8/18-19/07 NOW: OK (TD Erin)

[Chris C Sanner]

Pretty wild stuff! I got woke up by the lightning and wind and am pretty well shocked to see what I see. I'd estimate wind gusts of at least 40-50mph here in Norman from this at least and the parking lot here at Traditions is pretty well a lake. Lightning has lessened up a bit though from what I can tell in the past 30 minutes or so.

 

[Donald Giuliano]

Latest Level II KTLX scan has 70-80kt inbound velocities around 4 kft about 10-15 miles WNW of El Reno. It'd be interesting to get that to the Mesonet site and see what kind of surface wind is realized from it.

Oh...and from the 4am CDT advisory on Erin...

MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS ARE NEAR 25 MPH...40 KM/HR...WITH SOME
GUSTS OVER 50 MPH IN THUNDERSTORMS. THE ESTIMATED MINIMUM CENTRAL
PRESSURE IS AROUND 1005 MB...29.68 INCHES.

Riiiiiiight.

 

[Kiel Ortega]

Ditch/creek behind my apartments is coming up quick....low parts of parking lot have about a foot of standing water....wanted to get my tripod to take photos without flash but lost my sandals and got soaked.

EDIT: Damn, damn, damn...water has now hit the steepest part of the hill (which is a 8 foot horizontal distance, ?? vertical distance from where it was 10 min ago)

 

[Brian Emfinger]

Anyone else take a glance at IR to see if the eye feature was visible from there??? I dont think I would have been surprised if it was there. Be interesting to see vis in a couple hours.

It does look like it might be becoming more ragged overrall or maybes its just a ERC?

 

[Jeff Snyder]

I've uploaded some radar and sat images at http://www.tornadocentral.com/now/Erin/

Saved IR image at http://www.tornadocentral.com/now/Erin/erin_over_OK_ir.jpg

I NEVER thought I'd see an eye of a tropical cyclone near OKC!

EDIT: It looks like we'll get a good sample of the central pressure associated with Erin in the next hour as the eye passes over KPWA in northwestern Oklahoma City. Actually, as I type this, the center is sitting over Piedmont. Rocky -- anything interesting? Are the skies clear? Can you see a stadium effect? LOL I kid, of course. It'd be cool to be in the eye for those who never thought they'd see the eye of a tropical cyclone in Oklahoma City! KPWA is just getting into the eye, and the latest pressure reading had 29.70" Hg. I'd expect the min pressure to be ~29.67", though I'm crossing my fingers that they do a SPECI ob since the eye may be beyond the site by the 1252z ob time.

As expected, KOKC reporting a local minimum in precip, at 3.25" in the 6-12z period. Compare this to 4.86" in Minco, 7.05" in El Reno, 4.08" in Norman, 3.91" in western Oklahoma City, and ~5" at a couple of the KOCO's "neighborhood network" stations in OKC (Oklahoma City Community College in SW OKC, Crossroads Mall in SE OKC, Quail Springs Mall in NW OKC, Mathis Brothers at I40 and I44, etc). I figure that if it's going to be super wet this year, we might as well try to break the annual precip record. As such, it's kind of disappointing that the official ob site is the lowest among those in the immediate area. We'll probably end up at 4" at OKC when all is said and done (4" from 6z onward). I'm not sure why KOKC (Will Rogers airport) is a good 1.75" lower than other nearby stations... Oh well. Flooding is severe enough right now (media report from El Reno Fire chief of 10 feet of water over I40 in El Reno).

EDIT: Wow, good guess on min pressure. KPWA did a SPECI report and measured 29.67 inHg as the eye passed just to the north of that airport. OKCN mesonet site (Oklahoma City North) should also sample the eye, probably a little closer to the center too. For meteograms, go to http://www.mesonet.org/public/meteograms.html and click on "Choose From Map" on the left menu (or scroll for the station). Pressure at that station has dropped ~3mb in the past hour.

 

[Alexandre Aguiar]

This is one of the most interesting and amazing events I ever witnessed. Two days after landfall, a storm regenerates probably from a TD into a TS. I have great curiosity about the next HPC advisory on Erin. Will they mantain the TD status ?