5.10.10 Seminole, OK

Stoud lineup
VORTEX2 vehicles line up and wait

The day began in Perry, Oklahoma where we had spent the night.  It was cool, foggy and windy.  The Storm Prediction Center had issued a moderate risk on Sunday, May 9 and had upgraded it to a high risk by Monday morning.  The stakes were high!  Also complicating today’s deployment was the storm motion – the forecast was cells screaming to the northeast at 50 mph.  This was going to be tough, and the V2 researchers adjusted their strategy to accomodate.

Our first staging site was Stroud, Oklahoma –  the armada lined up in an abandoned parking lot.  It was the parking lot of the outlet mall that was wiped out by a large tornado over a decade ago.  Eerie.

“We are defying nature by being here!” said one researcher.

Teams split up to find good sites for the radars – a tough job.  East of I-35 the hills start to roll and grow, and the sparse trees turn into forests.  A pretty place to live – but not chase!

Cells started firing west of I-35, the first in southern Kansas and northern Oklahoma.  A tornadic cell tracked near Ponca City, Oklahoma.  A little later, others initiated southwest of Oklahoma City.  These were our target.

We realized quickly the cells were moving more east than northeast – making our instrument net about 30 miles off.  Adjustments were made as fast as possible.  NOXP deployed on a hill and scanned for about 20 minutes.  But as the core of the storm bore down on us, Don Burgess decided to undeploy and move before we were plagued with hail.

We moved south of I-40 and found a spot to set up again, south of Seminole, OK.  On WSR-88D radar, just to our northwest, the storms seemed to split, and then merge.  Not classic clean supercells at all!  The trees and hills obscured our view, and the view of the radar at the lowest scans.

Reports of tornadoes in Norman and Little Axe, just to our west were filtering in, and we tuned to local radio for live continuous reports.  Our suburban began to shake with very strong north winds.  We were several miles from the tornado at this point, and couldn’t see it.  The cloud bases were so low, there was a lot of rain and we knew it was moving fast.  No visual was just fine with me.

We moved south to deploy one more time, just south of Hobart.

As we listened to the radio, we were hearing reports of significant damage in Norman, where many of the VORTEX2 people live.  Researchers called home to check on loved ones.  Mostly minor damage to the homes of V2 participants was reported – shingles, fencing, etc.  We were thankful all were accounted for.

The significant tornado near Seminole passed through the southern periphery of the V2 network.  We are still working to figure out what kind of data was collected.

A disdrometer recorded a 35m/s wind at 1meter above the ground before it was hit by a piece of FOAM and knocked into a ditch.  The researchers deploying the instrument helped pull a person out of tornado rubble before fetching their equipment.  Sobering.  It was a very tough deployment, and V2 did the best they could.  No one likes to see tornadoes cause damage and hurt people.  That is why we are doing V2.

As teams trickled back to our hotels in Shawnee, two out of the three hotels were without power, but no one complained.  The loss of life and property around us made us feel very lucky.

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