Report & Pictures Chase Day 14

[Paul Sherman]

Started Monday May 10th in Norman (Ok) which if we had stayed put and sat in the Jacuzzi all day we would have witnessed the Elephant Trunk Tornado just 4 Miles to our SE Lol

SPC Had a High Risk for today in parts of N Central Oklahoma and NE Oklahoma. My target was Enid (Ok) Which was just SE Of the Triple Point! Stopped at Perry and the guys had great fun looking at the Vortex2 Armada and meeting Sean Casey! Jo even got a tour.

The dryline was advancing from the West and the Best storm along the Dryline fired West of Enid at 245pm. We headed West and at 335pm saw our first Tornado of the Day, a beautiful Wizard of Oz Cone Tornado with really nice Rope Out stage. Then followed this East and witnessed the Insane Barrel Wedge Tornado to our South East (Danny has Video) Along the way we witnessed Baseball sized Hail along the Road. These Storms then got Insane speed and some were travelling upto 79mph. Impossible to keep up. As we followed the damage path with the Now rain wrapped wedge in front of we witnessed Snapped Power Lines, trees across the roads and Smashed Houses. Then went North on I-35 With the Long tracked Tornado to our East, witnessed 18 Wheeler Trucks on their sides and rows of snapped trees and mangled Road Signs. As we crossed into Kansas we again crossed the damage path with houses levelled and had to cross downed still live Power Lines. Ambulance and Police were tending to injured people so we pushed on. Around this time the Supercell in Oklahoma City (Moore and Norman) was making the news with Fatalities in Pink, it then went on to drop a 1.5 Mile Wide Wedge in Seminole. Cut the chase short when the Storms headed into the trees and headed back to Norman.

The guys have some great footage but unfortunately these Tornadoes that hit built up areas sour the taste and put things into perspective.

Hoping for slower storm motions for the rest of the week as today was probably the hardest chase of my Life!

Paul S

[multi cellular thunderstorm]

Not the most photogenic day, with tornadoes mostly rain wrapped and structure obscured by cloud cover, but still a very enjoyable day, just a shame for some it was their last.

Vortex 2, the TIV and Sean Casey waving at our webcam...

Had a play with HDR in these 3...

Some of the damage we have come across today...

Cant confirm on this yet but had 2 areas of rotation on Radar

Nice sunset to end the day...

Mark.

[D-J-V]

Snap of the first Tornado of the day, you can just make out the debris it has picked up on the ground:80:

[Gorky]

Nice Structure West of Jet, OK, about 20 minutes before it dropped the first tor near Wakita.

Large Multivortex tornado north of Medford. Was amazing watching these two large lowerings both seemingly with vortices dancing around merge into one larger multivortex storm.

Tornado is pretty much rainwrapped now

Can just make out the left hand side of the tornado here as it moved north of me. (Very low contrast)

The rest of the day was playing catch up and missing my chance to get ahead of various storms by mere minutes. I almost ended up in Arkansas I was so keen to get ahead of these storms, heh!! Silly moment of the day was core punching in the direction of the storm motion on the Okmulgee county cell. I was in that core for 20 minutes paralleling the tornado to the south but when I finally think I've gained enough distance to cut down ahead of it, I miss a radar update and didn't fancy chancing it! When I bailed north I booked into a hotel thinking it was night as it had been so dark in the cor, but it was still only 7:30 and the sun then came out. My plans for night time photography on the remain cell to come through was scuppered

[D-J-V]

Mark really like those HDR's great technique aint it!

[craig1uk]

Congratulations guys, sounds like an extreme chase day, glad you stayed out of harms way

[Arron]

Few pics from me after a great chase day. Shame to see so much damage from this outbreak though

[user700]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtE1_cbL8sc

[Harry]

Seemed like an amazing day for you guys...gutted I missed it

Hit the news back here already - here's a BBC link

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8674157.stm

Looks to be quite devastating, with at least 5 killed. Am sure you will notice that yet again a Love's gas station got smacked!

