Marlow

May 30, 2013
Near Marlow, Oklahoma

This storm remains one of the coolest-structured storms I've seen so far. Many people forget about this day as El Reno overshadowed it the following day. There was a huge tornado risk on this day, but storm fired up just a little too early and never got a chance to organize enough without interference from other nearby storms to produce tornadoes. A perfect example of how not enough of a cap can actually inhibit tornadoes. Despite the lack of tornadoes, this day is one of my favorite chases ever because of the structure we witnessed.

I'm just going to ramble about parts of the storm now, so disregard if you're not remotely interested. The wall cloud is very evident at the base; it was spinning like a top and I still don't know how this storm didn't produce at least a brief tornado. That large streaky cloud that stretches from the storm to well out of frame across the right part of the image is a beaver tail; basically, it's a sign of moisture flowing into the storm. This beaver tail was particularly beefy, indicating very healthy inflow. And of course, you'll note the green color in the clouds. This supercell dropped softball-sized hail! That's 4.25 inches in diameter! Of course, we stayed far away from that core, especially since we needed an intact windshield to chase the next day.

Fun fact: this was my boyfriend's birthday! He always seems to get birthday chases...