2004 Severe Weather

Around 81st street and I-75 in south Tulsa an 18 wheeler plunged off the bridge after swerving to miss the vehicle shown in the second slide. The accident occurred as the thunderstorm passed over the highway. The picture of the thunderstorm was taken near Broken Arrow, OK. Larger than golf ball sized hail was produced from that storm.

03/20/04 Beautiful Saturday in Owasso, OK. At sunset I took a look off our balcony to the southeast and I could see some interesting clouds in the distance. I read the storm reports on the spc page and could see that there may be some hail damage and wind damage associated with these storms. I took these photos with a 70-200mm digital zoom, then I cropped and enlarged the photos to bring the clouds into view better, the resulting quality of the photo is diminished.

03/23/04 Just looked at the SPC convective outlook and things look interesting for Thursday, March 25, 2004.

The sunset today was nothing less than spectacular. Oklahoma sunsets rival those of any in the world. Another end to a gorgeous day!

I intercepted this storm as it developed on the Southwest side of Tulsa and followed it through Tulsa. It was rotating wildly on the east edge of Tulsa and then dropped a tornado on the outskirts of Broken Arrow. I would have followed it longer but ran into multiple dead ends (didn't have GPS at the time) . This chase was frustrating for that very reason...it is extremely difficult to follow maps and a fast moving storm system...having a chase partner would have helped this day.

These photos were the very first that I shot with my new Canon 10D and what an incredible introduction to the camera! The funnel, looking very surreal, was pulling up the red dirt from Kansas and putting on one spectacular show. And just when I thought things couldn't get any better the sun started filtering through the clouds from the west and illuminated the large debris cloud to this spectacular orange glow! I was also shooting video (no tripod) and so only got these few frames, notice in the second and third row (#0008 thru #0010) the debris cloud is at its brightest and the next frame, more subdued, and then a cloud passed almost completely in front of the sun, just as the tornado begins to weaken, the debris cloud only has a hint of highlight.

And for those Storm Chasers out there....I stopped at the Y intersection in Sharon, KS, and first went East and then West and then back East (I was trying to make a decision whether to get out ahead of the storms or take my chances by simply driving up to the storm) and finally one last time, made a u-turn and headed West and then North to this beautiful storm. I more than likely would have seen the tornado had I gone East but it is doubtful that I would have seen the orange glowing debris cloud. At the time, I did not have XM Weather in my vehicle and was purely going off of visuals. There were several BEAUTIFUL supercells to my west, but I chose to chase this one (lead storm).