Your Thunderstorm memories (scary or exciting!)

[Thundery wintry showers]

July 2006 also had a big thunderstorm in Leeds (where I was at the time). It was on the 2nd, which was a mostly hot sunny day, but then a large array of cumulonimbus clouds unexpectedly appeared to the west in late afternoon/early evening, hidden by the strong sun. The storm built up gradually, with a couple of hours of cloudy, slowly darkening weather, and then the rumbles started up. The thunderstorm peaked shortly after sunset time, with lightning flashes every 5-10 seconds for a time, and torrential rain, and went on for over an hour. Definitely one of the biggest thunderstorms I've ever seen in the UK.

[RichardR]

I remember camping on Jersey in August 1997 when a strong plume thunderstorm broke out in the night, with frequent CG lightning. A bolt of lightning injured a camper in his tent when a lightning current travelled through the wet ground, conducting into his body somehow. That was pretty close.

In August 1999 there was an intense storm with the loudest thunder I've ever heard in the middle of the night in a town near Limoges, France. That storm was also highly electrical causing a power surge and widespread power cuts well into Limoges affecting even the traffic lights.

Other storms I remember include the intense lightning display of 3rd July 1999 when I lived in Windsor, and many years later in September 2006, the mid-day thunderstorm in Lincoln which produced a tornado minutes after coming through town. I remember that latter storm well enough seeing as I was stuck outside in the first part of it, with close CG lightning coming quite rapidly. Most notably I remember looking at the structure of the storm after it had passed over, noting how solid the appearance of the back-sheared anvil was and the defined flanking line into the rear-right. It also had a very large, proper "anvil" looming tens of miles ahead of it, making it get very dark and forboding ahead of the storm. Must have been a lot of upper level wind shear. The base of the approaching anvil was very swollen looking with mammatus and then as the storm approached closer, lots of turbulent boiling dark cloud around the gust front. It was also incredibly dark with bright blue lightning flashes and the heaviest rain I had seen in years, until July 14th 2010, when we had a very heavy thunderstorm here in Buxton, which is pretty rare. The 14th July storm included hail and rain rates up to 10-11" per hour.

Edited August 31, 2010 by RichardR

[Alex95]

My best storm i have experianced in my short life has to be the 31st August 2005 storm, i never even had any idea that there was a risk of storms here so it was a big surprise when it came.

Got dark from the SW around 6ish and the thunder was rumbling which was getting closer. Me and me dad decided to go to the fish shop to get a pizza and watch the storm from there which i saw lots of lightning, the skies was very evil and dark(so dark it was class as night time) and the rain was torrential aswell. The storm lasted for an hour and the garden was flooded quite bad after the storm has cleared. This is no doubt the best storm i have ever witnessed and especially considering i live in a non thunderstorm area.

Yeah, I remember that one! Lightning flashed every 5-10 seconds, which is extremely unusual in Newcastle, and it was very dark despite it being 6pm in August. The 19th June that year was also good, as it was still about 25°C when the storms struck - very warm rain. The most severe storm I've ever witnessed was near Meaux, to the east of Paris, not far from Disneyland on the 6-7th August 2008. Lightning flashed every 1-3 seconds, and there appeared to be localised damaging gusts of wind. The storm lasted from just before midnight until 07:00 the next morning, with more strong storms later on in the afternoon. The temperature was less than 25°C on the 7th, compared with a notably hot 35°C on the 6th. The 19th August 2009 was also very memorable for me. I was in Belgium, near the Dutch border, where temperatures widely reached 35-38°C - this was the hottest day ever recorded in Belgium. A cold front in the evening delivered a decent thunderstorm with very squally winds. The next day was just 20°C. Both of these events clipped Kent I believe, but the brunt of these memorable heatwaves affected the continent.

I'm going to Kissimmee near Orlando in Florida for 3 weeks at the end of July, so hopefully I'll see several thunderstorms there, as they get a storm nearly every day there in the wet season (what we would call summer).

I hope nobody minded me bringing up this old thread, but now that there is no cold on the horizon I'm looking forward to warmer days. Hopefully we'll get some wintry weather in February or March though!

Edited January 28, 2011 by alza

[Weathergirl]

Back in the early 90's there was a huge thunderstorm over west Cardiff and non-stop strikes. Got to my parents and at the time had one of those car radio's that you took out for security.

