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VORTEX intercepted a tornadic supercell in south-central
Oklahoma today. This storm was difficult to intercept because
of it's rather unpredictable motion, and the lack of road
options across the Red River. The storm appeared to take on
supercell characteristics near the river, and after it turned
hard to the right the VORTEX teams were able to collect data
during several stages of the storm development. Overall,
low-level rotation was never strong or well organized.
Nevertheless, the storm did produce several tornadoes.
Following are the highlights.
In an effort to catch up to a mesocyclone which seemed to
"leapfrog" the caravan to the northeast, the armada was forced
to drive north ahead of a developing mesocyclone. Had we taken
a more southern route, we would have been unable to collect
further data because of the rapid storm motion. As we moved
northward from Temple, OK (SE of Lawton) a tornado developed
very quickly within 1 mile to the west of the armada. Part of
the armada accelerated northward, and the trailing vehicles
stopped short of the tornado path, allowing us to collect mobile
mesonet data from nine platforms within 1 km of the tornado as
it crossed the highway.
The NOAA P-3 collected Doppler data during this entire
tornadogenesis process (and several hours of total storm life
cycle, I believe), and the NCAR Electra was also collecting data
during a practice flight near the storm.
This first tornado persisted for perhaps 10-15 miles, and
several mobile mesonet platforms collected data near the tornado
again as it crossed the east-west road west of Corum OK near
Waurika Lake. The tornado did considerable damage in that
vicinity, although I feel that it was generally F0-F1 damage
from a very quick look as we passed by.
A short time later, it seems a cyclonic/anticyclonic vortex
couplet formed over Comanche OK, with an intense rear-flank
downdraft in the town. Considerable tree damage was noted in
Comanche, with a flying birdhouse breaking a window in one of
the mobile mesonet units (this may have been revenge for our
killing one bird with a vehicle this morning, and another with a
mobile mesonet anemometer later in the day). Teams were
scattered at various locations around this town.
Thereafter, due to the erratic motion and unpredictable
evolution, surface operations were halted, but the P-3 continued
to collect data for a considerable period of time. This storm
continued to produce tornadoes/mesocyclones for a number of
hours as it moved into SE OK.
Erik Rasmussen
Jerry Straka