Tour 3 - Day 1 (Western OK) - ENHANCED Risk

[MikeUpjohn]

Day 1 proper of Tour 3 started in Blackwell, OK and after dropping South to Guthrie, OK for breakfast, we headed West and South via Kingfisher to the I40 and headed West to Clinton for lunch, waiting for the cold front to initiate somewhere along the TX/OK border. Storms would move Eastwards into a better environment favourable of large hail, damaging winds and maybe a tornado.

Watched the towers bubble for a while about 15 miles North of Clinton, and a few storms started getting their act together after while. Temperatures were up in the 90's and with a screaming wind, it was only a matter of time before storms got organised.

Followed the storms as they hung around and near the I40 and one storm gained a huge wall cloud and so very very nearly put down a tornado right in front of us, but not quite unfortunately this time.

We followed the storms along I40 for a bit, before leaving the first storm as it headed off into Weatherford, OK direction.

Headed South to the next storm which was coming out of the TX panhandle, and as dusk came, the lightning really kicked up several gears. For the next hour we were treated to a mix of anvil crawler and CG lightning against a dramatic sunset backdrop, all the while keeping an eye on a wall cloud to the South West on the left edge of the storm.

Jernej then shouted tornado and sure enough the wall cloud produced a brief cone tornado backlit by C-G lightning. Moved back as the storm slowly trundled towards us and stopped one last time to watch a newly developed tornado warned wall cloud at about 10pm.

After a few minutes we headed East to Lawton, OK for dinner and checked into the hotel as the severe storms rolled in overhead with torrential rain, very close C-G lightning and massive wind gusts.

Storms continued until gone 3am, making this a 12-hour storm binge, from a 2% tornado.

Awesome!! Pics and videos below.

 

 

Edited June 1, 2022 by MikeUpjohn

[MikeUpjohn]

Another video from the severe storm rolling over Lawton, OK at the end of Day 1.