Storm Chasing Day 2
We started in Oklahoma city again and the storms were due to head right for us today, however chasing in a city is seriously dangerous, you always need an escape route and cities and their suburbs are likely to get choked with traffic during a storm so we drove south to the town of Chickashaw which was located right in the middle of where two cells were forecast to form, this was the first taste of “storm waiting” which provided an excellent opportunity for some serious people watching and T shirt buying!
The first stop on the chase was the town of Rush Springs where we were treated to some text book cloud formation, lots of tower clouds that were the start of the headline grabbing storm in Oklahoma City.
Tower Clouds forming over Rush Springs OK,
After the weather started to close in on us in Rush Springs we moved on to a new storm system tracking South near the Town of Duncan where we were treated to a large funnel cloud formation which was very close to becoming a fully fledged Tornado, if it had hit the ground this would easily have been an F2, fortunately for the residents of Duncan it didn’t touch down. The most amazing part of this experience was the immense strength of the updraft which was sucking in smaller clouds and causing a very strong wind heading right into the centre of the wall cloud.
A large funnel cloud forms over Duncan OK.
After Duncan we drove on to an area just outside of Lone Grove where we got a great view of the storm front as well as a spectacular lightning storm.
Moving on and away from incoming hail and rain we ended up just outside Meunster TX for the most spectacular lightning storm I have ever seen and even managed to get a photo of a rather impressive lightning bolt, the Thunder afterwards was like a gunshot. Jeremy one of my fellow chasers has a much better shot of the same lightning flash but I’m quite happy with my blurry effort!
A very powerful lighting strike, one of many observed from just outside Meunster TX
Moving into Meunster itself we saw an almost perfect example of a Mammatus cloud structure.
Mammatus Clouds over Meunster TX.
Another great days chasing, just about to fall asleep in Wichita falls, before another days chasing in Central Texas.
I have been humbled by the power of nature over the last 48 hours, my hotel last night is only 10 miles from Moore and we spent the first part of todays chase watching this storm develop.
Glad you weren’t still in Oklahoma Sean stay safe!
Amazing pictures and such an experience but i echo Andrew’s thoughts, stay safe. x