Deadly Day in the Plains...

Cars drive through a hail storm in Fort Smith, AK.

Lesson 1 - Never Chase in Arkansas...

Lesson 2 - Seeing tornado deaths is never easy. We struck out during our chase today, we were on a nice cell to the SE corner of Oklahoma, but just could not keep up with it. The winding roads made it hard to navigate and catch the cells. We got a call from John Diel, a MESO member from Ponca City, OK, and he told us about Picher, OK being hit by a deadly twister. At the time of me writing this blog entry, there have been 33 tornadoes, and 11 deaths so far in four states. We got some golf ball sized hail in Fort Smith, AK today and some pretty photos on our way through the Arkansas hills. The drivers around Fort Smith went nuts at the first ping of hail, swerving under overpasses and we had a BMW slide into the highway divider in front of us. There were also three vehicles off the road on I-40. All in all it was a long day, departing from Norman, OK and ending the night in Fort Smith.
A cell blows up in south Oklahoma, over a hill.