like Ponca EOC wasn't beleiving it until they saw it on Radar.
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This was the sight about 2 miles west of Ponca City. Golfball hail was reported in Ponca at several location along with gusty winds. The north side of Ponca received the brunt of this. There was a funnel reported, but I have my doubts as I was 2 blocks to the south of the reported site and never saw anything but rain and a small hail core.
We followed this on through Ponca City staying on Business 60 (South Avenue) and finally called our chase just east of McChord on US 60. We did see a couple of small landspouts (?) where there was an actual condensation funnel spinning up from the ground, but no associated higher level rotation.
No tornado though the storm could have produced one at anytime (I almost thought it was going to drop one in my lap a couple of times) and about 10 zillion storm gawkers running about in Ponca. Local PD was out in force and apparently stopping people for the slightest of infractions (I know of one that was stopped, ticketed for no seatbelt, in the middle of the severe storm just a few minutes ahead of the TOR warn).
Farmer Brown was out in his ancient pickup and CB on US 60. He stoped right in the middle of the road with about 5 spotter chasers behind him. That was pretty close. Locking up the tires on wet pavement is NOT a nice feeling.
Great evening all in all though.
John Diel