The Pink/Shawnee/Stroud Supercell


INTRODUCTION

Storm D began to form in the late evening, roughly 30 miles south of those areas that had just been hit by the Oklahoma City Supercell.  Storm D went on to produce four tornadoes of its own, each with fairly lengthy tracks.  The fourth of these directly struck the shopping mall located along I-44 inbetween Oklahama City and Tulsa.  F3 damage occurred.

Warnings were issued well in advance, but the severe weather situation certainly was challenging.  By (03:05) there were five dangerous storms in Central Oklahoma.  At this time, WDSS played a somewhat increased role in the warning process through its ability to summarize the intensity of many storms.

1. THE TORNADO NEAR PINK:

Description:  The storm was loosely organized initially.  Two centers of circulation can be found in the data at (00:47), but the southern one begins to dominate by (00:52).  This mesocyclone translated northeastward over the next 46 minutes before producing its first tornado near Pink, Oklahoma.  The first radar volume containing the tornado begins at (01:36).  The MDA encountered difficulties with this volume scan which are discussed below.  At (01:42) the storm's hook echo is even more pronounced, and reflectivity at (01:51) shows the storm to be highly strung out in this strong shear environment.
 

2. NEAR RANGE DETECTION ISSUES:


Description:  One interesting aspect of Storm D is its proximity to the radar.  In near range storms, the radar tends to observe a variety of vortices which would, in a distant storm, would be smoothed out by the broader beam width.  The existence of several vortices of all depths and orientations within a single storm presents a challenge to any algorithm attempting to identify and categorize them.  The three links above attempt to offer some insight into these challenges.

3. THE SHAWNEE to MEEKER TORNADOES:


Description:  The tornado near Pink lasted about 17 minutes.  Then, around (01:56), this tornado occluded.  The storm cycled rapidly, putting down its next tornado at (02:00) near Shawnee.  By (02:16), the radar images were becoming very ominous as the tornado approached Meeker.

4. THE STROUD TORNADO:


Description:  Following the tornado near Meeker, Storm D quickly evolved into an HP supercell.  Other storms can be seen forming upstream of Storm D at (02:46).  These contributed to the storm's HP nature by seeding it with precipitation.
 

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