Friday, July 29, 2016

Spectacular Shelf Cloud Sweeps Through Oklahoma City, Norman

Jon Erdman
Published: July 29,2016
A shelf clouds surges through Norman, Oklahoma, just before 7 a.m. CDT, Friday, July 29, 2016.
(Rick Smith)
Residents of central Oklahoma were treated to a spectacular sight Friday morning as a shelf cloud swept through the Oklahoma City and Norman metro areas.
Early Friday, a complex of thunderstorms surged southward from southern Kansas into the Sooner State. Cooler air rushing from the downdrafts of the thunderstorms surged at least 20 miles ahead of the squall line, producing a rather distinct signature on Doppler radar from the National Weather Service in Norman.
That outflow boundary lifted warmer air ahead of it, forming the classic shelf cloud which was seen throughout central Oklahoma.
(MORE: The Science of Shelf Clouds)
First, it was photographed by many in the Oklahoma City metro area.
Brad Sowder @KOCOBrad
An amazing shot of the shelf cloud through OKC at sunrise from David Bryant.

Emily Sutton ✔ @emilyrsutton
Thanks to our viewer Danny for this incredible shot of the shelf of the severe storm moving through !

Lawrence@SVRHD @Lawrence_svrwx
Awesome shelf cloud this morning passing S Moore. @NWSNorman @KOCOBrad @koconews @AlonzoJAdams

Then it pushed into Norman, home of one of the nation's most prominent schools of meteorology, the University of Oklahoma, as well as NOAA's Storm Prediction Center housed in the National Weather Center.
So you just knew there would be photos galore from legions of weather geeks, including NWS-Norman Warning Coordination Meteorologist, Rick Smith (photo above).
Chris Huffer @huffer_c
Impressive shelf cloud approaching north Norman
And it just...kept...going into southern Oklahoma.
Jason Cooley @operation_chase
This shot is in focus more! Pano of shelf cloud in Wynnewood, right now.

Shelf clouds are, arguably, the most frequently shared weather phenomena on The Weather Channel Facebook page, as well as the weather.com photo gallery.
(MORE: The Best Shelf Cloud Photos We've Seen in 2016)
While certainly scary-looking, they're simply an indication of strong thunderstorm winds following behind the shelf cloud, and are more common than they may appear.
This squall line of storms produced some 60 mph gusts in both the north Oklahoma City suburb of Edmond, and farther north near the town of Breckenridge.
The strong thunderstorm winds also triggered power outages in parts of the Sooner State.
Check our most recent uploaded weather photos anytime from late spring through early fall, and you're likely to see many photos of this menacing cloud seen at the leading edge of a thunderstorm or line of storms.
(MORE: Enter Your Photo Into Our 2016 Photo Contest)
Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been an incurable weather geek since a tornado narrowly missed his childhood home in Wisconsin at age 7.
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