Within minutes of joining the Storm Chasers, a group of scientists and filmmakers from the Discover Channel who hunt down tornadoes to capture stunning severe weather video, my producer Seni Tienabeso and I nearly ran into a massive multi-vortex tornado.

Hail plunked off the exoskeleton of the Chasers' "Dominator" (a converted Chevy suburban), prowling country roads like some prehistoric creature at 80 mph.

Our driver and Storm Chasing vet Kevin Barton lowered the Dominator to the ground, saying, "That way the wind doesn't pick us up and toss us."

He hooted that we'd entered something chasers call the "bear's cage" -- the area within the storm cell where a tornado could strike. And directly overhead this giant swirling cloud, a giant overhead whirlpool nearly perfectly formed.

Tornadoes on Tuesday left five people dead in Oklahoma and two in Kansas, officials said.

The storms plowed through small communities, including El Reno, a town of 15,000 in Canadian County west of Oklahoma City, leaving cars overturned and ripping roofs off houses and the steeple off a church.

Four of the confirmed deaths in Oklahoma were in Canadian County, said Michaelann Ooten, Deputy Director of the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management.

A fifth was in a mobile home in Chickasha southwest of Oklahoma City, according to Captain Chris Calhoun of the Chickasha fire department.

Statewide, there were 60 injuries, and 58,000 were without power, Ooten said.

The high-powered storms arrived as forecast, just two days after a massive tornado tore through the southwest Missouri town of Joplin and killed 122 people.

Several tornadoes struck Oklahoma City and its suburbs during rush hour, killing at least four people and injuring at least 60 others - including three children who were in a critical condition.

Four people died west of Oklahoma City in Canadian County, where a weather-monitoring site in El Reno recorded 151mph winds, said a state medical examiner spokesman.

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