2nd Chase:

Monday 21st March, 2005 - Dryline bulge Classic Supercell.  1 funnel and 2 tornadoes near Castle, Okemah Oklahoma.

A suitably small writeup for an equally small chase.  

Today was the first real chase opportunity of the 2005 season - so it will be cherished at least as that forever.  A powerful low was progged to move southeast into northwestern Oklahoma by around early-afternoon, and by late morning it had an attendant dryline extending southeastward through Oklahoma City and Norman, and down to D/FW.

I was working this morning, but Monday is one of the weekdays on which I have the afternoon off, and finish at 12noon.  I figured that this would provide me with ample time to chase anything that happened, as I had a gut feeling that the super-duper 15% hatched tornado area in northeastern Texas from SPC this morning was a bit overdone, and that we would not be traveling to Paris, TX this afternoon, after all.  I was correct.  Forecasting throughout the morning while at work, it was evident that - at least for us in Norman - the target of northeastern Texas was looking less favorable, with the target of north-central or northwestern Oklahoma looking more favorable.  Perhaps there is a geographic bias in there somewhere, but the moisture in northeastern Texas was not going to sustain a significant tornado outbreak, and instead, the moisture values in northwestern Oklahoma were just as if not more impressive for this distance north and under the progged low!  The low today had also realized the expected 500mb temperatures of -22oC.

I got home around 12.10pm amidst moderately-impressive towers going up on the dryline which was directly over my head.  They weren't rock-hard, but they weren't total crap, either.  After spending an hour or so watching them in our front yard and watching satellite and obs online, we decided to head out just to make sure that nothing happened.  In our haste, we were halfway along Hwy 9 before we realized we had left home without an antenna for weather radio.  Oh well - commence the visual chase!  (Well - not really - we had our Sprint data card working for the first time this spring, having just activated it yesterday).

We decided to play the dryline bulge which was ongoing, and sure enough just to our east we were faced with a wall of convection.  It was evident that there were two or three individual cells here in a line oriented north-south, and we decided to take a look at the northernmost one as it displayed the most dramatic vertical growth.  Passing through Pink, Oklahoma we took Hwy 177 headed north, as we had almost caught up with the updraft base of our little miniature storm.  Traveling to just north of Jacktown Oklahoma, it was around 2.00pm when we pulled off the road to watch our lethargic little storm croak its way across the landscape.  We sat up on a small overlook looking west off the road on a grassy banking, and watched as one or two other chasers and spotters began to roost around our spot, also.  Amazing - they were as desperate as we were.  Or - we were as desperate as they were.  
It was obvious that this storm had died on us, and we fell to watching data for a short period of time with our Sprint aircard.  What a lovely piece of hardware.  We watched radar as the echoes for our cell disappeared, and saw the echoes for the storm to the south of ours start to build in intensity.  As we were beginning to leave for home, I checked the current warnings page - only to see a tornado warning for the cell to our southeast.  Oh brilliant!  God I hate chasing without a weather radio!  Gene exclaimed at this - and we re-defined our target now with a definite goal in mind - get on that storm!

It looked to be a fairly easy intercept - if you ignore the fact that the storm was moving northeast and we were coming onto it from the northwest and west.  Coming back down to Jacktown we took Hwy 62 east and southeast.  This road would take us directly to the storm, essentially.  Looking at the backside of it was fairly impressive - although I'm never very impressed when looking at min-supercellular updrafts.  Call me elitist, but I like to see explosions rise like atom bombs on the horizon......I find it hard to get used to expecting tornadoes out of something that looks fairly garden-variety and that lacks an anvil.  Oh well - it was tornado warned.  As we drove, we managed to get a few shots of the nice pileus clouds atop some of the main towers:

Pileus atop our first supercell of the year!!

The highly-sheared nature of the storm was evident as we approached from the west.

We were now passing through Meeker Oklahoma, with the roads becoming covered in spray.  It had rained here earlier.  Up ahead, we spied Roger Hill in his van - looks like the chaser "community" had certainly got the message.  We came up on Prague around 3.00pm, and stopped for a moment at the side of the road.  There was solid core in front of us and to our southwest, and I really didn't feel like core punching through something that we had no clue about.  It really is a tedious task to approach these storms from the wrong side.  We had the main towers of this highly tilted storm above our heads to the east now, and to our south and southeast were all sorts of flanking line towers and hook or core precipitation.  We had the idea of heading south on Hwy 377 to circumnavigate the core and hook regions, but after starting out on this road we ran into a bunch of soft hail and heavy rain.  Parking up n the road just east of Prague, we waited while watching chaser after chaser go plunging into the murk.  People sure aren't scared of core punching these days.  A familiar blue care passed us going in the same direction - it was Jim LaDue going to christen his new Prius!  We grinned as we watched him disappear into the darkness and spray.  Well - it couldn't be all that bad and according to AM radio reports the storm was near Cromwell and heading for the Castle/Okemah area, so we carried on east on Hwy 62 a bit - wondering what we'd find on the edges of the core of this mini-supercell-type-thing.  It didn't take us long to find out, as we ran into rock hard marble-sized hail and blinding rain.  Feeling like we were being gunned down in a tin can, we turned around and sat, yet again, out of the hail for a minute or so.  Yuck!  

