May 25, 2024

An extremely volatile dryline setup was taking shape over the heart of Tornado Alley on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. A tornado outbreak looked possible from southern Kansas through Oklahoma. I had been burned the last couple of big Southern Plains plays this season, and was a bit apprehensive about heading back, especially at the peak time and epicenter of storm chaser craziness. Then I got a call out of the blue from Sean Casey. “Let’s go chasing this weekend.” It had been years since I teamed up with Sean and his famous intercept vehicles designed to drive into tornadoes. The last I had heard, he was chasing in a specially modified Subaru Outback, getting stock shots for VFX compositing in the upcoming Twisters film. I was sold, but we were still short on crew. Sean wanted to be shooting, and I’d be nowcasting and navigating. We’d want dedicated drivers as well, so I called Chuck Haskin and Carrie Svihlik, fellow Illinois based chasers I had known for a few years. They sponsored my 2019 Chicago Marathon charity fundraiser run at the highest level, the reward for which was a Plains chasing trip with me. After five years of things getting in the way, we finally had a chance to make it happen. “Come chase a big Southern Plains event in a new Sean Casey intercept vehicle” I pitched, and they were in.

Chuck and Carrie arrived Friday evening at my place in Springfield, IL, and then we piled in my van and leisurely made our way down I-44, stopping in Springfield, MO for the night. The forecast looked foreboding. The convective allowing models depicted a powder keg of extreme instability, and a bullseye over Oklahoma City with huge supercell tracks raking the metro. Since the El Reno disaster, it was a cardinal rule of mine to not chase Oklahoma City and the surrounding county. A high-end tornado combined with a storm chaser induced traffic jam is a recipe for a mass casualty event. We were also concerned as we were unsure of Sean's intentions. Was he planning on driving this Subaru into a tornado? Was he under the gun for a production to get the shot at any cost? If the storm of the day was heading straight toward OKC, would we be able to tell him no?

The next morning Chuck and Carrie selected the nearby Waffle House for breakfast and our morning forecast briefing. I’d typically steer clear of the Waffle House. There are few to no options for my plant-based diet, and it’s just not my style. But I told myself if I wanted to be a successful chaser today, maybe I should act like the stereotypical chaser. So, the Waffle House it was, and an order of hash browns with all the veggie omelet fixings mixed in. Driving the extreme instability for the day was a fetch of rich moisture coming off the gulf. Dewpoints would be very high and the temperature/dewpoint spread low, coupled with warmer midlevels and lapse rates that weren’t particularly steep, I anticipated we might be dealing with rainy storms that transitioned into high precipitation supercells. Not great. The plan was to get on the target storm sooner than later before it made the HP transition.

After breakfast, we headed down the road to meetup with Sean at a hotel lot just outside of Joplin. Warm greetings were followed by an impromptu briefing, during which Sean allayed any worries we had about the day’s chase. Today we’d be out there for fun, not driving into tornadoes, and Sean wholeheartedly agreed we should avoid chasing through the OKC area. In fact, Sean was totally chill and seemed to just be going along with the flow. We loaded luggage and equipment into Sean’s Subaru and then left my van behind in Joplin, making for Oklahoma.

Sean had installed a stand in the car on to which I strapped my laptop so I could do data and nav while we drove. I suctioned mounted my Sony 4k to the windshield so that we’d have a continuous shot during our chase. Sean had replaced the Subaru’s windshield with a flat sheet of polycarbonate. The high impact strength plastic would be impervious to hail. Unfortunately, the optical quality was nowhere near as good as glass, and it flexed, causing the camera to continuously vibrate as we drove. I was worried my video would be unusable, but surprisingly the stabilization took care of it.

