The month started slow without much in the way of tornado activity. A brief flurry of storminess occurred as the atmosphere perked up around May 11 and 12, but most of the storms were hailers. That was around the time Aaron arrived in Oklahoma City. Without much to do, we passed the hours driving around the area.
We stayed in Moore, a suburb of Oklahoma City on the south side of town that had been largely razed on May 3, 1999, when an F5 tornado tore through the city. Thirty-six people died as the mile-wide cylindrical buzz saw of 300 mph winds obliterated neighborhoods and stomped city blocks into rubble. It was the first time the National Weather Service had ever declared a tornado emergency, meteorologists wracking their brains on how to deliver enhanced wording that would convey the life-or-death nature of the situation.
Moore’s terse history with twisters only continued from there. An F3 tornado swung through the city again on May 8, 2003, knocking down some of the homes that had just been rebuilt. Yet another high-end tornado—and the last EF5 to touch down nationwide in a decade—claimed twenty-four lives in Moore on May 20, 2013, prompting the issuance of another chilling tornado emergency reminis- cent of a fateful afternoon fourteen years prior.
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As soon as I rolled into town, it became clear that everyone—Dalia, the front desk associate at the La Quinta on Southwest 119th Street; Mark, the waiter at the Waffle House; Amy at the barbershop on North Broadway Street—had their own tornado story. I felt like I was standing on a solemn battleground. Residents knew to hold their breath during the month of May.
At one point, Aaron suggested we kill a few hours and watch a movie somewhere. He routed us a mile up the road to the Warren Theater. It had been used as a medical triage facility during the 2013 tornado. The scars of storms past were replaced with new construction and unkempt vegetation, but they were never really gone.
On May 15, Aaron and I chased hailstorms in the Texas Panhandle. I had only seen quarter-sized hail once before; now I was frolicking about as golf-ball-sized hail showered down from the sky onto a dirt road inter- section in vast empty fields. Naturally, that resulted in a few triumphant bruises, but at least I was wearing a helmet.
The next day began in Guymon, a small farm town in the Oklahoma Panhandle. I knew it would be the first “real” chase day we’d have (and, as I’d later find out, the only good one in a near record dull season). Aaron and I munched on stale blueberry muffins from the hotel’s continental breakfast while I pored over early morning data. Today’s going to feature some scratches and dents, I thought.
By lunchtime Aaron and I were on the western border of Oklahoma, where a foreboding red bullseye had been drawn in midday severe weather outlooks. A rare PDS, or particularly dangerous situation, tornado watch was in effect. The sun was out, but things were about to get ugly.
Storms erupted around 2:00 p.m., a trio of small but puissant cells detonating like mushroom clouds in the volatile atmospheric setup. They were moving southwest to northeast at 30 mph. A half hour into their reign, tornado warnings began popping up. Fastidiously focused, I drove to the unincorporated town of Alanreed, made up of three half-deserted streets and a cemetery, and waited for the storm to our southwest to barrel through.
Sunshine gave way to light rain to heavy downpours, eventually with marbles of hail mixed in. Doppler radar indicated the rotation was about to pass us by, but when it did—nothing. No tornado yet. I decided to reposition ahead of the storm once again for another intercept.
That’s when I realized my rookie mistake: I had actually fallen behind the storm. Once a storm is past, it’s virtually impossible to sneak ahead of it once again. The next hour proved a futile fumble of traffic jams and receding clouds.
At 5:00 p.m., I accepted my blunder, resigning to my incompetence. The storm that had slipped by in Alanreed went on to produce a tornado just twelve miles away, which I had missed. But something in my gut told me the day wasn’t over yet. It turned out I was right.
A new storm was forming in southwest Oklahoma, and, if we left immediately, we’d catch it. We raced east on Interstate 40, arriving in Sayre, a rural community just west of Elk City in western Oklahoma, an hour later.
We exited the highway just after 6:00 p.m., turning south and rolling along the undulating hills of Oklahoma State Highway 283. Heavy rain was coming down, but radar data implied it was about to end, and I was moments away from encountering the strongest thunderstorm of my life.
“Dear lord,” I said to Aaron suddenly, who appeared equally awe- struck. As if on cue, the curtains of rain lifted, revealing a hulking spiral tower of black clouds slowly revolving to our southwest. A bell-shaped depression dipped out of its base, obscured by a film of rain and hail draped around it. Two arm-like appendages—channels of inflow cork- screwing into the fifty-thousand-foot-tall storm—were wrapping around each other like a curved staircase of brume to the stratosphere. We were watching a supercell. It looked villainous.
Within an hour, the cell would put down a deadly EF2 tornado just to our east in Elk City. The vortex was rain-wrapped, but that didn’t stop me from angling closer in an attempt to sneak a peek. That meant driving into the heart of the storm.
“Aaron, now’s a good time for you to reach under your seat and grab the safety gear I have for you,” I said at 7:00 p.m. as we approached the tempest’s core. I was ready, but Aaron thought I was joking.
“No, actually,” I said after a moment, my voice more firm. The angry hiss of the elements seemed to want to force entry into the truck. “We’re about to get some hail.”
I had placed a hard hat, safety glasses, and work gloves beneath the passenger seat for an occasion like this; upon finding the items, Aaron seemed startled.
“How big is this hail going to be?” he asked, suddenly perturbed. “Like nickel size? Quarters?”
“Nope,” I said, grinning demonically. “Softballs. We’re about to lose our windshield.”
Excerpted from Looking Up: The True Adventures of a Storm-Chasing Weather Nerd by Matthew Cappucci. Published by Pegasus Books, 2022.