Big metal box thingy.

Well, got out of the car and could feel the hair on the back of my neck standing up, legged it into the house and the next thing we know, lighting had hit the road just 50yrds away.

We all fell to the floor as it was so scary!

Next thing we knew, the TV, fax machine (dad had an office)were all fried. Thankfully the computer had been disconnected as my dad always did this in thunderstorms.

So, don't carry metal objects if you feel the hair on the back of your neck standing up!

[snow1975]

When I was in Reading. I think it was Friday 2nd July 1999. It was a hot and sunny day in the London area. The storms developed in Cornwall and tracked NE later in the day. The storm came over about 2300 to 0100hr. There was constant lightning and torrential rain. 50mm of rain fell on the University field site rain gauge in about 1 hour.

Observed a good electrical storm in the Ardeche, south France in early August 1999. It followed a hot and sunny day. Not much rain, but very strong winds blew the tent inside out.

Here in Fife, best storm was on the 7th September 1988. After a hot day, the storm came in from the SW during the evening with plenty of lightning. Hardly any rain. Another one came from the south with frequent lightning near midnight on 29th June 1992.

Edit: Another cracker came up from the south on 20th June 1990. Plenty of lightning and torrential rain caused a powercut. Scotland were playing Brazil in the World Cup that evening. Scotland beat them 5-0 lol.

There was another on 19th May 1992. The storms moved NE during the evening. Frequent thunder and a couple of close C-G strikes followed by deafening thunder. Torrential rain for 5 minutes.

Edited January 28, 2011 by snow1975

[Lewis]

I remember two very bad storms, I cannot remember the dates/year I'm afraid, surprised I forgot tbh!

One of the storms, happened when I was about 8 years old. (I'm 21 now)

I remember going to hull city center for a shop with my mum and nanna, I liked the weather at the time just as I do now, I enjoyed thunderstorms.

Anyhow to cut a long story short, it was a hot summers day, we went shopping and I was going down one of the high streets, I noticed some very black clouds, put it this way, they was black, I have never seen such vigorous looking clouds since!

They appeared probably 50-60 miles away, so anyhow we went into a shoe shop, and was in there for half an hour or so trying out some shoes, when we left it was getting very dark outside and they was a few distant rumbles of thunder. We was heading to BHS (British home stores). Then all of a sudden, no word of a lie day turned to night, frequent flashes of lightning, the thunder was immense, not one drop of rain!

As we headed to the lift, the lights was flickering, and all of a sudden they was one big strike, and a huge instant impact of thunder, the thunder was that strong the lift shook whilst we was inside of it. We ended up going to the second flow, stayed on there for about 15 mins - 25 mins tops. Could still hear rumbles of thunder, very intense still.

We then made our way out of BHS and I was absolutely crapping myself knowing that my dad was picking us up and we had to walk to Debenhams, but to my amazement when we got outside, it was bright sunshine again, and the clouds, well they must have really got their speed up as they was hardly any clouds in the sky at all.

That day I will never forget, based on the intensity of such a storm, and how quickly the conditions changed, both before and after the storm had passed through.

Now the second storm.... lol

This one, I shall never forget, I was 14 so it's going back seven years ago. My dad had another miss's on the go after divorcing me mother, I was living at my dads for the time whilst he buggered off to his sugar momma. So I could pretty much say the house was mine!

Anyhow, Paul may remember the time of this, looking at my past posts, a few of you may remember.

They was associated with a plume, we had thunderstorms, multicellular, we was all tracking them on the night at around 6-7pm they was building around the bay of Biscay, heading in a NNE direction. As they made their way over the Channel to affect Poole, and then later another cluster side by side, hit the capital. As they maintained their shift NNE'wards, they continued to grow in size and intensity, at one point when it did hit the Hull area, the echo returns on the radar was just pure white (the full clump of it) on the metoffice radar.

Put it this way I have never seen lightning so wild, my electric was knocked out, it was literally. ZOOMF ZOOMF BANG, FLICKER BANG FLICKER BANK FOR ABOUT 4-5 HOURS and it continued until around 4-5am in the morning, I was all by myself too! I remember the dog (Labrador) we had at the time curling up on the sofa with me downstairs as I was just petrified, a neighbouts dustbin got hit, the strike was so close the full house lit up, I have never seen a light so bright, and the noise, incredible!

