Severe Squall line hits Oklahoma City

Storm Chase Details

Chase Date: September 2, 2010
Chase Partners:
Solo

Chasers Encountered:
None

Miles Logged: 63
States Chased: OK
Severe Risks: SPC Outlooks

Chase Recap:

There wasn’t a lot to this chase – Other than it was my first chase as an Oklahoma Resident. The SPC had put us in a slight risk for Wind, and even had 30% probabilities earlier in the day. They backed off those probabilities, but storms did end up firing later in the afternoon to the northwest of Oklahoma City.

The storms congealed into a line that struck the OKC metro area. I got out of work and grabbed my chase gear and headed up to just northwest of the Airport to intercept. I measured a gust to 43 MPH and saw a lot of dirt kickup as the line came through. I then followed the storms down I-44 to State Highway 9.

I took SH-9 back east towards Norman where I ran into some penny sized hail, although most of it was pea to dime sized. I measured winds there to about 35MPH.

All in all, a short chase, but a fun little chase and a fun storm.

Ben Holcomb is a Storm Chaser and IT Professional (in that order) that lives in Norman, Oklahoma. Ben works for a managed service provider with clients mostly based in the financial sector as a Linux Engineer. He has seen approximately 200 tornadoes since 2007 and has appeared on most national television networks. Ben has been to all 50 states and 19 countries and loves to travel. He has also installed weather forecast and display systems in multiple foreign countries.