harold is my weather idol. had a lot of family that worked for ma bell in dfw in the 60s/70s, one uncle was over all pay phones in the nation. lol.

we hid a couple of times due to harold sayin so, around mesquite area I think? mid/late 60s maybe? may remember him from when I worked in dfw for a couple of yrs. I'm old.

I was not quite alive in the '60's but I have been to Mesquite before. It's where cowboys and crank are.

Don Woods was mine. They were cut from the same cloth.

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Harold is an Enid native.

Everything was south of him he's Ok.

We had one get within a mile of the house last night. Second time I’ve been that close to one. Thought it was going to miss us 5-10 miles north but the storm took a southeast direction last minute. Sounded like a train and I saw the power flashes as it went by. Weird feeling. Scary part was I almost asleep in bed about an hour before. Had a gut feeling I needed to stay up for that one.

I’m between Celeste and Greenville. Pucker factor was high as I knew what this lone super cell was capable of since it had all of the atmospheric energy to itself to feed off of. We were hunkered in master bedroom closet wearing our motorcycle helmets and added pillows from the bed. I took a screenshot of the radar where the circulation on Doppler is basically right over us. Thankfully not on the ground and was in a weakening phase.

Eerily though, the HRRR weather product on early Saturday showed that supercell developing and the track was spot on. The timing was a little off as it had it coming through earlier than it did.

My son’s home was destroyed in 2014 by an EF-4 and being there by the next day in the aftermath is something you can’t ever forget.

I got my ham radio license back in late 70’s and became a trained NWS storm spotter. I have followed the advancements in radar technology and it’s nothing short of amazing what we have today, available to us on our own portable devices.

Also wanted to add that in addition to Radar Omega, I use Radar Scope which is used by many of the storm spotters/chasers. Doesn’t have as many advanced features that RO has, but has ability to show 4 panes on larger screens like my iPad whereas RO is limited to 2.

My prayers and condolences to all of those who lost loved ones and/or property these past several weeks. It has been an ugly 4 or 5 weeks for the heartland.

Preliminary NWS ratings are putting the Valley View tornado at a high end EF2 with max winds to 135mph and tornado near Celina at EF3, max winds of 165mph.

Sunday afternoon we drove down to Frisco (from VV/MS) taking the 'back' way- 922/121 across to Gunter then taking 289/Preston Rd south:

We saw where the tornado obviously crossed 289 closer to Celina- twisted & snapped trees on both sides of the road in the open rural fields,
and telephone/power poles snapped like toothpicks on both sides of the road!
That had to be pretty damn strong wind to make all these power-poles snap! No Trees/branches anywhere near these lines - they were just bare out in the open!

A little closer to town and ALL the tall STEEL stadium lighting poles ( west side of 289) were snapped over like twigs!

Now we didn't take a joy-ride just to go see damage - we were headed to a church in Frisco and this is just the stuff we saw obvious from the hwy!

NWS upgraded their preliminary Valley View tornado rating from strong EF2 to low end EF3 and Celina's a high end EF3.

Been helping best we can with clean up since Sunday. Loss of life and loss of property is sad to see. The outpouring of good will and Christ like love is a beautiful thing to see!