May 13, 2009 Western OK Supercell

May 13 was a good day in western OK.  This was the day of the Kirkwood, MO,
tornado, but that was much too far away to target unless we had blown off the
prior day.  We waited around on a dirt road near Enid (actually, near Helena, OK)
and saw some storm towers go up to the southwest.  A supercell quickly formed
and started to drop almost due south.  The cell had nice structure and a sharp
RFD cut, but was high-based at first.  Towards sunset, near Geary, the cell's
base lowered and it wrapped up strongly.  We were just south of the storm base
on a hill south of Geary, with a great view!  It was unable to produce a
tornado, though.  We just missed the storm core as we dashed west and south to
Binger, where we had one last look at the overall structure to the north before
dark.  I elected to find some cover for the vehicles in front of the precip core
at Carnegie, about ten miles farther west.  We had some one inch to maybe
1.25-inch hail for a good ten minutes.  Farther east, the storm had suddenly
gone tornadic, and two of my chase friends wound up riding out the tornado in a
car wash in Gracemont, OK!  They are okay, and the tornado went on to produce a
lot of damage in Anadarko.