Day 6: Picturesque and Lightning

I'm currently in the Super 8 in Elk City, Oklahoma.  We started the morning off in Enid, Oklahoma.  Today was a very difficult chase day.  It was hard to decide exactly where to go.  We decided to head to Alva, Oklahoma as a target but not before stopping in Wakita, Oklahoma.  Now for those of you who don't understand the reason why we stopped in Wakita, go rent "Twister".  They have a Twister museum there (more like a hollowed out auto-parts store with posters and some debris from the movie).  Check out the pictures in my gallery.  We headed to Alva and the storms  were popping up but began to become almost like a squall line.  We did see some shear funnels (funnel clouds not associated with tornadoes) and beautiful cloud structure and turbulence. 

We chased these storms up into Kansas but not without ending up on a dirt road that blew one of Scott's tires.  After that was fixed we continued on then decided to head back to Oklahoma for the night.  On our way to Elk City, we noticed a few cells we may intercept.  So we strategically took a different path to intercept these cells.  The lightning on them was incredible.  Just as night fell, we picked a spot to pull over and take pictures/videos of the lightning.  I've never seen a more beautiful lightning show.  We then decided to get "cored".  This means you let the core of the storm hit you (normally you try to avoid this).  However, the hail in the core of the storm wasn't large enough to damage the vehicle.  Unfortunately by the time the core got to us, there was a little pea size hail, a lot of rain and strong winds.  We then continued onto Elk City for the night.

Tomorrow doesn't look like much of a chase day.  We're going to start the day off slow, drive to Amarillo, Texas to get into position for potential storms on Friday.  We're also going to maybe hit up The Big Texan and try to get Brad to try their contest: eat a 72 oz steak plus all the fixings (sides, etc) in an hour and he gets it for free.  Maybe do a little bit of sight seeing.

We're chasing with two other people both from New York: Scott McPartland and Dave Lewison.  Here are links to their personal websites:
Scott McPartland - PSPhoto Severe Weather Photography
Dave Lewison - Face the Wind

I got some incredible video today but haven't figured out a means of getting it online while avoiding Youtube. I'll figure something out. We also passed by the exact spot we saw/fled from the tornado on Monday. We saw the damage path and it went directly over our initial position. This is why you chase with experienced storm chasers. A lot of people got too close. After being out here I realize there are a lot of chasers who don't have respect for these storms, they just want to get as close as possible.

Also, starting today, The Weather Network is running the "Storm Hunter with Chris St.Clair" promos. Watch The Weather Network for live streams, etc.