• While Stormtrack has discontinued its hosting of SpotterNetwork support on the forums, keep in mind that support for SpotterNetwork issues is available by emailing [email protected].

9/1/2010 REPORTS: OK

Joined
Jan 22, 2006
Messages
49
Location
Stillwater, OK
I am posting this report only because, for the first time in my chasing career, I think I may have been the only chaser on a beautiful cell in the state of Oklahoma. It is very rare to have a storm all to yourself in this state.

I left Stillwater at 3 p.m. and headed west towards Hennessey with the simple goal of seeing some towering cumulus. Radar and mesonet showed a north/south boundary along highway 81 and moving back to the west (I assume it was old outflow from the morning convection). I watched some towers go up to my northwest and meandered my way north of Lahoma based on the storm direction to the NE. The storms were fairly high based and, well, just pretty much sucked with only a couple of rain shafts and no real upraft structure to speak of. As the storms approached, they appeared to change their direction of travel from the NE to the E, then the SE. I dropped south of Lahoma and noticed that it now appeared to be heading due south (apparently it latched onto the boundary as it took a dive to the south). Not only was it moving due south, but it also had a very familiar appearance. Although it lacked any sort of updraft/inflow features, it appeared visually to be very similar to 7/12/2010 and 7/20/2009. A conical wallcloud developed and showed signs of rotation for about five minutes before it fell apart. That would become the first of many very picturesque wallclouds that I would witness on our way south. I kept myself just east of the wallcloud and south of the precip core for the next hour or so until I ran out of decent road options south of Lacey, plus I had a prior engagement back home that I had to leave for anyway.

Sept12010Pano1Tagged.jpg
South of Lahoma and west of Drummond.

Sept12010Pano2Tagged.jpg
East of Ames.

Sept12010Pano3Tagged.jpg
North of Lacey.

Sept12010Pano4Tagged.jpg
North of Loyal.
 
Wow, those are some fantastic pics! Nice job on the chase!

I left work in Norman around 545pm and immediately headed in the direction of Kingfisher to catch up to the supercell that appeared to be drifting SE, then almost due south. I regret not being able to leave earlier, since it seems I missed most of the show.

While driving north on Hwy 81 near Okarche, I think I observed the last vestiges of the final wall cloud as the storm began to shrivel and die. For a moment, I thought I saw a tube-like column of dust that persisted for about a minute along the southern edge of the gust front. This would've been in western Kingfisher County around 654pm. Unfortunately, contrast was poor and I was just plain too far away to get any good photos. My thought at the time was *maybe* a landspout, but I have not heard of *any* reports at all to confirm this. I'm guessing it was probably just a rain shaft and I was only imagining things from my rather distant view of the storm.
 
I am posting this report only because, for the first time in my chasing career, I think I may have been the only chaser on a beautiful cell in the state of Oklahoma. It is very rare to have a storm all to yourself in this state.

Hey Jeff, you were not the only one on it. I was there, and you're right, it became very interesting for a short period. For one radar loop it had 100mph gate to gate south of Ames. Kinda of a surprise storm.
 
Back
Top