April 14, 2001: Kansas Did It, Oklahoma Didn't

Miles traveled: 435. SPC risk: Moderate
Chase partner: Adam Scott; later met up with Shane Adams and James Brinkley.
Nowcasting help thanks to: Dwain Warner.

As with many chase days in 2001, I had to work in the morning... but I was let off at 1pm. I picked up Adam and we headed toward our target of Altus. Along the way, a storm developed just north of Altus along an existing outflow boundary. We drove around Altus, wanting to avoid the city, and a tornado warning was issued for the storm, which was near Mangum at that time.

We continued north, and caught the storm near the US 283/OK 44 intersection at Altus Lake. The storm appeared somewhat disorganized, and I wasn't very sure how long the storm would last as it moved east, encountering cooler air behind the outflow boundary. After a bit of hesitation, I figured that since it was the only show in town, it was might as well worth the chase. We drove to Lugert, then east toward Roosevelt. After passing through Roosevelt, we finally got underneath the storm. It had a decent-looking rain free base, but nothing extremely intense.

We stopped at the intersection of OK 58/OK 19 just south of Cooperton, but didn't stay long, as outflow winds were hitting us. Sure enough, the storm was outflow-dominant. We drove around in the area for a while, as new storms developed to our SW but weakened quickly. I managed to squeeze off one more image of the original storm as it moved off to our east.....

We met up with Shane and James and drove back to Roosevelt, then north to Hobart. A storm tried to develop to our west, and we went in its direction... but as we got underneath the storm near Granite, it had dissipated. Chase over, more or less. We caravaned up to Elk City at high speed (James can be a pretty crazy driver at times), but nothing would happen for the rest of the day. Adam and I headed back to Norman, while James headed to NW Texas to try and catch some storms that had formed down there. Later, I heard of a large tornado far to our north, near Pratt, KS. Once again, I'd been screwed by storms forming much farther north than expected. To this point, it had been a frustrating season.

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