To no surprise of experienced storm observers, this supercell would produce a cone tornado soon, within the following 5-15 minutes. Clues — some of which are visible here, others gleaned from observations afield — included:
* Storm persistence and growth for over an hour to this point,
* Continually stronger rightward (southward) motion component,
* A large ambient base area neither undercut by outflow nor experiencing precipitation cascade through the updraft,
* A strong but not too outflow-aggressive forward-flank core, to help with baroclinicity and vorticity on the vault side and feed…
* A thickening, somewhat convective downshear tail cloud that exhibited increasing horizontal and vertical motion,
* The formation of a large, low and increasingly rotating wall cloud beneath the broad and initially high ambient base, indicating falling pressure in and near a strengthening mesocyclone,
* Mesonet observations showing progressively higher dewpoints with similar temperatures (implying greater moisture and buoyancy) in its projected path.
All these made us more confident than usual in this supercell’s tornado potential. We were repositioning slightly south to maintain view without interference from the likewise right-moving core, when the tornado formed, so I missed photographing its first few minutes while finding a suitable pulloff not blocked by higher terrain immediately in the way.
7 S Gate OK (25 Jun 26) Looking W
36.7469, -100.0583