March 31, 2008 Eastern Oklahoma Storms



I started out early around 8am and headed for Sallisaw, OK. I stayed in Sallisaw untill 11am as I gave up on any morning storms developing and moving into Western Arkansas. I headed towards some severe storms NW of Checotah, OK and by around noon I got to them. It was all pretty linear but there were a few attempts to get better organized on the southwestern edge. I tried to get some lightning but missed everything. I did see a bunch of birds riding some inflow.




I stayed on that storm until about 2pm when I started back southeast on Hwy 64 to get back into the clean air that was SE. At Haskell, OK I stopped to look North as grlevel was showing a strongs TVS. There was only linear crap but right before I continued south I noticed to my east along the leading edge of the outflow some rotation. It wasn't real rotation but a tight area where outflow that was bulging east was up against the prevaling wind directon (SW) and some inflow into the storm that was now to the NNE. Here is video:





I got down to about Checotah again when a storm that I had been watching that was just to my SW started to get more organized. I headed west into it and then I had some internet connection problems. While trying to get the internet working again I scanned through the channels and heard a radio guy say that there was a tornado warning on the storm and there was a dangerous multi-vortex tornado crossing the interstate near Henryetta. I was just NE of there at this point and directly in the path of the storm and without radar. I called a couple people and they all agreed the storm was becoming linear and congealing into a line and that there were no tornado reports. I am not sure if the radio guy (Fred Baker of KISR in Fort Smith) was/is just stupid or was just inventing up stuff for ratings but I assume it would have to be both.

Anyway, I then head SE out of the mess and head for a strong storm by McAlester. I got to Eufaula when I decided to head East to Enterprise and then south to Quinton and intercept from there. Once I got to Quinton it was obvoius the storm was done with its tornado potential as it was now surging eastward. I rode the line all the way to Spiro, OK where I let it overtake me. Right before it got to me I got some lightning and a few shots of the gust front.