Tuesday, April 25, 2006

First two of the season.

After work today, I decided to go ahead and chase, since the storms were so close to Stillwater. I stayed with the large storm that moved east along the southern border of Payne county. I saw several good inflow regions, maybe a wall cloud or two, but as it went past Cushing, the base got higher. I took a quick look at data, and the cape values to it's NE weren't too impressive. I had told Becky I would try to get to our studio by 7:30, and there was a cell SW of OKC that would be moving into some great air, so I headed to OKC.
I got to the studio at about 7:15, looked at some data there, and the cell, now over El Reno, was impressive. I headed W on NW 50th, and as soon as I got on the street, I could see a backlit tornado directly to my W, which I later learned was tracking through the El Reno airport. I then jogged S 1 mile, and headed W on Route 66 towards Yukon. As I travelled, I could see a second tornado to my WSW. Just as I was entering Yukon, I just happened to meet up with Steve Bluford and Kelly Baker in Steve's CR-V. Imagine their suprise seeing me pull up next to them in a Chevy Caprice. We paired up and headed to the W of Yukon, where we set up and shot some tripoded video. We got a great wall cloud out of it, and it looked like it could drop another torn, but it didn't, and wouldn't go on to produce any more before it broke up over N OKC (good thing too, as it moved over more populated areas).
All in all, an exciting day.

1 comment:

Steve Miller TX said...

Congrats Hans! This might be a good omen for May. :-)