March 17, 2004 Muskogee Wall Cloud Chase  


This was the first chase of the season.  The SPC had only a slight risk for southeast Oklahoma and northeast Texas initially but that was plenty enough to get us out.  We headed out early for our target area around McAlester, Oklahoma.  We made our way through McAlester around noon and continued south to Kiowa, Ok.   We hung out at Kiowa until about 3pm after seeing nother but small cumulus clouds.  We decided to head a bit farther north.


Just north of Kiowa i noticed something unusual and was able to get a couple pictures of it.  Below is a picture of a rare type of cloud referred to as a horse-shoe vortex. 


Horseshoe-vortices are one of the more bizarre cloud forms. They can form if there is a lot of vorticity (a measure of rotation) in the air. Shallow cumulus is ideal for the formation of horseshoe-vortices, although the vortices are rare nevertheless. The vortices form when the small cumulus updraft interacts with the surrounding air and forms a vortex; if the cumulus is small it will dissipate quicker than the spinning vortex so the leftover vortex is seen at the top of the cumulus. The vortex stays visible longer since the vortex interacts (mixes) less well with the ambient air. 

After heading through McAlester we continued north and decided to relax at Arrowhead State Park on Lake Eufaula.  We stayed there for a couple hours.  Around 400pm i noticed some cumulus towers to our north so we took off. As we proceded north the clouds continued to grow and mature and soon we were looking at some pretty intense thunderstorms by 530pm.  (see pics below)   

  

 While we were looking at the storms to our north a new cell developed very  rapidly between us and the storms.  (see pic below)    
     


We continued north past the small town of Boynton on Hwy 62 and continued on toward Muskogee.  North of Boynton Hwy 62 turns from north/south to east/west toward Muskogee, OK.  Now the intense small supercell was just off to our left/north and we got some nice backlit storm structure pictures (see below)       




Upon entering Muskogee it was started to get dark but the storm was still going strong.  We were now as close as we had been all day to the storm and i was sad it was about to be dark.  Unfortunately going through Muskogee the trees and buildings made it difficult to see the storm.  But after a few minutes we broke into a clear spot and was totally surprised to see what appeard to be a lowering.  After watching it for a while i could see a hint of rotation and it was right were it should be so we stopped and got video and pictures (pics below).