May 11th 2023 Central Oklahoma Tornadoes

Published on October 25, 2024

Chasing with Nathan Curtis (NASA -MSFC), Austin Clarke (UAH), Kelton Halbert (SPC) and Andrew Bufalino (BOM), we chased struggling LP supercells in southern OK on a 10# day for several hours before committing to new convection developing over central OK.

While convection slowly organized, we missed several brief tornadoes while repositioning. We became fed up with waiting and planned to go home giving up on our storm as it continued to suck. Driving underneath the base of the supercell in McClain County, I suddenly looked up to find a snake-like filament funnel directly overhead. Continuing north into the remains of Cole and shooting east a stout tornado condensed less than half a mile to our southeast. This was Buff’s first tornado intercept

Scrambling east we stopped where I had seen the EF-3 Cole tornado just a few weeks prior on April 19th. The tornado quickly approached us and a faint roar became audible. We quickly repositioned east toward Goldsby and watched the tornado rope out west of town. Several other brief tornadoes would develop and move through Nobel with minor damage, but visuals were hard to come by as the sun set. We headed back to my house in Norman for food and to get a few hours of sleep for the next day’s drive to Nebraska.