Since then I've had a couple of close encounters whilst out and about, one playing rugby, and another in a field. When it comes back to the storm season again this year, you'll see me excited at the charts and seeing conditions favorable for the thunderstorms, but when they come, I won't be online, I would of ran off lol, I will always be fascinated with any weather condition, or variable, but Lightning for me, the second I know its -CG I'm out of here!

It's why I want to go to the USA to get it out of my system. I love tornado's though!

I have spotted 2 funnels, a few walls clouds, and 1 tornado and I'm only 21. The last tornado i spotted i ended up in the second page of my local rag with a cheesy picture shot they made me do looking up to the sky haha!

Witnessed some good storms, heavy rain and flooding, very heavy snow, almost 2 feet back in December 2005 winter, where we had upper 850's pf -10 to -12, with the colder air stuck over us and to the east, with a big system pushing eastwards from the west and stalling.

Who dare say Hull is a dull place, a lot happens here

I would not swap Hull for it's weather than anywhere else in the country, accept maybe aviemore in the winter

Lewis

[conor123]

Summer 2007 gets a lot of hate on this forum but there were numerous intense thunderstorms here, one of the more notable ones was on 19th June which having searched youtube the video is still there (look above), it was the only instance in which ive seen a funnel cloud (look at bottom left of the screen), though at the time i wasnt

sure what it was!

That storm is my most recent memory as it had it all, intense hail, torrential rain, numerous CG's, the funnel cloud, scuds, intense winds...the video doesnt really do it justice.

Here's some pictures of mine;

And this picture wasnt mine but sums the beast up.

Edited January 28, 2011 by conor123

[Jane Louise]

Wow! some great stories. Thanks for sharing.

[Stuart]

Great stories all Thanks for sharing

[Ja23]

When I was younger a huge thunderstorm hit my area. It was at night time and and the sound of it made me jump and hit the ceiling (i was in my bunkbed.)

Edited January 31, 2011 by Ja23

[Harry]

The most memorable UK storm for me was August 6th 2008 (as I'm sure everyone who lives in the SE remembers)

Was an incredible line of storms which erupted late on in the evening - Estofex had a Level 1 issued for N France/SE England (if I remember correctly) and the atmosphere on here plummeted as we neared 7pm with nothing of note happening - it was a warm and sultry evening and I got my beloved to take me to the chippy...while in there, the sky went dark suddenly to the South and I scanned the radar on my blackberry with much anticipation - behold, a line of cells began erupting in a narrow line across the Northern tip of France and into the channel and continued to backbuild for several hours... between around 8pm and well after midnight I was treated to one of the most electrified series of storms I've witnessed in the UK...the first two cells hit overhead but the subsequent cells continually slid further N and East, allowing full viewing under clearing skies...I just wish I had my DSLR.

Pretty much every summer in the 90s and early 00s delivered awesome (and on some occasions petrifying) night-time plume thunderstorms, the likes of which I haven't really experienced for a while, except 2008. Since about 2005 there's been a handful, but not which for me rivals those a few years before.

Last year was without question the worst year I've ever witnessed for storms in the UK - 4 thunder days in total with just 4 storm events.

I am praying 2011 will deliver at least something near average - 07, 08 and 10 have been poor, 09 was about average for the SouthEast but far from memorable

[Coast]

Standing in a bus shelter on Eastbourne seafront 2 years ago trying to keep still with the tripod while photographing lightning out at sea with 6 teenagers high as kites on cheap cider and something stinky in a fag paper.

Or meeting up with Paul Sherman on Beachy Head that same year to watch a storm out to sea and being bombed by May Bugs that were freaking him and his poor daughter out!!!

[Harry]

Standing in a bus shelter on Eastbourne seafront 2 years ago trying to keep still with the tripod while photographing lightning out at sea with 6 teenagers high as kites on cheap cider and something stinky in a fag paper.

Or meeting up with Paul Sherman on Beachy Head that same year to watch a storm out to sea and being bombed by May Bugs that were freaking him and his poor daughter out!!!

Ahhh - May Bugs...are they the vile creatures that whizz around trees/bushes on humid evenings...normally seen in abundance during dusk hours??

