Greg McLaughlin
06-01-2009, 08:34 AM
Today is the tenth anniversary of a tornado outbreak which streatched from IL to TX. A total of 36 tornadoes were reported this day, most of them in Illinois. One particular storm in eastern OK fired along a weak cold front and outflow boundary intersection near Inola, OK around 4pm that afternoon. While mid-level flow was fairly weak (southwest 30kts @ 500mb) it was oriented in such a way it would help blow the precip away from the updraft as the storm cycled to the southwest along the boundary.
The storm first began producing tornadoes near Ft. Gibson Lake, OK including an F3 which killed a woman in a mobile home. Gene Moore has a nice chase report on this event at his website http://www.chaseday.com/tornado-ftgibson.htm.
Later on the storm produced another significant tornado (F2) to the south which struck the OG&E power plant in Muskogee, OK. Dave Crowley has a great picture of this stove pipe tornado.
Justin Teague and myself jumped on the storm right after it struck Muskogee and witnessed the tornado which hit the southern edge of Checotah, OK (the home of Carrie Underwood). This tornado (below) was also rated F3 and had a path length of 12 miles and a maximum width of 400 yards. Unfortunately there was one fatality with this tornado.
http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii409/uberskillz4ou/checotahtornado.jpg
This is a video still from an old VHC video camera. Thankfully our camera equipment has improved through the years.
This storm continued to produce tornadoes as it tracked south-southwest along the outflow boundary. The NWS in Tulsa recorded 8 tornadoes with this one storm.
Since today is the tenth anniversary I thought I would put this day up there. It is one of the lesser known events in recent years, but still significant none-the-less.
The storm first began producing tornadoes near Ft. Gibson Lake, OK including an F3 which killed a woman in a mobile home. Gene Moore has a nice chase report on this event at his website http://www.chaseday.com/tornado-ftgibson.htm.
Later on the storm produced another significant tornado (F2) to the south which struck the OG&E power plant in Muskogee, OK. Dave Crowley has a great picture of this stove pipe tornado.
Justin Teague and myself jumped on the storm right after it struck Muskogee and witnessed the tornado which hit the southern edge of Checotah, OK (the home of Carrie Underwood). This tornado (below) was also rated F3 and had a path length of 12 miles and a maximum width of 400 yards. Unfortunately there was one fatality with this tornado.
http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii409/uberskillz4ou/checotahtornado.jpg
This is a video still from an old VHC video camera. Thankfully our camera equipment has improved through the years.
This storm continued to produce tornadoes as it tracked south-southwest along the outflow boundary. The NWS in Tulsa recorded 8 tornadoes with this one storm.
Since today is the tenth anniversary I thought I would put this day up there. It is one of the lesser known events in recent years, but still significant none-the-less.