Sean had turned a Subaru Outback into something out of Mad Max. The front bumper was replaced by a steel bar and grate, onto which hydraulically driven anchor spikes were mounted. There were two more on the rear bumper. The idea was that the spikes could be driven into the ground and hopefully keep the vehicle from rolling during a high wind situation. As far as I know, they had not been tested yet under such conditions. In addition to the windshield, both front windows were also replaced by polycarbonate, which would not only stop hail, but also small airborne debris. A steel frame was mounted to the roof as an additional hail guard, and the body of the car had been coated in truck bed liner, which also improved its impact strength.

We stopped outside of Oklahoma City for lunch at a Braum’s. Like the Waffle House, it was another chain I actively avoid, but “when in Rome” I told myself again. Fortunately, there was a small grocery store attached to the fast-food restaurant, and I was able to hobble together a pretty decent lunch of hummus, jalapenos, celery, tortilla and pita chips. Sean Casey, amused, took a phone video of me dunking peppers in hummus at the table while I pored over data on the laptop. Meanwhile, the target was in question. As is often the case, the forecast developed complications during the morning and we no longer had confidence. The central Oklahoma bullseye had been bifurcated into two targets, a northern triple-point/warm front on the Kansas/Oklahoma border and a Tail-End-Charlie dryline play on the Oklahoma/Texas border. I’d probably have gone for the northern target if I were chasing solo, a sucker for the triple point and favoring things like shear parameters. But the Waffle House and Braum’s had me channeling my inner Southern Plains Chaser, and simple pattern recognition made me think this was a day to be on a big, isolated, and hopefully tornadic dryline supercell. I set our target: Wichita Falls, TX.

The controller for the hydraulically driven anchor spikes.

Sean Casey’s camera, a Red that shoots IMAX resolution video, and with all the lenses and attachments, might be worth about as much as the car. Sean wanted to ride in the backseat so he could film with the side windows down, as the polycarbonate front windows were affixed in place and couldn’t be lowered.

We made Chuck our designated driver for the chase, I would ride shotgun doing our data and navigation, and Carrie was in the back with Sean, getting some interior action shots along the way. Storms fired in a roughly west to east line south of Wichita Falls and we scooted south of Windthorst, TX to intercept the lead, dominant cell. It hid in the hazy murk of the moisture rich air over a road hole where we couldn’t get close. The cell was still maturing so rather than screw around on backroads, we elected to go back the long way around and get in front of it near Windthorst. Chuck got to prove his driving skills, executing a fast turnaround on an unpaved road and then negotiating some hail and chaser traffic as we threaded our way back in front of the storm. Meanwhile, the cap was eating storms. One by one, the trailing cells to the west were choking and dying, perhaps due to warmer temps aloft and lingering inhibition. Despite CAPE in excess of 5,000 J/kg, our cell looked like it was starting to buckle as well. But it hung in there, and then steadily started to ramp up again, picking up a tornado warning as we made the left turn northward to get ahead of it.

We ran north until we were about even with the storm, and then we stopped and waited for it to come to us. A striated classic supercell emerged from the murk of the moisture rich North Texas skies.

Sean photobombing Carrie and Chuck’s selfie:

The haze made for incredibly low contrast, but the group spotted a well-formed funnel cloud several miles to our west while I was checking our road options.

These shots are heavily contrast enhanced. I could barely see the funnel against the bright background.

The funnel cloud was in an unusual position on the storm. We were more focused on the background base to the west, but the funnel was in the foreground, which put it on the bottom/south side of the “Horseshoe”. This is typically where an anticyclonic circulation forms, and that might have indeed been what it was. It lasted a couple minutes before roping out, and a ground circulation was not evident from our position.

Legendary tornado research scientist Howie Bluestein pulled up behind us in his team’s radar truck as we all watched the dissipating funnel.

The storm would cross the road to our north, so we all piled into the Subaru to move in for the intercept shot. Contrast improved markedly as the storm approached, with a large, white barrel shaped mesocyclone, and underneath a wall cloud with tail cloud.

We stopped to watch the structure for a few moments. The wall cloud spun dramatically. Tornadogenesis looked imminent.

