May 7 Chase Summary

Being May 7th, I figured it was about time to get my first chase of the season in -- long overdue. Not really wanting to commit to north TX, I decided I would hang around within an hour or two of Norman in an attempt to find a rogue low topped supercell/tornado near the advancing surface low and adjacent surface boundaries (wind shift and sagging cold front). My initial target was the Duncan, OK area, largely driven by the position of the surface low along with model forecasts (and later objective analysis trends) of low level CAPE/lapse rates etc. I watched the back side of the initial Stephens County storm as it quickly developed and went severe. Since I was west of that storm, I decided to sit tight for a while and keep an eye on the upstream development across southwest OK/far north TX. But after taking in some data, and seeing the surface winds come around to westerly at Ardmore/Duncan (while still backed near the OKC metro), I decided to relocate northward for a play west of the OKC metro. I didn't exactly expect a tornado given the surface inhibition and lack of low level CAPE etc., but figured the vorticity-rich area near the surface low/boundary intersections was still worth a shot. I was coming through Mustang when the tornado warning for Oklahoma County was issued. I tried to weave my way north/eastward from there, but Hwy 152 and I-44/240 were largely bogged down with cars stopped for the tornado warning. Very low clouds/plentiful precipitation otherwise blocked my view of the storm that did damage on the northwest side of OKC.