May 19 produced the storm we’d been waiting for the whole trip, the best storm so far — though another even more extraordinary one would come later. And it was a great day even if we didn’t see — really see — the tornado. More on that in a minute.
I adore Shattuck, Oklahoma’s windmill park, and photographing it with a storm was a dream.
We figured storms would fire in the eastern Panhandle of Texas, which they did, though by then we’d abandoned our initial target of Perryton and executed a big circle to get into western Oklahoma in favor of more maneuverability later. I had regrets for a few minutes, but road-wise, it was the best choice. We saw a sun halo, which I consider good luck; encountered a few ginormous tractor-trailers hauling wind turbine blades; and headed toward one of my favorite places in the Plains, the Shattuck Windmill Museum and Park in Shattuck, Oklahoma. It inspired a fictional one that makes an appearance in Funnel Vision, and it’s expanded a lot since I first encountered it. I was thrilled to photograph the windmills with a real storm behind them.
A happy bonus: There Alethea Kontis and I met up with other storm-chasing friends. Dave Lewison had joined Jason Persoff for the week, and Bill Hark arrived shortly afterward. We enjoyed the lightning, Jason got one of his trademark “groupie” photos of us, and we headed south to intercept the tail-end Charlie that began to dominate the line of storms moving into western Oklahoma. Some of my RadarScope screen shots show a lot of red dots, representing all the storm chasers pursuing this storm.
We stopped south of Roll on a tree-lined road on a hill, not ideal viewing unless you have a drone. Which both Dave and Jason and have. Still, we watched from this location for a bit, and then I was itching for a better view. So Alethea and I parted from the group. We didn’t mean to separate from them for long, but we’re all mature enough storm chasers that we have our own styles and often end up on different parts of the storm, uniting later in the day, if we’re lucky. And this day, we ended up on different parts of the storm with very different experiences.
Spinning supercell, with tree.
The light was incredible.
Our immediate shift in location took us just a bit more south, still in radio range. We stopped atop a big hill with a clear view, and oh! What a spectacular view it was! This storm was indeed a mothership, gnarly and layered and spinning, with a green heart, spitting out lightning. Absolutely magical. But all too soon, it began to overtake us. So we worked to stay ahead of it, driving through Hammon as the tornado sirens went off.
Dust that looked like vortices had me intrigued.
Here’s where we had strategic issues. We could have blasted through the precip (the hail?) and perhaps gotten into position to see the tornado east of Butler and west of Custer City. We got stuck behind a slow car, and our window was closing to go straight east. Interestingly, Dave and Jason got quite close to the storm’s area of business and didn’t see the tornado either.
It’s always worth stopping for a photo like this.
The number of storm chasers on the road makes me chase differently. I’ve never been one to play it super close, but I’m more willing to do so when I know my escape route won’t be jammed with five hundred chase vehicles. So I’m more likely to miss tornadoes on a day like this, when so many chasers surrounded the storm. The side benefit is that I get more structure shots, and I LOVE structure shots. And when I see a shot like this isolated, abandoned house with the layered supercell looming behind it, then I’ll stop (I almost didn’t, and then I remembered my rule: If you see a shot, stop and take it). I say “I” because I’m always the one driving while we’re actively chasing, and I do a lot of thinking with my wheels. That is, going in circles, as I briefly did here when I brought us back to this house so I could photograph it. I may do more editing on this photo later, but I love this image, which I captured as we dropped south, then east again.
We headed to the edge of the Foss Reservoir and looked northeast toward the storm. We were looking directly at it — probably at the tornado or at least where it would be, obscured by rain. I attempted to enhance a photo or two to bring out the storm’s features.
Here’s a map of our route and the tornado’s path.
Do the photos show the tornado? Or just a lowering with the tornado behind it? You had to be in just the right spot to see it clearly, and we were too far away and too far south to be in position. But even some people who were much closer, like Jason and Dave, didn’t see it either. The multivortex wedge tornado was encircled by a shaggy white collar cloud that would have further obscured it. This tornado caused damage to several buildings and was rated EF2.
Lightning just south of Taloga, Oklahoma.
From here, we headed a little farther east, captured the amazing layered storm structure, and finally gave up pursuing it so we could head north to get into position for the next day. Along the way, other storms popped, and we spent a few minutes capturing lightning, running into Bill again as we did so. All in all, this day offered a satisfying chase, thanks to its powerful supercell and a visual feast that made for wonderful photos.
Click on any image to start a slide show with captions.
