Stats The cold, hard numbers behind this chase.
Date	Saturday, May 24, 2008
Length of Chase	3 hours
Distance Covered	166 miles
...for the year	1,102 miles
Chase Partner(s)	Valerie McGrath Shannon Dulin John Dulin
States traveled through	Oklahoma

It's strange how things work out. We were in Norman, Oklahoma visiting family and friends over Memorial Day Weekend and I promised Val that we wouldn't do any chasing. On this day, we were up in Edmond to spend time with our friends, John and Shannon. Though I knew there was a slight risk for severe weather, I was making good on my promise and turned a blind eye towards the weather.

After lunch, John was flipping through the TV channels and stumbled upon a live video feed from the KFOR/NBC helicopter showing a very photogenic tornado, unfortunately destroying a large pig farm. That was about all the encouragement we needed to get our behinds out the door for a good ol' Memorial Day Weekend chase.

The slow-moving supercell was only 70 miles away and we positioned ourselves south of Covington, on State Road 74. The contrast and visibility were very poor, especially by the time the storm transitioned into a high-precipitation supercell. Regardless, we were able to see three tornadoes from this spot.

After the storm occluded and Tornado #3 dissipated, we drove towards the east, crossing I-35 to stay ahead of the rear-flank downdraft. Tornadoes #4 and #5 were viewed from about 8 miles south of Perry, OK.

As the evening progressed, the diminishing daylight and increasingly rain-wrapped circulation made it all but impossible to see any tornadoes from a safe distance. We answered our stomachs' cries of hunger by eating at Eskimo Joe's in Stillwater. All in all, it was an excellent chase. I certainly hadn't expected to more than double the number of tornadoes I've seen on a day in which I promised not to chase!

Mesoscale Convective Discussion

MESOSCALE DISCUSSION 1005
NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK
0248 PM CDT SAT MAY 24 2008
AREAS AFFECTED...NRN/CNTRL OK
CONCERNING...TORNADO WATCH 347...

VALID 241948Z - 242115Z
THE SEVERE WEATHER THREAT FOR TORNADO WATCH 347 CONTINUES.
TORNADIC SUPERCELL OVER EXTREME NWRN KINGFISHER COUNTY HAS LIKELY
LATCHED ONTO THE OVERNIGHT OUTFLOW BOUNDARY WITH PRONOUNCED ESELY LOW-LEVEL FLOW BOOSTING 0-1KM SRH TO NEAR 200 M2/S2. 18Z NORMAN
SOUNDING WAS UNCAPPED AND EXHIBITED MLCAPE TO 2500 J/KG. EXPECT
THAT THE LOW-LEVEL CONVERGENCE ZONE ALONG A PORTION OF THE
LEE-TROUGH WILL SERVE AS A FOCUS FOR DEVELOPING TSTMS FROM
MAJOR/GARFIELD COUNTIES SWD INTO NRN CADDO COUNTIES FOR SEVERAL MORE HOURS. AS STORMS MOVE OFF THE CONVERGENCE ZONE...MINIMAL
MLCINH...STRONG INSTABILITY AND ZONE OF ENHANCED LOW-LEVEL SRH WILL
KEEP THE TORNADO AND LARGE HAIL THREATS ALIVE FOR SEVERAL MORE HOURS ACROSS NRN AND A PORTION OF CNTRL OK. HIGHEST TORNADO POTENTIAL SHOULD EXIST FROM KINGFISHER/GARFIELD COUNTIES ESEWD TOWARD PAWNEE AND NRN PAYNE COUNTIES THROUGH 22Z.

..RACY.. 05/24/2008

Products

• Radar Imagery:
  • Reflectivity loops (1, 2, 3)
  • Velocity loop
• Satellite Data:
  • Visible (1, 2)
  • Water vapor
• Surface Imagery:
  • RUC-analyzed map
  • Oklahoma Mesonet (3:15 PM CDT, 6:50 PM CDT)
• Upper-air:
  • Norman, Oklahoma 1900 UTC (2:00 PM CDT) skew-t
  • Purcell, Oklahoma profiler
• Storm Survey:
  • Official tornado stats, based on NWS storm survey
• Storm Prediction Center Products:
  • Storm reports (incomplete at the time of this writing)
  • Day 1 Convective Outlook
  • Tornado Watches (347, 353)
  • Mesoscale Convective Discussions (1, 2, 3)

Click the above thumbnail to view an enlarged route map. Our route is indicated by the blue line.