6/12/09 REPORTS: OK/TX

[Brett Roberts]

Caught at least the last several minutes of the Norman tornado this evening about 3 miles east of my apartment on OK-9. I had originally gone out to sample the hail after watching the cell explode on radar, and fortunately had TDWR data on GR3 - from one volume scan to the next, I went from wondering if I'd be able to find any quarters in the storm to flying to the nearest hilltop to find the obvious tornado.

I first saw the tornado at approximately 0334 UTC, but it may well have been on the ground before that (in fact, based on the first TDWR velocity scan I saw, I bet it was). Though lightning was not frequent enough for me to see very well with the naked eye, it appears from the stills I shot that it was likely on the ground until about 0340 UTC. I watched in amazement during and immediately leading up to the ropeout as the tornado moved west - probably by at least half a mile - despite the storm motion being SE. With little precip in the immediate vicinity, this probably would have been a beauty with a little daylight, but I'll take it as it was, considering my last tube was March 26.

Unfortunately, given the lack of lightning, I had to shoot at ISO1600 and even then the exposures were too dark, so these stills are quite noisy and very contrast-enhanced - mainly just to give an idea of what it looked like.

EDIT: I just went out briefly to hunt for damage. For any locals interested, I found trees and fences down in three locations:

1) Along 48th Ave. about 0.2 mi. N of Lindsey St. (or 0.8 mi. S of Alameda)
2) Along Highland Hills Dr., in the subdivision bounded by 48th/36th/Lindsey/Alameda
3) Along 36th Ave. about 0.4 mi. N of Lindsey St. (or 0.6 mi. S of Alameda)

I'm sure the NWS survey will shed more light on exactly what happened. Should be one of their easier surveys in recent memory, as the damage is literally a 10-minute drive from the NWC.

 

[David Reimer]

I captured a brief tornado near Peadernville, Texas at about 6:20 PM on June 12, 2009. The circulation for about 10 minutes was rain-wrapped and very well could have had a tornado on the ground, but at about 6:17 PM a needle tornado finally appeared to my northwest. It remained visible for 35 seconds until it dissipated. After I shot that I blasted west to get ahead of the now back building hail core. After nearly getting hit by a reported tornado near Mineral Wells, I headed to Interstate 20 where I nearly got blasted off Interstate 20 by what had to be near 70 MPH Crosswinds. Due to that, the Interstate became a standstill and I got off well before my intended target of Weatherford. That turned out to be a good decision as I was heading south on 1181 about half a mile south of the interstate, I came across what the FWD office called Tornado Damage in my phone report. There was numerous pieces of metal roofing that were blasted across the road and tied around fence posts. Large trees were also down. As I continued into a Neighborhood to investigate where the damage originated, I found out the neighborhood had been hit. Homes had large sections of shingles blown off their roofs and several playgrounds from homes were either flipped over or destroyed into several pieces and blown around the neighborhood. Off course, Large Trees and Limbs were down all over the place, some uprooted and some trees snapped off at mid-level.

For the video and photo's of the tornado please visit the Texas Storm Chasers website; or just click here.

EDIT: Damage video from the town of Brock, Tx is online at the same link as stated above.

 

[Terry Tyler]

AR/TN/MS

I went out for the derecho in Southeast Arkansas today. I found myself at the apex of the bow and recieved what felt like 65-75 mph gusts. I hoped for a little more shelf then what was on the leading edge, but it was still an intimidating storm.

Memphis was in pretty bad shape with almost no street lights working and no power through a large portion of the city. Wind damage was common from Memphis all the way down 78 to tupelo. A hampton inn had a large portion of the roof missing, another hotels roof looked "fluffed" with over %50 of the shingles missing and the other %50 blowing around in the wind. Gas station signs were blown out and hoses were found laying on the ground, blown right off the pumps. Almost every road sign and billboard from memphis to hampton was blown down.

This sign really caught my eye. The winds had twisted the I-beams around like laffy taffy and bent the whole thing over backwards. It must have been a serious gust of wind to twist metal like that.

Here, a tractor trailer was also blown over and a weigh station heavily damaged. The roof of a building was laying half way across the highway in the median. Also, if you look to the left far enough, youll see another one of those steel signs snaped in half.

I usually dont do lines, but this was an intense storm and it was nice to get out and chase this late in the season. I have more higher-quality storm and damage photos on my site along with the full account.

 

[Zac Flamig]

Kristina Kelley, Brett Wallace, Marissa Cassidy and I went out to take lightning pictures of the cell that went up near Norman.

The lightning ended up being a uneventful but not to be sent home empty handed we ended up scoring a tornado instead!