We nosed in even closer to the northeast moving storm, under the base now and approaching the wall cloud. The rotation seemed to be superseded by surging motion, and for a moment I wondered if it wouldn’t happen.

Chuck and I lean forward and look up so we can track the near edge of the wall cloud, careful not to drive underneath it.

We stopped near a feedlot that sat atop a low rise as the wall cloud crossed the road in front of us. Then two small filament shaped funnels nearly instantly flicked up into the base: tornadogenesis.

Rather than two separate tornadoes, the funnels looked like the subvortices of a larger developing tornado.

The ephemeral vortices vanished as quickly as they appeared, and then a third flicked up from the ground. We were watching the boiling cauldron of the pre-tornado vortex.

The bag of writhing snakes, or vorticity noodles, usually fills into one large tornado, but the storm paused, picking its feet up as it crossed the road in front of us. And it’s a good thing too. A major tornado spinning up in this moment would have devastated the town of Windthorst. We were stopped, watching, but the wall cloud was ever pulling away from us. We merged back onto the road with a handful of other chasers to keep up while getting kissed by some rain from a gusty rear flank downdraft.

We hurried through Windthorst, making for the east highway out of town while the sirens blared. Sean shot through the left rear window while we drove. The storm was ramping up, and a large cone funnel hung from the center of the spinning wall cloud. Looking at the map, I could see we had a couple unpaved north options to get in for a closer shot, and we had the vehicle to do it. Sean had other ideas, however. He wanted to play the longer game on paved roads, get in front of it, and capture the approach of the “big one”, downstream of the next Bennett or Chapman. It was a gamble. We could nose in now for instant gratification, and then lose our view as an intensifying tornado pulled away from us to the northeast, but if the long tracker didn’t materialize, we could miss our only tornado shot while repositioning in front of the storm. The play seemed plausible to me given the parameters and that the storm still appeared to be gearing up. I’d seen enough tornadoes to be cool with repositioning during one for the hopes of a much more dramatic shot. Frankly, I think Sean was just bored with another average tornado caught at medium range. Chuck and Carrie, though, I imagined would be quite a bit more anxious about missing something.

The funnel was down and then it was up again. It wasn’t planting the big one for us. Maybe it was just waiting. Chasers were abruptly pulling off the road to shoot the tornado. Chuck carefully threaded between them before blasting ahead on open road. We had a few miles to the paved north and started putting some significant distance on the storm. There was a lull and then the tornado solidly condensed once more. We conceded and stopped to shoot the tornado as we’d wind up miles ahead of the storm if we continued to the north road. Chuck, Carrie, and I hopped out to get pictures while Sean shot from the car.

Like before, the funnel did not stay condensed for long and retreated once more into the base. That was our cue to continue the plan: getting in front of the storm, and hoping it was still just warming up for us.

We made it to the north paved road as a tornado condensed yet again. We were unsure at this point about whether these funnels were separate tornado cycles or part of the same intermittently visible tornado.

The blue, backlit tornado showed up well against the orange-colored sky.

It was miles away, however. We were zigging when we should have been zagging, getting close between cycles and then driving away from the tornadoes as we stair stepped east and north. Knowing how and when to ride the storm is a sport like big wave surfing, an art that chasers like Hank and Reed have mastered. I was used to not having the best angle, but maybe it was a little frustrating for Chuck and Carrie. Everyone stayed focused and positive though.

We conceded again, Sean electing to take a paved west option that would bring us back in closer to the storm. The modestly sized tornado probably wasn’t going to hang around long, however, and looked like it was already starting to rope out.

The funnel lifted but we could still see the backlit debris cloud as the tornado continued for another minute or so.

A couple police vehicles turned around ahead, flashing their lights at us, but fortunately did not block the road, and we continued west toward the storm.

