Clearly this jaw-dropping storm structure would reward any effort of travel by the dedicated weather buff or photographic enthusiast. We sometimes wander afield in futility for day after day, across many hundreds of miles of prairie and scrub, in dogged pursuit of such a “dream storm,” only to watch a season, perhaps many seasons, pass without. And then, and then…it all spins together—almost in our back yard! We saw this storm form to the distant west-southwest while getting groceries near home in Norman, and after a pit stop at the pantry to unload, cruised out and let this twisted tower of splendor drift right over us—no onboard radar, no data, no need even for maps. It may have been my shortest, cleanest, simplest, most purely fun storm trip in the decade before or after. Quaint old barber-shop signals are almost gone; but at times their helical form sometimes lives on in water vapor and sunlight, somewhere on the plains.
3 SW Verden OK (3 Apr 3) Looking W
35.0696, -98.1283Barber Pole
Clearly this jaw-dropping storm structure would reward any effort of travel by the dedicated weather buff or photographic enthusiast. We sometimes wander afield in futility for day after day, across many hundreds of miles of prairie and scrub, in dogged pursuit of such a “dream storm,” only to watch a season, perhaps many seasons, pass without. And then, and then…it all spins together—almost in our back yard! We saw this storm form to the distant west-southwest while getting groceries near home in Norman, and after a pit stop at the pantry to unload, cruised out and let this twisted tower of splendor drift right over us—no onboard radar, no data, no need even for maps. It may have been my shortest, cleanest, simplest, most purely fun storm trip in the decade before or after. Quaint old barber-shop signals are almost gone; but at times their helical form sometimes lives on in water vapor and sunlight, somewhere on the plains.
3 SW Verden OK (3 Apr 3) Looking W
35.0696, -98.1283