I'm still somewhat confused as to whether these are hawkmoths, a type of bee or even these may bugs...they freak me out and they are quick movers in the air (and never seem to sit down for long)

(NB - Never mind, I think I've answered my own query - May Bug in late summer...unlikely lol)

Edited January 31, 2011 by Harry

[Coast]

Ahhh - May Bugs...are they the vile creatures that whizz around trees/bushes on humid evenings...normally seen in abundance during dusk hours??

Mostly when there is a thunderstorm and that big wuss Sherman about!!!! :lol:

[crazy_diamond]

Mostly when there is a thunderstorm and that big wuss Sherman about!!!! :lol:

I can understand Paul S's horror at May Bugs. I was born, raised and lived in Southend for 40 odd years until 1999, and only laid eyes on the wretched May Bugs when I moved to South Ockendon. Ughhh!:blink:

CD

[Big Bird]

I come from Gdansk, Poland, which gets some pretty intense storms (although nowhere near as intense as some of the storms that often hit central or southern Poland). In October 2009 I began my studies in the UK, and the time I've spent here since then has been absolutely fantastic except for one thing - no storms! All I got here in Oxford was a single rumble of thunder on June 6th 2010 and another one on June 13th.

The only time I've witnessed a really good storm in the UK was on July 2nd 1999 in Aberdovey, Wales. After a very hot day, late in the evening this tremendous storm moved in from the west across the Irish Sea. No rain at all, but loads of lightning and amazing clouds of a sort of purply-pinky colour moving across the sea towards the land. I watched it all from an upstairs window in a house perched in the hills above the village - the view was superb. The only other time I've seen any decent storms in the UK was on June 28th and 29th 2005 in Montgomery, Wales, but they were nowhere nearly as spectacular.

Back in Gdansk I've seen some pretty awesome storms, though. 12th April 2000 was a memorable day - it started off rainy, then about midday the sun came out and it became extremely hot and humid for April. It stayed like that until exactly 6.30pm when I suddenly noticed that something seemed different. I looked out of the window and saw this pitch-black cloud advancing from the south-east. I've never such a black cloud since. It seemed all the blacker because it hadn't yet obscured the sun which was still shining brightly, so that the contrast between bright sun and black cloud produced a particularly scary effect. Once the storm moved in it was really spectacular - masses of lightning which lasted well into the night.

The summers of 2006 and 2007 were great for thunderstorms in Poland. Palm Sunday, April 9th 2006, brought a storm which produced only 3 claps of thunder but they were absolutely deafening ones, accompanied by the most amazing swirling clouds. They reminded me a bit of the clouds you see in TV programmes about tornadoes in the USA - it wasn't a tornado but those clouds were just so "alive". That year the warm air lasted well into the autumn months, which resulted in several great autumn storms - the best of these being on October 2nd, which brought a stunning shelf cloud. Whereas in 2007 a record-breaking number of storms occurred in June. The best days were the 14th to the 16th - a massive hailstorm about midday on the 14th, an extremely electrically active storm on the evening of the 15th and a storm with the heaviest rainfall I've ever seen in the early afternoon of the 16th.

Last summer, when I went back to Poland for the vacation, there were lots of storms - sadly none of them very spectacular, but still plenty. On July 24th it thundered literally ALL DAY. And between August 13th and 17th there were 5 days in a row with at least one thunderstorm on each. There was also some great thundersnow when I went back for the Christmas vacation, on December 12th and 13th.

Hope I haven't bored you all with these stories of storms in another country, it's just that I miss storms so much that I have to vent my feelings somehow...

[Supercell 89]

So many storms i could rave about but i'll try and cut it down to five lol.

Firstly, i'm not entirely sure when this was. I have a hunch it may have been 1995 but could have been 96. Anyhows, i was living in Gosport at the time and i was only about 5 or 6. But we had this cracking huge storm early one morning in the summer hols. It started about 6 in the morning and i was watching good old GMTV having my breakfast and it had been rumbling away for a fair while and the sky had gone grey. But this storm was like something out of a book, first came the cloud then it started rumbling, then the wind picked up suddenly and a few spots of rain came down. Next came the heavy rain the wind whipped right up and bang off went the thunder and lightning and continued for at least 4 hours. It wasn't until lunchtime the skies cleared and it turned hot and sunny again. But i remember Portsmouth train station being struck and set on fire from the lightning. Its my first proper memory of a storm and i'll always remember it and i wasn't scared at all .

