May 18, 2010 Oklahoma Panhandle
Wasn't even planning on chasing this day. I had just come home from visiting my parents in Minnesota the night before. We slept in a bit and got out the door around 11:20am just planning on heading to OKC for the night to prepare for chasing the 19th. About halfway through the drive we decide to head towards the Oklahoma Panhandle and get on whatever storm might go up. When we got to Liberal, KS there was a beast of a supercell in the Texas panhandle that we planned to chase, but after looking at road options of where we would have intercept the storm, we quickly realized there simply weren't any roads east of Stinett, TX. Now storms were starting to go up in the OK panhandle, we booked it west after seeing a very low wall cloud from about 20 miles away. Gassed up in Guyman, OK and when north. Just a quick note, as chaser convergences are getting very common, *we didn't encounter any other chasers this day*
The storm exhibited some moderate rotation for most of its life, we've got some timelapse video of it I'll post later. We went north out of Guyman on 136 to Co why 7 west. That road curves 3 miles north, we sat here for about 15 minutes. After seeing a very low rotating lowering we decide to go north on a dirt road, no gravel. Worst road I've ever been on hands down, we nearly got stuck in the ditch, in fact the truck behind us actually did get stuck. Of course it puts down a tornado while we are on the worst road in the freaking panhandle, it was more like boating, we kept fishtailing, really can't believe we didn't get stuck. Finally we get to a gravel road that is at least decent and get east back to 136. First tornado here...
Back on 136 now and the area of rotation is just NNW of us about 4 miles. We pulled off the road for a few quick shots
We get back in the car to get closer, puts down a tornado literally 5 seconds after we start to drive off, so the photos are crappy through the windshield ones.
This lifts after 30 seconds and the rotating wall cloud crosses the road in front of us, we speed up and get right next to it on the highway... of course it's not going to do it when we are 100 yards away lol, would have been cool if it had though. After this the storm "dies" and we go to Liberal to eat dinner. Maybe not, its now 10pm and everything is closed, sweet. Then another storm gets its act together north of Liberal and we get to it just as its tornado warned. Basically just messed around in the hail core for a while, until we thought it'd be wise to get back to the Hotel in Oklahoma City for tomorrows chase. Here is a stone that was golfball sized before it melted a bit.
Liberal, KS to Oklahoma city is 5 hours. we left at 11p.m. Try to get dinner in Woodward, nope, everything is closed. Ended up just getting a little bit of food at a gas station lol. Here is a shot I was lucky to get. We were driving and a huge CG strikes less than a mile from us in front of the road. I'm like, hey maybe I should start taking pictures. Third shot, boom, right in the frame. Not blown out either, how? I don't know lol. Too bad Chris' windshield has a crack! oh well still a cool shot. Ended up getting to the hotel at 3:30a.m.
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