Shane Adams
Chad, Bridge, and myself ended up in Woodward, OK and got on tail-end charles of the early batch of storms, northwest of Mooreland. It exhibited multiple wall clouds, a few of which even tried to rotate a bit, but it inevitably became a mushball. We noticed a new, more-isolated storm near Arnett, and drifted back south.
We took backroads south and came out on OK51 west of Vici, directly beneath the tornado-warned portion of the storm. We moved back east through town, where we watched an area of enhanced (though short-lived) rotation try and spin up....thought we might get a brief tornado for a few seconds, but it wasn't to be. We spent the next several minutes driving out ahead of the storm until we hit warm inflow again, then we'd stop and let it roll up on us until we felt the cool windshift. During one of our east jogs to get back ahead, a small but intense gustnado spun up just behind us, north of the road, in the form of a vigorous red debris whirl. Of course I only got about 2 seconds of video before trees blocked our view.
The storm cycled down, then became tor-warned again northwest of Seiling. We jetted into town, then blasted north, barely beating the core to the intersection of US60, where we turned east. We thought we were well-ahead of the storm, when suddenly I noticed a large piece of debris floating lazily, about 50 feet in the air, right in front of us, just south of the highway. As I opened my mouth to say something, Chad said "man there's debris blowing all over right here..." as more debris started flying up. A gustnado suddenly became visible, right on highway 60, about one powerline span ahead of us. We slowed as it whirled across the road, then as it moved to the north side of the highway, went through a grove of trees, spewing more dirt and debris skyward. It was still whirling in a field the last time we glanced it, before, once again, trees completely blocked our view. Out of all this, I got about 10 seconds of decent video, showing the rotation over the road in front of us and then the dirt flying as it moves into the trees. It was cool, but would've been cooler had it been a weak tornado. Played leapfrog with Rob Satkus and Tom Pastrano for much of this event.
We took backroads south and came out on OK51 west of Vici, directly beneath the tornado-warned portion of the storm. We moved back east through town, where we watched an area of enhanced (though short-lived) rotation try and spin up....thought we might get a brief tornado for a few seconds, but it wasn't to be. We spent the next several minutes driving out ahead of the storm until we hit warm inflow again, then we'd stop and let it roll up on us until we felt the cool windshift. During one of our east jogs to get back ahead, a small but intense gustnado spun up just behind us, north of the road, in the form of a vigorous red debris whirl. Of course I only got about 2 seconds of video before trees blocked our view.
The storm cycled down, then became tor-warned again northwest of Seiling. We jetted into town, then blasted north, barely beating the core to the intersection of US60, where we turned east. We thought we were well-ahead of the storm, when suddenly I noticed a large piece of debris floating lazily, about 50 feet in the air, right in front of us, just south of the highway. As I opened my mouth to say something, Chad said "man there's debris blowing all over right here..." as more debris started flying up. A gustnado suddenly became visible, right on highway 60, about one powerline span ahead of us. We slowed as it whirled across the road, then as it moved to the north side of the highway, went through a grove of trees, spewing more dirt and debris skyward. It was still whirling in a field the last time we glanced it, before, once again, trees completely blocked our view. Out of all this, I got about 10 seconds of decent video, showing the rotation over the road in front of us and then the dirt flying as it moves into the trees. It was cool, but would've been cooler had it been a weak tornado. Played leapfrog with Rob Satkus and Tom Pastrano for much of this event.
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