Trentham Stormchasers 2010 USA Roadtrip

Report: Clyve Herbert

Photography: Jane ONeill / Clyve Herbert

The Kingfisher Supercell

Day 28: 19th May: Kingfisher, Oklahoma

After overnighting at Pampa, the dryline has moved east of our location. The sky is cloudless and there is a dry northwesterly breeze. Through the night, the southerly wind that preceded the dryline had rattled the windows. Over breakfast, we were listening to the Armageddon predictions for Oklahoma on The Weather Channel. I have to say, that I have become dismayed about The Weather Channel. The repeating adverts, the erroneous descriptions of storms and the constant repetitiveness that had me switching it off after 10 minutes, or searching for Bugs Bunny on the Cartoon Channel. But back to the reality of the day....

Our own analysis shows a rather more complicated setup...a dryline is progged to move into western Oklahoma followed by a slow moving coldfront. Gulf moisture is expected to be injected across central Oklahoma ahead of the dryline and a weak triple point near Woodward. We initiate our target towards areas SW of Oklahoma City keeping close to I-40. We spend an hour or so relaxing near Binger, where we watch deep cumulus and one that rotated and developed a funnel! However, conditions progressively stabilise, and we suspect a strengthening southerly has brought weaker lapse rates to this area. A small echo appears south of Woodward - we watch for a little while and then decide to pursue. We drive north towards I-40 and then head NW towards Watonga. The small echo has become a large supercell that is moving towards Leedey. The motion of the storm shows the main core moving east, however we suspect the flanking line is moving to the right and moving ahead of the dryline. This turns out to be more or less the case, and we intercept the wallcloud near Eagle City.

The wallcloud is marked by very low bases which drag along the ground. It is large! The flanking line is feeding from the southwest where the RFD cut appears to be. We retreat south as the wallcloud builds towards the SE. There is a  marked contrast between the brilliant white of the wall edge and the black of the interior of the storm. Over the next half an hour or so, the storm appears to weaken, and we follow the flanking line east through Watonga to Kingfisher. Just west of Kingfisher, the storm restrengthens again, and sets down a rotating wallcloud with a pedestal attached.  We photograph the storm as it passes through wheat country - it looks absolutely magnificent!!

The restrengthening supercell wraps its wallcloud in precipitation, and we drive east pacing the storm. Occasionally the wallcloud comes into view, and momentarily we see a tornado trunk! As we approach Kingfisher, we notice a lot of flashing lights...it turns out to be hordes of chasers and onlookers. The chase vehicles are parked well off the road, but some of the onlookers are parked partially on the road. We are not only startled by this situation, but we are concerned more for our safety here than following the tornadic storm. Vehicles dash past on the wrong side of the road with 'fake' sirens and flashing lights...we wonder who these people are....we see Vortex 2 vehicles dodging the mayhem.  The bulk of those onlookers causing problems weren't chasers...chasers don't photograph tornadic supercells with cellphones with their kids and dog in the backseat. This was something akin to an overcrowded drive in movie. We find a local farm road and escape south and perch on top of a small rise to view the passage of this magnificent storm.

It has more or less transgressed to an HP status with a fat flanking line, and no sign of the wallcloud on the southwest quadrant as we look northwest. The flanking line is brightly backlit by the lowering sun and makes for brilliant imagery and structure study. This storm has a history of tornadoes in the last 3 hours or so and we have noticed that the wallcloud periodically disappears in wraparound precipitation. After 10 minutes or so, we notice a dark lowering area on the SW side of the storm, the wallcloud appears from the rain again...it's very large and has banding around its periphery. The centre point of the wallcloud is agitated and rotating rapidly. We watch and slowly, the storm weakens as it passes to our north. We head south towards Oklahoma City, where we park in the northern suburbs to watch a new storm develop a strong flanking line. Who would have thought we would find peace and quiet so close to a major city after the mayhem of Kingfisher.  A local tornado siren starts to wail and there before us, a small wallcloud rotates and produces a funnel...we never, ever thought for a minute that we would end up chasing in Oklahoma City. As light fades, we head south again, and view the backsheared anvil of another supercell to the south of Norman.

We head east on I-40 to overnight at Shawnee..the trip east is finished with a magnificent salmon glowing supercell spreading backlight onto the highway, only interrupted by sparking lightning in clear air.

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Deep cumulus, SW of Oklahoma City

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Interesting funnel under a congesting cumulus near Binger

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Southwestern flank of a massive wallcloud associated with the Kingfisher tornadic supercell, near Jn 270 / 58 (Eagle City)

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Vortex 2 disappearing into a wallcloud near Eagle City

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Central core of the meso was completely rain wrapped, Eagle City

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The supercell temporarily weakens near Watonga. This image shows the flanking line pointing to the SW and retaining weak rotation.

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West of Kingfisher, rotation increases as the supercell strengthens. This image shows the dramatic wallcloud region.

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There's nothing like a supercell in a wheatfield! Near Kingfisher

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Further images of the Kingfisher supercell.

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The rotating wallcloud became quickly rain wrapped - interestingly this was a mixture of drizzle and large hailstones.

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Embedded within the meso, funnels and tornadoes readily developed.

 

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This is the SW quadrant of the Kingfisher supercell. The huge meso is hidden in rain.

 

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In this image, a closer view shows a large wallcloud emerging from the rain (Kingfisher)

 

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The rapidly rotating large wallcloud appears. Note the horizontal banding around the periphery

 

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The huge wallcloud was mindblowing on the SW quadrant of the storm

 

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The large wallcloud changed frequently in its appearance

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On the eastern flank of the HP supercell, there was a marked outflow boundary along the rain/hail precipitation core

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We were horrified at the number of chasers and sightseers near Kingfisher, some were Ma & Pa and the kids and the family dog, snapping away on cellphones. At the best it was disorderly, at the worst, totally chaotic and dangerous....all of this was happening barely 1 mile from a dangerous supercell - this is not to mention the large number of Vortex 2 vehicles trying to thread their way. We found a farm road and we escaped south.

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After we escaped from the Kingfisher circus we headed into the northern suburbs of Oklahoma City, where we have a nice quiet 'chase'. Looking south, the view shows a distant supercell with a backsheared. anvil, this storm was tornado warned.

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The flanking line of a near Oklahoma City storm develops a small rotating wallcloud and a funnel. Local tornado sirens were blaring.

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The flanking line sporadically rotated as it moved away to the east crossing I-35

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A convergence line appears across central Oklahoma City

 

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Outflow boundary line, Oklahoma City

 

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Interesting castellanus structure, Oklahoma City

 

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A large supercell in the distance backlights the foreground towards Shawnee (I-40), Oklahoma City

Stay tuned for tomorrow's episode...

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