A leading hook echo and mesocyclone region, which I had dodged north of Union City several minutes before, produced these tornadoes northeast of the town, between there and Yukon. The broader circulation at left was silhouetted by more artificial light near I-40 and a couple of distant flashes in the 12-second exposure, while starting to get rain-wrapped. That’s why it’s a little less sharp than the cone, which is mainly defined by sidelight from the single forward-flank flash at right. To have just one tornado and a CG at night has been a dream shot of mine since the early 1990s, but two? Amazing! Still, these were nearing a populated area, and I feared for the safety of folks near I-40 while reporting them. Another tornado from a separate mesocyclone (here unseen off the left) also was forming nearer to Union City; for a minute or two, I could see three at once, until these got completely rain-wrapped. The sobering irony also was not lost on me that these tornadoes were roaming the very same area where our friends Tim Samaras and Carl Young died in a huge, violent, daytime tornado 11 years earlier.
2 NNE Minco OK (19 May 24) Looking NNE
35.3393, -97.9337