WCBI/MSU Storm Chase Day 11 Recap

COLUMBUS, Mississippi (WCBI) – After a “down” day of short travel Wednesday from Atchison, KS, down to Oklahoma City, OK, we chased storms in southwest OK Thursday.

The day began with a tour of the National Weather Center building in Norman, Oklahoma. It houses the Storm Prediction Center, the local NWS Norman office, the meteorology department, and many other meteorological research entities. SPC Deputy Director Bill Bunting led the tour, showing us & the students the ins & outs of SPC operations. I also captured a picture of the iconic “Dorothy” from the original 1996 Twister film.

We initially positioned for storms in Clinton, OK. We launched a weather balloon after 2 PM to sample the atmosphere ahead of the storms. It revealed quite a significant cap just above 800mb, but continued warming/moistening of the surface as well as dynamic lifting apparently helped to remove said cap for storms to survive eastward.

Several storms in SW OK congealed into a larger, slow-moving supercell. Eventually, rapid rotation began and we observed several wall clouds & funnels as the storm continued maturing.

The storm eventually produced multiple tornadoes in its 5s0+ minute life cycle. We observed several instances of multiple vorticies under the mesocyclone.

This was one of the last images of the tornado we witnessed before it changed directions and began moving more erratically. It also became rain-wrapped.

According to NWS Norman, the tornado was rated an EF-2 with max winds of 120 mph.