The following are a few pictures of the tornado and damage it caused, you will note that as the tornado ropes out it moves significantly back to the west.

Everyone we stopped and talked to that received damage was ok and in good spirits.

 

[Brandon Lawson]

I've been working overnight this whole week filling in for a coworker. So I hadn't been awake for very long when Brett Roberts called to tell me he was on HWY 9 on the east side of Norman watching a significant lowering. I threw on some clothes and raced off in my car to try and catch up, hoping I wouldn't miss anything. I caught up to Brett just west of 48th st. to see the tornado in its dying moments.

Anyone know why it's not listed in the SPC storm reports? I noticed that there are a couple funnel cloud reports listed for Arkansas, but the two spotter network reports for funnel clouds in Norman, and the tornado itself are absent. Just thought it was strange.

 

[Chris McBee]

The hardest-hit area in Norman seemed to be the Summit Lakes addition, just south of Alameda and between 24th and 36th. I have friends that live there that lost part of their roof and had other minor damage. A house in the block just to their north took the worst damage of any I have seen from this event. My friend Ashlie took this picture this morning.

 

[Sam Barricklow]

Jacksboro, Texas Tornado

I arrived in Jacksboro, Texas as the first turkey towers were erupting and watched the northern cell until the southern cell became dominant. The first two tornado images were shot from a location just south of the intersection of highways 199 and 281, southeast of town. I paced the storm as it back built, and effectively moved south to SSE until it arrived in Mineral Wells, where it took a more southeasterly track.

The next images were shot about half way between Jacksboro and Mineral Wells.

How many 7000+ CAPE days occur each season that include decent vertical wind shear?

 

[bvassmer]

Here is another photo of the Norman, OK Tornado, looking from the South Lake Addn in S Norman. I was looking to the NE. Soon I will post a link to HD video.

 

[Angie Norris]

Anyone know why it's not listed in the SPC storm reports? I noticed that there are a couple funnel cloud reports listed for Arkansas, but the two spotter network reports for funnel clouds in Norman, and the tornado itself are absent. Just thought it was strange.

It's in the wind report at 0328 http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/reports/yesterday.html

 

[Rich Thompson]

It's in the wind report at 0328 http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/reports/yesterday.html

You won't see any tornado reports on the SPC page until the local NWS offices send an LSR with the report (it's all decoded automatically, though we can delete erroneous reports).

Rich T.

 

[Bill Tabor]

My target area had been around Jacksboro closer in the 700mb flow but I didn't leave in time. Instead I opted for the cell west of San Saba / Goldthwaite, Tx. David Douglas was ahead of me 30 min or so and between me and David was Randy Denzer. I got to San Saba just as the southern part of the cell was hitting the town. I backed south on the road to Llano looking for a place in all the hills / trees to get a view. I finally found a ranchers private road on a hill and (I don't normally do this) I drove in a bit up to the top of the gravel road. There was a nice wallcloud and funnel at play in the distance. I streamed video of all this as some called and commented on what they were seeing. It appeared at times the lowering wallcloud/funnel may have been in contact with the ground but it was tough to tell. Eventually the core and hail became more than I desired and I repositioned with David Douglas along hwy 29 between Mason and Llano (probably near Art). Here David and I were standing under much of the inflow region with occasional funnel like appendages above. Looking north however in the close distance was the real show an active wallcloud with RFD outflow streaming in a line toward Mason (dirt and rain curtains). We watched as long as we could then followed it into Mason. Here the storm backed into us and pushed us se along hwy 87 (the road to Fredricksburg). For awhile the storm had been outflowing but suddenly we were getting inflow with leaves lifting along the road as we drove. It continued getting dark. The lightning was almost strobelike - regular now and to looking northwest in strong inflow David and I saw what looked like the left side of a possible wedge shape. It was a hard demarcation diagonally through the background and constant. Aaron Dooley pulled up then and we continued to see this feature grow as GR3 was indicating strong signature with it and a tornado warning had been in effect for the feature. I shot some night video with my low light cam, and as the cell later weakened David and I cruised off to eat in Fredricksburg. It was getting late. Aaron stayed behind. Back in town we monitored weather as we ate and saw our cell had dissipated but another had taken it's place and was strong with a tornado warning. The warning indicated that the public had spotted a tornado. We went home. Pics later.

 

[Ric Burney]

I got suckered into paying attention to the cell near Weatherford, TX and followed it down around Cleburne (and all I got was this lousy, wet t-shirt);
http://www.geocities.com/numist/wx06122009.html

 

[Sam Barricklow]

Video of the Jacksboro, TX Tornado

Video of the Jacksboro, Texas tornado:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwAXE8NCpxc