Storm Chasing day 1

Our briefing started at 9 and gave us a crash course in the dynamics, how a supercell forms and more importantly what to look for.

Following the brief we checked out and hit the road heading North for the Kansas border where the models predicted perfect Tornado spawning conditions.

Our first stop was Walmart where we stocked up on essential food supplies for the road trip ahead. Walmart is a magical place where everything seems to be available in normal and ultra large sizes, personally bought massive bags of Jerky and Doritos!

The next stop on the road north was Braums an ice cream parlour, grocery store and Burger restaurant where I ordered the behemoth below, a double 1/3 Pounder cheese burger, I have since spent most of the day feeling like a snake that’s eaten a Wildebeest, at only 7 dollars for burger fries and a coke, the next few days will be dangerous for my physique.

mmmmmm

The first stop for some storm viewing was just outside of Medford Oklahoma, where we saw the first signs of the storm system that would keep us busy for the rest of the afternoon, there was also a really long train!

This train was easily 2 miles long

We also had the chance to see some Mammatus clouds, named for their resemblance to “mammary gland’s”, they might be my favourite cloud formation!

The lightest part of the cloud structure in this shot is where you can see the Mammatus

Next stop was just outside the town of Caldwell where we were treated to some extra large marble sized hail, and watched the storm start to rotate which is the first major sign of a supercell producing Tornados.

Some pretty big hail

The video below shows the storm building and if you concentrate on the cloud base you can just make out parts of the cloud moving in opposite directions.

We then hit the road to escape rain and hail coming towards us we tracked the same storm East towards South Haven where we spotted a funnel cloud and pulled over to watch it touch down into a fully fledged tornado, the storm sirens in the background made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up!

While taking photos the Tornado changed direction at which point we bravely ran away as captured on film by Jeremy below:

After bravely running away we headed South to try and pick up the tail end of the storm system which created the Tornado in South Haven, ending up in the town of Tankawa where we found ourselves right in the updraft for the storm, and great spot to see the structure of the tail end of the storm.

This is the tail end of the system that created out Tornado. If you look at the wheat you can see the updraft rushing towards the storm.

After leaving Tankawa we headed for another storm system back in Oklahoma just East of Oklahoma City, in the town of Shawnee, listening to the commentary on the radio this is one we were probably best off staying away from before we arrived the system had torn through a large section of the town and devastated a trailer park.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/20/us-usa-oklahoma-tornado-idUSBRE94I0E020130520

We finished the days chasing in the town of Prague OK where we were treated to a rather beautiful sunset.

A beautiful sunset just outside Prague