This is what a 4+ inch hailstone does to the windshield of a Ford Crown Victoria. Quite the impressive crater, no? This was not our desired outcome. Give the predicament, however, it was a known risk. The evening before, south of I-40 on a northbound eastern Panhandle road, we found ourselves triangulated in the twilight between a tornado to the immediate southwest, another tornado a few miles away to the south-southeast (both moving north), and a near-vault forward-flank core to the north—all from the same northward-moving supercell. [Here was a smaller, less-intense stage of the same supercell about an hour before the hailstone, during full daylight.] I also had to be back for shift no later than 11 p.m., by prior arrangement. So…instead of trying to thread the needle between two tornadoes to the south, “Go north!” it was. After this happened, and as we turned east on I-40 to hurry back to Norman, what became the McLean tornado still was approaching from the south, and would hit the West Texas Mesonet station there. The other tornado was fading into rain to our west-southwest. I’m just glad the safety glass held for the ride home, where this was taken. I stayed up all night for shift, got the windshield replaced after the crack of dawn, and drove that morning toward central Texas for a chase potential near Del Rio the next day.
Norman OK (28 March 7) Looking N