I have seen many dark stormscapes in my hundreds of storm intercepts during adulthood, and as a child in Dallas with eyes attracted to atmospheric violence. Wicked skies always have mesmerized and energized me; but this scene was so menacing, so ominous, that it rates in the top two or three of a lifetime. We were fortunate enough to be in just the right place and time to photograph it, on I-44 in western OKC, headed into the teeth of a deep, severe, HP (heavy precipitation) supercell. The storm was cloaked like a hidden monster behind a nimbostratus cloud veil with a little fractus in the foreground. The contrast in lighting from ground to sky was breathtaking, including the unnatural appearance of all structures lit mainly from the southeast in late afternoon. At Lake Hefner, where we could observe the storm with open exposure, a “hailacane” greeted us: hail driven nearly sideways by hurricane-force gusts, with damage to the windshield. That even contributed to one of the odder chase days I’ve had, between penetrating and gathering significant hail earlier, on a different supercell to the northeast, and photographing catfish carcasses with a shelf cloud in southern Oklahoma.
Oklahoma City OK (15 May 89) Looking NNW
35.5193, -97.5764