04/10/05 REPORTS: Central and Southern Plains

[Doug_Kiesling]

4/10/2005 Chase Report

I'll keep this short since Amos, Tony and Mike covered a lot of the details. Chased with Dean Cosgrove yesterday and we were in Hays
Kansas by noon to get into position for the day.

I shot lots of video which was on the "Forbes Cast" on The Weather Channel last night (4/10/2005)

The video is on http://www.lightningboy.com
Here is one of the photos yesterday.

p.s. Anyone know who the yahoo was with the Red Car and the big wanna be fast and fury loud exhaust and tail fin on their toyota or
honda? Stop Blocking The Road!


[Broken External Image]:http://www.lightningboy.com/blog/0405/DSC00304_tornado_small.jpg

 

[Darin Brunin]

Targeted Pratt yesterday. Then split up with Ben and Travis shortly after initiation due to a muddy road from hell which I barely made it through. After this I got on the two tornado warned storms for Stafford Co. The first storm had a decent wall cloud with moderate rotation but was soon undercut by outflow from the second storm which was moving right on its ass. The wall cloud from the first storm passed over the road about 100 feet in front of us and then we gave up on it because it fell apart. It was about this time that we felt the second storms furry as we were blasted by some pretty strong winds, rain, and quarter sized hail. After jetting back east on Highway 50 we had a tiny bit of hope that the southern storm would produce. But as Shane said both storms quickly wrapped up, occluded, and were junk and it was worthless to even try chase the southern storm because it fell apart just as quickly as the northern storm.

After moving northeast we ran into Shane, Chad, and a few others after a while and stood around for a few minutes and hoped for a miracle. After that we decided to call it quits and head back to home. On the way to I-70 we witnessed in my opinion the most beautiful sunset that I have ever seen. We parked on top of a hill near Ellsworth and soaked in the great view.

Overall, I would not call the day a failure at all. I just think that low level shear was pretty weak in our area and just a few counties north made the difference. I thought overall most of the conditions in our area were more favorable than north but one factor came into play and we came away with nothing. Congrats to all who achieved tornadic success yesterday and may there not be any more cold core low systems this year!

Thank you Mike Deason and Matt Jacobs for the great nowcasting!

Here are a few pics from the day.....



wall cloud near Dillwyn

 

[guest]

Trego County, KS tornadoes

I was on the Trego County storms too. Here's an additional, but similar, perspective on the Trego County storm as previous posts:

http://thunder.atmos.colostate.edu/~rozoff...hasing/10apr05/

We got dragged along by other temptations and sadly missed the Russell, KS naders, but the Trego ones seem very similar and were quite rewarding.

Unfortunately, I failed to successfully intercept Verne and Company, and only had a short spin-up of contact with Tony Laubach but I'm glad we were all there to enjoy a nice day in the Plains.

Chris

 

[Aaron Kennedy]

Chased with several friends in C. OK.
http://www.convectionconnection.com/CHASE-041005/


Waited along the dryline just N. of the Wichitas and on E. Cu field quickly grew in the late afternoon. Storm finally fired NE of Rush Springs, and we followed this NE past Dibbles, Blanchard, and Norman. Darkness hit us after chasing it NE of OUN, and we called off the chase. To my eyes, the storm still appeared to be pretty disorganized and I didn't see any evidence that it would want to drop a tube shortly. Channel 5 got some shots of the only tornado near Harrah shortly after we called the chase off. Doh ; )

All-in-All, not a bad chase considering I wasn't expecting tornadoes. I wasn't sold on the low and associated warm front (not to mention the distance/chaseability) so I was/am comfortable with my decision to stay closer to home. Congrads to all that caught them... you had more confidence than me .

Aaron

 

[Kanani Foster]

April 10, 2005

Jay and I had our 2nd chase of the year. I am glad mother nature is finally getting her act together. I went up to Jay's work to look at data and to pick my first ever target. Looking at SPC and current weather parameters, I chose Weatherford, OK as my target. Jay had already chosen his target and had posted it on ST and his target was Clinton, OK. I was pretty proud of my choice due to the targets being within 20 miles of each other. As the morning progressed it showed that everything was coming together around Woodward, OK so we adjusted our target area for SE of Woodward in a town called Seiling. At 11:00 am we were on the road headed for OK on Hwy 60.

We got to Seiling about 2:00 pm and relized that we had not past the dryline yet so we once again adjusted the target area. This time we went north on Hwy 281 to a town called Alva. At this time we lots of CU going up along the dryline and some towers did try to form but were ripped apart before they could get going. Bill (nowcaster) called and told us there had been a tornado watch issued for NW OKM into Southern KS so we were getting excited. At 3:30 we decided to camp out at a picnic table on the OK/KS line on 281. We got the cameras ready and deployed Annie (anemometer) in anticipation of a chase. We didn't have to wait long as we had a good looking tower go up to our NW. We went north on 281 to Medicine Lodge, KS. Jay was worried about the storms direction due to the low but we were advised that the storms were moving north and drifting east by Bill. We continued north to Pratt, KS and still had not had a significant tower go up but you could tell it was trying. We finally got a storm west of Pratt that looked could but then it seemed to crap out. Bill was on the phone nowcasting for us but all the tornadoes were taking place to our northern counties. Too far to chase when they were 60 miles away moving away from us at 40 mph. We decided to camp out in Pratt for awhile waiting for the southern end of there storms to blow up.

