Oklahoma Tornado Outbreak
Juston Drake, Mark McGowen, and Simon Brewer documented three tornadoes and four supercells in a rare November tornado outbreak in Southwest Oklahoma. The chasers intercepted a supercell west of Granite, OK, but quickly turned east and documented a tornado 4 miles west-southwest of Hobart, OK. The tornado was relatively weak, but persistent and lasted for 6-7 minutes traveling approximately 2 miles over open fields. The supercell appeared to weaken as another strong cell approached from the southwest; they waited south of Hobart as the storm approached, but it became evident the storm was having issues possibly with outflow.
The chasers finally decided to make a jump to the tornado-producing-machine (a tornadic supercell, which produced tornadoes near Tipton and Snyder) near the Wichita Mountains. They drove east and south positioning 5 miles west of Pine Ridge, OK; here they waited for supercell. The supercell cycled and produced a cone/elephant trunk shaped tornado approximately 400 meters to their southwest. They repositioned to avoid being struck by the tornado. The chasers watched the tornado which appeared to dissipate to their northwest, but the the tornadic circulation could have continued toward the Fort Cobb area. The chasers drove east and north to reposition with the northward advancing supercell. They witnessed a multivortex tornado as they approached, drove through and then past (north of) Fort Cobb, OK. The tornado was constantly transitioning in appearance northwest of Fort Cobb taking the shape of a stovepipe, cone, wedge, but mostly a multivortex. The tornado became partially rain-wrapped north-northwest of Fort Cobb Reservoir, but a stout cone/stovepipe could still be seen in the rain. The chasers followed the storm to I-40, but it appeared less likely the supercell would produce another tornado, especially, as a squall-line began to slowly merge with the storm.
Big surprise: after Juston, Mark, and Simon finished their chase they were surprised by a 4.7 Magnitude earthquake (aftershock from the 5.7M earthquake on November 5th). Three tornadoes, four supercells and an earthquake in one day is pretty amazing!
Below are a few of the photographs taken during the chase:
Supercell SW of Hobart minutes before a tornado developed
Multivortex tornado NW of Fort Cobb with storm structure
Early stages of cone tornado west of Pine Ridge