CHASE REPORTS
MAY 31st 2013
Today was one of the toughest, most devastating, dramatic and humbling chase days that I have encountered in my 11 years of storm chasing.
All the ingredients were there for a severe weather outbreak today in Oklahoma. With High CAPE values the SPC had issued a moderate risk for today, my only surprise was that it wasn't elevated to a high risk as the new forecasts were issued during the day.
We targeted the area around EL RENO, OK, and initiation of the first storms was fast, but instead of individual storms firing up, a cluster of embedded Supercells formed, each with its own mesocyclone which appeared behave very erratically. This had the making of a very complicated and dangerous chase.
The atmosphere was so saturated, and everybody knew that with the energy in the volatile atmosphere, if the cap broke and the storms initiated, the potential was there for some long track damaging tornadoes to form.
This was indeed the situation as the storm grew very rapidly and we were soon viewing a giant wall cloud to the N of El Reno.
We saw a multi vortex tornado touch down on several occasions in a field near the airport, but then as we travelled east along I-40 we witnessed a massive wedge tornado, that was wrapped in heavy precipitation. We were first alerted to it by huge power flashes on both sides of the Interstate as it became visible as it crossed in front of us to our south. We were relatively safe at this point as it was moving SE, but this tornado was close and so big it was too large to fit in the frame of the video camera. I managed to get a still photo (see below) that just captured the entire funnel as it came out of the rain.
The tornado took a sharp turn to the north right towards us and we had to quickly get off the interstate and try to find an east route for a south road out of its path. This was made difficult by downed trees and power lines blocking most exit roads, and all this combined with heavy traffic and erratic drivers made finding safety all the more difficult.
We were still in a dangerous position as we were still located under the huge mesocyclone, and we knew that further tornadoes could touch down anyway within our vicinity.
We saw more devastation caused by any number of tornadoes, and also saw Mike Bettes' Tornado Hunt vehicle had been rolled several times into a field. Fortunately no one was badly hurt.
We eventually managed to get south away from the massive storm system that had now been chasing us and spent the night south of the metro area in the town of Lawton, All routes back north had been closed by authorities due to the severe weather conditions.
It has been confirmed however that well known storm chaser Tim Samaras, his son Paul and Twistex companion Carl Young were tragically killed in the El Reno tornado. This is a sad and huge loss to the science and storm chasing communities. These were people that I met once and hugely respected for what that had accomplished in the field of science for tornado genesis.
The El Reno tornado has been classified as the largest tornado ever documented. It was categorised as an EF-4 with a diameter of 2.6 miles with wind speeds of 476km/hr /296mph.
When it touched down the funnel was 1 mile in diameter and expanded 2.6 miles in approx. 30 seconds. During it's mature stage the tornado was moving at close to 40mph.
Today really has bought home how powerful nature really is, and how dangerous storm chasing can be.
All the ingredients were there for a severe weather outbreak today in Oklahoma. With High CAPE values the SPC had issued a moderate risk for today, my only surprise was that it wasn't elevated to a high risk as the new forecasts were issued during the day.
We targeted the area around EL RENO, OK, and initiation of the first storms was fast, but instead of individual storms firing up, a cluster of embedded Supercells formed, each with its own mesocyclone which appeared behave very erratically. This had the making of a very complicated and dangerous chase.
The atmosphere was so saturated, and everybody knew that with the energy in the volatile atmosphere, if the cap broke and the storms initiated, the potential was there for some long track damaging tornadoes to form.
This was indeed the situation as the storm grew very rapidly and we were soon viewing a giant wall cloud to the N of El Reno.
We saw a multi vortex tornado touch down on several occasions in a field near the airport, but then as we travelled east along I-40 we witnessed a massive wedge tornado, that was wrapped in heavy precipitation. We were first alerted to it by huge power flashes on both sides of the Interstate as it became visible as it crossed in front of us to our south. We were relatively safe at this point as it was moving SE, but this tornado was close and so big it was too large to fit in the frame of the video camera. I managed to get a still photo (see below) that just captured the entire funnel as it came out of the rain.
The tornado took a sharp turn to the north right towards us and we had to quickly get off the interstate and try to find an east route for a south road out of its path. This was made difficult by downed trees and power lines blocking most exit roads, and all this combined with heavy traffic and erratic drivers made finding safety all the more difficult.
We were still in a dangerous position as we were still located under the huge mesocyclone, and we knew that further tornadoes could touch down anyway within our vicinity.
We saw more devastation caused by any number of tornadoes, and also saw Mike Bettes' Tornado Hunt vehicle had been rolled several times into a field. Fortunately no one was badly hurt.
We eventually managed to get south away from the massive storm system that had now been chasing us and spent the night south of the metro area in the town of Lawton, All routes back north had been closed by authorities due to the severe weather conditions.
It has been confirmed however that well known storm chaser Tim Samaras, his son Paul and Twistex companion Carl Young were tragically killed in the El Reno tornado. This is a sad and huge loss to the science and storm chasing communities. These were people that I met once and hugely respected for what that had accomplished in the field of science for tornado genesis.
The El Reno tornado has been classified as the largest tornado ever documented. It was categorised as an EF-4 with a diameter of 2.6 miles with wind speeds of 476km/hr /296mph.
When it touched down the funnel was 1 mile in diameter and expanded 2.6 miles in approx. 30 seconds. During it's mature stage the tornado was moving at close to 40mph.
Today really has bought home how powerful nature really is, and how dangerous storm chasing can be.