Month: May 2011

After a mind-blowing day in Oklahoma we hung around Ada for the majority of the 22nd expecting the atmosphere to reload and provide a show, perhaps slightly northeast of the 21st.  We hung around the hotel parking lot in Ada chatting with fellow chaser Nathan Edwards as we sat under the blistering sun.  It was looking like a day where storms would erupt along the cold front/dryline from Wisconsin all the way into Texas.  We were concerned about the cap holding towards the Red River and figured further north was the play.

I was chasing with Rob Hurkes and James Seitz from Minnesota these few days.  Our target this day was Purcell, Oklahoma. We departed from Wichita, KS at 1523z and began our trek down I-35. In similar fashion to the day before, a pacific front/dryline was expected to be the trigger for storms in eastern Kansas and Oklahoma. The threat for tornadoes would increase as the day wore on and the LLJ kicked in. After sitting in Purcell for two hours we started to get restless and moved east towards Asher as the dryline advanced. After twenty more minutes in Asher we moved north to Tecumseh in an effort to position ourselves to the northeast of the dryline bulge we were seeing on KTLX. After an hour went by we decided to head back south to the cumulus field that started to present itself on visible satellite. Shortly after 23Z storms began to develop south of Ardmore. The show was starting.