Day 1b - Do you think that we'll see Tim..?

Tim was Rich’s seat mate on the flight to Oklahoma City and lived in Enid. As per this morning’s entry, tornado potential looks good in north west Oklahoma and south central Kansas so we’re off to Enid, north west of Oklahoma City. We go through the Wall-Mart/Starbucks routine and head north.

There’s a minor storm to our west, some light rain and some cloud to ground lightning. We end up in Meadowlake Park and eat our picnic. No sign of Tim. SPC has reassessed the 10% tornado area and split it into discrete north and south areas, so which one do we choose? After some deliberation we decide to head south west and retrace our steps.

We continue south down US81, west on 51, south at Canton down 58, 33 then on to US183. At around 15:00 we’re under a tornado watch. Initiation will hopefully be in an hour or two. We arrive at Clinton for a quick stop and review. No Trump supporters here…

We head south on US183 and storms are firing to our south west and they are heading north east by east at about 25mph. The cap has been breached and we are treated to some spectacular convection. This issue we have now is that we are on the wrong side of the storms and need to thread our way between them to try and get south and east in order to get in front of them. Easier said than done. We head south 54 on then east on 19. The road is slow and stair steps south east and we are hit by some blinding precipitation as we head through the scenic Wichita Mountains…a storm to our left and a storm to our right. The one to our south, the tale end Charlie is strengthening.

I ate my lucky apple pie (sticky yuk) and sure enough the storm becomes tornado warned. We head south into Lawton and reports come in of serious wind damage. Soon enough, travelling east on 7 we see a telegraph pole snapped in half. Reports had also come in of a couple of brief tornadoes from this storm and persistent funnels  which were invisible from our location. We continued east as the storm remained tornado warned; it briefly threatened to reorganise watched intently by the many converging chasers and worried locals alike.

Shortly after the day's heating is done and our storm fell apart; after a quick stop at Arby’s in Chickasha and some mammatus clouds at sunset we’re off back to the Wyndham Gardens in Oklahoma City where the day started this morning. That's one BIG circle. Rich dragged me into the bar...had something called DNS...turns out it stands for Do Not Resuscitate...ooops 10%... Tomorrow looks decent with another moderate day. Watch this space...

Total miles:  474