Tuesday featured extreme instability (pushing 6000 CAPEs) and moderate shear (with a bit of weakness in the low levels). The only ingredient that was not cooperating was lift – essentially a retreating moisture surge/warm front and dryline presented little hope for sustained convergence due to similar wind orientation pre and post boundary. In fact, an initial storm developed in the CAPE bullseye in western Oklahoma only to orphan-out in a matter of 45 minutes! Ugh! Talk about a waste of CAPE. But, it was a great illustration of what a lack of sustained convergence will get you in a high convective inhibition environment.
Initial storm near Retrop, OK -- in an environment of 6000 j/kg! 
And she orphans out. Ugh! We then decided to head northward to play along the moisture surge north of I-40, where convergence was a bit better. Thus, we headed toward Clinton and then eventually north to Putnam and west of Vici where we finally intercepted a supercell that managed to sustain its updraft. This tornado-warned storm migrated to the northeast; we wrapped around the backside, observing a nice rain free base and scud sucking. In the midst of examining the base west of Vici, and as we were driving westbound, we literally scared the crap out of a buzzard or turkey vulture – not sure what kind of big ‘ol bird it was. Unfortunately, we had the windows down on the right side of the car and during his “fright flight” due to Grady’s driving along his path, he dropped a big ol dump on our right windshield. This meant the leftovers of a flesh-eating bird’s feces were spread along the outside and immediate inside the car. Let’s just say that the smell was perhaps equivalent to a lovely mixture of throw up, crap, and rotting flesh. Yes, it was horrendous. A few baby wipes didn’t do the trick; we weren’t able to get rid of the smell until lunchtime the next day.
The bird sh*t video (luckily, Kelsey caught the experience on video; too bad it isn't smell-o-vision).
Backside of updraft.
Base with clear slot appearance.Anyway, we followed the storm north through Sharon and up to the eastside of Woodward. The storm was in a shriveling stage at this time; however, it did dazzle the eyes with an amazing barber pole updraft at sunset. I only wish we had stopped to grab some tripod’d shots – oh well. It was a real beauty, despite its lack of tornado production and intermittent obscuration due to low-level grunge.
Beautiful updraft of the Woodward storm.
Gif animation of stills as we traveled north on OK-34.Because of the massive chaser convergence, most hotels were booked solid in Woodward and Enid. Thus, we booked a hotel back at Weatherford, where we arrived near 11:30 pm. Another fun day in the Plains in the books.
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