When it was more or less clear that the storm's core had more or less cleared our road, we carried on through the light rain and odd click of hail - to see the landscape start to turn white in front of us.  The storm had dumped an impressive swath of pea-sized hail in the areas of Paden and Boley, Oklahoma, and it was quite amusing to drive in around 2" of hail lying on the rutted roads in 4WD to keep from slipping.  It was one of the more impressive hail swaths I had seen - as we don't get to see this kind of thing very often (we don't core punch for fun).
Eventually we regained cloud definition and had come out the other side of this storm, finding ourselves near Castle Oklahoma under the main mesocyclone area with extensive flanking line base to our south.  Wow.  As I watched the base of this storm for a moment, it was evident that it had clear rotation at low levels.  Gene stopped us just east of Castle on the west side of the main mesocyclone, as a police care drove in the opposite direction motioning to us that he didn't want us going this way.  We were stationery for five minutes or so, as an impressive white RFD began cascading downwards in front of our eyes, taking shredded pieces of the storm and evaporating them as it took them down.  What a storm!!!  The RFD was mesmerizing, happening directly to our east almost right above us.  Immediately after this happened, at around 4.00pm and just before we decided to move, something appeared in the dark concavity of the wall cloud.  A ghostly, semi-transparent funnel appeared very quickly - almost as if somebody had flicked a switch - and condensed into a significant vortex within the mesocyclone.  Twenty seconds later, and sooner than we could have reached for our cameras, it dissipated without ever becoming a tornado.  Not to matter, as our eyes scanned north-northeast, and caught a glimpse of what the storm was doing just north of Okemah.  A new meso had cycled and was looking impressive - dangerously impressive.  Not being in the right place, Gene booted us down Hwy 62 to the southeast - away from the cycling new mesocyclone but to get some trees and hills out of our way.  We had plans to shoot up Hwy 56 to the north, but we didn't have time - the storm was waiting on nobody.  We pulled over as another relentless RFD ate into the southwestern side of the supercell and wisps began appearing at ground level.  There was a tornado in progress.  Luckily it was on Gene's side of the truck, and while I cursed and blinded at the video camera (which I found out I do not know how to switch on), Gene managed to capture a series of images of this tornado and mesocyclone as it did its thing.

Impressive helical action with one of the vortices that spun around the base of this bowl-shaped tornado.

Tornado continues moving northeast.

More debris cloud/vortex action at base.

When the circulation looked to be winding down, we made a dash for our north route of choice - Hwy 56 out of Okemah.  Once taking this north road we found numerous chasers parked up at the side of the road - I imagine a lot of video was taken from this road.  
Driving a few miles north at around 4.30pm, we could see a very suspicious rain-wrapped area of the storm advancing towards our highway a few miles out.  Luckily there were some open rolling fields out here, and Gene brought us to a stop at a small farmhouse's entrance.  It was very muddy, but not really a problem.  Stopping finally for a moment or two, we looked at the storm, and began to make out a form within the heavy precipitation.  Everything was fairly silent.  Then, Gene heard something which he describes as some kind of roar, if you pardon the unoriginality.  I could see perhaps quarter-sized hail beginning to fall in the field about a quarter mile away from us as the sun tried to filter through, and it was falling heavily and violently.  But it was the roar that disturbed Gene - to the point that we brought the truck around and took us south at a great speed to be on the safe side.  He didn't know whether it was a hail roar (unlikely), or the actual tornado which we knew was in there.  Either way, it would not have been prudent to stay in our location.
Doing another u-turn on a suitable road off the highway, we stopped up and watched as what appeared to be the circulation encompass the highway we had been on.  An attendant, darkish coloured funnel was just identifiable amidst the enshrouding rain and hail.  This was what we believe to be tornado no. 2.  Initially it looked slightly ragged, but it was in such an area and moving in such a way that we knew it was a tornado.  When it was safe, Gene brought us north again back to our previous overlook, where we set up and took some images/video (yes - I had finally actually mastered the video camera). 

Second tornado of the day we believe, as we drove back north to get a good look at it as it crossed the road.

Tornado moves east of our highway.  It was highly enveloped in precipitation.

A beautiful rainbow forms as the strong March sunlight hits the backside of the storm.

After this event was east of the highway, we proceeded north with the habitual chaser caravan.  Just north of the tornado's approximate location, we experienced the odd piece of shredded leaf debris falling from the sky.  A sure sign that the manifestation has, indeed, been a tornado.  Traveling through Okfuskee, we were all behind the storm now.  Considering we had Lake Okmulgee to navigate, it was unlikely that we would catch up with this storm until past Okfuskee itself.  There was nothing left to do but lay back and enjoy the scenic drive through Lake Okfuskee, while drinking in the heady aroma of yearly deja vu. 
The hillsides and bankings surrounding the lake were overflowing with water, with tributaries and waterfalls spewing forth with muddy, foaming water.  This storm had caused localized flooding, and in places the water was running over the road with rivulets of the same pea-sized hail in it.  We took it very carefully over some of these flooded areas, and finally came out just west of Okmulgee - a town we get to know intimately at this time of year.  The AM station out of Tulsa that we were listening to were broadcasting warnings for the city of Okmulgee, but we knew in our heart of hearts that this poor storm has probably spent its load. 
Taking some backstreets to avoid the chaotic center of town, we managed to end up on Hwy 62 east of town headed towards Morris.  The storm's base was looking strung out, and fortunately we found a gas station with a restroom for me, which also had a great viewpoint for Gene to watch the demise of this once-tornadic mini-supercell.  It was 5.15pm.  After making ourselves comfortable again, we followed the storm a little bit more - having learnt from our previous mistakes of leaving prematurely - but it was horribly evident that it was dead. 

Executing an about-face, it was time to go south to I-40 via Grayson and Dewar, and go home.  The sun began to peek through the grungy wraparound out west, and we were fortunate to have a very pleasant drive home partly at sunset and partly in darkness. 

A great beginning - yet again - to the new chase season.  It's always fun to chase these early-season storms and to quench your thirst for supercells and tornadoes........but I'm afraid my sights are set on the more substantive months of April, May and June.  It has been most stimulating, however, to have seen over 1.5ft of snow, and tornadoes, in less than one week.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Karen Rhoden.

kerhoden@stormskies.com

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