Cordell, Oklahoma Tornado
Bob Delahunt & Jerry Randall
May 5, 2001

We arrived in Altus, Oklahoma a couple of minutes before 3:00 pm, just as the Tornado Watch box was being announced over NOAA. We had come up via Vernon, Texas (from Dallas) and decided to turn left and head west on Hwy 62 toward the west edge of the watch box to find the dryline if possible.

We stopped about six miles west of Altus on NS Road 196 as we could see what appeared to be a convergence zone. This seemed evident as there did not appear to be any clouds west of this area. Our hand gauge showed a dewpoint in the upper 50's to around 60. We waited here for an hour or so as the local fauna (goats and a big bull) kept a watchful eye on us. We watched multiple Cu attempts that failed miserably.

We needed nourishment so we headed a bit farther west through Duke (picking up some Beef Jerky, Funyuns, Dr. Pepper, and Sprite) and stopped on the other side of Duke on NS 187. We were closer to the convergence area, but not past it. The dewpoint ran slightly cooler than our previous position further east. There were now two persistent areas of convection. I believe these two areas became each of the two storms for that day. The one pictured above is the embryo of the north or "Cordell" storm.

We continued to sit and watch the convection, but it never seemed to get very high. We figured that a good sign we were in a good spot was watching the chaser vehicles on Hwy 62. Some were going east and some were going west. We stayed put for a while longer.

Finally, some of the chatter on 146.52 got us thinking, "Maybe this cell is starting to happen. We might be too close to see what's going on." So we trucked it back to Duke and then north on Hwy 34 to Mangum. We left somewhere between 5:30 and 6:00. As you can see shortly there after it started to look like something alright. Looks like an "Elf's Shoe" to me!

We then headed east on Hwy 9. This is looking North. Those are the mountains just west of Granite, OK. Looks like a small wall cloud under there.

Next, we turned back North on Hwy 44. This picture was a fluke as you can see it was taken from inside the vehicle with the "flash on", but I do believe we got something there.
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This is just a few seconds later from the funnel in the previous picture. The time lapsed video shows the remnant wall cloud as the RFD pushes it along. The "Horseshoe" is quite apparent. Watch the contrast between the near side of the horseshoe and the far side as the near side grows and the far side evaporates, so to speak.
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This is near the end of the beautiful LP stage of this storm. The time lapsed video shows the rotation of the entire storm. We continued north on Hwy 44 making a couple more stops.
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We missed the turn to Hwy 55 and had to wait for the storm to clear Hwy 152 so we could head east into Cordell. The video shows the main tower and then follows it down to the base. The wall cloud and Cordell are just on the other side of this rain curtain. We will head down this road shortly.

We turned North onto Hwy183 in Cordell and then just outside of town ... The lighting is poor, but there's the wall cloud.
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And it drops. The video has better resolution than this still.
We followed the storm North and East along with the chaser armada through Corn and up to Hwy 40, but nothing significant more occurred and the day-light was gone to boot. We then booked it to Oklahoma City for a steak and some sleep as our target for the next day would be the "I35 Corridor".