Simply amazing is the only way to describe yesterdays chase.
At least 10 tornados and a good possibility we got ourselves caught in a tornadic circulation!
We started in Amarillo and based on some excellent forecasting by Dan once again we headed East to Oklahoma and the town of Woodward.
After the set up drive which was incidentally one of the most picturesque parts of Midwest I have seen we decided to head to Buffallo OK. Once in Buffalo we encountered a chaser convergence with at least 10 other groups waiting at the same truck stop as us!
After linking up with Jock and Lisa again the waiting game started.
At around 4pm I spotted the start of an anvil which would become the monster we chased for the day.
In was standing under this tree as a result of IHOP's generous policy on coffee to go! If nature hadn't called I wouldn't have seen this to call it!
The video is a little taste of our intercept North.
Once we got to the storm and had a clear view of the wall cloud it was looking very good for Tornados.
First view of the wall cloud
Shortly after we arrived a tornado was on the ground.
First Tornado
Tornado number 2
Tornado number 4
Tornado number 5
As well as the tornados themselves the chase driving over dirt roads was quite a bit of fun!
As the afternoon went on it continued to produce tornados! I am not sure if I got a photo of all of them but read on to see our quite exciting end to the chase after more tornado photos.
A very faint picture of number 6 you may need to squint!
Look at where my hair is tallest and you can see a tornado!
We're pretty sure this is tornado number 7
Number 8
Number 9
Number 10 possibly a Iittle late on the photo as I can't quite see the circulation on the ground.
After all this excitment we wanted to chase the storm north, to keep seeing tornados but also to escape from the approaching hail core to our South.
This was taken 10 minutes after the video below.
The following video was the most exciting and nerve wracking experience of my chaser career, shortly before I started recording we had zero visibility and hail traveling at 70 mph horizontally, there’s a very good chance We were hit by tornado number 11 based on the conditions.
We escaped to the west but learnt a valuable lesson when it comes to navigation- what appear to be freeway on ramps aren’t always freeway on ramps! Had we been able to get on the freeway we would have been well away from the hail before it hit.
After escaping West of the storm we got some awesome views of the storm from a distance.
Just beautiful
To put it simply this was the most awesome display of the power of Mother Nature and memories that will last a lifetime. The rest of the week Will have to be pretty spectacular to come close to matching this.
To round off the day we had several beers shared stories and reminisced about the shared experience We just had.
Thank you to Dan, Jock, Florian and Lisa for making this the most successful chase of my life!
Some incredible photos, Sean. Your blog is great. It’s like being there.