03/24/07 REPORTS: CO, KS, NE

[Shawna Davies]

Jon Davies and I decided to chase the cold core near Burlington, CO and Cheyenne Wells, CO. We debated on whether to stay ahead of the vortmax or to play the area that had the better dewpoints. It was a tough call as the surface pattern was so unorganized. We got into the dry slot and saw several mini-supercells that had trouble organizing, but got a few brief funnels.

Although it was a difficult day (especially since we traveled from York, NE to CO and then back to KC, MO in one day), it was well worth it as the storms were beautiful and quite photogenic.

Here are a few shots Jon got (I drove most of the day).

CBs in dry slot looking east toward Kansas from near CHeyenne Wells

Cell north of Cheyenne Wells

Same cell looking NW, arrow shows funnel

Closer view of same cell, brief funnel S of Burlington CO

Rainbow in Kansas on way back

Shawna Helt

 

[Shawna Davies]

Jon Davies and I decided to chase the cold core near Burlington, CO and Cheyenne Wells, CO. We debated on whether to stay ahead of the vortmax or to play the area that had the better dewpoints. It was a tough call as the surface pattern was so unorganized. We got into the dry slot and saw several mini-supercells that had trouble organizing, but got a few brief funnels.

Although it was a difficult day (especially since we traveled from York, NE to CO and then back to KC, MO in one day), it was well worth it as the storms were beautiful and quite photogenic.

Here are a few shots Jon got (I drove most of the day).

CBs in dry slot looking east toward Kansas from near CHeyenne Wells

Cell north of Cheyenne Wells

Same cell looking NW, arrow shows funnel

Closer view of same cell, brief funnel S of Burlington CO

Rainbow in Kansas on way back

Shawna Helt

 

[Verne Carlson]

Pretty much the same report as everyone else, chased the 'string-of-pearls' (maybe cultured pearls) from Sharon Springs, KS up to McCook, NE

Here is the strongest cell as it heads NNE from Goodland, KS we saw a few brief spinups and near-funnels but no touchdowns.

The 'Chaser Trap' got us about 15 miles north of Brewster, KS where many including Andy Fischer, Chris Rozoff, Matt K. and his group and Joey Ketcham and I suddenly had our chase haulted by mud at the end of the pavement!

This put us way behind and we were playing catchup the rest of the afternoon up to McCook, NE and never did get back on the east side of the line. By then the cells were grunging out.

Still glad to be out. "You gotta be in it, to win it!"

 

[Mikey Gribble]

I headed out of Wichita around 10AM for Hays. I planned on doing my forecasting there and picking a target. After I did a little forecasting in Hays, I decided to head North. I found wifi in some little town near the Nebraska border and did some last minute forecasting from there. It only took me about 30 minutes to realize we were screwed and the day was going to be a bust. I licked my wounds and headed for home at 3. All in all it sucked. I am so ready for April.

 

[Brett Roberts]

My experience was similar to Michael's, just with a longer, more painful return trip . Even after viewing the pathetic instability depicted on the 12z RUC, I left Norman at 9:00 AM with Bryan Putnam headed for Salina, where we checked data and had lunch upon arriving at 1:00. Things weren't looking very promising, but we continued northward to Concordia, arriving about an hour later. Still no SPC MCD or any really promising developments on the Mesoanalysis. Finally headed north to Belleville and west on US-36 - meanwhile, the Cu field that had developed was becoming a solid overcast and temperatures felt cooler than what was hoped for. Stopped in Mankato for about half an hour for one last-ditch data check and knew it was pointless to put off the drive back any longer. Made it back to OUN by 10.

I'll freely admit the main reason I invested so much time in this "chase" day, even after the models had been backing off on instability Fri night/Sat morning, was desperation to make up for my terrible decision not to go with friends who successfully chased SE NM on Friday. Ironically, the main reason I didn't go was so I wouldn't wear myself out for Saturday, which at the time looked better (and closer). I guess this is just another example of the "day before the day" being more worthwhile than it might seem on the surface.

 

[Scott Olson]

Intercepted the one of the middle cells 20-30mi SW of McCook. The cell was showing some rotation on radar and didn't look half bad visually. We started heading north when the low level rotation increased on the northern cell, so we headed quickly north. We had a couple brief windows were we could see it and there definately looked to be a ragged lowering but no tornado. We headed east of McCook to get to Arapahoe and go north. About halfway in between I noticed a wall cloud rapidly condensing and a clearslot quickly formed. The wall cloud didn't last long but there was another lowering further north which we tailed for a while as well. We struggled with a muddy road but managed to make it through before the rain arrived. The cells weakend not to long after.

Those storms didn't look that bad at all and we must have witnessed an attempt at tornadogenesis at least three times on both of those cells. So it was a pretty good chase.

 

[Joey Ketcham]

It's not much, but did what I could in making a chase highlight video.

http://www.kschaser.com/Videos/mar24.wmv

 

[David Schuttler]

Not much to add to Saturday word wise, I did make it to Colby just before the storms but didn't stick around. I headed up 25 to Atwood where I was going to go a little east on 36 to watch the storms as they moved up. Before I made it to Atwood the Hays warning had gone out , so it was on north to Nebraska instead. I decided I couldn't make it on up 25 to catch the Hays storm and especially since I had to gas up at Trenton. I headed on E. on 34 to do what I was going to do earlier. I was able to watch the storm move across 34 that would get warned for Frontier County. Once I found a road that would let me go N. without getting stuck I was able to see this cell and the lowering and another area of circulation.

