May 23, 2011 Okeene, OK tornado

Following the big day in southwest Missouri, severe weather appeared likely in western and central OK, and we had an easy drive from Tulsa westward.  We met up with Dallas Raines and Indra Petersons in Guthrie at lunchtime, and continued west on 51 to Canton Lake.  We killed time at the nearby dam and soon were observing the development of an impressive storm tower just to the northwest.  It drifted to the east, and we scooted northeast and north on 58 to get close to the storm base.  Structure was looking good and some quarter-size hail fell, but we were a little unlucky road-wise —- the most convenient paved roads eastbound were about six miles to our north and six miles to our south.  The storm base was a little closer to the “north” option (east out of Fairview), so we headed that way through some rain and hail in order to get in position east of the updraft base.

Some six or seven miles east of Fairview (on Highway 8/58), we were able to look back to the southwest to see the supercell updraft and attendant structure.  A clear slot was evident, but important lowerings were missing.  The next paved road south was Highway 8, south to Okeene.  It was nine miles east of Fairview and put us a little farther east than I would have liked, but wasn’t terribly far.  Light rain was falling when we arrived directly east of the storm base, about six miles or so north of Okeene.

We weren’t here more than a few minutes when a skinny funnel cloud became apparent beneath the updraft base, and a wispy dust plume from the surface came up to meet it—we had a little tornado!  It was about 4 or 5 miles away, perhaps, over open countryside, and persisted for a few minutes.  When the tornado ended the storm seemed to struggle some, and we watched it go downhill on the west side of Okeene.

From there we went east and south towards the Piedmont area to view other storms, but these were unimpressive.  And, finally, we made our way back north to Kingfisher to watch a nasty HP supercell/complex descend upon the town from the northwest.  There was no apparent tornado threat, so we found some car wash shelters in Kingfisher and waited for the storm to release its fury.  We were not disappointed, as winds to about 50 mph and lots of hail to around an inch in diameter blasted our surroundings.  As dusk drew nigh, we made our way east on 51 through heavy rain to Guthrie for the night.

In image 1782 below the dusty remains of the weak tornado are visible.  Dallas and Indra are in front of the “TIV” in Guthrie.  I’ll add some video stills of the tornado soon!