Exciting Wednesday

Yesterday around 5 pm, a thunderstorm popped up west of Stillwater.  By 5:30 pm, the storm was tracking due east toward Stillwater and had already produced at least two tornados.  One near Hennessey and one near Marshall.  The KOCO video is of the third tornado that was just at I-35 when the video was taken by a storm tracker at around 6 pm.  That tornado was about 15 miles west of Stillwater.

KOCO television coverage of tornado west of Stillwater

The next two videos are one of the tornado near Hennessey, which is about 60 miles west of Stillwater.  That storm eventually passed through Stillwater and produced the tornado seen in the KOCO video.

Video of the tornado near Hennessey
Tornado near Hennessey - KWTV

Here are some videos taken by people at OSU while the storm passed through Stillwater.  This appeared to be directly over campus.

Video from OSU campus - Math Science building

Debbie and I were in OKC when the storm fired up.  I picked up Debbie around 5:30 and we started heading toward Stillwater while listening to the radio coverage as best we could.  Some of the OKC radio stations were simulcasting the television coverage.  We stopped and got gas and something to eat since we didn't know what we'd find in Stillwater once we got there.  Kelsey was headed to work at Rib Crib.  Megan just got off work and went home.  She ended up going to the neighbor's in-ground storm shelter.  The storm hit Stillwater when we were about 30 miles away from Stillwater, just north of Guthrie.  By the time we got on highway 51 and headed toward Stillwater, the radio broadcast was telling about a 1/4 mile wide tornado passing through the north side of town along Lakeview road.  Our house is about a half mile south of Lakeview, so we had no idea what we would find.  The rain was torrential by that time and the wind was really blowing hard.  I was concerned about another tornado forming behind the one reportedly in Stillwater.  We arrived in Stillwater and saw no damage along 6th Street.  I was planning to go see if Kelsey was ok at Rib Crib, but she called and said all was ok there.  So we drove through town to check Megan and our house.  We found a lot of tree limbs and other stuff in the road north of the OSU campus.  That damage was very likely caused by the funnel visible in the videos I posted above.  We drove down Lakeview near Boomer Lake and saw no other damage.  I drove south from Boomer toward the high school and we found more tree damage.  The power was out in that area.  We drove to the house and nothing was wrong.  The streets were really flooded from all the heavy, heavy rain.  Megan came to the house carrying a very soggy, shivering kitten that was not very old.  There were two or three in the neighbor's back yard that were caught in some standing water from the heavy rain.  Some friends of the neighbor took the kittens with them.  The mother cat was nowhere around.  Stillwater dodged a huge storm.  From the way the storm chasers and the guys on tv were describing the storm, it had potential to be a very bad tornado producer.  Glad everyone was ok and hope that those caught in the tornado are ok.



Here is a video of a runner who was caught in the massive hail storm last Sunday that passed through Oklahoma City.

Caught in the hail storm


Video from some young guys in Stillwater.  Not sure where they are, but they are definitely Okies.  Who else stands outside watching the tornado instead of getting in the fraidy hole?

Ryan's video from Stillwater

Another video taken from campus looking at the same storm visible in the other OSU video.  This person was in the engineering building near the football stadium.

Video from OSU campus - engineering building

Crazy, crazy weather the last few days.