The tornado dissipated to the right of our road, but as we approached, another long snaky funnel descended to the left of the road, seemingly well south down the updraft base. It was likely another tornado, but we couldn’t confirm a ground circulation from our vantage, and the funnel was rather transient, already roping out almost as soon as it appeared. We didn’t get much closer to it before it was gone. The positioning was alarming, however, as we soon found ourselves underneath the updraft base from which the next funnel could emerge potentially from any direction. Our heads were on a swivel as we scanned the base, but it stayed quiet as we turned around and headed back east.

I had seen one of the police vehicles take an unpaved north road, and figured it was a decent option to maintain a tight position on the storm. We made the left onto the gravel road, the wall cloud and tail cloud looming ahead to the northwest.

A paved east option wasn’t for a few miles, and it was going to be a bit of a race getting to the intersection before the rear flank and potentially tornadic part of the storm did. Carrie, Sean, and I carefully scanned up and down the large bowing base as our path and the storm’s converged. Fortunately, Chuck remained focused on the road ahead. A line was down, draped across the road like a perfectly poised storm chaser trap. Chuck swerved right for a gap as the rest of us could only react in alarm at the last moment. The car made it underneath the wire, which rolled up and over the windshield. I was terrified it was going to catch the hail guard and act like the arrestor cable of an aircraft carrier, bringing us to an instant stop. The wire did not catch and we made it past unscathed. “We were lucky,” Sean said as the rest of us breathed a sigh of relief. We weren’t under the base of the storm yet, and appeared to still be in the clear air inflow to the east, so I was not anticipating debris and storm damage road hazards. It was a stark reminder that chasers need to always be vigilant.

We still had to beat the storm, and now the base was indeed starting to move overhead. It was another tense moment, but I reassured Chuck that I didn’t see any areas of tight rotation as he negotiated the wet gravel.

We made it to the paved east option and the tiny town of Bluegrove where we were clear to blast ahead of the storm. There we passed two Texans who no doubt had just watched this string of tornadoes from their front porch. One was holding the door open to their storm shelter, the other was holding a dog and gesturing us inside. “Oh, that was such an awesome shot!” Sean said as we sped past, with only the dashcam snagging what was one of the more photogenic and inspiring scenes of the day.

A very brief "Storm Chasers" reunion as we passed Reed's Dominator just outside of town:

We had a couple minutes to stop and watch the base along with Jessica Moore and Evan Hatch.

We started stair stepping east and north on various paved and unpaved roads. The cap had pretty much eaten everything around us and it looked like it was starting to gnaw into our storm as well. We pressed on hoping for one more evening hurrah. One gravel road took us directly underneath the base and we had a dramatic view looking straight up into the rear flank downdraft clear slot. We craned our necks all around as any developing tornado would be at extremely close range. The storm, bathed in golden light, seemed content to drift along without a commotion, however.

Turning east, we had nice front lighting on the base and adjacent structure. It looked pretty, but I could tell the updraft was eroding. Our storm was dying.

We got ahead of the cell and then stopped to watch an expansive backlit gust front.

We continued the chase into Oklahoma as evening wore on and new cells blossomed with the cooling boundary layer. The moisture rich air was nearly saturated, visibility dropped with a thick layer of haze, and scud started to form right off the ground with any rising current. A tornado report or two that came in might have been a brief spin-up or ground scud like this, twisting in an eddy.

We stopped at Lake Murray to watch some hazy bases. Our friend and teammate, “Pecos Hank” Schyma caught up with us there. It was his first time meeting Sean.

Motion under the correct part of the base, possible tornado?

Probably just another tendril of ground scud.

We made our way around the tree lined roads of Lake Murray at dusk through patches of fog. The region was turning into a “squidgefest”, so we called the chase and started heading east. Sean recounted stories of chasing the legendary Manchester, South Dakota tornado of June 2003. It was the second time this year I chased with a Manchester veteran and got to hear the stories, after Carsten Peter joined Anton Seimon and me in April.

We stopped in Madill, Oklahoma for dinner at a Mexican joint and then got rooms in Ada, totally exhausted after the long day.