 |
The cold front was slipping southward into northern KS
today with a swath of post-frontal stratus unfolding by early morning across
southern NE. Monitoring sfc obs that morning and checking the 12Z
RUC and ETA runs had us nearly convinced that the I-70 corridor from Russell
to Salina would be fair game. I overjoyously remarked to Phil that
if the ETA's forecast sounding for KSLN verified that we'd be in good business
for supercells. I'd say this run had a good handle on the kinematics
for today given the end result! Click ">here
for the saved image.
We left Grand Island, NE that morning after hooking up with my co-workers and headed south for Salina. This is a nice shot of a Kansas wheatfield with beams of light dancing across in the distance. We grew tired of this area and headed slightly south into better visibility/clearing. |
| The initial convection was rather soft and unorganized, but things rapidly changed in the matter of about 40 minutes as this cell west of Russell encountered more direct low level inflow via the boundary. This was a non-rotating wall cloud viewed to the west as it was battling a strong cold pool as noted by the strong overturning of the scud. Also, the surface winds had turned due easterly by this point - the ETA was verifying decently! |  |
 |
Probably one of the better examples I have of Cu becoming ingested into a developing supercell. Image enhanced solely for contrast. |
| Now in the preferred viewing quadrant, this supercell continues to impress us with a beautiful display of CGs and a blocky wall cloud. It seemed to me that this supercell was turning slightly southeastward in motion...will check a radar archive eventually to investigate. |  |
 |
Elongating inflow band almost overhead extending well to the southeast. Probably a buoyancy wave/convective roll serving a much higher purpose at this point! |
| A boss looking wall cloud! The rotation was readily apparent above, but the low level thermodynamics were lacking something...probably +CAPE. |  |
 |
Wider view later on. Of interest, several wet RFD cycles were occurring during this storm's life, but none one of them appeared to enhance/focus low level rotation. |
| As if this supercell wasn't showing off enough, it decided to develop some weakly forked inflow tails. Who needs tornadoes when photogenic creatures like this are occurring?! |  |
 |
Believe it or not, we began seeing rotation (albeit weak) in this wall cloud. Shortly after this shot, the inflow tails shortened and the updraft base constrained. If that didn't catch our attention, then the ESE winds shifting to the west would confirm that the RFD was assuming control. |
| Headed west for Hays, KS for dinner and a motel but stopped to check this guy out to our east. Had the darn fractocu completely cleared out, I'd have gotten an even better shot of this cauliflower mound. We didn't have a ton of chaser convergence on the road this day, but the Applebees that night sure made up for it! |  |
| Back to Chase Logs |
All
photos copyright © Matt Ziebell
|
