MINCO, Okla. (KOKH) — In and around Minco, it’s all anybody’s talking about.
“Seen some dark clouds roll in,” Clayton Woods said. “Happened to look up and see all the tornadoes dancing around.”
Woods compared the sight to dancing fingers in the sky. Working at the Shawnee Feed Store, he had a perfect view out his southern window, but he wasn’t too surprised.
“Yeah, but we’re from Oklahoma,” he chuckled. “We’ve seen this before.”
Around 5:00 p.m. May 31, at least three funnels started spiraling downward, right over David Lindsey’s land.
“I’ve never seen them move like that,” Lindsey said. “I looked up and noticed a small cone. We could see everything going on up in there and it looked like trouble.”
Luckily, it wasn’t. Lindsey snapped a few pictures before taking shelter.
“My friend told me to get my camera out and take picture,” he laughed.
There was minimal damage to his property. At least one, possibly three, touched down within about a mile and half stretch.
“To the naked eye, they looked 40 or 50 yards wide.”
These tornadoes didn’t come with any watches or warnings. The National Weather Service tells FOX 25, the system was similar to what you might see in the coastal regions.
“We had a tropical air mass in place – really high humidity and low cloud bases,” meteorologist Rick Smith said. “Sometimes when you get that combination of ingredients, you can have the air coming together, then rising and stretching as it goes up.”
These types of tornadoes are referred to as land spouts.
“It’s not a surprise to see them when you look at the tropical front and the weather system that was set up,” Smith said.
Typically these tornadoes don’t move much and spin themselves out over a relatively short period of time, according to Smith. He also says they don’t show up on radar, which is why there were no watches or warnings in place.
The National Weather Service isn’t sure yet, but will likely report one to three EF-0 tornadoes to the official record books.
FOX NEWS 25, By Bill Schammert Wednesday, June 1st 2016
