May 5, 2002
May 5, 2002-After days of anticipation, Sunday finally came. Remembering the same date of a year ago, redemption was in my mind. I left a storm that later produced a tornado near Cordell, Oklahoma a year ago today, and I didn't plan on going home empty-handed this day. My chase partner, Charley Kelly, drove down from Little Rock and stayed Saturday night for the Sunday chase. At the end of Sunday, however, we both saw more than what we asked for.
The day started at 7:00AM when we woke up. We waited until the 8:00AM outlook before deciding on a target area. After looking at the outlook, we still weren't convinced of a definite area and decided to head down to Lawton and use their library when it opened at 1:00PM. We took off and hit I-40 and went west to OKC where we jumped onto I-44 and drove to Lawton. We arrived 30 minutes early and waited til it opened. After looking at data and finding that the dryline was barely into TX, we decided to push as far west as we could and hoping to be there before or shortly after the storms would erupt. We left Lawton on Highway 62 into TX where we went north on Highway 83 and then west on Highway 256. We arrived in Memphis, where we fueled up and headed west towards Amarillo on Highway 287.
We arrived in Amarillo at about 5:00 and started checking local TV stations for a radar update. While doing so, a severe thunderstorm warning was issued for Deaf Smith county. We decided to go after it and headed south on I-27 hoping to intercept it at or near Canyon. We got to the south of Canyon and noticed the rain free base associated with the storm but wasn't really getting it's act together. A quick glance at the radar showed why. A storm was rapidly developing to our south and was cutting off the juice to this storm and taking it in all for itself. With that being said, we jumped in the chase vehicle and headed south on Highway 87, which paralleled I-27. We saw that a severe thunderstorm warning was issued for Castro county while we drove south. We were a mile or two north of Happy when we noticed the rain free base of the storm and the first stages of a wall cloud forming. To get a better look at it, we went further south about one mile south of Happy. During the brief drive, we noticed that the wall cloud was getting better organized. No later than a few minutes after pulling off the highway, things started happening real quickly. The RFD started punching in and dust could be seen rotating underneath the wall cloud and quickly made it all the way up to the base of the wall cloud. The tornado got larger and maxxed out a few miles west of Happy. Just as it was disapating, rain and hail began to wrap around the rotation. At that time we noticed a new area of rotation just west of Happy but couldn't stay there as we were getting belted with rain, large hail and strong wind. We headed south on 87, unknowing that a new tornado had formed and was tearing apart the southern part of Happy. After we had heard of reports of damage in Happy, we turned around and went back to see if we could help with anything. There was no point in continuing the chase as it had become fully rain-wrapped and road options had become less favorable to see it. When we got back to Happy, nothing could have prepared us for what we were about to see. The tornado caused widespread destruction to the southern half of Happy and two people were killed due to the tornado. For the first time, we saw and experienced the bitter end of stormchasing. We will still do it after this but we will always remember how sad Happy, TX was that day.
Night fall fell afterwards and we had a long drive back. We stopped in OKC to grab some breakfast and had to stop a couple of times from there to get an hour nap or two. Overall, a successful chase but a sombering one. The chase totalled over 1100 miles. Pics will be up the next day or so.