3/12/06 :: Far Northeastern Oklahoma

Well this turned out to be a very busy day for March. The SPC finally issued the first high risk day of 2006! My girlfriend, Jennifer, and I weren't able to get out to chase until after dark. However, about 11 a.m., storms with good cape and nice LI's were already firing around the eastern OK/KS border and going tornado warned. Those storms tracked up into Missouri while another line of cells was getting ready to fire around the Tulsa area later in the afternoon. By the time we got out, we chose to chase a cell that was moving south of Tulsa, and then decided to chase a cell that was moving into the Claremore area since it looked like the southern storm was losing steam. We followed the Claremore storm up I-44 toward the Vinita area. Then the southern cell gained power and started moving due east along HWY-412. These cells were all moving around 50mph, which made the option to try to get to the HWY-412 cell not really an option at all. We heard reports of a tornado on the ground near HWY-82 on the cell around HWY-412. Our cell around that time had a wall cloud that we could see for a short time, but it didn't look to be enough to produce a tornado. We chased our cell into Missouri before turning around since it was moving about 55mph and we kept getting right up on it then we would get behind a slow driver or construction. We did get to see our cell's backside lit up by the moon, and with the tower lightning, it was a pretty impressive sight at night. We hung out around Vinita and waited for another cell that was coming up I-44 to reach us, but it wasn't anything worth sticking around for so we headed back to Tulsa. We heard reports that Twin Oaks in southern Delaware county on HWY-412 was hit with a violent tornado, destroying over two-dozen homes and knocking out power.