42 CedarVale KS 3 June 2005

Date: 3 June 2005

Location: OKC to Cedar Vale, KS

Chase Partner: Joe Spencer and Fred the F5

Summary: After crashing for the night in Garden City, KS and recovering from the mud bogging adventure the previous day. Woke up and targeted near Clinton, OK. Left Garden City mid morning and got to Clinton at 1825. A lone storm fired near Chickasha while enroute and looked to be the only player in town. After we caught it, the storm basically collapsed and had a very high base. We drove thru OKC and headed N on I 35. I noted that near the KS border there were richer dew pts and better backing winds. We stopped north of OKC for some chow and then headed back north on 35. South of Ponca City the storm exploded and went tornadic in no time at all. Storms were firing off the flank as well. We stopped near Blackwell and shot some time exposure and watched the towers go up in the night sky. They were literally boiling skyward. The storm on the sw flank of the original storm near OKC soon went tornadic and we were in hot pursuit. We headed East and then north thru Arkansas City, KS. After out of Arkansas City we headed East on 166. We could see a funnel cloud illuminated in the lightning, but then soon lost it in hills and trees. After we cleared some trees and crested one hill, something I will never forget as lightning illuminated the entire sky from horizon to horizon and you could clearly see multiple tornados on the ground. After we reexamined the footage we determined that there were 4 tornados coming out of 2 separate mesocyclones on the ground at the same time. We stopped at the top of a hill with a great view and just watched in awe. I reported the tornados to 911 and tried to inform anyone that stopped what was happening. It was very spooky as storms to our SW were starting to go tornadic as well. After a few minutes we really only paid close attention to the main tornado, a really well formed cone. We watched it until it tore off into the rain wrapping meso. After we lost visibility on the cone, we headed south on State Hwy 15 and made an attempt to punch the core and intercept the next tornado warned storm coming our way. The rain really killed visibility even with the frequent CG strikes. We ended up aborting and retreating back north to 166. The storms eventually lined up into a squall and we headed to Wichita and called it a night. Arrived to a wicked CG storm. To my knowledge, the tornados near Cedar Vale did not do any damage.

As the storms entered a better suited environment, they exploded.

The following are vidcaps as the quality is greatly reduced.

The Cedar Vale outbreak.

Although the quality is not there, there really are 4 tornados in this pic.

The main tornado.

As the tornado occludes in rain and heads NE, we opt to target another storm to our SW.