2005 Severe Weather Events

2 0 0 5 S E V E R E W E A T H E R E V E N T

2005 VIDEO FILES

MARCH 21 Amorita, OK 17.5MB

MARCH 21 Amorita, OK 4.6MB

March 21, 2005 First Chase of the 2005 Storm Season.......Amorita, OK

Looking at the data this morning my original target area was the Southeast quadrant of Bryan County and Southwest Choctaw County, along the red river in Oklahoma, an extremely difficult area to chase. Jeff, however, had different plans and after lengthy discussion we decided to chase in Northwestern Oklahoma ahead of the upper low. I had pulled up data all morning, and with the last data of the RUC and the Satellite imagery I had to concur with Jeff that the southern portion of the state was going to be "socked in" with clouds for a good majority of the day. Clearing had already begun in the western part of the state and a definitive dry line could be seen on visible, which told me there would be sufficient heating, metars readings indicated sufficient moisture return to play the upper low. It was a gamble for me anyway, because I am on a continual learning curve when it comes to severe weather and playing an upper low hasn't been on that curve until now.

Jeff's forecast for March 21, 2005 1:07 pm

"I like two areas one is ahead of the upper low the other one is in southeast Oklahoma. Northwest Oklahoma...low 60 temps mid 50 dewpoints -22c at 500mb playing the double point."

1:11 pm We are between Pawnee and Stillwater on 412 Hwy and the sky is heavily overcast but we can see big breaks to the west on the dryline.

1:40 pm Approaching I-35 we are going into partly cloudy

1:50 pm we are just east of Enid, OK and the temps are 63 and the dewpoint is 54, two cells are going up to our west and a tornado warning is already in Comanche, KS.

The town of Nash, OK offers a beautiful view of the anvil

The storm we are after now is due to our Northwest, we are seeing several roll clouds into the storm and a pretty good RFD. The Great Salt Plains are due west of us.

Headed west on Hwy 11 we have attributes from XM telling us 2.0 hail is associated with this storm.

We run into LOTS of hail near the East Salt Fork River

Around 2:55 pm I spotted a cold air funnel to my east and now a tornado warning has been issued for this storm.....Tornado Warning Alfalfa County, Oklahoma....Near Driftwood, Ok things are beginning to look pretty scary!

Southeast of Amorita, OK.......TORNADO ON THE GROUND!

We literally drove up to the tornado, I jumped out to take shots with my wide angle lens and was simply mesmerized by the debris cloud, swirls of hay and tumbleweeds, Jeff says " Kath be sure and get a vertical shot." I was so focused on the debris cloud that when I took my eye from the camera and looked at the tornado...I looked up and thought OH MY GOD....the tornado went up and up and up almost directly over my head into the storm. I got the vertical shot. Jeff was shooting video the entire time.

Amorita, Oklahoma March 21, 2005

March 24, 2005

The Ruc model was right on target showing 3 cells popping, North, South and West of Tulsa. Weather radio reports talked about damaging hail and 60mph winds with these storms. When I left Tulsa at 6:15, I was really torn on which way to go. As you can see in the pictures, the storms to the North were beautiful and the storms to the South were massive. I chose to go south on Hwy 75 and when I got to I-40, the storm just to the east of Okemah was really trashy, the base was....well... it had such a ragged base....no structure at all. The storms to the North had intensified dramatically, actually within 3 miles of our house. Go figure. I had a wonderful lightning show all the way back to Tulsa. Here are a few pics.

April 5, 2005

Looking West from Hwy 75 just South of I-40 The storms were very ragged and really green.

Looking West down I-40 East of 75. XM showed about 80 mph shear, the storm was very outflow dominated. But the GREEN was really GREEN and huge hail was with this storm.

The storms tracked parallel to Hwy 69 from just West of Checotah up to Muskogee.

Looking East from the town of Checotah. Where I stopped to meet up with Jeff and then looking West from Hwy 69 going to Muskogee.

Can you say Storm Collapse, three times really really fast.

In Muskogee, Oklahoma when the storms had passed we came across lots and LOTS of larger than golf ball size hail. The picture of hail has a Quarter placed by one hailstone. There were much larger stones out in the field I just didn't want to run through the mud to get to them. The flag is flying to winds from the North West. Time to call it a day.

In Summary.....(or some things only a Storm Chaser can appreciate after a Bust)

Not a very eventful chase. I think I got to see the same storm collapse about 3 times. The highlight of the chase was stopping at a local truck stop in Checotah, Oklahoma. I met up with Jeff and a couple of film crew guys who were introduced to the fine dining experience of "the food behind the glass" i.e., fried burritos, fried Jo-Jo potatoes, fried okra and fried popcorn chicken. I quickly made my decision of popcorn chicken and one of the guys followed my lead. He asked the girl behind the counter (and he was being quite genuine) how long ago was "that" cooked? It was as if everyone got quiet in the room....knowing full well you don't ask that question because...A) you don't really want to know the answer and...B) they are probably not going to tell you the truth. I can tell you right now...the latter option was the response to his question. When we got out to the parking lot, I bit into my very dry, very crunchy chicken and was very proud to have it. He seemed to be having trouble choking his down and he said to me "So-o-o....this is...popcorn chicken?!" And I looked at him in disbelief and said "Popcorn chicken?!?!" He stopped eating and I said, very matter of fact, "No...No...THIS.....has got to be....Popcorn Pigeon!" We both busted up laughing. And he looked at me like I was half nuts (which I was at that point) and he kept laughing out loud about Popcorn Pigeon for the rest of the evening.