April 15, 2003

Today was a great day. My hopes were not too high, but it turned out to be a good chase. I rode with Rocky Rascovich.

Rocky had targeted the area from Sayre to Arnett. I was leaning more towards the Woodward area. We knew storms would be moving rapidly (40+MPH) to the NE, so we expected to have to get in position as storms formed to our SW and then screamed by. We made it to Arnett and encounted several other chasers. Storms were ongoing at this point, but the shear was too strong, all the storms were being sheared apart. Dave Lewison told me about a cell near I40 that was the best of all of them, but is was not well organized. We pulled over to talk to Bobbie Prentis and RJ Evans. They had the current radar image up. It confirmed that the storms were not doing so good. Roger Edwards, Elke and Rich Tompson pulled up as well. We were all ready to call it a day when the next radar image came up. The cell to our SW had rapidly strengthened and was very well defined. We went south on 283 to intercept it. Dave called me as well telling me about the explosive development. We expected to only have one shot at the storm since it was moving at 40MPH and there were no roads that would parallel its motion. South of Roll, we stopped to look at the storm to our SW.

It had some rapid rising motion just to the south of the heavy rain core. We turned north expecting to go east on 47, but the storm seamed to turn right a little. We turned back south and reports were coming in of a large tornado with this storm. At the moment hills blocked our view. As soon as there was a clear view, I saw the tornado.

It was wrapped in the rain core that was rotating rapidly around the tornado. It was a lard cone all the way to the ground. Contrast was poor, but it was clearly a tornado. We got a few quarter size hail stones as we watched the tornado either dissipate or get completely wrapped up in rain. We took 33 east bound to try to get ahead of the storm. Inflow winds were incredible. We estimated the winds to be sustained at 40-45 and gusts to 60+MPH.

We took a small road north. There was a well defined updraft base and rising scud under it. A lowering formed and I had my camera fixed on it to our NW.

Then Rocky looked to the left (west) and spotted a tornado. We stopped and filmed it as it went through open country. It was approaching a clump of houses about ¾ mile away.

It dissipated just before hitting the houses. The tornado was about half way between Strong City and Leedey and lasted about two minutes. It formed on the flank of the storm and not under the lowering of the storm. It reminded us to not focus too much on one area, but to keep your eyes open and looking all around.