He must be curious. He must want to see what is behind the rain. Tim has never encountered this kind of storm motion before. He has never seen anything that careens to the south, the east, then northeast. Perhaps it is the fog of the chase, but he seems to think they have turned a corner, and that their lot is about to improve. After miles of shuddering over dirt roads, Reuter transitions to asphalt. The vortex seems to be easing more easterly. Now that they’ve established a reasonable buffer, this is their chance to regain lost ground. After a year’s hiatus, perhaps Tim thinks TWISTEX, even in its diminished state, will make history today.
Still, trouble hounds every providential development. For some 500 yards, they drive on in the blind, their view of the storm obstructed by a plains windbreak of thick red cedar. While Carl believes pavement will enable a highway pace, the north–south inflow buffeting the sedan continues to check his speed. The power lines to their right strum in the wind. Maintaining a straight heading requires his complete concentration. In half a mile, Reuter switches abruptly back to gravel. The Cobalt, built for city driving, not rally-style terrain, handles poorly on the dirt road, shimmying in the wind. In past TWISTEX missions, veteran operators of the mesonet sedans had refused to leave the pavement for this very reason.
Despite these conditions, Carl is determined to outrun whatever hides behind the rain, or at the very least to keep up. He is clocking between forty and fifty miles per hour. Tim seems ill at ease, at one point loudly alerting Carl to an approaching stop sign.
“I see it!” he replies, with a touch of irritation. The men go silent for a while.
The next time Tim speaks, it is to note that the funnel remains out of sight, concealed behind the rain curtain. Without context, an observer could conclude that the dark mass of cloud bears nothing more worrisome than a ruinous deluge for the local dryland wheat crop. At its leading edge, though, the chasers may spot a crescent-shaped penumbra of centrifuged water, lit up by the weak early evening sun. Something is shedding that rain, sending it spiraling onto the plains ahead.
By 6:18, as they near the intersection with Choctaw Avenue, a blue Toyota Yaris pulls onto Reuter from the north, no more than fifty yards ahead. The sound of wind-driven rain hisses against the windshield in swelling and slackening volume. The Cobalt bucks over a railroad crossing and speeds another half mile east before entering the wooded bottomlands that line a spur of Sixmile Creek. Once again, the sight lines to the south are fitfully blinkered by a belt of cottonwood and hackberry. A minute later, US 81, a divided, four-lane highway, lurches into view. At the intersection, Carl brings the Cobalt to a halt behind the Yaris.
Earlier, they had discussed diving south here. If Tim and Carl consult the weather service’s radar feed for evidence of the tornado’s location, the data will be of limited utility now. The last update refreshed nearly five minutes earlier, about the time they wriggled free of the core flow. When they peer south down the highway shortly after 6:19 p.m., the radar’s obsolescence becomes chillingly apparent; they are astonished to see that they have failed to outpace the tornado.
US 81 disappears some 400 yards to the south, as if it has terminated at the foot of a sheer crag, rising above the highway with neither grade nor foothill. It swallows the horizon for more than two miles in either direction. If their eyes could penetrate the shadow and rain and dust, they would see vehicles tumbling.
Turning south is obviously out of the question. And with the tornado moving off rapidly to the east—or is it the northeast again?—heading north would mean placing themselves hopelessly out of position for the intercept.
“So, this is the highway. . . .” Tim begins.
“Yeah.”
“We’re just gonna have to . . .”
“Keep on going,” Carl finishes Tim’s thought.
Disagree as they have in the past, this time Tim and Carl are in perfect accord about their next move. They are not giving up on the storm of their lives. To stay in the game, they must keep going east. The Cobalt crosses the highway’s four empty lanes and picks up the dirt road on the other side.
Due south of the intersection, Mike Bettes, an on-camera meteorologist at the Weather Channel, adjusts his earpiece for the live shot. At 6:14 p.m., he’s standing near the southbound lane of US 81. The mile-wide darkness is still west of the highway, and the light around him, refracted through an apricot sunset and deep blue rain, looks stained, like stagnant water steeped with the tannins of leaves. Bettes wears a bright blue TWC Windbreaker and a ball cap covering short blond hair. “Guys, that’s it,” he shouts. “Right there! There’s the tornado. We are just north of Union City, south of El Reno, south of I-40. Cops have blocked off 81 at this point. They’re not letting traffic go southbound because the tornado could go right over top of Union City, or pass very close to it.
“Look at that monster. This is a huge tornado. If you live in Union City, south of El Reno, you have to take shelter now! There is no more time to waste. The movement on this is going to be almost due east.”
The satellite feed deteriorates for a moment, and the audio cuts out, but Bettes is describing the wrapping rains,