We sat in a gravel driveway waiting when a storm passed to the west of us. It had some good lightning and thunder. It was nice to eat my frosted animal crackers and enjoy the storm. Suddenly Bill calls telling us that they had issued a Tornado Warning for Stafford county! We had been trying to get a radar on the laptop or the TV but had no luck. The wx radio then issued the tornado warning and named the town of Macksville,KS. We were 20 miles south of Macksville so we went into chase mode. I was driving and Jay navigated using GPS. Big lesson learned today. Just because GPS shows a road as paved doesn't always mean it is. We took 70th Ave. north to try and catch the storm. Jay told me to take 110th east but unfortunately when I turned onto it it was nothing but mud. We ended up having to backtrack to 90th to get a paved road and by then we were losing the base. Now I am unable to give up even when it seems like it is the smartest thing to do. We ended up getting back onto Hwy 281 and went north to catch back up. When we finally caught it again we zigzagged north and east on county roads to keep east of the base.

The RFD notch on the storm was great and the inflow tail was freakin incredible. The wall cloud kept rain wrapping itself and occluding. The rotation would then take over in the new wall. We saw a couple of funnels but never a tornado. We followed the storm hoping for a tornado but it just wasn't meant to be. We were not able to chase far enough north to catch the confirmed tornadoes up here. But we did end up with alot of rain, nickel sized hail, and 4 or 5 rainbows. Not a bad chase in my book!

We decided to break off the chase in Great Bend, KS seeing how it was 7pm and we were 350+ miles from home. We headed south out of Great Bend so we could avoid driving home in the sun. The drive home we paralleled the storms that had finally blown up and had become a line to our east. They had huge towers and nice anvils. I was waiting for it to get dark so I could see some lightning. WELL, little did I know that mother nature had some thing else in store for us. About 9pm near Kiowa, KS we had a storm just blow up right on top of us. I am kicked back listening to XM when suddenly there was lightning overhead. Out of one the lightning strikes we were able to make out a base! After all the miles we had done during the day to keep up with a base one formed right in front of us. We drove through it and had heavy rain and lost visual of the base, but we had a beautiful lightning storm to enjoy. We sat on the side of the road for a good 30 minutes just watching the CG. It was great! What an awesome way to end the chase!!!!

Here are some pics from the chase:

http://photobucket.com/albums/v652/tornado...%2010th%202005/

So final statistics are:
Total Miles: 811
Total hours on the road: 15 1/2

Wow, I cant wait for the TX panhandle to have it's season. I am tired of driving 1600 miles in 1 week!

Special thanks to Bill Turner for nowcasting! Can't wait till you get to get out!

Come on May!!!!

Kanani

 

[Mikey Gribble]

I headed out West of Wichita around 12. My initial target was DDC, but I ended up stopping by Pratt because of the dryline bulge. I set up Northwest of Pratt and waited for storms to fire. I got on the first storm that went up and followed it for a little while. I dropped back to the South when a stronger cell developed close to Pratt. It was about this time when I made a critical mistake and learned an important lesson. Storms had started to go tornadic as they were reaching the area where winds became almost easterly. I knew there had to be some sort of boundary they were interacting with after the first couple tornado warnings. I was stuck trying to make the decision of whether I should head North to catch storms as they moved into the area of more backed surface winds/boundary or to stay where I was with higher CAPE and with dewpoints well into the 60s lingering just to our South and hope that a storm managed to stay somewhat isolated. I decided to stay and wait for a more islolated storm. I thought the Southeast winds we were having would be enough to get it done. I was wrong. The lesson I learned was never to under estimate the effect a boundary can have on producing tornadoes. This one is really hard to deal with since it was a consequence of my stupid decision. Congratulations to all you guys who bagged a couple of tubes on Sunday.

 

[Jason Boggs]

I pretty much targeted the same area as Jay and Kanani. I got to Fairview, OK around 1 and sat there with strong SE winds with a Td of about 56. I had towers going up to my East but was not too intent on going after them. I was waiting on something a little closer. Well, something a little closer never happened so I decided to call it the day around 5pm. The highlight of the day was the horseshoe vorticy that got me excited for a few minutes. Well, at least I did see some rotation in the sky today! The first photo was taken just south of Fairview and the last two photos of the horseshoe vorticies were taken about a mile west of Custer City. A full account can be found on my website.

 

[Bob Schafer]

Don't read this unless you'd like a lesson as to how to ROYALLY blow a chase.

