Date: May 16, 2015
Time: 3:30 - 8:00 PM CDT
Place: Elk City, Snyder, OK
Distance: 1021 mi (314 positioning, 207 chasing, 500 to home)
Camera: T3i, GoPro3 Silver
Warnings: SVR, TOR
Rating: S4

The Chase

7:45 AM MDT: Well crap, I just realized Goodland is not in the Central time zone. It's an hour later than I thought it was.

8:03 AM MDT: DOUBLE CRAP! Last night the SPC put a big fat moderate risk from Nebraska down to Texas. But then a huge line of overnight storms scoured everything from South Dakota the Texas panhandle. I'm just now realizing that we are nowhere near the tornado zone for today!!! Somehow we gotta get to SW Oklahoma - Toni will not like getting going this soon.

9:08 AM MDT: Had a quick bite at the hotel (can't pass up the Holiday Inn express sweet rolls) and we're on our way south out of Goodland.

9:41 AM MDT: I shouldn't be stopping, but I can't resist filming a few minutes of a crop dusting plane crossing the highway.

11:00 AM MDT: TRIPLE CRAP!!! Convection is initiating already between Amarillo and Lubbock. Will yet another lovely (this time negatively-tilted) 2015 trough go to waste due to early convection?????? We are just now coming into Johnson City, KS - still hundreds of miles from my now doubtful target.

12:55 PM CDT: A Tornado Watch just went out for the Texas panhandle and a few counties in extreme SW Oklahoma - so early in the day. There's been a nice cell north of Plainview, TX I've been watching jealously on Radarscope. Current position: way far from where we should be - between Hugoton and Liberal, KS.

1:17 PM CDT: Quick bite to eat at the Liberal Arby's. Current dilemma: drop straight south to intercept panhandle storms soonest, or cut east first then south.

2:23 PM CDT: We chose to cut east first on Hwy 412 in the OK panhandle. We were never going to beat the big supercell currently closing in on Shamrock, TX by dropping directly south.

2:42 PM: Tornado watch for all of western Kansas?? I'm really confused by that...

3:25 PM: Gassing up in Shattuck, OK now - about to enter storm chase mode. Storms in the eastern TX panhandle are starting to line out, but new development is starting on the edge of the outflow boundary from this morning's storms, in a SW/NE line from Crawford to Waynoka. Storms would probably be able to train along that.

4:07 PM: Well scratch that plan. These new storms were dead on arrival - must've been elevated because they flew straight north over the boundary and died. We are in Vici, OK now in dense fog. No good, heading further south. Tornado watch was issued a few minutes ago for all of SW Oklahoma.

4:47 PM: Sitting a couple miles south of Hammon. Oddly enough, we are looking east at the original early cell I bemoaned earlier when it was near Plainview, TX - long since gone outflow dominant. Getting a few pics and then heading on to Elk City.

4:52 PM: Tornado Warning for a cell between Texola and Erick! We can intercept in Elk City!!

5:14 PM: We are set up in an open field south a Elk City behind some old refinery (creepy spot). Looking straight west through the haze at our tornado warned storm, whose warning was just extended. Starting the timelapse!

5:25 PM: Well this sucks. A storm to our south is raining into our storm and onto us. Still have pretty poor visibility on the base.

5:37 PM: Worried for Elk City. The storm is moving on into town now. We have horrible visibility looking northwest into the meso :(

5:40 PM: To make matters worse, I just noticed the supercell down near Elmer, OK - best radar presentation I've seen all year. And here we are 60 miles north of it. Not a fun feeling.

5:45 PM: View is clearing a little as our supercell moves just north of us. Pretty scuddy base, but there's definitely a suspicious dark region buried in the rain. Fortunately we've seen no power flashes in Elk City.

5:53 PM: The first Elk City cell looks to be weakening. We are now in a bad spot - behind a line of congealing storms. I'm partly tempted to just start the long drive home now. This is probably the lowest I've felt on a chase. We are currently watching a new cell move into Elk City. It's not doing too bad given the worked over air it's in.

6:27 PM: Screw it, I'm not giving up on this day yet. Flying south on Hwy 44 to see what plays we can make down there.

7:19 PM: Making our final approach into Snyder now - about 40 minutes after the long track tornado passed south of town.

7:33 PM: Flooding and road construction are making it nearly impossible to get through town. Fortunately, Snyder seems ok though. Some new elongated cells popped up in the last few minutes and are moving through with some ferocious straight line winds.

7:39 PM: We found the tornado damage track at the Hwy 62 / 62 business intersection southeast of town. Mostly just some snapped trees and power poles, but there was a flipped semi (police on the scene).

7:57 PM: Giving up the chase here in Cache, OK. It was pretty pointless to drive down here, but we saw some pretty views and a new part of Oklahoma. Gonna finish the day with a quick drive through the Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge. Maybe we can even see the tornado path again.

8:15 PM: Just crossed Cow Creek in the wildlife refuge and guess what we found. TONS OF COWS. Longhorns with babies and they are just wandering all around the car. This is pretty excellent. Definitely making me feel better after the chase today.

8:21 PM: Saw more cows and also found what might be the tornado damage path - a pretty tight cluster of freshly downed trees. Not sure though, could be RFD damage too.

9:24 PM: Altus Hampton Inn with Applebee's right next door??? Maybe today isn't so bad after all.

Recap, Filmmaking Notes, and Lessons Learned