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Central Oklahoma - 10 April 2001
What can I say? It was a bust. The SPC (stupid prediction center) issued a Moderate Risk for Western Oklahoma and the most of the Texas Panhandle. Basically, we were in the same pattern that we were in April 6. A cold front and dryline were supposed to cross the area later afternoon/early evening, but apparently the dryline missed instructions. Storms happened, but not until after dark.
We left Norman in two cars at 1:30 and headed toward Chickasha on Highway 9. We then took I-44 toward Lawton, and then US 62 west toward Altus. In Altus, we met the Librarian Nazi. She chastised us for all looking over Kyle's shoulder and was unnecessarily mean. Anyways, we didn't notice anything on the radar, and decided to continue heading west. We passed a couple of spotters for local television stations, so that was a good sign that we were in the right place. About 10 miles west of Altus, we noticed clouds trying build, and watched one parcel of air go up and then get DENIED. We pulled off a couple of times as things began to look promising. We then headed north on SH 34 in Duke, and pulled off at the Greer/Jackson County line. We invented a new game (see who can hit the county sign with a rock!) as we waited for things to happen. We spotted one cloud building toward the north, so we continued on 34 toward Magnum. Once we arrived in town, Dusty called Javier, one of our NOWCast contacts, and learned of a mesoscale discussion issued by the SPC for our area. We then headed to just north of town at the intersection of SH 9 East and SH 34. It was real quiet and pretty there, and we had a great view of the sky. We stayed there for an hour, watching clouds go up and get DENIED.
After chilling there for about an hour, Chris's parents called and we learned that there was a PDS (potential dangerous situation) Tornado Watch for the Texas Panhandle. By this time, it was getting late, but we had about an hour of daylight left, and we hoped we could salvage something. We raced west toward Wellington, Texas and called Javier again. Storms were beginning to fire, but they were too far off and weren't severe yet. We traveled west in hopes of intercepting one group of cells, but were DENIED again as darkness fell. We then went north to Shamrock and got dinner at McDonald's. After dinner, everyone felt like Dairy Queen, which was next door. The six of us began walking over there, and one of the workers, seeing our big group coming, ran to lock the door, and once again, we were DENIED. (sense a theme here?!?). We met some other chasers from OU who were going to wait for the storms to pass through, but it was late and we wanted to go home. We took I-40 back towards OKC, and about 10:00 or so, Dusty and Kyle noticed lightning to our south (I was asleep at the time). However, the strengthening crosswind woke me up, and by the time we reached El Reno to stop for gas, the wind was unbelievable! We got back in Norman at 12:30 where we saw the most action we had seen all day. A raging thunderstorm drenched us on our way back to our respective dorms. A quick look on the Oklahoma Mesonet showed winds in the northwest part of the state gusting in excess of 60 to 70 mph as the storms (which finally formed) began moving east. Some were severe, including a tornado in Coal County, about 35 miles SE of Norman, which ripped through a double-wide and killed a man early the next morning.
All in all, it was fun, but still, a bust. We were DENIED many times and in many ways that day. We decided that the correct acronym for the PDS that day was (Pathetic, Disappointing Storms), and we ridiculed the SPC heavily. I'm convinced that the next slight risk to be issued will be our best bet, for I'm sure the forecasters there are probably going to play it a little more conservative as the chase season wears on.
Just to the east of Arnett, we could see a very large portion of the line, and could see a couple parts of it trying to rotate. As the storms quickly approached us, the sky turned an ominous green color. We camped in Arnett for awhile as we saw the storm lower in a few places. It was trying to produce a tornado, but couldn't. One odd thing we noticed is that the storm had little in the way of lightning and thunder. I only remember a few strokes. This was true throughout the chase. As the precipitation began, we sped east in the direction of Harmon and Vici. We had a hard time outrunning the line, for it was going 65 mph and we were only doing 70. Time slowed down as the action intensified. We were constantly listening to the radio, and they reported a couple of tornado warnings for the exact area where we were.
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