Tornado Central
Dan Dawson, Gabe Garfield, Nick Bierman, my wife, and I chased the tornadic supercell NNW of Fairview OK this afternoon and evening. Though our expectations were relatively limited, it ended up being an awesome chase. The motions at cloud base (both in the horizontal and vertical) were quite impressive. The first attempt we saw at tornadogenesis occurred just N of Hwy 412 W of Orienta late afternoon, with a decent funnel that excellent wall-cloud. A new storm developed to the south of that first cell, which promptly "killed" that first one. Fortunately, the second cell rapidly developed a wall-cloud, with excellent cloudbase motions again. At this time we noted 1.5" hail on the ground about 2 mi SSW of Orienta. A nice wallcloud developed, with funnel and all. Despite looking like an imminent tornado, it quickly occluded. So, we hopped back to 412, and made it a couple of miles W of Orienta before tornado-mania began. Over the next 10- 15 minutes (guessing -- haven't looked at tape yet), we observed at least 4 tornadoes. Most were relatively small and short-lived, but there was a "fat stovepipe" (tornado #3 I think). All tornadoes were from the same mesocyclone, but they were certainly different funnels and from different areas of "enhanced" rotation. Interestingly, before the last tornado from this sequence, I noted a very rapid sinking motion filled with "ribbons" of precip, something that looked an awful amount like a DRC. The tornado that followed seemed to be the longest-lasting, but it also became enshrouded in heavy precip, which completely obscured it for a while. That tornado looked to move southward too.
After that sequence, we meandered back southward to see what would happen with the next storm the was developing farther south. Supercell structure improved at this time, with nice curved bands feeding into the updraft/meso. Despite wanting to play the tail-end charlie farther south, we opted to stick with this one since it had pretty good structure and it was relatively mature. Given a very slow northwestward motion, we headed back north to 412, before working west into the Glass Mtns. We found a small area in which we could view the meso, and it was at this time that we saw tornado #5 to our SSW. It quickly became a lost cause as extremely heavy precip completely obscured the meso. With the supercell appearing to be a lost cause owing to a very HP nature at this time, we decided to hop southward to see what was next. Well, we didn't really get anything else meaningful, despite fears of very strong winds and large hail as we drove by Canton.
Overall, there is very little to be disappointed about with this chase! Our expectations were low, which may have helped, but I'd still consider this a great chase. And heck, it was even in Oklahoma! Despite 20-25kts at 500mb and 250mb (per 00z NAM initialization), strong instability, good moisture, good directional shear, and an old outflow boundary made for an excellent supercell that was essentially stationary for quite some time. In addition, it was great to FINALLY get my wife on a "good" chase (I like split infinitives).
I'll add pics and video stills this weekend.
