April 22nd-23rd, 2000 - First Oklahoma Chase and Intercept!
After a brutal busted chase on the 19th, we set off for out 1st Plains trip in hopes of seeing severe weather. Severe weather was predicted on the 23rd so we took off the morning of the 21st as shown in the map above. Before we took off, I rented out a couple books on basic forecasting and printed some things off online. I quickly realized I couldn't just jump into forecasting as I had to learn what each little aspect of the art was. For example, what was the significance of 500 MB winds, what was a shortwave trough, etc. Again we went into this chase just by what the local NWSFO says, TWC, and/or any local weather meteorologist outlined. It wasn't the true way of chasing, but I was a beginner and needed guidance as I got my feet wet.
We stayed the night in Springfield, MO on the 21st, and headed for Oklahoma City on the 22nd. There was a risk of storms for Western Oklahoma and Eastern Texas on the 22nd, but we would never make it down there in time. As we entered the Tulsa area, we were picking up word of a weather watch to the west in Western Oklahoma. We hit Oklahoma City at around 6 PM and figured we would get a room just west of town in case the in coming storms were to become severe/tornadic. We grabbed dinner in El Reno while listening to the Skywarn frequencies and watching The Weather Channel. On radar the line was decaying and was below severe limits, but still was producing decent lightning. We stood on our hotel balcony for an hour watching the storm and the lightning and videoed it all. Tomorrow was another day and another risk for areas in SE OK and W AR.
Now I had no idea of the terrain of this area since I have never chased down there before. I should have done my research. We had an agenda being in the OKC area. First and foremost I HAD to see the area effected by the 5-3-99 tornado. I was shocked to see how quickly things were getting back to normal. There was some signs of the disaster, but a lot of it was nice and newly renovated. I was especially impressed with the Shields Blvd area, and how nicely it regained its' luster. Our next stop was to the SPC. We walked in there and were looking around the lobby area and to our surprise Dan Mc Carthy came out and started talking to us. He asked if we were chasing that day and I remember our exact words as being "Try to." He let us look at a computer and their outlook and had one of the forecasters explain to us why he thought Eastern Oklahoma would be a good bet for severe weather. Not only did I get to meet one of the top SPC guys, I got expert insight from one of their forecasters and I got to see how things work there.
After our rendevouz at the SPC we headed east down I 40. As we kept heading east we got word of a tornado watch being issued, per the NWS feed out of Tulsa. We hit Henryetta, Oklahoma, at about 1 PM and headed south down US 75. Our target area was Mc Alester. The next sequence of events was amazing. We stopped at a Mc Donalds at around 1:30 PM. There were towering cumulus all over the area, most numerous to the south, but there was nothing that we deemed imminent to blowing up. Again we had no radar or satellite data, only our eyes and ears. When we got out of Mc Donalds..... AMAZEMENT. A HUGE supercell had formed 20 miles to the south. We had a large anvil overhead with crackling and rumbling coming from this updraft tower. The sun was still shining at our location but to the south an angry mass of dark blue was clearly visible. http://w1.spc.woc.noaa.gov/exper/archive/events/000423/radloop.shtml The initial blip in SE OK is our explosion. It also turns out more development was going on further to the north near Tulsa. Our cell was beautiful and the reports from the spotters kept flooding in with hail reports up to golf ball size in Mc Alester. We started rolling video now.
In this video we were approaching Mc Alester from the west as the storm was still on the east side of town. Driving through Mc Alester definitely slowed us down, but we caught glimpse of the wall cloud and funnels near the end of the video. There was a tornado reported at this time on the east side of Mc Alester and also near Hartshorne. We believe we caught a small tornado near end of this video, it is hard to pick up on video, but we BELIEVE we saw it. As it was in the area where the tornado report was placed. After we intercepted we followed it east toward Wilburton. This is where SE Oklahoma showed her ugly head with some of the most undesirable chase terrain. This next video shows us tailing a tornadic supercell into the mountains near Wilburton.
As we headed east, reports of a rain wrapped tornado kept flooding in just east of us near Red Oak. We couldn't see a thing, the road we were on was under construction, and was flooding in the mountains with another cell following up just to our south. Not a good situation, I didn't have a good feeling about it and we finally pulled off in Red Oak and retreated back west. LESSON LEARNED: Know your terrain before you target that area.
We thought the chase was over, but noticed there were severe warnings to our north for storms moving south wrapping around the low. We intercepted one near Eufala and experienced a 5 minute pea sized hail shower. Finally we intercepted the last storm of the day near Muskogee, OK, on I 40.
What a great experience for my first OK chase. We got into a bad situation and found a way out, all a part of the learning process.
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