[Nick F]

Seemed like an amazing day for you guys...gutted I missed it

Hit the news back here already - here's a BBC link

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8674157.stm

Looks to be quite devastating, with at least 5 killed. Am sure you will notice that yet again a Love's gas station got smacked!

Lol, don't hang around a Loves Gas Station when there's supercells nearby!

Shame to hear of the injuries and deaths, must have been frightening for some stuck on the I-40 east of OK City, with strong tornadoes moving nearby that were flattening properties and flipping vehicles over that we were seeing on the chopper live tv.

Great pictures guys, glad you bagged some tornadoes and stayed safe. Looking at some of the chaser accounts on that storm you followed, a few chasers got caught out by the circulation of a tornado near Wakita and had their windows blown out, maybe inexperienced chasers or plain unlucky!

[pottyprof]

Well done guys!! Great photos and video. Fingers crossed for more of the same but lets hope it's more open country than built up areas.

Stay safe...

[Harry]

Lol, don't hang around a Loves Gas Station when there's supercells nearby!

Shame to hear of the injuries and deaths, must have been frightening for some stuck on the I-40 east of OK City, with strong tornadoes moving nearby that were flattening properties and flipping vehicles over that we were seeing on the chopper live tv.

Great pictures guys, glad you bagged some tornadoes and stayed safe. Looking at some of the chaser accounts on that storm you followed, a few chasers got caught out by the circulation of a tornado near Wakita and had their windows blown out, maybe inexperienced chasers or plain unlucky!

Oh dear - Wakita wasn't lucky in the Twister film either...thought chasers would have known better, lol

Hope none of them were hurt by the way!

[John Hanrahan]

[quote name='multi cellular thunderstorm' date='11 May 2010 - 06:11 '

[Nick F]

How did I manage to miss Sean waving on the livestream last night? Pat looks like he's in awe being next to the Imax man.

Lots of reports to see over on storm track for yesterday's tornado fest:

http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/showthread.php?p=269873#post269873

[Andy Bown]

Glad you all stayed safe and had quite a day! Thanks to Danny for posting the video. Do any of you have footage of hail from the storms? Because it's mentioned in Paul's opening post on this thread.

[John Hanrahan]

News report on RTE (Ireland) on the events yesterday.

[Paul]

Tom has just uploaded some video including tornado footage from yesterday:

http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=storm-chase-highlights;sess=

[gpspete]

my tornado pic see plenty of carnage today

Edited May 11, 2010 by gpspete

[Arron]

Got some ace video of rotation right above our heads as we're parked up, tried uploading several times but just keep failing. Hopefully get it up tonight (oooo errr)

[Nick F]

Some video footage of tornado(s) near Medford, OK (the one the team were chasing) on Monday, shows multiple vortices. Also a clip of tornado near Norman also on Monday:

http://us.cnn.com/video/#/video/weather/2010/05/11/natvo.ok.tornadoes.SevereStudios?hpt=C2

[Arron]

Found a link to some TV footage we saw after the days chasing, check out the white van and the car behind it :lol:

http://www.kfor.com/videobeta/9444990d-d3af-4bf4-8bfa-1c2fd8a37e3a/News/Man-Survives-Roll-Over-Van-Incident-Live-to-Tell-the-Tale

Edited May 12, 2010 by Smokes

[Harry]

Some of that footage is insane!!

Why on earth would get that close to a multi vortex tornado? It seemed like they were focusing on one area of rotation, not realising that (behind the trees - hence the danger of the pretty trees) there were other funnels moving in!

[dogs32]

seeing some of the damage was upsetting to say the least..

saw a 18 wheeler on top of a car and a house completely smashed...

words cant describe the damage I saw..

lampost wrapped around a subway,power line sprawled across the roads..

truly awesome sight but a upsetting one..

[Cookie]

very sad bout the damage and destruction.

so amazing images thought guys

[gpspete]

bit late but here is a link to the US NWS report for May 10th 2010 it is still being compiled !

http://www.srh.noaa....events-20100510

it has been updatede a few times as i have been keeping an eye on page