Severe weather photos and videos by
meteorologist & stormchaser J.R. Hehnly
Email questions or comments .

All images and videos on this site

Use by permission only.

June 4, 2005 - South-central Oklahoma, Marlow Tornado

Click on any photo to see a larger version

Chase Route

I decided to stay in Oklahoma City for the duration of the day. I was scheduled to work all day, but had arranged to get off early to chase storms that would develop in Oklahoma. I left home at 4:15 headed southwest on I-44 but it soon became apparent that the storms were going to fire along and east of the interstate. I decided to take US 62 south through Newcastle and Blanchard to stay in front of the storms. We stopped a couple of times near Dibble to see which storm was going to become dominant and finally made a decision to get south toward the storm approaching the Marlow/Duncan area, this was about 5:30. By 6:00 we were hearing radio reports of a rotating wall cloud and funnel near Pumpkin Center, now 30 miles to our west. There was so much cloud debris and precipitation that we could not see any part of the base of the storm although we were now hearing of a large tornado on the ground. We finally got a good view of the storm just southwest of Marlow. The earlier tornado had dissipated, but the storm seemed to be reorganizing. It looked like every local in the county was out on Hwy 7 to see the storm. People were standing outside in the lightning yelling at their kids to stay in the car! We stayed just in front of the storm and traveled back east toward US 81. As we neared the highway the wall cloud wrapped back up and produced a funnel. From my vantage point I could not see any debris but scanner traffic was reporting power flashes at this time, indicating the tornado was in contact with the ground just west of Marlow. I was also hearing reports of large hail just to my west so I made the decision to go north through Marlow to get to Hwy 29 eastbound. I made it through just east of the approaching wall cloud and traveled east many miles in the powerful outflow blowing from the northwest. Fortunately the power lines were on the south side of the highway in case any of them snapped. After getting on the inflow side again we stopped for some more pictures. This time there were more chasers and media than locals, I think. We ended up at Interstate 35 near dark and decided to call it a day. On the way back I got some great lightning shots just south of Norman.

Storms to our west near intersection of Hwy 76 and Hwy 29, east of Bray

Finally intercept storm 5 miles southwest of Marlow on Hwy 7

Near intersection of Hwy 7 and US 81, 4 miles south of Marlow
Looking northwest as wall cloud develops and moves toward Marlow

Funnel quickly develops to our northwest.

Not wanting to get caught in the tennis ball sized hail reported west of Marlow I decided to take the 4 mile journey north through Marlow to get to eastbound Hwy 29. This put us in the path of the approaching wall cloud/funnel for a bit. It was a little hair raising trying to get east and in front of the system again!

After traveling east on Hwy 29 we got some nice views of the storm, though it had become outflow dominant at this time. We stayed with it until we reached I-35 at darkness fell. At this point we called it a night and headed home.

9:00 at the Ladd Road exit on I-35
Storm to our west was giving an incredible lightning show. This was followed by some 50+ mph winds and pea to dime sized hail, bringing the interstate traffic to a standstill.