7th Chase:-

Thursday 22nd April 2004 - Small but impressive infant LP supercell near Okemah & Okfuskee Oklahoma, HP ex-tornadic supercell at Muskogee, Oklahoma.

Again today was a somewhat marginal chase day.  All thunderstorm action was, for the most part, going to be east of I-35 - and many chasers including myself were already groaning thoroughly regarding the orientation of the past week's chase opportunities.  Chasing east of I-35 was pretty undesirable, really......it even made me lust for a traditional Texas Panhandle day - and as any regular readers will know the Panhandle areas never used to be my favorite spots!!!

It was yet another shot at the sloshing dryline - although due to the advancing cold front it was going to be very hard to find any dryline.  Indeed - the only place with backed winds appeared to be east-central and eastern Oklahoma - all other winds had veered horribly with the FROPA onset.  
Gene and I spent the morning relaxing at home - and trying to decide whether to chase or not.  Amongst others, we spoke with Dave Gold (who had made his first jaunt out into the plains of 2004 for this week's setup), and Tim Marshall and Carson Eads.  Tim and Carson were coming up towards the I-40 corridor, and Dave was currently in OUN fannying about like us.

Around 2.00pm, we decided to bite - especially with the gloomy chasing prospects after this week beckoning.  In a role-reversal, I decided to give driving a bash in the leviathan AKA the Tahoe.  This would allow Gene to look at data for as long as possible, also.  I took the driver's seat and yanked it forward from gene's position so my feet could reach the pedals.  After easing it out of our driveway successfully, we were on our way.
Taking US 77 south out of OUN, we decided to make a track east on Hwy 39 at Purcell.  This small road would take us east into the jungle!  We didn't mind, however - as it was a fairly relaxed chase day.  Gene watched surface obs as I drove, but before long we lost our data connection.  It was a fairly long drive straight out east, and before too long we passed a News station uplink truck.  They were parked precariously at the crest of a hill in the road, which made my ascent of aforementioned incline rather cautious.  
We passed through the small towns of Asher and Konawa - and by this time in the afternoon we were beginning to see some impressive convection in the form of piles of congestus and towering cumulus.  The convection was there amidst the blue-ish sky and other small cu., but I still felt that the atmosphere was slightly hazy - not to my liking.  Just before Konawa, I think, we passed a rather interesting area amidst the forests.  Suddenly the road rose up, and we traversed what appeared to be some kind of small ridge atop a rocky outcrop in the middle of nowhere.  This outcrop contained the traditional red rocks of Oklahoma, and it actually allowed us to view the entire surrounding countryside (forest) for a minute before plunging back down into the green thickets again.  

