Two OK Mesonet stations hit by Tornado

[toastido]

WAFF posted this on their blog, and it's actually kinda neat.

Oklahoma Tornadoes Hit Weather Stations

This is some neat stuff out of Oklahoma for all the weather enthusiasts out there!  Unusually strong November tornadoes touched down across Oklahoma on Monday.  At least 6 tornadoes were produced by 1 supercell thunderstorm.  The strongest of these an EF-4 with winds estimated between 166-200 mph.  This is the only EF-4 tornado in Oklahoma during the month of November since record keeping started in 1950!  The National Weather Service in Norman, OK has more on the weather event here.

2 Oklahoma Mesonet weather stations took direct hits from these tornadoes.  The weather stations were ultimately destroyed but recorded some fascinating weather information before failing.  If you remember our Alfa Camera in Limestone County took a direct hit from the EF-5 that moved through on April 27th.  We lost communication with the weather station a few mintues before the tornado hit so we'll never know what weather conditions were measured before it was destroyed.

Here are the charts from Tipton and Ft. Cobb, Oklahoma courtesy the Oklahoma Mesonet:

The wind gusts recorded went from 30 mph at 2:55 PM to 54 mph at 2:56 PM to 86 mph at 2:57 PM!  The station pressure dropped 46.17 mb in 1 minute and the lowest pressure sampled was 913.47 mb!

 

Ft. Cobb saw a maximum wind gust of 91.4 mph and a minimum station pressure of 944.81 mb!

 

Jeff Castle

WAFF 48 Storm Team

Original article:  http://huntsville.raycomweather.com/2011/11/oklahoma-tornadoes-hit-weather-stations.html

[Cyclonicjunkie]

I seen this earlier....that's amazing toast

[snowdog]

Have storm chaser ever got any of those contraptions up into a tornado vortex?  Or is this about the close as we have come to getting readings?

[toastido]

Have storm chaser ever got any of those contraptions up into a tornado vortex?  Or is this about the close as we have come to getting readings?

From what I understand, several of the teams have had successful instrumentation placements, but these are some of the first measurements that have been available to the general public in a readable form, as far as I know.