After the debacle of the last chase,
caused by not leaving early enough, Mike and I left Norman before
noon with plenty of time to screw things up! The sky over
NW Oklahoma had cleared and was collocated with the best instability
and dynamics. We ended-up north of Slapout (yeah, that
far away!) to see linearly organized grungy Cu firing up along
the dryline. The inflow winds were the strongest either
of us had ever experienced. Mesonet sites recorded gusts
over 65 MPH! There were huge tumbleweeds as far as the
eye could see...which made for some interesting driving!
Our mode of failure this day was the
absence of a nowcaster. Had we known that the south end
of the line, near I-40 and the TX/OK border, had formed into
supercells, we never would have driven that far north.
Once we realized our blunder, we plunged south, only to experience
stratiform precip for the rest of the chase. We were twice
within 10 miles of reported tornadoes (including the report
prompting a warning near Burns Flat), but everything was dust
and rain wrapped and moving at 50+ MPH. It was a rather
uneventful chase with hardly any lighting and no hail.
The squall line eventually made its way to Norman around 11:30
PM, just after we got home.