Tornadic Mini-supercell
This was the shortest distance I've covered on any tornado intercept to date, yet it was one of the most difficult. Driving through a hilly and forested part of eastern Oklahoma City's suburbs, in attempt to at least keep astern of a fast moving storm, we had to stop at no fewer than 90% of possible traffic signals enroute. With daylight fading, that frustrating entanglement cost us any hope of positioning ourselves to the storm's east with any remaining sunshine. By the time we found a properly directed clearing in the viewing conditions, we were about 5 miles to its SSW, the storm moving away quickly, the tornado soon to dissipate. In this 50 mm focal view the supercell looks more distant than that because it is smaller than normal. The supercell developed in a strongly sheared, marginally unstable environment just east of a middle level, cold core low. Despite its shrunken mass, it was classically structured in every way -- wall cloud, clear slot (left), inflow band (portion at right), and even a little tornado framed by fall colors. Fortunately, we stumbled on a place where we could spend a few minutes observing almost the entire structure of the storm with the Jones tornado still in progress. This tornadic mini-supercell was a first for me, and also, my latest tornado in a calendar year. We were somewhat surprised, but quite glad, that nobody was killed or seriously injured.
2 SW Choctaw OK (10 Nov 4), Looking NNE
(GPS)
