This is the supercell on our radar that caused the El Reno tornado. As you can see our flight path just nipped the edge.
Last week a huge tornado pummeled El Reno, Oklahoma, just west of Oklahoma City and I was there just 40 minutes before the touchdown. I know people lost their lives in the storm as well as the one less than two weeks before in Moore, Oklahoma, so it’s nothing to trivialize. (You can donate to the Red Cross Relief fund by clicking here.) I actually flew around the storm as it approached the area. I saw the dark ominous skies to the west as we sat on the ground at the Oklahoma City Airport. I saw the bubbling mammatus clouds overhead as we took off. I had no idea how close I was though to an actual EF-5 tornado.
For as long as I can remember I have wanted to see a tornado in person. I know to people from the Midwest, where they live with the danger of these storms, it seems like an asinine desire. I blame it on the fact that I grew up in Western Washington where there are no thunderstorms (maybe one paltry one a year.) I have come really close to seeing one on a few occasions.
The view from our window as we flew parallel to the developing storm.
Once, as a sophomore at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, a strong storm with rotation passed overhead and a funnel cloud was spotted. I remember at the time, looking at the swirling clouds above, wishing that a massive spiral of destruction would drop from the sky and destroy The Academy so I wouldn’t have to march to lunch anymore. Admittedly it was a short-sighted wish, but it would have been cool to witness.
Tornado Alley = fun flying in the late spring and early summer!
Later, I was forced by the U.S. Air Force to live in Omaha, Nebraska. I know that is a redundant sentence because the only way anyone not born in Nebraska lives in Omaha is by governmental force. “That’s mean.” No it’s true. Once you’ve been there, you realize it’s not that bad of a place, but you can be honest with yourself and admit you aren’t planning on vacationing there anytime soon. My favorite part of living in Omaha was that I was living in Tornado Alley.
I know you are probably saying to yourself, “Well either you just negated your huge
Warren Buffet lives in Omaha and he could live anywhere. So how bad can it be?
endorsement of Omaha (‘it’s not that bad’), or you are an idiot.” It’s probably more the latter, but when I was in Omaha I took advantage of the NOAA program to certify local citizens as “storm spotters.”The program’s purpose is to have actual citizens on the ground who can verify that a funnel cloud has touched down and is a tornado. They try to make very clear in the class that the intent is not for you to go out and “chase” tornados. Of course by telling a bunch people where, how and when a tornado will most likely form, you run the risk that some people won’t wait until a tornado comes to them. (For more information on becoming a storm spotter, click here. Now don’t you go looking for a storm, wink, wink.)
The view to the west while on the ground at the Oklahoma City Airport. Keep in mind it is 5:30 pm and its this dark.
One guy in the class paid to have his truck outfitted with satellite antennae so that he could have weather radar all the time (this was before everyone’s phone was a weather radar). The only thing that sticks in my head now about the classes is that guy with the weather radar (because he had already had one car crushed by flying debris and had ended up concussed in a hospital) and the term “The Bear’s Cage.” The Bear’s Cage is the spotting term for the part of a supercell thunderstorm where a tornado is most likely to occur. You don’t want to be in or underneath The Bear’s Cage. If you find yourself in the Bear’s Cage it’s time to seek shelter.
It’s okay to look off in the horizon and say, “Hey that’s the bear’s cage.” It’s not okay to look up and say the same thing.
Here is the most realistic recreation ever made of what it would be like to be in The Bear’s Cage, from the 100% accurate movie “Twister” (why hasn’t Bill Paxton won an Academy Award by the way?) :
One time I was driving home in Omaha as a massive storm approached from the west and the tornado sirens were going off. I could see a lowered rotating wall cloud approaching, which is indicative of “The Bear’s Cage.” A funnel cloud was spotted south of my location but I never actually saw it touchdown.
So last Thursday as we were boarding up in Oklahoma CIty and the sky was starting to bubble, I was getting a little giddy. I was thinking, “This might be when I actually get to see a tornado!” Keep in mind that in my terribly ignorant and teenage boy fantasy, no one gets hurt in the scenario. We just wait at the end of the runway and as the tornado approaches, we hit the gas pedal on the airplane and get the Hell out of there while Van Halen plays over the noise of jets and thunder. Then I would yell and high-five with the other
The coolest thing in the world in my stupid teenaged brain.
pilot, we zoom off away from the storm and drink Red Bull. I will have finally seen the awesome natural spectacle of a tornado be able to put the fear/fascination complex to rest and go swim with sharks.
The mammatus clouds over the airport as we get ready for takeoff.
That didn’t happen. We took off uneventfully and flew to Memphis. Imagine my surprise though, when we landed in Memphis and heard that just twenty minutes after we left Oklahoma City, they evacuated the airport. The metar (airport weather printout) from that time showed a funnel cloud overhead. If we had been there just a few minutes later, there easily could have been a lightning strike at the airport. All of the ramp personal would be forced to take shelter and our plane would have been left in limbo. We would have been sitting on the ramp, full of people, but unable to move or get out of the way of a coming storm. I was so close to getting my idiot wish and didn’t even know it. We were almost in the Bear’s Cage. I wonder if it comes with Van Halen or if you have to supply your own?
http://youtu.be/LzwUNV2xIq0.
Have you been in a tornado or been close? Please share your stories below!
