The National Weather Service in Norman was expecting this. A high risk was issued for the Oklahoma City metro area. This is something that has occurred so many times.
Oklahoma City has seen the worst. Including the worst tornadoes to ever occur. Such as the Bridge Creek 1999 tornado, the 2013 Moore tornadoes, the El Reno tornado. Central Oklahoma has seen some of the worst weather events.
Though today, would be different. It wouldn't be just one tornado to make a whole event.
It would be an excessive amount of tornadoes, destructive winds, and deadly hail stones. From quarter sized, to grapefruit sized or larger.
The tornado Outlook threat was a 60 percent risk for significant tornadoes.
The hail outlook was 60 percent significant severe.
So was the wind Outlook.
Jarred Coolinhager was a professional Oklahoma storm chaser, who has seen the worst of the worst across all the United States. The Iowa 2020 derecho, the Oklahoma tornadoes. Except for the 1999 one, he was 7 years old, and couldn't drive.
Now he's 30, fully capable of driving to any weather conditions he wants to. And when he saw this outlook, he called Julia, a former worker of his.
"Julia, we got a big time threat."
The current date, there was a marginal risk. So Jarred still wanted to see what would occur, as there still was a 2% tornado threat.
2:37 P.M CDT: Tracking Severe Thunderstorm Over El Reno.
Jerred was approaching El Reno, when very small hail, approximately nickel sized, started to fall. Very small cracks were caused by the hail.
Winds began to pick up, to 60 miles per hour. But then, his 2 weather radios began to go off.
"The National Weather Service in Norman, has issued a Tornado Warning for, Canadian County and Oklahoma County until 2:45 P.M.
At 2:35 P.M, trained spotters reported a funnel cloud in a rural area. Take cover now!"
Interesting.
Jarred drove towards the tornadic core of the storm, seeing the funnel cloud those spotters had reported.
Julia came in through the walkie-talkie. It she wasn't in a good spot.
"I'm in the tornado! Very weak, but ground rotation right on top of my car, I'm IN the tornado!" Said Julia.
Jarred got out of his vehicle, with a camera in his hands, and he began to record the tornado. When he began to saw debris.
It wasn't an incredibly strong tornado but it definitely wasn't the weaker tornado.
The tornado had reached to a small farm and had caused damage. Due to it not being incredibly built, it was almost flattened. It was still pretty well built though, so you could easily tell that it was a stronger tornado.
The tornado was rapidly moving and strengthening. Julia had gotten out of the bad situation, and parked right behind Jarred.
"That farm almost got flattened! Did you see it?"
"No, but I can see it now. Holy crap that is absolutely scary!"
Nobody was killed, but the two people who lived there were marginally injured.
The tornado had crossed the road about 3 miles ahead of the two, and they figured out that they could follow it, as a dirt road was about a mile ahead.
They drove up and turned. They followed the tornado when it shifted, it had began a bit of a west track, but began a southeast track, TOWARDS Jarred and Julia.
They quickly left and drove a bit farther back. The tornado started to move even faster, at about 55 miles per hour. Jarred and Julia quickly drove back down the road and parked at a safe spot.
Though the tornado was then moving toward the OKC metro.
Although it was a small but strong tornado, Norman had seen the situation, and issued a TORNADO EMERGENCY.
Jarred drove very quickly in front of the tornado and set down a probe. It would measure wind speeds without being broken.
He drove away from the probe and got back quickly. As he watched the tornado go right over the probe, he turned on the reader app, and got a maximum wind gust of 132 miles per hour from the tornado.
He saw the city of Moore, right in the path. He drove quickly around a mile outside of the town, and watched as the tornado went right directly through the town.
As the tornado moved out of the city, he drove towards the moderately damaged town and looked for people who needed help.
"Hey! Who here needs help?"
"Are you alright?"
He helped the most people he could, he looked around, and the tornado was beginning to weaken completely. He recorded it lift from the ground and the rotation began to weaken.
This tornado was rated after 3 weeks. The tornado had been rated EF3, due to the damage.
There were 12 injuries and no deaths.
Jarred made sure everything was being taken care of by emergency management before he left the significantly damaged town.
He returned home and checked his Storm Reports App, and saw that maximum winds were actually 143 miles per hour. The second highest from the tornado, was Jarred's 132 mile per hour wind gust recorded by probe.
The next day would be another Marginal Risk, so he would prepare that day and not chase, as the day after tomorrow would be a significant event in Jarred's career.
Julia had came to his house that night and had gave him a Weather Radio that Julia had fixed days before, and has cleaned it to make it look brand new.
Julia left and returned to her house and crashed into her bed.
Jarred, before he hit the hay, he wanted to check back on the outlook.
The Storm Prediction Center did something that has never been done before.
The high risk, was upgraded to an extreme risk.
Extremely violent tornadoes expected, winds in excess of 115 miles an hour, and DVD sized hail possible that day.
It would be a long day ahead of them, after another marginal risk.
Oklahoma City, would almost be wiped off the map.