By this time I was somewhat disoriented and didn't really know where we were headed - as Gene was the one in control of the GPS this time.  I knew he knew where we were - I had just been concentrating on driving so much that I hadn't kept tabs of where we were supposed to be.  Glancing at the rear view mirror of the Tahoe - I noted that the in-built compass showed a northerly heading.  Ah!  Now I understood - our road had turned north at Sasakwa and we were headed towards I-40 once again.  Gene's cellphone rung a couple of times.  Once it was Tim Marshall, who advised us of a tornado-warned cell already going across the southern edge of Tulsa.  Apparently there had already been tornadoes sighted.  Gene said he wasn't surprised, looking at the surface obs up there revealed a 74/68 T/Td spread.  Oh well.....guess you can't see them all, huh?  That cell was waaay out of our range, now.  Heading north our highway turned into Hwy 48 which took us through Wewoka on the way to I-40.  The highway in parts here was a good 4-lane one, and our terrain got progressively better as we pulled out of the thick wooded part of Oklahoma.  Some of the parts of forests were broken up now by green fields full of wildflowers - such as the bright red and yellow-speckled Indian Paintbrush.  Gene tuned in the radio and managed to receive some fuzzy reports of the tornadic storm over Tulsa right now - and it sure sounded like a major one with confirmed reports of tornadoes on the ground.
Eventually we made it to I-40 and got on the Interstate headed east slightly.  All around us convection was exploding.  To the southwest of the Tulsa storm was another storm over the Bixby area, and there were others forming southwest of that - so we were confident of being able to target one of those.  Taking the Okemah exit, we parked up at an old fashioned restaurant so I could get a restroom and so Gene could get data via the Ositech card (all he wanted was one radar image - as storms were exploding all around).  We got out of the Tahoe to stretch our legs and Gene gestured to a storm that was going up just north of I-40 over the Castle area.  It was in full view of us.  I agreed with him that it looked good, and took myself to the bathroom.
Emerging from the restaurant five minutes later, I stopped and looked at our storm now.  Wow.  It was a supercell already - albeit a very infantile one.  It was acquiring a stacked-plate/barrel updraft arrangement, and already scud was forming in the inflow region - suggesting a beaver's tail.  
I tapped Gene - who was in the back of the Tahoe getting a radar picture - on the shoulder.  
"This storm here is looking rather nice!"
I then delved into my camera bag and extracted my camera with the wide-angle lens.  Looking up again at our storm which was only about 10 miles away - it had established a thing, young, perfect beaver's tail, and the whole storm was painted in a pleasing delicate gray colour.
"Wow."
I smiled, feeling exhilarated at finally seeing some supercellular structure worth getting my camera out for.  I snapped off several shots on my trusty AE1.  Gene also became fixated by the birth of our beautiful storm, and took some video before we moved on.  
"We might be in business here!"
I grinned.
"Well then you drive from here."
We swapped seating positions and made a move to keep in an intercept path with our storm - this took us north from I-40 on Hwy 56.  This road was fine, and it allowed us to get to a vantage point east of the storm and also stay out of it's core.  We observed it as we drove, and it began an attempt at a wall cloud.  I manned the GPS on the laptop.  Gene spoke to Hank Baker on the cellphone - who was on the storm to our northeast.  He said it looked impressive.  
Turning at Okfuskee, our road options on Hwy 56 weren't very good.  It began to rain on us slightly and we lost sight of the base of the storm - but that was just the way it was for now.  Lake Okmulgee was becoming a royal pain in the butt on our route, and we were forced to wind our way around the contours of the Lake.  Hwy 56 was also diverted - the real highway was closed (of course!) - so he had to figure out which of the tiny but paved roads was 56 Detoured.  We dropped south to the small village of Wilson on another paved road - leaving the 56 detoured route for a moment to get another visual on the storm for a minute.  
We pulled off the road on a piece of unused land and walked to the west side of the road.  Our storm didn't look that impressive - it had lost some of it's organisation and it was displaying (yup - you guessed it!) HP characteristics now.  Also - we were concerned about an area of precip that we could see to the southwest of our storm - that didn't bode well.  
Soon Gene's cellphone rung - and some kind locals from Wilson who were watching us shouted that one of our phones was ringing.  Gene ran back to answer it.  It was Tim Marshall with an XM "radar" update.  He said that a line had developed from the Tulsa stuff to Gainesville - which ended in Texas there in a tornadic HP monster.  Great - another line.  Mode of convection still not quite right - each storm yet again seeding the one to it's northeast and ruining tornado/organisation potential.  
We stayed on our little country road for a while.  A man - possibly a chaser - in a green minivan pulled up also and asked some of the locals about where he was.  He was stressed out and talking to someone on his cellphone - and trying to convey an idea about where the hell he was.  He eventually moved on.
Gene gestured suddenly.
"Oh look at the updraft on that other storm!"
Amidst the lower clouds and our storm's anvil - the sun could be seen shining on the updraft towers of the storm to our northeast - Hank Baker's storm.  A rock hard explosion of orange-tinted convection heralded a new updraft - and Gene became more convinced that we should break off our storm.  Then - Hank called.
"This thing's gettin' ready to put one down, Geno!"
That was it.  Bye bye Wilson, after telling the locals that a bad hailstorm might be coming in.  
We rejoined the Hwy 56 detour which led into the town of Okmulgee.  It was then a clear shot up Hwy 62 towards Muskogee - where the storm was located.  
We could already hear some tornado reports which had come from the area of Haskell - and by the sounds of things it had been a fairly small event.  However the storm had tornadoes - and so it was a better deal that our previous one now in perpetual HP-mode.
Coming up on Muskogee from the southwest we strained to see anything up there.  We could see base and some scud - but that was about it.  Damn this visibility!!  
Radio reports eluded to the storm being over the Taft area - and indeed our Highway turned east and approached that very point.  
We were not impressed.  Am I too hard to please?  
The supercell up here displayed a blocky, non-rotating wall cloud underneath a shelfy outflow feature.  No real structure or inflow bands.  Damn it.
Well....evening was falling and so we decided to park up on the south side of the Hwy west of Muskogee and watch for a while.  Another chasers drew up next to us (Hwy 62 - it is worth noting - was chock-a-block with chasers, as per usual).  Gene leaned out the window and greeted Gene Moore.  Mr Moore was exasperated and asked Gene if we knew whether ANY of the storms had tornadoes for real today.  Gene confirmed that there had been a small tornado near Haskell which we had missed - and of course the beast up by Tulsa earlier on - but apart from that no.
We chatted some more and took some video, and then Gene Moore pressed onwards.  Gene and I watched the gust front upend itself and roil and boil with a heavy green precip core hidden in there too.  Suddenly we heard a Tulsa news station report tornado on the ground.  What?!?  We looked and looked, pivoted our heads 360o and looked some more.  Nothing we could see.  
Shrugging it off as another false report, we went into Muskogee to avoid the ensuing chaser circus on our heels.  By this time the storm was really disorganised and having trouble maintaining itself against it's own cold outflow.  Ragged, non-tornadic wall clouds shuffled underneath it's shelfy-looking base.  
We drove to the east side of Muskogee, giving the storm one last chance.  Sitting up upon an overpass, we watched it crossed 169 and let it go.  

Taking Hwy 69 back towards I-40, darkness began to fall and the odd flicker of lightning spattered the night sky.  We communicated with Tim and Carson on the radio once we found them, and decided to stop quickly at a Charlie's Chicken at Checotah before parting to go our separate ways.  Stopping in the parking lot, it was great to see those two again.  I gave Carson a big hug, and we all went in to get some much deserved food.  Dinner was a relaxed affair chewing on fried chicken pieces and talking about all the false tornado reports we had heard. 
After that, we said goodbye to the two of them - Tim and Carson had to travel back down to Dallas tonight - ugh!  That makes me glad we live in Norman.....you sure can't beat OUN for a centrally-located place with respect to chasing.  
We blasted home yet again on I-40, getting home around 11.30pm.  The end of chase day # 4.

(Images to be uploaded shortly)

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Karen Rhoden.

kerhoden@stormskies.com

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