Bill Osterban and I left GRR Sunday afternoon around 3pm EDT, arriving in Tulsa around 3am EDT. I got about 3 hours of sleep as I drove the whole way. We later met up with Dan Robinson and headed to Perry, OK around 1pm. In Perry we met up with Ben Holcomb and Eric in the Walmart parking lot. We observed on satellite a Cu field developing and surging NNE toward Enid, OK. We all decided that we needed to head further west towards Enid. Ben and Eric left first as we had to take care of a few things in Perry. Dan, Bill, and myself wound up waiting near Garber, OK. We were watching the storm cell that erupted to our west and a cell that was struggling with the CAP to the south of that. We finally decided to head north to intercept the dominate storm. We intercepted the supercell 2 miles west of Medford, OK.
Tower and anvil as we approached Medford:
There was a brief wedge already on the ground when we arrived on scene. This is confirmed by looking at other chasers accounts especially from Mike Hollingshead.
The wedge dissipated and soon after multiple vorticies touched down.
Then a single tornado developed to the right of the multiple vorticies. I believe it was still a part of the same circulation.
While the above tornado was on the ground a satellite needle funnel formed to the right of that and then touched down for nearly a minute.
Bill and I observed several funnels after the tornadoes as we headed back toward to Medford. We got caught in the chaser traffic. We felt that we were losing the storm as it was heading around 50 mph to the north east. We headed to I-35 and headed south to catch the next supercell north of Red Rock, OK. We waited for the the core to pass over I-35 as we drifted south. We encountered baseball to golf ball size hail on the road. We had the base of the storm in sight as some one called out a tornado on the HAM radio. We looked over in time to see the brief tornado. We knew that with the road network we would not be able to keep up with the storm. We got off and took 412 towards Tulsa to try and catch the supercell forming over OKC. It had just been tornado warned. We dropped south towards Shamrock, OK and then over to Henryetta. As we drove through Okmulgee, OK we decided to go for it as the hook was still near Clearview, OK.
Map of travel a total of 148 miles 3 supercells and 7 tornadoes:
We exited the precip core and saw the end of the Clearview tornado which was rain wrapped:
We continued for a mile or two south on Route 75 which turned into the turnpike just pass I-40. We witnessed several tornadoes near and in Henryetta.
Map from Tulsa’s NWS survey:
The next two pictures are of the brief tornado south of Henryetta airport
A new wall cloud redeveloped and shortly after produced a 10 mile long Ef2 tornado with the following images. There were brief periods of large debris plums and many multiple voticies with lots of lightning in and near the circulation.
Power flashes south of Henryetta
This storm once again occluded and we headed to I-40 and followed the supercell east. It produced yet another large wall cloud and produced another large tornado.
Wakita/Medford Oklahoma tornadoes.
Henryetta, Oklahoma tornadoes.
With only one system coming through that has produced thunderstorms here in Grand Rapids I was able to capture several lightning shots. There were several storms during the day but there was little to no structure. We did manage to get 1 inch hail and close to Kalamazoo they had 2 inch hail that did heavy damage to homes.
It was nice to sit in an open field and watch a weak storm produce some lightning. I was only able to capture one near Middleville, MI, and capture three or so back at my apartment when another round of storms came through around 2am. It seems that the lightning is always north of my apartment and i never catch any good ones. Any way here are the one i came a way with from that night. Nothing to fantastic but still really nice to see.
My wife and I go to the Meijer Gardens here in Grand Rapids, MI every year since we have been married (3yrs). Sometimes it is to busy to get really good shots. Some times the butterflies are to active to get really good shots. This visit was a little bit of both. Still came away with several descent one. The very first picture is the allusive blue butterfly. I can never seem to get a good shot of this one. Wen it lands it always closes it wings and when it fly’s it is all over the place.
I was eating a steak the other day, and as I sat down I noticed how my steak was shaped like the state of Michigan. I did not know the state of Michigan was so tasty. I also thought the hand was the only thing other than a map that I could use to show where I lived.
