really spinning about ten miles west of norman ramped up pretty quickly, and boom, within a matter of minutes, it started spinning much, much faster. >> that's trouble with a capital "t" right there. this is hail right here. >> monitoring the storm that day is mike morgan, chief meteorologist if station knfr in oklahoma city. >> you can really see the wall cloud starting to spin much, much faster. at that point we knew there was going to be a reasonable chance that a tornado was going to set down on the western sides of norman, third largest city in oklahoma, and go right through town. hey, mike. i've got it. we've got power flashes right here. it's going to be about two miles just to the west of campus. >> up in his news chopper, pilot john welsh can see the storm approaching from the west. >> just 2 1/2 miles from the university of oklahoma. and you see a lot of people out on the streets, so my thought was, you know, these guys need to get no cover and get out of the way. >> captain david tysher is out in the city when the sudden appearance of a tornado takes us by surprise.