Simon Brewer,
Anna Morrell, and Corey Rundquist documented two low-topped supercells
and a few outflow dominant thunderstorms in Central Oklahoma on October
17th, 2007.
Target
was Central OK; ENE of pronounced dryline bulge, which was over SW OK.
Never really expected a tornado today; the 0-1 km helicity values were
absolutely horrible, but the 0-3 km helicity values were adequate for
supercells. I love low-topped supercells, so I just had to chase this
day. First pic was looking ssw north of El Reno, OK.
Cell gets
better organized; looking ssw north of El Reno, OK.
Got an
ambulance in the shot; looking sw north of El Reno, OK.
This pic
is looking sw; we were east of Okarche, OK at this point and the cell
was beginning to look pretty organized.
Wall cloud,
weak rotation, but mid-levels of storm showed good rotation; looking
sw, we were east of Kingfisher, OK north of Cashion, OK.
Same spot
This was
the cell over western Oklahoma City to our south; I wasn't worried about
that cell, because I could see under nearly all of the updraft from
this location.
Wall cloud
looked its best here, but still has weak rotation at best. Shortly after
this pic the updraft showed signs of weakening and outflow then quickly
undercut the main updraft and the storm became elevated, so we drove
east through Guthrie to catch the OKC cell, which was also elevated.
After discovering
the OKC cell/cells were elevated and linear we let the storms overtake
us and we got some nice hail shaft and rainbow shots. The cores may
not have looked impressive on radar, but they mixed down some impressive
surface winds!
Rainbow
warning! Spotters have reported a rainbow on the ground west of Cushing,
OK! Be prepared to take action if a rainbow is spotted near you!
Was not
a full rainbow, but was bright!
We were
not ready to give up, because we had a lead advantage on new cells that
may fire further sw along the dryline in more unstable air to our south,
so we drove south on SR 99 south of Stroud, OK and intercepted a picturesque
low-topped supercell to our SW.
This thing
had incredible mid-level rotation, but wall cloud had slow rotation
at best.
Storm was
now beginning to weaken and was taking on elevated characteristics as
it approached SR 99.
Our previous
cell looked horrible, so we took some shots of a cell to our SE; notice
the moon in the upper right-hand side of the pic.
Pretty
alpenglow on the cell to our se.
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