May 10th Oklahoma High Risk chase

My day started on the 9th mid morning when I finally heard word from my teacher I could push finals off until I get back. It was a 10hr drive (over 11hrs with stops) and my original target was Wichita, KS for the night. But after talking with Cory from Mesocyclone Media he told me I could stay at his house. I decided to take that route to same some money on hotel. Arrived at his house around 11pm (thank you for staying up that late!) and couldn't wind down until the 1am SPC day 1 outlook which was upgraded to a high risk for the day.

Woke up at 730am to look at all of the "magic maps" as my father would say. Immediately, everything was pointing at it being an epic day. Cape between 2000 and 4000j/kg and 0-1km EHI values EXCEEDING 12! I saw numbers on some of the RUC models showing a psychotic number of 16! My thought...if these numbers get realized in a storm it would go ballistic and we could very well have a historic outbreak on our hands later in the afternoon.

We stuck around Edmond, OK for quite a while during the morning and early afternoon. My gut feeling kept telling me to stay very close to OKC as I think something was going to happen here. As the storm were beginning to form, initiating storms were growing just to the north of us near Enid, OK. We decided to go north and a bit west to set up for it near Covington. It had just gone severe when we arrived at the intersection of state routes 74 and 412 just east of Enid. This decision cost us the tornadoes in OKC

At this point our data was already getting sketchy. On our last radar update we could already see signs that this storm was going to go tornadic shortly. A great asset to have was RadarScope that Cory had on his phone. We could see what the storm was doing as long as he had data. About this time it began hailing, starting out pretty small (pea sized). Over the next couple minutes it continued to grow and grow until it started reaching golf ball sized hail. We had a brief moment of worry when I could hear the hail still hitting the truck (uh oh...HARV isn't working!). The back seat passenger told me that golf ball and baseball stones were getting caught in the net and that the small ones were getting through. WHEW! HARV worked!

When the hail stopped we could begin to see to our west the base beginning to lower with rotation evident. A few minutes later and our first funnel cloud of the day popped up briefly out of that base. This storm may drop one one the ground at any second! As the storm was moving closer we began moving eastward to keep up with it.Courtesy Norman NWS: Picture of the Enid, OK storm as we intercepted it

Around 5 miles east of Enid we began to see funnel cloud #2 forming to our north. I glance forward, then look north again and a debris cloud was thrown into the air. I look back forward again, then glance north and it was gone. Tornado #1 was a brief one! We got to I-35 and decided to go north from there to try to come in behind the storm. Unknowingly to us, Oklahoma City was being threatened by a much larger storm tornado warned.

We gave up on the northern storm in favor for an attempt on what now had a large tornado going through OKC further south. About this time, we met Reed Timmer and the Dominator also bailing south as fast as he could. I tried to keep up but he eventually left me in the dust.

A quick fuel up and we were on our way towards Tulsa. Driving through Tulsa we could see where this massive supercell was to our south and I couldn't wait to get down there! Our plan was to make an attempt at racing the storm to I-40 near Gore, OK then follow it eastward. After punching the core of the storm with some small hail at times an enormous wall cloud to our west coming at us became visible. We beat the storm!

As we turned off I-40 at the Webbers Falls, OK exit a quick fuel up was in order. Unknowingly to us a tornado was already on the ground (caught on video) near Gore, only 4 to 5 miles away. We could see the huge wall cloud to our north and cautiously followed it. The tornado was caught on a few more freeze frames before sight was lost of it. Soon after just north of Gore tornado damage started being run across. Not very many homes in the path so only tree damage with large trees blocking the road. Our chase ended at this point.Courtesy Tulsa NWS: Radar shot around the time we caught the Gore, OK tornado on video

After 15hrs of driving for the day and two tornadoes its what I could consider a good chase day. Could it have gone better? Yes...it could have but i'm still happy about it! I learned that I should follow my instinct instead of getting suckered. I was happy I drove down to Oklahoma for this chase!

Remember, my videos are on Phanfare. Thanks everyone!