28 Cordell OK 9 May 2003

Date: 9 May 2003

Location: Start near Fredrick, OK - Finish Union City, OK

Chase Partner: Alone

Summary: Left Russell, KS at about 8 am targeting near between Altus, OK and Clinton, OK. Dryline was to the east and was forecasted to retreat back west to near Childress to NE Oklahoma by afternoon. At Cordell I ran into some high based storms that dropped pea sized hail. Dew points were only in the 40's, so I continued south in hopes to find the moisture boundry. Near Fredrick I stopped and watched the towers go up to my west at about 4 pm. The only supercell at the time was down near Aspermont, TX and things were finally beginning to look better even though I was still to the west of the dryline. I could see the low level moisture about 10 miles to my east so I just held my position and got ready for the show. It looked like I was on Tail End Charlie for a while and then a flanking line developed. The initial storm showed some signs of rotation, but did not appear to tap into the low level moisture because it was high based. I chased it until 2 buffaloes decided that they were gonna hold me up. The storm was moving NE at 40 and needless to say I lost it for a time. I finally caught back up to it near Binger, OK where I had heard that I tornado warning was issued for it, but it was diminishing in intensity. I then headed back west toward Cordell where a new storm was firing up. I had heard that there was rotation down near Sentinal and east of Cordell headed back south to avoid the core. I immediately picked out the rotating wall cloud and closed to within about 2 miles of it. As it became more developed I closed the gap just a little bit more trying to keep up with the storm. The storm never really got its act together even though there was a notable RFD notch and excellent rotation and inflow into it. One wall cloud would split and another would form endlessly from Cordell to Binger. I had to break off the chase and refuel. I now know what "local yocals" are. It was like a scene out of Smokey and the Bandit where Hot Pants Hilliard rounded up all her buddies to block off the smokeys in hot pursuit, except these guys wanted to see the storm. They flocked to me wanting information and I gave them just the location of the storm........it was like pushing a big red go button. One of them screamed at the rest and off they went.............women, children, BABIES!! and the rest. About 20 in all............I thought I had witnessed something out of the Twighlight Zone. Holy shit............anyway, I fueled up and headed east. I didn't catch the storm again til after dark when there was a report of a tornado on the ground 4 miles NE of Cogar.........just as I pulled into Cogar. I had never noticed this before with a supercell storm, but as I was looking NE I noticed there was very little lighting, if any at all. I looked in vain through what small town lights there were from Cogar to Union City to try and glimpse what was reported as a large tornado. One of the DOW's was catching me pretty quick and I pulled over to let them pass. A convoy of about 30 other chasers were in hot pursuit. After reaching Union City I decided to just listen in on the SkyWarn spotters and aborted the chase since it was heading into the OKC Metroplex. I didn't want any part of that mayhem especially since I was doin it alone. I listened to the reports coming in for over an hour as the tornado went through the northern metroplex and on to the NE along I- 44.

Storms begin to fire near Fredrick, OK