Secondly, 26th September 2000 in Blackpool. Having moved up north a few years prior , big storms weren't frequent so they were a lot more memorable when they happened. But this was was the biggest we had by a very big margin. It had been unusually warm and humid in the days prior to the storm and the day itself and that evening when i was having my tea (Chicago Town Pizza may i add lol) The sky had gone fairly dark but it was turning a very nasty shade of green which i've never seen in the UK since on a storm and the structure was amazing, it looked like something out of America and i thought this has too be a monster of storm, surely enough a few minutes later we could hear the thunder. After necking down the pizza i ran outside where it started to rain but massive drops of it where coming down, then it stopped and there was sheet lightning going on everywhere. Me and my friend then decided to go to the shop where we saw some amazing could to cloud and cloud to air bolts ripple across the sky and whilst we where in the shop the torrential rain and hail set in. After having to pelt the 200 yrds or so way home which was brilliant with the lightning going off right overhead i was absolutely soaked to the skin. I then watched the rest of the storm from home but it went on for at least 2 hours. But we had tons of fork lightning and sheet lightning sparking off every second i counted at one point and all different colours as well which was very odd. But the thing that struck me the most was how orgianised this storm was, it went through a cycle of torrential rain, really tropical style with continuous thunder but no lightning and gusty winds, then it turned to heavy hail and light rain and tons of lightning but no thunder or wind i've never seen a storm act this way before or since. There was tons of flash flooding from this storm it was a fantastic beast.

I may post some more memories later seeing as i've written an essay

[Jane Louise]

Here's hoping we all have some good memories for this year too.

Great posts. I'm really enjoying these.

[Harry]

Here's hoping we all have some good memories for this year too.

Great posts. I'm really enjoying these.

This is what I'm talking about!! Not had one like this for a while (though Aug 08 was probably on par)

Will set up a separate thread for this vid as its up there with the best of any UK storms I've seen caught on camera!

[anvilhead]

Has to be Kansas 2008 - DIy chase trip with 2 others - we were heading west, and about 100 miles to the north there was a long supercell on the horizon. Eventualy decided that nothing was going to fire east, and so headed north - we had about 30 minutes before nightfall when we reached the storm. Inflow was whistling through the power lines lining the road (which later toppled over I heard!). Stu Robinson was also on this storm with a chase group, and being more expierenced was right in under the storm.

The meso was just infront of us, heading east, but there was a sort of wrap around of the base of the storm, so across the whole northern sky there was just a wall of flickering lightning. It wrapped round more and as the light was failing we thought we better get out of the way - Stu contacted us saying it was a monster and he was getting out of the way, so quite rightly, we made a sharp exit - soon ran out of road options heading south and we were bouncing down a mud track as fast as we could with lightning spidering around above us and what looked like a gigantic wedge coming across the fields backlit by lightning as we pushed south. Never seen lightning like it - the anvil zits in the anvil canopy above us were just incredible. We eventualy got s/e ahead of it, and pulled into a motel - the storm had lost its punch at this point - still a nice light show though ..

Fond memories of the old plume storms in the uk - I think it was 1995 when we had the last proper decent mcs, and I remember watching cc lightning jumping from storm to storm, and anvil crawlers all over the place. Still, locality makes all the difference - other parts of the country have probably had memorable storm systems more recently.

Cheers ,Sam

[Stormyking]

There is 1 that sticks out in my mind which I will never forget.

26th July 2006: The day started off very warm and sticky, temperatures around 11am was alright up to 29/30c and they continued to rise. Around 1pm onwards a load of AcCas clouds was appearing all over the place and temperatures was up to 31c and it was becoming even more sticky and humid. My dad took me and my brother out to Ventnor around 3pm and when we got there, it was very dark out to sea and I kept hearing deep rumbling ever 30 seconds or so and I thought right that has to be thunder. I go to my dad that is thunder I can hear and he says no its not your just hearing things, but it was soooo dark out there. We walked around and then got back to the car, rumbling was still going on and my dad was hearing it, and goes hang on a minute that is thunder, so I go THANK YOU I said it was lol!

