At first I wasn't too excited about chase prospects today. Although decent moisture and instability would be in place over Oklahoma, I feared any convection would be undercut by the surging cold front. In addition, Shawn had hinted the day before that he, Ed, and Mike "Swaggerty" might chase in Iowa before making an early exit. Imagine my surprise when I got a call from Shawn early in the afternoon, saying that they were on their way to Oklahoma! I checked data, and saw that the front had slowed in its eastward progression and actually had taken on somewhat of a north to south configuration over Oklahoma. I was hopeful we might actually get something ahead of the front, and with winds backing in response to a weak prefrontal trough around Ardmore and Wichita Falls, my target today was southwestern Oklahoma and western north Texas. I left Norman around 4pm, and got overtaken by the front between Norman and Chickasha. I drove under the base of a severe-warned cell behind the front in Rush Springs, and went south to intercept another cell in Marlow. An RFD punched down from the base, and a square shaped wall cloud briefly spun up beneath the base, but this got undercut by the front as well and met a quick demise. Fearing this would be the rule of the day, I decided to go home. Little did I know a cell further south would stay in front of the front for several hours. Oh well.
Fast forwarding ahead several hours, Shawn, Ed, and Mike "Swaggerty" arrived at my apartment around 10pm. We spent the rest of the evening eating pizza, drinking beer and hard cola, and watching video. Ed got some great video of a shelf cloud on a storm they intercepted near Shawnee, with some amazingly close cloud to ground lightning strikes.
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