We started this day in Greensburg, KS and ended up just off Interstate 35 north of OKC in Orlando, OK. Today’s storm created multiple tornadoes, and one time there was a main circulation tornado with an anti-cyclonic satellite tornado circling around it.
May 23rd was an intense day of storm chasing with two supercells that produced tornadoes. The largest tornado occurred near Quinter, Kansas and was rated as a monster EF4. This event was billed by the Storm Prediction Center as a monster outbreak day several days prior and due to that, state patrols had blocked nearly all the roads. As a result, we were forced to chase these storms usually mostly backroads which were wet and a lot of storm chasers became stuck. Thankfully, we didn’t get stuck, but we did have to do some wild “fishtailing” in a few spots. At one point, the wedge tornado chased us all the way to Interstate-70 at the Quinter exit. We were hoping for paved roads with “Old Highway” marked on our maps, but unfortunately, even the “Old Highway” was a dirt road that was very slippery. Blocking highways seems only to create a more dangerous situation for storm chasers and the public alike as people are forced to use lesser quality roads to escape the storm.
