Thread: Oklahoma City Tornado

Red Stick Storm Spotters : Huge tornado outbreak in Oklahoma! There is a tornado EMERGENCY for Oklahoma City. I have never seen an emergency issued before so its really bad. - Andy


BREAKING NEWS: The National Weather Service issued a tornado emergency for the western Oklahoma City metro area. http://on.cnn.com/QZYZDc.

NEW: TORE: TORNADO EMERGENCY: OKC Downtown: I-35 reported to be parking lot. People should be in shelter at this point. it is to late to try and evacuate. ADDITIONAL: 2nd TOR directly to the WEST of OKC.




Taken by a friend just 4 miles south of the OKC tornado...

May 31, 2013, 10:11 p.m. ET
.Tornado-Hit Oklahoma Struck Again; Mother and Baby Dead .



An overturned semitrailer rests on its side on the eastbound lanes of Interstate 40, just east of El Reno, Okla., after a reported tornado touched down on Friday.

OKLAHOMA CITY—The region hit by a deadly tornado less than two weeks ago was slammed again Friday. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol said a mother and baby were killed.

Tornadoes hit Oklahoma City on Friday, smashing vehicles along a major highway. The highway patrol said a number of motorists were injured, and a few were missing.

Highway Patrol Trooper Betsy Randolph said troopers found the bodies of the woman and baby near a vehicle along Interstate 40 west of the city. The storm hit during the evening rush hour, causing havoc.

High winds were forecast for Moore, the suburb where a top-of-the-scale tornado killed 24 people on May 20.

Storm chasers were transmitting video showing a number of funnels dropping from the supercell thunderstorm as it passed into Oklahoma City.

Passengers at the city's Will Rogers World Airport were directed into underground tunnels, and inbound and outbound flights were canceled.

Television cameras showed debris falling from the sky, as forecasters warned of a "particularly dangerous situation." The region is in part of the Midwest known as Tornado Alley.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...493034436.html

Severe Weather Expert Dr. Greg Forbes estimates about 104 #tornadoes have occurred in the U.S. since Memorial Day.

Day-by-day recap: http://wxch.nl/12nym4x

Unfortunately, the rumor I've been hearing all night turned out to be true... we've lost a team of chasers that have given so much during their careers that it's impossible to measure the impact they've had on our understanding of weather. Pictured below from left to right are Carl Young, Tim Samaras, and to the far right, Tim's son, Paul. They were killed Friday afternoon in the El Reno, OK tornado. Our thoughts are with the Samaras and Young families, along with everyone else affected by this sad event.



A lot of you may remember seeing Tim and his TWISTEX crew on Discovery Channel's "Storm Chasers" series.
-The team at Red Stick Storm Spotters

Confirmation came from Tim's brother, Jim... as posted below on Tim's Facebook page:

"Hello everyone,

I'm Jim Samaras - Tim Samaras's brother. Thank you to everyone for the condolences. It truly is sad that we lost my great brother Tim and his great son, Paul. Our hearts also go out to the Carl Young family as well as they are feeling the same feelings we are today. They all unfortunately passed away but doing what they LOVED. Chasing Tornado's. I look at it that he is in the 'big tornado in the sky...' We (the family) will keep folks aware of what the funeral arrangements are, but please in the meantime keep Tim and Paul in your thoughts and prayers.


~~ Jim"

Storm chasers, TV personalities among Oklahoma fatalities
By Jake Carpenter and Catherine E. Shoichet, CNN
updated 12:45 PM EDT, Sun Jun 2, 2013

(CNN) -- A group of men who devoted their lives to hunting powerful storms died in the middle of the chase.

Tim Samaras, his son Paul Samaras, and Carl Young were killed while following a tornado in El Reno, Oklahoma, relatives told CNN on Sunday. They were among nine people killed in storms that struck Oklahoma on Friday night.

Their work tracking tornadoes was featured on the former Discovery Channel show "Storm Chasers."

"They all unfortunately passed away but doing what they loved," Jim Samaras wrote in a statement posted on his brother's Facebook page.

Tim Samaras founded TWISTEX, the Tactical Weather Instrumented Sampling in Tornadoes Experiment, to help learn more about tornadoes and increase lead time for warnings, according to the official website.

In 2004, he told CNN that being near storms was part of the job. "In order to get directly in the path, you have to be close," he said. "Actually I'm pretty focused on our safety, certainly, and I'm focused on getting the data and getting the right spot, you only have one chance to do it."

CNN meteorologist Chad Myers, who also covered Friday's storm in Oklahoma, said Tim Samaras was known for his attention to safety.
"There's just no one safer than Tim. Tim, he would never put himself in danger," Myers said. "He certainly wouldn't put his son in danger."

One of Samaras' goals, Myers said, was collecting more data to help government officials. "We all know that this is difficult and dangerous and sometimes things go wrong. But I think to portray Tim as just a chaser out for a thrill is just the wrong thing," Myers said. "I just want people to know that Tim was a scientist. He was out there to put probes out there. He was out there to learn and understand and to make science more understandable. ... We all go out there and we try to protect the public, but Tim was even one step higher."

Doug Kiesling, a videographer who chases storms and calls himself "The Weather Paparazzi," said the three men were more than storm chasers. "They're researchers," he said. "This thing is really shaking up everyone in the chasing community," he said. "We knew this day would happen someday, but nobody would imagine that it would happen to Tim. Tim was one of the safest people to go out there. ... He's had close calls but he's always had an escape route."

El Reno Mayor Matt White didn't provide details about those killed after the tornado struck, but he stressed the importance of staying indoors when powerful storms hit. "We had to deal with not only strong winds, but we had extreme hail, extreme softball-size hail. El Reno had a lot of damage to the roads," he told reporters on Sunday. "In these situations, we can't stress enough to people to stay inside and do what the weather men and women tell us to do."

Friday's storm was particularly unpredictable, according to Mike Bettes, an anchor and meteorologist for The Weather Channel who had a close call himself. The tornado swept up the tornado-hunt truck he and a crew were traveling in, tossed it 200 yards into a field and smashed it to the ground. "I think this was just an erratic tornado. I think the size of it and the speed of it changed very, very quickly," he told CNN on Sunday morning. "I think the direction of movement changed quickly. And I think there were a lot of people out there that, you know, ended up getting stuck in positions we didn't want to be in."

Bettes described the experience as the scariest moment of his life."I saw people in my life, I saw their faces flash right in front of me. And it just seemed for a moment, everything was in slow motion, especially when we were floating," he said. "I kind of felt like I was being lifted to heaven or something. I was conscious through the whole thing and remember the whole thing, but it's still a surreal moment."

The experience left him rattled, and unsure whether he'll go out to chase storms again. But Bettes said he had no doubt about the value of storm chasing. "We show weather, and we like to be out there and show people what these things can do, and help give advance warning. A lot of times the storm spotters out there serve a very valuable purpose. They give ground truth to what meteorologists from the National Weather Service are doing," he said. "But seeing it in person, seeing it for real, and giving that real time information, I think really supplements the warning. It helps people take shelter ahead of time."

"Storm Chasers" aired for five years on the Discovery Channel. The last season ended in the fall of 2011. The network expressed condolences in a statement Sunday. "We are deeply saddened by the loss of Carl Young, Tim Samaras and his son. Our thoughts and prayers go out to their families," the statement said.


http://www.kctv5.com/story/22479577/...oma-fatalities

Deadly Okla. tornado in El Reno has been named widest in history, rare EF5.
Click here for the story http://bit.ly/11g0bo4