ABQ chasers Bill and Chris Robertson and I stopped at the DDC NWSFO as the DL approached around noon. All week I had vowed, and said, to ignore the DL and target the wf near the low. We had barely stepped inside the door when the first Scott cty report came in, and one of the mets (sorry, I forget his name; I am terrible with names) said he didn't see any rotation on his radar. I thought "Okay, landspout."

The mets graciously sat me down in front of a terminal, and I pulled up radar and sat loops.

I then confused storm motion for synoptics, and believed the storms to the N were going to end up in NE well before we could intercept them. My chase autopsy also includes the possibility that those loops were running faster than the default speed you get when you d/l loops at home. That didn't dawn on me at the time. Anyone know?

Even so, as we left, I still told Bill and Chris we should head N. (It would be over 2 hours before KS tornadoes number 3, 4.......17, and we would have had only about 90-100 miles to drive to intercept.) I changed my mind about 2 minutes later.

We ended up near Great Bend, and saw virtually nothing all day.

Excuse me while I go throw household objects at the walls.

Congrats to everyone who scored, though. Well done. I hate you. Bite me.

Bob

[edit] Oh, BTW, I just happened to have d/l'ed and saved the ICT velocity image from CoD at the exact reporting time of the Barton cty ("Great Bend") tornado. The nice coupling appears NW of Great Bend, not W, due to meso tilt/scan elevation. If anyone wants it, PM me.

 

[Billy Griffin]

:wink:

 

[Shane Adams]

To lighten the mood here, allow me to join the ranks of "dumbassness" on Sunday. I blew through a redlight right in the center of downtown Anthony, KS because I had my nose in a map plotting our next move. Nothing came of it, but I'm sure to everyone else at the intersection I was an a$$. But I know I'm not.

Things happen, we all screw up, and we all call the one who messed up an idiot when we're on the other side of the fence. It's human nature.

 

[Ben Prusia]

My Chase Report for April 10, 2005:

Travis Livengood and I chased this one as we split off from the rest of the KU team NW of Pratt as I didn't want to get my tractionless vehicle stuck on the sandy roads of the area. I got my windshield very dirty by spinning the sand and mud as I almost got stuck. Oh well. Travis and I headed north and west out of Pratt after watching towers develop with the KU team and getting seperated from the pack. We went up to Macksville and watched as the storms progressed north from there. We tracked north on K-19 from Belpre up to Larned, following a developing storm that was moving parallel to the road we were on. After crossing the storm, we watched as the Larned storm started to produce some rotation near Pawnee Rock. Unfortunately we did not catch the tornado which was spawned by the cell, but hey I am unlucky, I missed the Oketo, KS tornadoes of May 29th by 2 miles also. Not much else happened after that as we headed east back home.

[Broken External Image]:http://www.vortexpursuit.com/images/blog-1.jpg
The Larned storm (which produced the tornado at Great Bend) developing parallel to Kansas Highway 19.

[Broken External Image]:http://www.vortexpursuit.com/images/blog-2.jpg
Rotation in the clouds, southwest of Great Bend along US Highway 56.

Maybe next time...

 

[DanHinch]

I had a decent day in central KS. My original target was south central KS, after meeting up with my chase partner and going over some of the 12z models Sunday morning we decided it was a better idea to head further west on 70, giving us more options. Turns out we went a little to far south and west toward Sanford, KS and missed out on the first couple torns, but the cell we were on was just beautiful, it just couldn't get it togeher enough to produce. We did end up on the Russel storm in time to catch a couple torns. Overall not bad for early April, but I am seriously ready for May!

My chase report with pictures and a video clip can be found here:
http://www.missouri.edu/~dwhc46/stormchasi...April102005.htm

Dan

 

[Tim Vasquez]

Everyone is reminded to keep this thread on topic. Posts focused on personal and non-meteorological issues are prohibited in Target Area. Any discussion regarding safety issues and personal matters must be taken over to Weather & Chasing or Everything Else, or into private mail.

In closing I applaud Billy (and Shane) for steadfastly accepting responsibility. I won't get into whether any of it was right or wrong, but raising their hands certainly shows integrity on their part.

No problem admitting the mistakes/judgements on TA since they were part of the chases, but further discussion about them should be done on the other forums. Reports only in this thread.

Also we do have a rule for REPORT threads: "You may have only ONE post per event". A couple of people have broken this, but we will let it slide. I personally don't care for the rule, but I accepted it based on moderator recommendation for improving the S/N ratio here, and we must abide by it.

 

[Travis Livengood]

bringin' her back to topic, here are my pics for sunday:
[Broken External Image]:http://www.yourmomforums.com/uploads/post-1-1113366172.jpg
[Broken External Image]:http://www.yourmomforums.com/uploads/post-1-1113308556.jpg
(ignore rain streaks...lol)
[Broken External Image]:http://www.yourmomforums.com/uploads/post-1-1113366106.jpg

 

[Tim Vasquez]

Also I forgot, our TA "TALK" category would be appropriate for further discussion about any of the 4/10 safety issues. Thanks to Aaron for reminding me.

Tim