6/01/99 - IL/OK - Eastern OK Cyclic Supercell

[Greg McLaughlin]

Today is the tenth anniversary of a tornado outbreak which streatched from IL to TX. A total of 36 tornadoes were reported this day, most of them in Illinois. One particular storm in eastern OK fired along a weak cold front and outflow boundary intersection near Inola, OK around 4pm that afternoon. While mid-level flow was fairly weak (southwest 30kts @ 500mb) it was oriented in such a way it would help blow the precip away from the updraft as the storm cycled to the southwest along the boundary.

The storm first began producing tornadoes near Ft. Gibson Lake, OK including an F3 which killed a woman in a mobile home. Gene Moore has a nice chase report on this event at his website http://www.chaseday.com/tornado-ftgibson.htm.

Later on the storm produced another significant tornado (F2) to the south which struck the OG&E power plant in Muskogee, OK. Dave Crowley has a great picture of this stove pipe tornado.

Justin Teague and myself jumped on the storm right after it struck Muskogee and witnessed the tornado which hit the southern edge of Checotah, OK (the home of Carrie Underwood). This tornado (below) was also rated F3 and had a path length of 12 miles and a maximum width of 400 yards. Unfortunately there was one fatality with this tornado.

This is a video still from an old VHC video camera. Thankfully our camera equipment has improved through the years.

This storm continued to produce tornadoes as it tracked south-southwest along the outflow boundary. The NWS in Tulsa recorded 8 tornadoes with this one storm.

Since today is the tenth anniversary I thought I would put this day up there. It is one of the lesser known events in recent years, but still significant none-the-less.

 

[Danny Neal]

10 year anniversary of my first official tornado. It was a rain-wrapped HP mess in C IL just north of Bloomington, IL.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOjZ1zRJqLM - Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFHRGxmHdnY - Part 2 (tornado after :55)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orVhC31CzqY - Part 3 (the escape!)

 

[Greg McLaughlin]

Thanks for posting Danny. I have always wondered what the tornadoes in Illinois looked like. Your video is the first I have seen of anything from Illinois. This was a fun/short chase for Justin and I. We had no idea what we were doing back then.....just knew it was a good day to chase and we got lucky.

 

[Danny Neal]

No problem Greg, I am glad to share some of my older chases. This was actually my 2nd official chase the day before I graduated 6th grade. I believe I was 11 years old. I know a LOT more now about storms than I did back then and this chase was a great learning experience. This tornado was embedded in a squall line. We got to the spot and THOUGHT we may have saw something until a lightning flash confirmed it. At that point it was moving at us and we had to bail...... It was a relatively weak tornado and I believe to this day ILX still hasn't recognized it's existance.....

 

[Dave Crowley]

As Greg mentioned, here is one of the tornadoes from this day. This tornado hit the OG&E power plant on the east side of Muskogee.

Wall cloud with RFD and tornado (hard to see.. contrast) as it moves S towards me.

Under the wall cloud now, the tornado is close, my 19-35 mm lens still can't get it all.

The power plant minus one cooling tower.

My understanding was there was one more building, like the one between the two smokestacks, hit directly. Not sure on that.

As the tornado was hitting the plant, I was live on Ch6, describing it, and my cell phone lost connection. Jim Giles said, "Well, looks like we lost Dave", and my grandmother watching the report on TV, nearly had a stroke... It was phrased differently after that.

 

[Robert Bone]

I've got some video I captured of the tornado as it was hitting the OG&E power plant. I'll see if I can find it and post it sometime.

Rob

 

[Greg McLaughlin]

I've got some video I captured of the tornado as it was hitting the OG&E power plant. I'll see if I can find it and post it sometime.

Rob

Please do. Dave Crowley has an awesome photo of the stovepipe tornado.


Oh, I see he posted the picture. LOL!

 

[Joe beier]

10 year anniversary of my first official tornado. It was a rain-wrapped HP mess in C IL just north of Bloomington, IL.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOjZ1zRJqLM - Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFHRGxmHdnY - Part 2 (tornado after :55)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orVhC31CzqY - Part 3 (the escape!)

Good catch I was about that age at that time too. I've lived down in Normal my whole life and don't think I ever heard of this one.

 

[Danny Neal]

Good catch I was about that age at that time too. I've lived down in Normal my whole life and don't think I ever heard of this one.

Yeah, I was a youngin' still. Makes me appreciate how lucky I am to catch my first tornado early, while some people in their 30-40-50 are still searching. It wasn't a huge tornado day up here in the IL/IA/MO region, more of a damaging wind event but I guess I got lucky