Anyways this storm didn't hit us and I thought that was it and we wasn't going to get anything else which I felt gutted about. When we got back, we had to go to the carnival, and it started coming over really dark, and then was almost like night and I was thinking to myself, surely this has to it but nope only gave a couple of spots of rain and past, then brightened up again, I felt really disappointed inside. When the carnival finished about 10/15 minutes later we got home and my mum told me to put some stuff away in the garden. I opened the back door and got outside, put things away and then all of a sudden Thunder rumbling away and I literally went inside and upstairs to the bedroom window to be greeted to a very dark sky with sun shining on it, within 5 seconds a massive CG came down right in front of my eyes and was like WOOOO! 10/15 seconds lately streaks of lightning to my left which looked amazing and very nice thunder a couple of seconds after.

I thought this storm I was watching was about to pass through, but the sky was flashing away to my South and SW coming directly my way and was merging into the storm that was already over us. I was thinking OH MY GOD this is going to be a long night and it was one amazing night. The storm went on for 4 hours and the lightning was every 2 seconds, for the first hour and a half of the storm, there was no thunder, just constant lightning. Then the Thunder arrived properly and it was very very loud, and was shaking the whole place, the sound was deflecting off all the buildings which made it sound even better. The Lightning was just going on and on and on and on, and was producing some of the most amazing looking lightning I ever seen. There was spider lightning, a lot of Forked lightning with multiple strikes at once and obviously CC lightning. The storm caused power cuts across a lot of parts on the Isle of Wight. This storm even got my mum and my brother to watch it, which is a rarity :L

For me this storm will take some beating but my fingers are crossed for that to happen this year!!!!

[anvilhead]

Good post Stormyking!

I've got a feeling I drove down to the IOW on that night. I was stood in a field watching it - the lightning was instnse for half an hour but was slowly decreasing, so it was a good couple of hours after it kicked off. THere was a photo in the paper with that storm taken by Jamie (one of the other forum members) of lightning striking the sea near a ferry - was that the same storm ?

Cheers, Sam

[Stormyking]

Good post Stormyking!

I've got a feeling I drove down to the IOW on that night. I was stood in a field watching it - the lightning was instnse for half an hour but was slowly decreasing, so it was a good couple of hours after it kicked off. THere was a photo in the paper with that storm taken by Jamie (one of the other forum members) of lightning striking the sea near a ferry - was that the same storm ?

Cheers, Sam

Thank you Sam

Aha yes I know Jamie I go storm chasing with him in the summer, one of my very good friends

I believe that Storm with the photo in the paper of his was actually June 25th 2009, was it a picture of Multiple lightning strikes with a light house in there too? If it's not it may of been, but this storm I saw, the lightning was very intense for a good couple of hours

The Isle of Wight always used to be an excellent place for storms, but over the years it has been really disappointing

In actual fact the night before the storm i writ up on the 25h July 2006 we had a good thunderstorm going off that night too, the lightning was intense for around a good half an hour then slowly decreased it might of been this one you was referring too, because there 2 big storms in 2 nights, I remember it very well indeed

[Paul Sherman]

Thought I would put one of the 2010 Chases in here just so you can see how scary/exciting delete which one Lol these Supercells are.

MAY 19TH 2010 – Oklahoma High Risk

Wednesday May 19th was deemed a High Risk in Oklahoma by the SPC (Storm Prediction Centre) but it was also our Changeover day between Tours 2 & 3 so knowing this I was worried we would not be able to Chase this Fantastic Risk for Tornadoes. High Risks only come around on average 3 times per Year and this was the 4th in 2010 already. One big thing in our favour was the risk area was only 250 miles North of Dallas Fort Worth Airport so presuming we could get away from the airport in good time then there was a decent chance we could get chasing in the late afternoon.

The Set-Up for this day would be an old Outflow Boundary and Dryline Set-Up further South. The Outflow Boundary duly fired at around 1pm and Masses of Chasers targeted the biggest giveaway of 2010 near to Hennessey (Oklahoma) This caused unprecedented scenes along usually deserted Highways to the North West of Oklahoma City with terrible driving from many and lots of Chasers getting caught in Traffic Jams. One plus for us still at DFW Airport would be “if†the Dryline Fired further South from Oklahoma City then we could have Storms pretty much to ourselves.

