Funniest chase moment of 2004

[Melissa Moon]

Here's what I put in another post on another thread, but I think it fits well here too:

On May 29th, Blake Naftel and I were chasing and we were watching the Conway Springs tornado outside of the car. Blake wanted to get farther east and I was packing my video camera and tripod into the car, but the wind was blowing so strong that I was having trouble getting the car door closed. Blake was yelling at me to hurry up, and it got on my nerves because I was already mad about not getting the door shut. Anyway, it erupted into a fight and Blake got the whole thing on video. It wasn't really all that funny at the time, but going back to the video later and watching us fight \"like an old married couple\" (his words; not mine!) was insanely funny! Maybe you guys will get lucky (hah!) and he'll put it in his highlights video, or show it to the whole world in Denver while I'm chilling with the kangaroos.

 

[Bill Tabor]

At the time I didn't think what I'm about to reveal to you as funny, I thought it kind of tragic, but in retrospect I suppose it was.

I was chasing north on May 29th from Austin, Tx up into OK and possibly KS for an expected exceptional day of supercells and tornadoes. Along with me was Mitch Farrell, and his friend Linda. We shot up I35 and got to Oklahoma City near noon. Mitch and Linda had to get some batteries or film so we stopped at Walmart. Somewhere along there as I was riding in the right seat while Mitch drove my Tahoe I started trying to get some internet data. I was having a bit of difficulty so I checked the cell phone and it's antenna connection. I noticed that the part that plugs in the back of the phone was loose and turned easily almost like it was coming loose. Being the curious analyst I am, I started messing with it. Something was saying 'pull on it to see if it is still connected tight so you can figure out what is wrong with it'. Another part of me (quieter) was saying 'don't screw with it you might really screw it up'. What did I do? I pulled on it - LOL! Any yeah, it was hanging loosely although it still was connected. When I pulled it pulled the little adapter that connects the antenna to the circuit board off.

This was a tragedy at the time, because I had made a forecast earlier but this was a real decision point as to go further north to KS or turn west and head for the dryline. I tried to get another phone at a Verizon in OKC, but there is no Verizon at all in Oklahoma.

Mitch was very creative and pulled out some duct tape, positioned the adapter back on and actually at times got a partial signal. I believe we connected once briefly and got on radar, but it wasn't too much use.

The story ends well, as I went into "full Hoadley" visual mode, went on my old forecast to the dryline, and used instinct and the weather radio to find my quarry. We picked up the incredible cyclic supercell way west almost to the Tx Panhandle and followed it all the way to OKC where we filmed the Calument tornado and others.