Chase Log: April 19th, 2003

Click on any of the SPC products below (Convective Outlooks, Watches, or MCDs) to see the SPC's "Severe Thunderstorm Events" page pertaining to this event.

MAP

Total Distance: 400 miles
Target Area: Chickasha, OK
Chase Area: Okemah to Slick to Broken Arrow to Oologah, OK
Maximum SPC Risk category: Moderate
Watches: PDS Tornado Watch 132, Tornado Watch 131, Severe Watch 135
Mesoscale Discussions (MCDs): 501, 502, 503, 505, 506, 507, and 510

Quite a day in store... The first Day1 outlook brought up the possibility of an upgrade to high risk. Overnight convection dropped a nice outflow boundary from north of Ada to southeast of Tulsa. A strong upper tough was begining to lift out of the southwestern states. A dryline was located from a Low developing east of Amarillo southeastward. The dryline rapidly mixed east through the day, as it was located near I-35 by early afternoon. A PDS was issued for most of eastern OK around 2pm. We were waiting out near Blanchard as we were not expecting the dryline to mix eastward as quickly as it did. At any rate, upon hearing the warning, we jetted eastward on I-40. A strong cumulonimbus was located just east of us, and so we set our sites on that storm. We turned east on Hwy. 48. As we neared southern Dewey county, the rain free base became quite visible. Driving north, we hit rain and made the decision to turn around and try to head east. While we were doing this, a warning came across, saying that a spotter reported a tornado southwest of Slick... We were only miles from this. So, we flipped around again and tried to see it. No luck. We knew we had to get east, but there were not east-west roads from about 10 miles south or 10 miles north. So, we decided that we'd hop on I44, which would allow us to get northeast the fastest.

We meandered south of Tulsa for 20 minutes as the storm cluster became disorganized. While filling up with gas, we heard of a tornadic supercell leaving Osage county. We hauled northward, but decided to call of the chase about 30 miles north of Tulsa after realizing that it was a lost cause.