STORM TRACK: November 30, 1986 (Volume 10 Issue 1)

Marty Feely recorded 11.25 inches of rain in his rain gauge between September 26 and October 4, 1986 in Norman, Oklahoma. Heavy rains flooded creeks and streams. Many rivers in northern Oklahoma and southern Kansas exceeded flood stage. However, October 2nd relit Marty's chase fever as a line of thunderstorms developed west of Norman around 5:15 p.m.. "You can bet I was on the road in seconds", explains Marty. "From 2 miles southeast of town, a fairly high-based cone-shaped funnel was observed. Five minutes later, the sirens in town started to wail. It was over in an instant as a shelf cloud appeared. "I stayed with the storm to about 35 miles northeast of Shawnee taking good shots of the awesome shelf cloud and lightning. A wall cloud and two more funnels were observed near Shawnee. After that, it became just another rainstorm. But for a while there it was quite a sight for October."

Dave Gallaher writes: "On August 10, my girlfriend and I were leaving a movie theatre in west Huntsville, AL when I glanced in my rear view mirror and noticed a distinct rain-free base between two rain shafts to the west. Sitting at a traffic light, I commented 'If this were spring, I'd be very interested in that storm back there'. My girlfriend is accustomed to this and handles it with polite boredom. We pulled into a fast-food restaurant drive-thru (Dairy Queen?), and watched the storm race northeast rather quickly. A bowl- shaped cloud lowering was located about a half mile from the southern edge of the rain shaft. I said, 'If this were spring, I'd be inclined to think that was a wall cloud'. My girl friend just smiled. I drove up to a police officer who was watching the sky intensely. He said the cloud was most suspicious. As I watched in disbelief, scud developed and rose up to the cloud forming a classic Oklahoma-type 'brake-drum shaped' wall cloud. Suddenly, a tail cloud appeared out of nowhere. I drove northbound toward the lowering. Soon bogged down in traffic, the gust front passed accompanied by 40-50 mph winds and a deluge of rain. Checking the news later, I learned that a tornado touched down in Marion County destroying a barn, but leaving the hay stacked neatly inside."

Keith Brewster summarizes this year's Colorado chase season as somewhat disappointing. "There was only one gang-buster day on the Colorado plains, June 8th. Strong low-level southeasterlies brought the key moisture as well as cranking up the local forcing feature 'THE DENVER CYCLONE'. In early afternoon, storms fired along a convergence line running north from Denver roughly along Interstate 25. The key question was: 'Where on the line should one play?' Well, we got suckered on one storm that was one of the FIRST to blast skyward near the town of Prospect Valley. About 5 pm, a severe thunderstorm warning was issued on our storm as it unloaded a massive precip core. About the same time, we saw distant SW, a hollow tube of a tornado near Bennett. Other chasers from Boulder, Denver, and Fort Collins were more fortunate and saw that twister much closer; Doug Baugh of the Denver Weather Service also shot some good video of the action. Among the chasers was Ed Szoke who brought his family in their new Dodge mini-van. Ed brought the TV along to entertain the kiddos and provide a good source of radar information. However, the most destructive tornado of the day occurred in Aurora, an eastern suburb of Denver." The tornado was rated F2 intensity as it did damage some buildings; fortunately there were few injuries.

The remainder of the season was relatively quiet, except for a small tornado near Hugo, CO on June 10th. On a number of occasions, storms were observed to have tremendous mid-level structure, spiral inflow bands and even rotating bases but could not "spin-up" enough small scale rotation to tornado.

Keith sent a still photograph of a rotating cloudbase near Joes, CO taken May 21, 1986. The view looks southwest at about 4:40 pm. Keith said the rotating base was nearly stationary for 45 minutes. A brief dust-whirl developed below the dish-like base. Very little precipitation reached the ground.

Eric Wendler relays his encounter with mother nature on July 2, 1982 in Littleton, CO: "I was mowing the grass about 3:30 pm and glanced out to the west and noticed a thunderstorm coming over the front range. The storm had an anvil with mammatus and an overshooting top. At 3:37 pm, a wall cloud dropped down and a funnel developed right in front of me. I grabbed my camera and photographed it. The upper part of the cloud mass was spinning slowly counter-clockwise. The visible funnel dipped toward the ground several times getting lower each time. The funnel stayed overhead for about 10 minutes and did touch ground. Damage was done to the roof of a K-Mart about a half a mile northeast of my location. A photo is enclosed."

Roy Britt says the area south and east of Richmond, VA was visited by tornadoes on October 13th. October tornadoes are rare in Virginia. Even more unusual is the time the tornadoes occurred. The first storm began producing damage at 6:50 am about 60 miles southwest of Richmond. Just after 7 am, the same storm cell produced a second tornado which completely destroyed two homes a hundred yards apart. No walls were left standing. However, these homes were poorly constructed supported on blocks. Damage appeared F2 intensity. A third tornado touched ground about 40 miles east of my house overturning a house trailer and destroying several outbuildings. A fourth tornado touched down briefly in Hopewell about 8:30 am. There were no storm warnings and radar only showed moderate intensity thunderstorms. I slept through the event; only moderate rain occurred at my house.

Editors note: This event parallels the December 13, 1984 storm which struck the Dallas area where a moderate intensity tornado developed in an area of general, moderate rain. These tornadoes are produced in less than marginal weather conditions occurring when least expected. It is these type of storms which pose the greatest challenge to the severe storms forecaster.

Dave Hoadley shares a letter from a future storm chaser, unedited: Dear Mr. Hoadley, My name is Steve Berson. I'm 14 years old and extremely interested in Meteorology. I have read about 30 books and learned a lot. I'm also subscribed to Weatherwise and thats how I got to know you. I have seen you and Sarah in National Explorers "Tornadoes" -to me the most fascinating things that exist. The strongest most spectacular forces of nature. I know almost everything about you. I know where you live, your phone number, and I know Sarah. I think she is the luckiest girl in the world. The reason for this is because she gets to chase with you and see the beautiful cumulonimbus clouds and see the formation from the beginning. I agree with your statement "A tornado is just about the most awesome thing you can see. Those who have seen and know what they have seen are ever unique and forever marked". I personally think that is an unforgettable phrase. My dream is to photograph a complete sequence of tornado development from the smallest cumulus to monster funnel, and to get this all for several minutes and with several cameras.

Dennis Ratzlaff, an Oklahoma State trooper, writes: I refer you to STORM TRACK Volume 8, Number 6 with regards to comments from Bruce Pettus of Seattle, Washington. I believe Bruce commented something about being detained by an Oklahoma State Trooper. Hi Bruce. This incident occurred near Tipton, Oklahoma on State Highway 5 "out in the sticks". The dryline had pushed (flew) through the area prior to Bruce's flying down "my highway". Poor ole Bruce just got too far behind. He said something about having a chat with the Norman, Oklahoma chase team chasing from Childress. And that radar detector you mentioned Bruce, I can't imagine what ..... I really did give him "a break". Also, Poor TOTO! The gang from the Severe Storms Lab dragging you up and down "my highway". I feel as though TOTO and I know each other personally as many times we've passed each other on the highways in southwest Oklahoma. Poor TOTO.