Dark Skies

After waking up in Woodward, Oklahoma, I decided to head Southeast to where the storms were forecasted to be severe later in the day. Around noon some storms fired and slowly died off just east of Stillwater. Nothing doing in Northern OK. So I instead I headed down to chase a mature cell that was already producing tornadoes near the TX/OK border.

I navigated my way through a sliver of dry weather between the tornadic cell I was trying to get in front of and the lines of storms just to its north. Took a few hours to get into position. When I did I was in the middle of SE Oklahoma where it’s anything but flat. Lots of trees, pretty area, bad for chasing. But I raced ahead of the storm to Sardis Lake where the hook of the storm was headed. There is where I set up shop and watched the base of the storm roll overhead.

There may have been a short-lived tornado in there when it passed by the lake ’cause later I saw fallen trees and debris on the roads it crossed over… but regardless, nice to see some good storm structure and an ominous rotating wall cloud.

High-Res Radar

Headed straight to Liberal, KS in the morning to see about getting onto a few isolated cells. Unfortunately, or fortunately, the ones that popped up didn’t turn severe. And one cell I chased all afternoon in Western Oklahoma slowly died out. But snapped a few photos and all-in-all it made for nice chase day.

Arrived in Dallas at noon and headed NW to Vernon, TX. Picked the right cell that eventually brought a tornado warning, but unfortunately no good photos were taken. There was way too much storm activity in the area which caused all of the cells to merge into each other. Fun? Yes. Productive? Not so much. But still nice to be out here!

Tomorrow’s going to be rather explosive… hopefully all the chasers and homeowners will be kept out of harms way.