May 4, 1999      E.Oklahoma Chase....the day after.....

When trying to describe and recount all that has happened in the span of 24 long
hours of chasing, the words of overwhelming and tragic come to mind. The chase
has rolled over into yet another day, and hopefully the outcome would not be the
same. Both Brian Stertz and I continued the chase and marathon of being awake
some 22 hours already, and this was to start off the day!! Storm chasing wise, we
were emotionally and physically drained. The intensity of the previous day's major
chase wore both of us down, almost to the point of indifference. As with most of
Oklahoma tornado outbreaks , the day after usually moves over to E.Oklahoma
and W.Arkansas as a continuance of the outbreak. Tornado climatology/historical
data indicates this is usually the case. Almost all of the forecast models were
indicating that severe weather would again break out, only today this would occur
earlier in the day. E.Oklahoma, W.Arkansas, and E.Texas were highlighted in the
severe storm outlook for a moderate/high risk of severe weather and tornadoes by
afternoon. A few damaging tornadoes were mentioned in the outlook, particularly
over SE Oklahoma and NE Texas.

We remained awake but not too alert into the morning hours. Amazingly, severe
storms broke out early in the morning once again over C.Oklahoma. The storms
fired along an advancing dry line that was working into the unstable air that oddly
enough remained in place, even after the major tornado outbreak the day before.
A few of the storms had moderate to occasionally strong circulations as they flew/
raced northeast  into NE Oklahoma. We made it back to Tulsa just after dawn and
were stunned to find that severe weather was already breaking out so early!! We
were blitzed but we also knew that we could not let our guard down completely.
Brian and I finished off a pot of coffee and we headed out after that. We planned
to intercept one of the many storms firing around the Oklahoma City Metro area.
Believe it or not, some of the very same areas devastated by the F-5 tornado the
day before, were once again getting pounded by severe weather-just 12 hours
later!! Radar was indicating that day 2 was already starting!!

We plotted an intercept of a supercell that formed over NE Oklahoma Co. near
the town of Jones. This supercell had very apparent rotation on radar as it raced
to the northeast. We planned to catch this storm in either N.Lincoln or possibly in
E.Payne Co. as the storm was moving now at 55 mph. As with the Iowa tornadic
supercells we saw back in April, we knew that we had to be well enough ahead
of the storms while they developed further. We headed west on the Cimarron Tpk.
for the intercept/target area. Other severe storms were popping to our immediate
west in Pawnee, Osage, Noble, and Kay Counties in N.Oklahoma. A few of these
storms also appeared to be on the serious side of nasty!! We could see a storm
near Pawnee that had a nice rain free base to our west. A severe t-storm warning
was already in effect for nearly all of the counties in C.Oklahoma east of I-35. The
strongest rotating cells were the ones racing northeast for Lincoln Co. By the
time we reached Hallett OK, 2 tornado warnings were issued. One for Lincoln Co.
and one for S.Osage Co.. The storm just 12 miles to our northeast was spinning
like a top. Storm structure was not all that impressive, but the circulation on radar
was. We thought about heading after this storm, but chasing a supercell moving
at 55 mph across Osage Co. was not going to be an easy task. We remained
focused on the storm moving northeast across Lincoln Co..

The tornado warning was updated to provide the location of the circulation. The
area of strongest rotation was near the town of Carney moving towards Cushing.
Our intercept point was right on the money. Surprisingly to us, we barely made it
to Cushing before the storm did. Once again, we were not overly impressed by
the storm structure. The storm had the linear wrapped up gust front look as it very
quickly approached Cushing. The tornado warning was extended into E.Payne
Co., and the developing tornado was 3 miles s-sw of Cushing. We could see
why the tornado warning was issued. The strong rotation was visibly apparent;
however, there was also a hint that the supercell had gusted out. We watched the
storm race northeast at nearly 60 mph. A combination of factors lead to us letting
the storm leave us. The speed was the major one, but we were becoming zombie like in our chasing too from our lack of sleep and increasing indifference.

We headed back in to Tulsa (again), and wanted to look over some more weather
data. The new forecast model data suggested that several supercells were going
to develop over EC/SE Oklahoma and race into W.Arkansas. Development was
going to be explosive and once again several of these storms would be tornadic.
We did not want to sleep for a few hours because the chances of us waking up by
tomorrow were slim and none. We planned on chasing the supercells that the
forecast models indicated would form by EARLY afternoon. We set out on yet
another sortie. We planned to head for the Mc Alester OK area where it looked like
to us that the low and mid level jets crossed. Today was an entirely different day
than yesterday. The storms today were more numerous and "gundgy", and they
were also more difficult to chase...55 mph movement today.

Radar indicated that cells were already starting to pop over SE Oklahoma as we
headed south from Tulsa. We had lots of time to figure out which storm to go after
as initial development was still ongoing. By the time we reached I-40, 2 cells over
SE Oklahoma interested us the most. One cell over Latimer Co. was indicating
moderate rotation already, just 15 minutes after developing. Another larger cell
was building over Johnston Co.. We were closer to the Latimer Co. cell, but for
some strange reason, we chose to focus our attention to the Johnston Co. storm.
Looking back, we were probably in that zombie phase still, because both Brian
and I have never left or not gone after a supercell that was rotating 15 minutes
after forming!! If we tried to justify why we left the storm for the record, it was the
speed which radar was indicating the storm was moving initially, 50 mph across
the hills of Latimer Co.. The problem later was that we found out , when the storm
circulation truly became established, the supercell slowed down to 30 mph. At
this time, tornado reports started coming across local radio.

We pulled over along the Indian Nation Tpk. near the town of Daisy and waited 
patiently for the Johnston Co. storm to approach. Meanwhile, unknown to us, a
F-3 tornado was tracking across 3 Oklahoma counties about 50 miles to our north.
The storm over Johnston Co. was very intense, but the storm split as it moved into Atoka Co.. This created a right moving cell which for some reason weakened
rapidly as it moved into Atoka Co.; the left moving cell continued to rotate strongly
as it headed almost due north into Coal and Hughes Co.. This left moving cell
eventually produced several small tornadoes to the nw of McAlester. Realizing
that we had busted big time, we headed back for Tulsa. Our decision to head
back was out of frustration and exhaustion.

On our way back to Tulsa, we discovered that my van had a flat tire. This was not
a surprise to us after all of the massive debris I drove through yesterday. Most of
the severe weather raced on to the east as the dry line punched hard across the
state of Oklahoma. By late afternoon, the dry line cleared Tulsa and the dew point
plummeted into the mid 50's. Further to our northwest, tornadic supercells were
firing over C.Kansas on the dry line bulge. Today was just not meant to be for our
pursuit of supercells. We probably would have been alot more successful if we
had not chased the morning storms and paid closer attention to the afternoon
supercells. I guess we under estimated the strength of the situation, but given the
fact that we had no sleep over 35 hours, it was no wonder we were in a daze....