06.04.11
Posted in General News at 6:09 pm by Rebekah
My Dad flies in to Oklahoma City tomorrow afternoon, and we begin the three day drive back to Washington early Monday morning.
I don’t know how to say goodbye to friends here; I prefer to think of it as a “see you later” or “talk to you soon”, as I’ll still be in touch. It’s hard, as even though I look forward to spending time with family and friends in the Northwest over the next few weeks and then moving on to Kwajalein in mid-July, I have spent the last several years of my life in Norman.
I have made many friends here, the best of which have been by me through some great and some not-so-great times.
I have had so many amazing experiences since coming to Norman, and have learned a lot about meteorology. When I first came to Norman in 2005, I knew nothing about storms and not much about the weather. Since then, I have become an experienced storm chaser and have witnessed a couple dozen tornadoes, baseball-sized hail, intense storms, blizzards, and ice storms.
Before I came to Oklahoma, I had never been on a plane and had never been outside the Pacific Northwest. Since then, I have traveled to over half of the 50 states, have gone overseas, and have seen a space shuttle launch (perhaps unrelated to coming here, but you never know). You never know what experiences and opportunities may be waiting around the corner.
I always wanted to go to Oklahoma when I was a kid, and not necessarily for the weather. The musical Oklahoma! was one of the first movies I saw, and while you may laugh, somehow I became quite interested in the state. When I was about five or six, I asked my Mom for maps of Oklahoma and Oklahoma City (I still have them).
Norman, Oklahoma, and the Great Plains: I will miss you, but I will come back to visit in the not-too-distant future. Keep being great.
Friends in the Norman area: I will miss you very much, but we will keep in touch and may we be brought together again soon! All the best to all of you.
BOOMER SOONER!!!
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05.27.11
Posted in Severe Weather Post-analysis at 10:54 am by Rebekah
The Norman National Weather Service has upgraded the Binger/El Reno/Piedmont/Guthrie tornado, the Chickasha/Blanchard/Newcastle tornado, and the Washington/Goldsby tornado to EF4. They say that the damage surveys are not done, though, so any of these could even be upgraded later to EF5.
The second of these three tornadoes was the one headed for northwest Norman, south Moore, and possibly downtown Oklahoma City if it had not occluded, and the third was the one headed for the National Weather Center and south Norman if it had not occluded.
Here is the public information statement from the National Weather Service with more info on these tornadoes: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/oun/?n=events-20110524-pns1
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05.26.11
Posted in Severe Weather Post-analysis at 11:22 pm by Rebekah
The Norman National Weather Service has put out more information on their page for the 24 May 2011 Oklahoma tornado outbreak.
So far they have rated 4 of the 7 confirmed tornadoes as EF3s, though these ratings could be raised (and probably will be) pending further damage analysis.
The following map shows an updated map of the preliminary tornado tracks, with times the tornadoes were on the ground.
The following images show the storm-relative velocity and radar reflectivity for the tornadic supercells approaching the Oklahoma City metro area. Click to enlarge.
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05.25.11
Posted in Severe Weather Post-analysis at 7:23 pm by Rebekah
Here is the Norman National Weather Service map of yesterday’s preliminary tornado tracks.
They are working on the damage surveys and have information on this page about the outbreak. So far they have rated the Canton multi-vortex tornado as an EF3, and many of the other tornadoes as at least EF3 (some of these are likely to go up).
There is another high risk for severe weather today in the central Mississippi River Valley, and so far there have been 56 tornado reports.
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05.24.11
Posted in Severe Weather Post-analysis at 9:34 pm by Rebekah
We saw two tornadoes today, a multi-vortex near Canton, Oklahoma at 3:20 pm and the rope-out stage of an elephant trunk tornado near Fairview at about 3:48 pm.
My photos didn’t turn out very well (the above photo is from the touchdown of the Canton tornado), as the rain was starting to fall and my camera had trouble focusing…plus I was busy trying to call in the tornadoes and plot our next route.
The high risk was certainly warranted today, and props to the forecasters for nailing this one. Sadly, there were many large, destructive tornadoes that affected many cities from Kansas to Texas. I thought for a while that my home was in the crosshairs, but the tornadoes lifted just in time. My heart is very heavy tonight for those who were hit by the storms, and for some areas it’s not over yet.
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