With an MCS moving through early saturday morning, it was going to take a little time in the morning to figure out exactly what may happen during the afternoon. At about 11:00am CDT the dryline was located in the eastern Texas panhandle.
Three hour temperature rises were most significant is south-central Oklahoma, from about Lawton to Ardmore, due to clearing behind the stratus remnants of the MCS. Pressure falls were fairly significant around this area, as was the amount of confluence seen from surface wind observations. My bet was that as the dryline pushed through, the small thermal ridge and theta-e tongue would be the place for first convection.
At 11:30am CDT I left Norman and arrived at the area around Alpers, OK. After waiting along the western-most edge of convection for about an hour I followed the dryline as it moved rapidly to the east. I was suprised by how fast it was propagating eastward, and I quickly realized that even with the thermodynamics so good in SC Oklahoma, it was not going to happen like I had forecasted. Good thing I'm not going to forecast for a living.
Driving through Sulpher, up to Ada, and then SE towards Colgate, I took HW 75 north to Calvin. I caught the first significant updraft to appear in the area around this time, and a few miles east of Calvin a back-lit wall cloud was slowly moving to the NE at about 25mph.
Following this storm to the NE I had to go through McAlester, and then eventually Blocker and Quinton. This cell seemed to die as a new one formed upwind. This second storm was that which entered the town of Quinton with a tornado warning. Gene Moore had reported a brief funnel cloud near Blocker, so the tornado warning was warranted even though the storm, as it entered Quinton, did not have any rotation or associated lowering.
After following this storm until the town of Lequire I drove back through Kinta, north through Whitefield, and then took I-40 back to town. Stopped on I-40 west of Checotah I filmed an isolated thunderstorm to the south with an amazing lightning show.
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