After that was gone I headed back S. to 34 and started working my way E. towards home. On the way I stopped to watch the last cell move on out to the N.

All in all it was not a bust to me as I enjoy storms too. It was also a great expirement day too as this was my first chase with a laptop and it gave me a chance to test the Sprint card and a couple of weather programs. It was strange to get the internet in places I couldn't use my Cingular phone

A few more pictures can be seen at Flickr

 

[Jonathan Merage]

Left Denver hoping for a 'decent' cold-core chase with overall low expectations for the day with the previously mentioned weak instability forecasts & shallow moisture. By the time I reached Goodland, the first cells had already lost their structure on radar & were lining out. Went north from Goodland & intercepted this cell east of Bird City which briefly had a funnel before it outflowed. Maintained a flanking line for a couple hours before it got lost in the grunge-fest that defined the entire day.
Ended the chase after watching a nice lightning show east of McCook from a tornado warned cell with a nasty precip core.

Right after it produced a funnel. I was hoping the storm would ingest just enough streamwise vorticity to briefly drop one--no such luck.

 

[al pietrycha]

Short version: Thanks to the chaser/spotter network I was able to join up in IML with some friends, Mick McGuire and Dave Floyd. The highlights of the afternoon were in seeing no other chasers (apart from ourselves), and watching two tornadoes (longest persisted for ~17 min) with residual snowdrifts scattered about the landscape.

Long Version: Based on the now bountiful mesonet data that exists across the tri-state region, we were able to resolve and target what we perceived to be a triple-point in northeast Colorado. After sitting still in IML for two + hours, to better pass the time we traveled west to Colorado to find the sfc baroclinic zone. We reached the bndry ~ 4 miles west of Holyoke. As a band of low-topped storms moved northwest toward us, we saw the following rain free base with an awful lot of cloud base motion and said to ourselves, “What the hell is that!?!â€￾ The view in the following shot is to the SSE at a range to the rain free base of ~15 miles.

http://www.stormeyes.org/pietrycha/tmp/delete/070324hyk4.jpg

We quickly expedited south out of Holyoke on U.S. HWY 385 driving through a thin rain core. While in the core we could see to our south an elephant trunk shaped condensation funnel. The funnel extended 2/3 toward the sfc and persisted ~2 min. As the funnel dissipated, a new slender (rope) funnel formed immediately adjacent to the previous funnel. The rope extended completely to the ground and persisted ~ 1 min (our distance away from the tornado at that point and time was ~3 miles and rapidly closing). By the time we cleared the rain core and could obtain a stationary photo, all that was left was the parent circulation with rapid rain curtains. In the following picture the view is to the west with a camera distance from the occlusion of ~ 2 miles, three miles south of the Yuma/Phillips Cnty line. Note the occlusion, per the clear slot.

http://www.stormeyes.org/pietrycha/tmp/delete/070324hyk3.jpg

We then headed north on HWY 385 back to Holyoke, to picket fence the line of updrafts as they crossed the sfc baroclinic zone. From our moving vantage points, there was a 45-minute period were every updraft and attendant wall cloud we could see spun like a top and / or produced well developed funnel clouds. Unfortunately we had to get right in the action given the low contrast conditions. LCLs were ridiculously low compared to what one typically finds in eastern Colorado, against dense rain cores.

Around 2215 UTC our second tornado developed ~2 miles southeast of Holyoke; multi-vortex in appearance as thin condensation funnels rotated along the periphery of the tornado cyclone. In the following picture the vortex is ~1.5 miles to our south. The view is to the south. Note the low LCL (this is the HPlains of Colorado, afterall).

http://www.stormeyes.org/pietrycha/tmp/delete/070324hyk1.jpg

The tornado traveled north and moved ~ 1 mile east of Holyoke. As the tornado moved north toward CO HWY 23, the then multiple vortex tornado showered the area around Mick and I with vegetative debris. The rapid merry-go-round cloud base motion was a real treat! We had to shifted our position east ½ mile to get out of the way as the tornado crossed HWY 23. North of HWY 23 the tornado consolidated into a rather quiescent appearing condensation funnel. This next picture is looking NNW at a range of ~ 5 miles to the tornado.

http://www.stormeyes.org/pietrycha/tmp/delete/070324hyk2.jpg

The life span of the tornado was around 17 min long.

A third tornado was reported north of Amherst, Colorado. We never could confirm that report yet we could clearly see a well developed, though pencil thin, funnel cloud extend ½ to the sfc, 2 or 3 miles north of Amherst, then ~ 5 miles to our northeast. I think the public tor reports north of Amherst were bogus as funnel cloud ½ to the sfc doesn’t = tornado.

We then moved into Nebraska to intercept the “warm sector’ storms. The storms were complete trash. OFD, high based junk they were, which may have been a byproduct to some degree of the overnight MCS devouring what little PBL juice there was at that time across northwest Kansas .

--Al Pietrycha (an OF to most of you now on here)

P.S. Hard lesson learned by me = don't shoot in ISO 100 unless there's really bright back or front lighting.

 

[Jenn Brindley]

Hey all.

I'm new to the threads here, so I just thought I'd say hello to everyone! You guys are fantastically awesome.

Went out with Tony Laubach and the gang... yes, a bust. But not really. I scored some of the most beautiful photographs I've ever taken. And sometimes, that's one of the best things about chasing, even if we don't score twisters. I hope you enjoy them.

Jenn

PS: sorry about the delay in posting. Had to get approved first