Alex Lamers
03-29-2007, 07:33 PM
I went out chasing randomly today because I was a bit peeved that I didn't get to go out yesterday. After seeing a strong storm about 7 miles northwest of Rush Springs in SW Grady County (50 mph winds, CG lightning). We went back north through Chickasha where there was quite a bit of standing water over Highway 277. Got some good pictures of that. Then we heard the SPS for Northern Grady County mentioning some low-level rotation on a storm and we decided to book it to Tuttle. About 5 miles southwest of Tuttle we noticed a rain-free base and pulled off onto a side road. There was a downpour to the south and to the north and off to the west and it appeared we were in a fairly rain-free region wrapped by heavy rain. Not to mention there was plenty of low-hanging scud ascending into the cloud base. I remember thinking, well this is good structure for a tornadic storm, but it doesn't appear to be rotating all that well. There may have been weak rotation but seeing as how we were right underneath it, it was difficult to gauge. We stayed with it on the back roads as long as we could and then of course 10 minutes later we hear a tornado warning for Oklahoma and Canadian Counties.
We couldn't find any good north-south outlets and I doubt it would have mattered as people are saying this one was rain-wrapped. So we vainly looked on the horizon trying to see something. I saw a bit of a lowering but that's about all...a friend said he unexpectedly heard the sirens and then saw the funnel before it disappeared out of line of sight!
So we got the early stages of the tornadic storm and some decent photos of that. Also as we drove east into Moore and then south towards Lake Thunderbird, we photographed some ominous looking scud associated with another storm, that per discussion with some other people moved past OU. This one didn't look like a tornado risk but some very nice pictures nonetheless!
All in all, for heading out just to see some lightning and feel some wind I'm happy I wound up with a rotating storm albeit weakly at the time. Funny thing was around noon I had mentioned it looked like there was some residual outflow boundary right in Canadian County, and I thought this might be a good focus for tornado development.
I'll edit this and post some links to pictures when they're available.
AJL
We couldn't find any good north-south outlets and I doubt it would have mattered as people are saying this one was rain-wrapped. So we vainly looked on the horizon trying to see something. I saw a bit of a lowering but that's about all...a friend said he unexpectedly heard the sirens and then saw the funnel before it disappeared out of line of sight!
So we got the early stages of the tornadic storm and some decent photos of that. Also as we drove east into Moore and then south towards Lake Thunderbird, we photographed some ominous looking scud associated with another storm, that per discussion with some other people moved past OU. This one didn't look like a tornado risk but some very nice pictures nonetheless!
All in all, for heading out just to see some lightning and feel some wind I'm happy I wound up with a rotating storm albeit weakly at the time. Funny thing was around noon I had mentioned it looked like there was some residual outflow boundary right in Canadian County, and I thought this might be a good focus for tornado development.
I'll edit this and post some links to pictures when they're available.
AJL