We finally left DFW at around 230pm and made our way towards an area between Lawton and Oklahoma City, a Tornado Watch Box was issued almost at the same time and we sat and watched a Nice Storm go up to the North East of Lawton, this storm initially struggled and started to fall apart but other storms were erupting, all the time we were getting pushed further towards Oklahoma City which was not a good thing as chasing near built up Metropolitan Cities is not a good idea due to heavier traffic. By now the time was around 6pm (Magic Hour as it is called) and the Storm we were tracking really started to get its act together. I followed this Storm and noticed the tell tale signs that Tornadoes were likely by viewing a Wall Cloud to our West, the Core of the Storm started to affect our position to the North East of the Storm and we started to take Golf Ball sized Hailstones at our location. I made the decision to punch back South through the Hailcore and not try to outrun it to the North-East, as we came out of the Hail and to a crossroads just off to our right (West) was a beautiful White Cone Tornado (White because the Sun was backlighting it from the West) I took the East road at the crossroads and viewed the 1st Tornado we saw that day between Prague (Ok) and Dibble (Ok). I followed this Storm further to the east as the Tornado had now lifted but the Storm was now becoming very High Based (Base at 7,000ft) so Tornadoes were now not looking very likely. I now had the dreaded decision to make wether to stick with the Storm or target a new storm that had initiated about 50 miles to our South further down the Dryline. These Storms are known as Tail End Charlies and usually are the Strongest due to the un-obstructed inflow of warm moist air that they need to survive and get stronger. As we were literally 1 Mile from the main Interstate (I-35)

I got the cars loaded and shot off South down the Interstate towards Paul’s Valley. Our new storm on radar was starting to look very healthy and was still the last in the line. We pulled off the Interstate about 45 Miles further South near a place called Wynewood (Oklahoma) and drove right underneath the Rain Free Base of the approaching Storm. An audible Hail Roar was observed by everyone and the Storm although looking LP (Low Precipitation Supercell) in Nature was already transitioning into a Classic Supercell. The Storm was moving East so I positioned our chase convoy (It now consisted of 3 cars of Canadians as well who had tagged along) further South to escape the Baseball Sized Hailstones. About this time 745pm violent rotation was noted just to our West and I commented that the Storm would be dropping a Tornado within the next 15 or so minutes, the Canadians were starting to get twitchy so I told them when we jump in the cars and hit the Pedal for them to follow, that time was very near. Finally the time had come and we all headed South once again, the road ahead at this time did not look good, with river valleys and roads that undulated, as we went into one such dip the area of rotation was directly overhead and it felt as if someone had thrown a Bucket of Water at the car as Wet RFD (Rear Flank Downdraught) from right to left (W-E) hit the Chevy Tahoe, the precip stopped instantaneously, this was followed by about 1,000 Leaves and twigs hitting the car from the other direction (E-W) Having been in a situation like this before I knew we were pretty much underneath the developing Tornado and in the rotational area. We then climbed a steep hill and parked the car to see an amazing rotating Mesocyclone just to our North and a Wedge Tornado about 1 Mile away down the road just where we had come from, Green Power flashes lit the black sky to our North as the Tornado hit PowerLines! The Tornado then lifted and the Mesocyclone occluded, a new Stovepipe shaped Tornado then developed and moved quickly due East along the same path. We were now upto 3 Tornadoes for the day but the storm was not done yet. I re-positioned us further South and East and let the guys get some Lightning Photography near a Town called Joy (Ok) here we shot the most amazing pictures of a Classic Supercell with developing Tornado and as it was now 845pm the Lighting was fantastic. The Storm was now morphing into a HP Supercell (High Precipitation) as it moved East towards Sulphur (Ok) I took the option that as it was now dark we might get to see a Tornado being lit up by Power Flashes so trundled on East, we got ahead of the Supercell once again but as the Tornado was now so buried in the Rain/Hail never got to see anymore of the Tornadoes occurred with this Cyclic Supercell, lots of emergency vehicles rushed past us as we shot Lightning Pictures as the Tornado was off to our North East damaging a Farmstead. We finally called it a day at about 1030pm and headed back to DFW To the Hotel where the new arrivals that had been on later flights were, the footage we showed them the next morning at breakfast had them glaring at us and British Airways for not getting their flights in sooner.

[Jimmyh]

One abiding memory when i was a lot younger is when it went so dark at midday the lights in the streets cam e on and the rain was relenting