Chase Report: 10 May, 2010, Part 1 - Wakita, OK tower from a distance

Part 1:

Drove up Sunday, May 9, from AUS – 390 miles. Met up with Randy Denzer, David Douglas, Aaron Dooley, and a few others. Stayed at the lovely Comfort Inn in Norman- this place was like the Taj Mahal compared to some of the places I stayed the rest of the week.

High Risk issued by SPC for much of OK on initial Day 1 outlook. Two areas looked good- to begin with, far NW OK (Woodward/Enid), where initial convection was progged to go, and then Central, OK for late afternoon, early evening.

Lollygagged out of Norman west to Watonga with Dooley, Erik Burns and his girl, Craig Curlee, and Seth (last name here). Two towers went up to our NW. We stopped and watched, but refused to be “suckered” north on the early show. The more we watched, the better the NE cell looked, until it had huge anvil, amazing radar hook, and chaser-confirmed reports of tubes on ground, while we looked at dying Cu. Here is the Wakita cell looking North from Watonga at ~2:45. It is roughly 70 miles away:

Meanwhile, I remembered that I needed a new battery shortly after leaving power inverter running after turning engine off. Aaron jump started my car by holding grungy clamps onto his battery posts. It worked! Raced into Watonga , got new battery installed, and resumed the chase.

During my powerlessness, storms closer to us had fired and quickly gone severe, then tornado-warned. I was too far south to catch it, especially with insane 45-55 mph storm motion. Kept foolishly trying to gain ground while other chasers turned and headed back south towards OKC- always remember if you are going at right angles to a storm, you have to average 1.5x its speed to keep up with it (1.414 technically, but round up to account for your underestimation of storm speed).

After a short period without data, I finally got an update and saw why everyone was turning south- the late show had begun...