This was the day the Institute wanted. After taking advantage of the motel's fitness center for an hour, the day's weather became the focus of the team of one.
This was one of those days. When someone writes a book about the dark side of the earth's atmosphere, he will pick a day like this to make a few key points. The dryline looked like the most promising source of carnage this day. The winds aloft would cross the boundary at a right-angle, which is optimal for discrete cell formation. Instability and shear would be abundant up and down the dryline, which the Institute hoped would spread the chase hordes out. The only downside to the setup was the possibility that the Oklahoma City metro area would hamper the fun.
SPC was enthusiastic. They forecast a 45% chance from the Oklahoma-Kansas border to the Red River of a tornado occurring within 25 miles of a point. This seems physically impossible, and the Institute wonders if this has ever happened over such a large area before, but we liked the government's attitude.
The Institute follows federally-mandated strictures regarding separation of church and state, but we prayed to every deity we could name to not be too stupid. From the day's point-of-origin in Perry, Oklahoma, we watched the Gulf stratus thin out as the morning progressed.
Parameters were so good that any updraft that formed along the dryline should spin its hinder off, but we preferred west central Oklahoma for initiation. The forecast storm vectors took such an updraft into the City, a bad outcome for so many reasons. But as Colonel Potter said, you have to hit what's pitched.
If Comfort Inn offered 1pm check-out times we would have been delighted. As it was, we had to start loading the vehicle at 10:30 to be out by 11:00. A couple of friends called in the middle of this process. They had left Memphis early in the morning and thought we would be in the neighborhood. We decided to join up for the day and left the Institute's car in Perry.
By early afternoon the push was definitely on from the panhandle. The dryline was near Gage down to west of Clinton. We felt we had plenty of time but left for northwestern Oklahoma after 1pm.
Our storm formed near the interstate and moved northeastward. We stopped near Canton Lake to consider the road options, which were sub-optimal due to the lake. We continued west to the gust front, then retreated. As we did this we saw new rotation to our south that intensified rapidly.
We had to pause for congestion around the Dominator, which worried me since the circulation was almost directly overhead. The funnel developed and hit the ground a couple of minutes later. We shot stills and movies as it moved northeastward across the lake. It hit a trailer park and trashed a lot of trees, then continued into Longdale, killing two.
We had let it go by this time, expecting another storm to our south. We got caught in precip and slow traffic. Around this time the storms west of OKC had our attention but it would be a rough intercept through the city.
The accounts on fm radio were harrowing since the tornado was plowing through the crowded northwest side of the city. I expected I-35 to be closed by the highway patrol, but we made it to the Guthrie exit, in the path.
Despite being less than a mile off, we could neither see nor hear the tornado through the core. The damage survey showed it lifted at the interstate, north of our exit. We continued eastward but never saw any touchdowns to the north. We missed the other big storm that passed near Norman and went on to Shawnee.
So our tornado at 3:30 was it for us. Some people did worse, some did better. I was glad we were not too aggressive going into the core, even if it wasn't my vehicle.
We maintained vigilance until just before dark, then had dinner at a Braum's. Even with missing the OKC area tornadoes, we were pretty impressed with ourselves.