Tuesday, April 05, 2005 Storm Chase Northeast Oklahoma

Begin Miles: 139,035
End Miles: 139,326
Total Miles: 291

On Tuesday, 04-05-2005, at 12:15 P.M., I decided to head towards Northeast Oklahoma on my first storm chase of the 2005 severe weather season. I left Pittsburg, Kansas, heading south on U.S. 69 Highway towards Chouteau, Oklahoma, my chase target for the day. The Storm Prediction Center put most of Southeast Kansas and Eastern Oklahoma under a Slight Risk for severe thunderstorms. I thought there would be a better chance of some isolated tornadoes in Eastern Oklahoma.

I arrived in Pryor, Oklahoma at approximately 3:19 P.M. Using wifi I connected to the internet near the McDonalds in that town. After checking data, I found that the dryline/trough had exploded with severe storms along a north/south line located just to the west of Tulsa. Tulsa County was under a severe thunderstorm warning at this time. I decided that I would drive back north to Adair, Oklahoma and then head west. This decision was based on staying away from the Tulsa metro area and a decent road network to the west of Adair.

In hopes of letting the Tulsa and Washington County storms come to me, I setup in the very Southeast corner of Nowata County, near the small town of Alluwe, Oklahoma. I was noticing some mammatus clouds starting to form overhead, and at 4:22 P.M. The National Weather Service in Tulsa issued a Tornado Warning for Washington County. Strong rotation was indicated with this storm, which was moving Northeast at approximately 35 MPH. This was the storm I was currently watching to my west/southwest. I could see the rain free base from my location, but my location was still too far east to see anything else of importance. I decided to head west, but Lake Oologah was between me and the storm.

I intercepted this tornado warned storm approximately 1 1/2 miles northwest of Delaware, Oklahoma. At this time, no tornadoes had been spotted, but spotters had witnessed some rotation earlier with this storm. The severe weather statement at this time was saying that the area of rotation was approximately 5 miles east of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, which was the area I was currently located. All I saw with this storm was a rain free base, and some general lowerings near the updraft. I did not see any rotation with this part of the storm, and the storm shortly thereafter started to die. The possible rotation may have been rain-wrapped, making it very hard for me to see from my vantage point. I was located to the southeast of the rain free base, and I was looking towards the northwest. This storm fell apart, so I headed off to intercept the next severe storm, located in Rogers County, to my southeast.

I intercepted the Rogers County storm at a location approximately 2 miles west of Hollow, Oklahoma. Nowata and Craig Counties were put under a severe thunderstorm warning with large hail and high winds expected. I received penny size hail at my location, but not a lot of wind. The cloud-to-ground lightning definitately made up for the lack of severe winds. After this storm tracked off to the Northeast, I proceeded eastbound on Oklahoma 10 highway. I took some decent pictures of some cloud lowerings on the back side of this severe thunderstorm, but I did not see any rotation within the lowerings. Everything was clearing up behind this line of storms, so I decided to head back home.

I stopped to the west of Hallowell, Kansas on my way home to take pictures of the most awesome rainbow I have seen in a long time. In my opinion, a chase isn't complete without seeing a rainbow. Overall, I believe this chase was successful. I was on the 1st and only tornado warned storm located in Northeast Oklahoma. I'm looking forward to more of this throughout the 2005 chase season.

Russel Parsons
Pittsburg, Kansas