Chase Day 23 - Reports and Pictures

[Paul Sherman]

An absolutely adrenalin filled day with crazy things happening with large violent tornadoes early and circulations that were out of our control a lot of the time and it took a lot of careful planning to get us out of the doggy do.

 

Initial target was Yukon to El Reno along the Triple Point and Pooling of the greatest moisture and storms erupted about 20 miles to our west, we initially went north to Okarche but I soon noted the tail end charlie was going to be the dominant beast of the day and early in it's life cycle it turned hard right from ENE To East and then South East, Just south of El Reno along Highway 81 the Structure became breath-taking.

 

- Supercell Structure SW Of El Reno

 

The storm was started to really tighten up and a tornado was imminant, re-positioned further south a few miles and could see but not picture the start of a Multi Vortex Tornado to our West North West, this came flying towards us until it was about 1/4 mile in a field to our west, traffic at this point was getting silly as they had shut I-40.

 

Went another 1/4 of a mile south and parked up and watched a violent wedge tornado cross the road where we had been sitting, it was here that numerous cars got tossed and thrown off the highway including the Weather Channels Tornado Hunt vehicle.

 

- Ultra contrasted picture of the wedge 1/4 mile north of us.

 

The above picture is enhanced as my camera could not pick up what we were seeing to our north due to screaming 65mph inflow winds and insane rfd winds.

 

Went east at Union City and then the problems started taking the chase out of our control, every road was grid-locked in all directions and the Storm further NW Was also starting to put down tornadoes, we still had the big wedge to our north and another tornadic circulation near Mustang.

 

Only way out was drive straight towards the hook and circulation and pick our way through a safe passage, finally core punched the storm back to El Reno and back across the damage path of the wedge.

 

Ended the day in Norman watching Lightning and dodging hail cores.

 

Another sad day with 5 dead unfortunately but it could have been much worse today if stronger tornadoes had hit traffic clogged areas.

 

Paul S

 

 

 

 

[duckeyh]

Only way to describe today was intense. This is my 4th year on the Plains with the guys and I've never imagined anything like today. Thx to Paul & Tom for working so hard  . I was only slightly scared when we couldn't move due to traffic and had a rain wrapped tornado within a hairs breadth of us  , which demonstrated how bad metro chasing can get.

 

Definitely will remember my 10th Tornado for a long long time............  

Edited June 1, 2013 by duckeyh

[Snowangel-MK]

Glad you're all safe, it was quite a white knuckle ride there for a while (and that was sitting here watching)

 

 

Very sad that there has been a death toll of 5 though but to be honest I'm surprised it wasn't much higher...a totally insane night of virtual chasing and I still want to give the real thing a go but not with this guy ...

 

 

 

...It will be Netweather and the Sherminator for me 

 

 

[Cloud]

.a totally insane night of virtual chasing and I still want to give the real thing a go but not with this guy ...

 

 

 

...It will be Netweather and the Sherminator for me 

 

The near miss clips get more dramatic every year! 

[Cloud]

Amazing supercell pic Paul!

[nitro_deluxe]

What a beast of a storm! Incredible..

Edited June 1, 2013 by triple_x1

[alexisj9]

Sounds like you had a sensible chase, glad you got off I40 in time. Still can not work out why so many people tried to drive away from the storm, the people of tornado alley of all people should know the most dangerous  place in a tornado is a car. The advise is shelter in place. I guess people got spooked because of moore.

 

There are no public shelters any more in OK, well I'm not sure if that's all OK or just OKC, they did that to stop people being caught out driving to shelters.

Edited June 1, 2013 by alexisj9

[Bluebreezer54]

The near miss clips get more dramatic every year! 

 

Or some might say, quite rightly in my opinion, more irresponsible. This particular video has been criticised on a number of weather websites today, and I tend to agree with that criticism.

[Tom Lynch]

well to say the least yesterday was interesting and the storm caught other people and chasers by surprise.  It went from virtually clear skies to a mile wide tornado within 30 minutes.

 

I did video what I could but needed all my concentration to negociate all the country lanes that we had to go down to ensure that we too were not part of the casualty list.  I40 closed traffic diverted south, people apparently told to evacuate. Lines and lines of cars bumper to bumper. Sorry about quality of video but have not had time to edit it.

 

 

mile wide tornado

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tom

Edited June 1, 2013 by Tom Lynch

[chionomaniac]

A very dangerous scenario with a tornado that is heading east that suddenly jumps north before continuing. A lesson to be learnt for all chasers about expected paths and escape routes. Great video thanks Tom.

[John Hanrahan]

Great video Tom. Be safe alright.

[Tom Lynch]

It went from a simpson cloud to a monster in such a short time. The roads were bumper to bumper and no one  could go anywhere when the tornado hit a lot of cars where sitting ducks.

 

Tom       Hi Johnny boy  Hope all is well.

[nitro_deluxe]

Respect.

Edit: just as an aside ok bit OTT..hit 29c in Lapland today folks? Made me snigger..could get stormy later.

TC chasers, a hardy bunch!

Edited June 1, 2013 by triple_x1

[CycloneGail]

Hi here's a link to a story that appeared on our morning news show, interviewing an Aussie storm chaser who got caught out.

 

 

 

http://video.au.msn.com/?preview=true&mkt=en-au&vid=6e1a29d8-55f6-4d21-8cd8-ca2ae133d7c5&from=sharepermalink&src=v5:share:sharepermalink:

[Stuart_W]

I know Daniel. He's a good guy. Completely nuts but a good guy all the same.

[lottiekent]

Hi here's a link to a story that appeared on our morning news show, interviewing an Aussie storm chaser who got caught out.

 

 

 

http://video.au.msn.com/?preview=true&mkt=en-au&vid=6e1a29d8-55f6-4d21-8cd8-ca2ae133d7c5&from=sharepermalink&src=v5:share:sharepermalink:

That was a very close call!

[Tom Lynch]

 A short clip that shows the mile wide tornado

 

 

 

Tom

[Tom Lynch]

Another second clip of the El Reno tornado

 

 

Tom

[Paul Sherman]

It pains me to put this picture up now knowing what happened shortly after this was shot with regards to Team Twistex.

 

But just to give you an idea of the moment of the shot and what was going on, at the time of the picture below the very large and Violent Wedge just to our North was moving East South East and should have been just to our east after looking at this shot from a close and safe enough distance.

 

What happened next was unforeseen, with the Tornado turning a complete 90 degrees and heading straight North parrallelling the road you see, the cars are heading south bound at this time.

 

Such a tragic picture now knowing what we know.

 

- El Reno Wedge Tornado

 

Paul S