6/16/08 REPORTS: OK/TX

[Shane Adams]

Chad Lawson and I observed an amazing supercell in Kiowa county, OK that lumbered west of US183, giving chasers a great route to view from. This storm is easily in my top-3, possibly best-structured storm of all-time. I was so excited I actually shot 20 minutes of structure video. I know you structure guys see a lot of these, but for a tornado guy like myself, this storm was indeed an eye-opener, and I am so pleased by our chase that I'm putting this storm on my next DVD on its own merit, without tornadoes.

I was hopeful for a brief tornado or two in what I expected to be mostly messy, rainy storms (typical 2008 stuff), but I had no idea I'd witness one of the most gorgeous and incredible supercells of my life. As I said before, this thing might be my best-ever....it easily tops May 29, 2001. Had it produced a tornado, I'd be inconsolably happy. As it were, this was a fantastic chase in what could be our last of the Spring in 2008...and home by dark!!!

Set a personal record (not a good one) for the most fires seen ignited by lightning, with three. The first one happened about a mile south of us, a few miles south of Hydro (ironic eh?), and we called it in to 911. We stopped at the nearest intersection and grabbed the actual cross-road address, so hopefully they were able to get someone out there fast, as this thing was already about 200 yards across and growing as we stopped in front of it. We sat long enough to hear the roaring, crackling sounds as it was racing our direction (being driven by intense east inflow winds), then moved on south. We saw another one near Hobart, and then a third (the largest of the day) near I believe Roosevelt...fire truck passed us in route to this one. The Kiowa sup had some of the most insane lightning we've ever seen, reminded me a lot of the Mulvane day...plus some of the coolest thunder booms I've ever heard, the thunder alone will make this video as it was insanely loud and awesome, reminded me somewhat of Tim Marshall's hella thunder from the June 9, 1995 Farmer's Valley, TX storm.

 

[Brandon Goforth]

Shane, I got off work and raced SW to intercept the same storm you were on in Kiowa county and finally caught it in central/southern Kiowa county. It still had amazing structure but it was just beginning it's weakening stage. I headed south toward Vernon, TX to intercept the tornado warned cell coming across the Red River. This storm had even more amazing structure when you could see it, I swear I've never seen so much blowing red dust in my life, and it was all blowing into the storm...it really gave it a spooky feel, but like I said, it severely reduced visibility. I made the stupid decision to punch the south side of the core, and paid the price with some large dents in my truck, but somehow managed to not bust out the windows (don't know how). Most of that hail was around golf ball size, but there were a few that were quite larger. Many tree limbs were flying across the road, some large, this thing had some very strong winds, and occasionally you'd see the rain bands spin up real tight. For the most part my visibility was near zero the whole time. Finally got through and decided to just let it go as I needed to get headed back to OKC. I drove back through the same way and found trees and power lines blown over in various areas WSW of Vernon. Some of the weaker structures had roof damage. I'll post pics later it's been a long day, lol!

 

[Brett Roberts]

Bryan Putnam and I chased SW OK into NW TX this evening along with many others. While the supercell in Kiowa Co. failed to produce tornadoes, I'll definitely have to retract my complaint from a few days ago that I haven't seen good structure this year. This was quite the beast of a storm for being a somewhat "surprise," spur-of-the-moment chase! Here are a few shots from the area around Roosevelt and Mountain Park, looking west at the storm.

After stopping for a quick dinner in Frederick when this first cell weakened, we pressed onward in pursuit of the second supercell that developed to its southwest. While approaching Vernon from the east, we encountered very thick, widespread blowing dust reducing visibility so much that most vehicles were pulling off the road! We finally made it through town and south, parallelling the HP beast to its east until sunset. This Vernon storm would have gone down as great structure in my book most any other day, but was a bit anti-climactic after what we'd seen earlier!

To top it all off, when we returned to Norman around midnight, there were several small cells scattered around the metro area that provided some opportunity for lightning photography. I nabbed this lucky shot from just a few miles east of the NWC: http://www.skyinmotion.com/external/2008-06-16_4361.jpg

 

[Olivier Staiger]

Great storm indeed.

chasing with John and Dave and Eric with Extreme Tornado Tours this week.

streaming live images was a challenge today, Alltel is not the best in SW OK... but I upload some more shows on www.klipsi.com

 

[Steve Miller TX]

W TX

Chased the storm from near Quitaque to new McAdoo. Although not near the beast as the SW OK beast, the highlight was a major "dirt-a-cane" east of McAdoo. 60-70mph bownburst with perhaps some higher gusts lofted not only dust, but dirt into the air. It was a total "brown out" with visibility at times absolute zero. Some rain started up in the middle of that and coated my vehicle in mud. Amazing experience.

You can read more in my full report.

 

[Brendon Lindsey]

There was some overnight convection that brought a nice shelf like cloud... Figured it was worth sharing... seeing as people might look back a year from now ha ha... and look for action on that day.

I love this, it makes it look as if I was getting more action than I actually was.