Everyone-

Howdy!  Nice to "meet" you!  My name is Christopher 
Duvall, and I am a meteorologist at Rutgers Univ. in 
New Jersey.  

I spent 5 years at the Univ. of Oklahoma in Norman 
earning my meteorology degree.  Right before I left, 
I saw my first tornado on May 3, 1999- the Moore, 
OK F5 tornado with winds over 300 mph.  

It is the most powerful tornado on record, as far as 
human observation, however it's likely that more 
powerful tornadoes have occurred before anyone 
was around to see them.  We did not chase the F5 
into Moore, we chased another storm to the west 
that dropped 21 smaller tornadoes away from the 
city.

For reference, an F6 would have winds over 318mph, 
and the speed of sound, or Mach 1, is about 775mph. 
Hurricanes rarely contain wind speeds over 200mph, 
although they last longer and affect a much larger area.

I worked for two years training Oklahoma public-safety 
officials to see bad weather coming with their computers. 
In fact, the Moore Emergency Manager, Mr. Gayland 
Kitch, is a good friend of mine who I helped to train, 
years ago.  Mr. Kitch has done an EXCELLENT job 
keeping everyone in Moore safe, especially from the 
tornadoes that came through Moore in 1998 and 1999.  
So if any of you from Moore, OK HS see Mr. Kitch, 
make sure you say "Howdy!" for me!  :-)

I am really really glad I was able to help others by passing 
on what I had learned in class.  That is why scientists 
chase storms- to learn more about them so we can keep 
people safe.

Speaking as someone from another state, yes, Oklahoma 
has some wild weather, but as one student already 
mentioned, it is always changing so if it's bad, just wait a 
minute.  :-)

However all areas of the world have wild weather once in 
a while... growing up in New Jersey, I have experienced 
Hurricane Gloria, the flooding rain from Hurricane Floyd, 
and several blizzards, the worst of which was the Blizzard 
of '96.  

We had over 30 inches of snow- that's three shovels full 
just to reach the sidewalk!  Where do you put all the snow 
you shovel when your yard is already a mountain of 
snow?  :-)

We have already seen a lot of Moore OK HS students 
say they experienced the F5 tornado.  Please let us know 
if anyone has any questions or would like to share their 
observations and stories.  Mr. Matt Gilmore, another of 
the 4 Specialists for Cluster 10, also graduated from the 
Univ. of Oklahoma, and is familiar with the Moore/Norman 
area.

My weather web site, with my storm chasing and sunset 
photos under "Wx Pix" (wx = weather, by the way) is at:
http://www.geocities.com/njtornadofan/

You can also learn more about the 70+ tornadoes that 
occurred on 5/3/99 at:
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/oun/storms/19990503/

The official web site has our photo of the F5 tornado right 
after it formed northeast of Chickasha, before it reached 
Moore.

Hope this helps!  Keep those questions coming, everyone!

CD
2/20/2001