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Even though today's target was pretty much where I started the day, I had to depart WaKeeney, KS very early this morning to meet up with Greg, Tricia and Scott in Colorado for five days of chasing. We all made it to northwest KS by the early afternoon and decided to visit the Monument Rocks while waiting for convective initiation. They were all bummed about not being able to chase the previous day, but today looked just as good so long as we could all agree on a target storm once it developed. I've found this is almost always a problem when you pool any forecasters together in the same chase vehicle! As shown here, the Cu fields slowly became more agitated and we later headed east for the first Cb north of Dighton. |
| The cell north of
Dighton went SVR warned just as we closed within range, but neither of
us liked the looks of its base over time...even after a TOR was issued.
We knew it would be crossing the warm front eventually and could certainly
produce, but gambled that newer cells farther south along the dryline
would provide better structure and contrast while still becoming tornadic. So
around 1530 CDT we aborted the storm and dropped south on 23 to Dighton
to watch a new Cb organize, then collapse right over us. Naturally,
the cell we departed had exploded by this point and dropped a
large cone near Quinter. We instead were stopped just outside Dighton
at that time kicking ourselves, but were not about to turn around.
We waited for the next cell to develop to our southwest and by 1646 CDT we were presented with this view southwest of Dighton on county road 90. |
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This new supercell was almost immediately TOR warned and its rotating wall cloud was about as textbook as I've ever seen. Many of the dirt roads out here were still very slick from heavy rains the night prior, so we stuck to HWY 23 for much of the time as this supercell glided NNE. |
| It just kept getting
better organized, but still no tornado...or so we thought.
The Storm Data entry indicates this as a tornado by this time
that would soon grow in girth.
Alas, my biggest mistake of the entire chase just happened to occur during this time. I foolishly hit the record button on the camcorder too soon after powering it up. What's the problem you ask? Well, the HV20 doesn't like being rushed and as a result every time I thought I was recording the camcorder was on pause...arrgghhh!!! At least I came away with about 10 minutes of video showing a very detailed view of the car interior. |
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Although visible condensation never reached the surface, this is a large tornado according to Storm Data passing just WSW of the Dighton airport. This picture clearly shows a large, tapered lowering aloft within a mature occlusion...so I can't argue much with the storm survey even though we never noticed any amount of debris from our location. |
| We never noticed the second tornado that skirted the eastern edge of the larger tornado shown above, but did witness a brief needle tornado to our west while near the Lane Wildlife Area. None of us has video or photos of this as it was too brief from the time we saw it. We later stopped to monitor this supercell's structure, but it just wasn't as pristine as it had been earlier. The large wet RFD didn't sit well with any of us, so we dropped south for a much better supercell exiting Gray county. Just as we had happen earlier in the chase, the storm we let go managed to produce another large tornado near Quinter around 1815 CDT as it encountered the warm front. In hindsight we still would have aborted that storm regardless of the warm front, but congrats to those that stuck it out. |  |
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On our way south to intercept the supercell southwest of Jetmore, we stopped briefly to admire this decaying rotating cell near Dighton. |
| Here's the view looking southwest at our next target supercell located about 20 miles WNW of Jetmore. In reality the contrast was horrid, but I snapped some photos with the hope of resurrecting the faint structure via post processing. Attached is a radar grab during this time (1714 CST) showing our location relative to this classic supercell. |  |
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We drove west to a paved 'connecting road' (labeled as such by DeLorme...sheesh) and watched as the supercell's updraft base approached all the while a clear slot wrapped around a good portion of the meso. Minutes later, this wall cloud took shape with some weak rotation apparent. |
| What we thought initially was a tail cloud soon turned vertical and rather laminar. Visible condensation peaked about 80% down, so we called this a tornado even though we questioned it among ourselves for a bit. The Storm Data entry does list this as a tornado. |  |
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After the previous tornado dissipated, its wall cloud persisted all the while a shallow funnel developed on the apex of the RFD (similar to how one of the tornadoes I chased the previous day had developed). |
| We thought we had
allowed ourselves plenty of distance to view this supercell safely, but
the innocuous updraft base that was directly overhead while watching
the distant tornado quickly became something much more. Even though the cloud erosion
with the RFD was still to our west (exactly where we were expecting the new meso to form), this core aloft demanded
our attention when winds began gusting between 40 and 50 mph from the west. A quick survey of the situation
revealed a rapidly rotating, lowered base just to our northeast complete with a funnel.
Just when you think you're playing it safe, something like this is dealt to you--yikes.
Video grab |
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Having been caught off-guard by the new meso, we had no choice but to let it pass a ways to our northeast before blasting north to the next east road. A short while later, a small left splitting storm came from out of nowhere overrunning us with a barrage of marginally severe hail. After escaping the hail and catching a north road north to keep pace with the still classic supercell, we stopped to monitor an elongated updraft base just to our west that showcased compact rotation and a subtle lowering. The left split merged with the primary cell by this time with no detrimental effects noted. Our location here is just south of CR 528 southwest of Ness City. |
| Looking SSW at the south side of this supercell's now very columnar updraft! Contrast beyond a few miles from the storm was still crap--this photo required quite a bit of brightness leveling. |  |
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The area of rotation
we observed earlier was now much more vivid as it passed just to our northwest.
Shortly after this photo, a large tornado initiated to the north of this
wall cloud but remained hidden from our vantage point.
As we continued north we heard reports of a large tornado with this supercell approaching Arnold, although we could never confirm this from our location. Much later we ended up about 10 miles south of Ellis trying in vain to identify another large tornado. Storm Data shows this tornado as having dissipated as it moved into Ellis and this confirms the large power flash we saw while pulled over just 1.5 miles south of town. |
| While still pulled over, inflow winds picked
up abruptly from the east. A quick look at the latest SRM velocity data confirmed our suspicion that
a secondary rotating core was just to our west. I then had an eerie memory from my close encounter
the previous day. Were we too close for comfort? I'd say we definitely pushed our
luck given the low light. Less than 30 seconds after the inflow gusts, I noticed
this newly developed tornado to our west (shown here backlit by a CG).
Video grab |
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This tornado had a well-defined debris cloud and in this video grab is damaging a power
substation resulting in several power flashes. The sirens in Ellis
immediately went down and considering this tornado was heading directly for the town
we began fearing the worst.
I failed to throw my camcorder in low-light mode earlier on, so I'm left with some incredibly noisy video grabs of this tornado. Video grab |
| Another video grab of this
brief tornado. Similar to the previous tornado in this supercell's family,
this one also dissipated (thankfully) as it entered the southwest side of town.
We then traveled east of Ellis to monitor another supercell, but based on radar
trends the highest tornado threat had shifted much farther south by this
time.
We were so preoccupied with the storm chase that we overlooked booking a motel earlier in the evening. After numerous failed attempts to find vacancy in Hays, we finally found a Best Western. After all, this was a Friday night and it seemed the Interstate was emptied of any travelers thanks to the supercells. Video grab |
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