February 10, 2009 Oklahoma Storm Chase

I was expecting to end up near or southwest of McAlester but on the way west on I-40 I saw some great towering cu trying to develop just W of I-35 in central Oklahoma and McAlester was still socked in with clouds. I was hoping to not end up over there but as I continued west I saw no reason to not continue on since nothing else was going on. My timing was perfect as I entered OKlahoma City a tornado warning was issued and I was able to get in good position NE of OKC. I soon saw a large wall cloud with obvious rotation. I shot some video here which should be pretty good...especially when time lapsed. I headed a bit farther north to Waterloo road and decided to get a closer look at the wall cloud. After just a few blocks heading west I saw a funnel appearing out of the rain around the wall cloud. The tornado appeared less than 5 minutes after I left my good vantage point up on I-35. I snapped off a quick picture and then continued west to higher ground and hopefully a good view. My cell phone rang then and I answered since I figured it was weather related since I was in perfect position. It was Jim Cantore with The Weather Channel and he wanted to know what I was seeing. As I got to the top of a hill I could clearly see the tornado all the way to the ground. It was a lot closer now and I could see the RFD was about to hit me and the toranado was already disappearing behind it. The RFD hit and debris starting falling from the sky - probably from the strong RFD winds (50 mphish). I did a phoner with The Weather Channel and then I headed back east but only to setup for the next supercell which was just southwest of the first. I was in pretty much the same position for the next supercell that tracked right behind the first. It had a nice wall cloud but it started to gust out pretty good with a shelf cloud forming and beginning to race out to the east.

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YouTube | February 11, 2009

Tags:. .mcalester. .rfd. .okc. .farther. .waterloo