3/23 Recap

Had a fun but exhausting chase in Oklahoma yesterday. David Drummond and I headed east on I-40 stopping at various points along the way with the dryline watching towers going up. Eventually, we latched on to the big cell near Kingfisher as it went tornado warned. I had come around on it's east side and watched a nice clear slot wrap around a lowering. This area quickly developed a nice, strong looking wall cloud showing some weak, broad rotation. The cold outflow was just too strong and disrupted the storm's attempt to really spin something up. At one point, a small rapid "eddy" developed overhead and produced a brief but nice needle funnel. That was as good as it got.

After breaking off from the storm north of Guthrie based on it's weakening radar presentation and visual confirmation, I saw some wicked looking cells in the SW part of the state. A quick calculation of storm motion and distance, I decided to head after them to hopefully get some great night photography opportunities. I did manage to get a couple of nice shots before the CG activity ceased.

After playing around with the 3 different cells, I and David was graciously invited to crash at my twin namesake's house in Moore. It was awesome and we are sitting around being weather weenies and geeks enjoying some awesome coffee. Steve is an excellent host!!!

Hanging out here today and weighing chase opportunities tomorrow. For me, it's distance which I-20 is pretty much my southern limit. Anything too far south of that and it's just too far with terrain and data issues. More on that in the morning.

Here are some pics....

Note the clear slot wrapping around the lowering. This was just minutes before the tornado warning was issued.


The wall cloud.


Lightning from the storms in SW OK close to Rush Springs, OK.