04/18/09 REPORTS: KS/OK

[edward oneal]

Scored big time on a short chase not far from home. Looked at the radar at about 12:30 and saw cells starting to go up fast 20 miles west of Dodge. Checked velocity mode and they were already rotating. so out the door I went. Drove west to Cimmaron then north on Hwy 23 saw first tornado off to the east about 3/4 mile had condensation funnel most of the way to the ground with swirl on the ground. For about the next hour had many funnels and at least six more touchdowns. Some of the tornadoes must of did damage because debris was falling east of Kalvesta. A few pictures here. More images can be found at this link http://www.flickr.com/photos/27494159@N04/

 

[Michael O'Keeffe]

Incredible stuff Edward well done!

My dad and I intercepted the Woods County, OK supercell and it was a nice one! It had decent structure, a rapidly rotating wall cloud, and a very electrified vault.

I have some pics on my blog, I will get video and a chase log up tomorrow.
http://www.michaelokeeffe.blogspot.com

 

[Adam Lucio]

Good job Ed on getting on those early cells near DDC, looks like they were the days tornado show.

For me I had fun sampling different hail cores, I wasnt expecting today to be a big tornado day so I got just what I came out for. Got on the early storms near Greensburg as the area began to get worked over and all the storms weakened before heading south to the big storm in Woods county Oklahoma. Punched it from behind as it began to bow out with LOTS of hail at least half dollar size and possibly bigger which covered the ground. Stayed ahead of the bow echo/squall line which evolved afterwards. Had a very picturesque apperance with a white/orange shelf back lit by a dark green core. very photogenic and just gorgeous structure.

Full report with pics and videos should be up tomorrow or Monday the latest.

Definitely a fun chase and Im glad I made the trip.

 

[Simon Brewer]

Intercepted Alva/Woods County, OK supercell: woke up very late and had no chance to get to best coldcore region, so settled for next best region and saw a nice supercell near Alva. Documented nickel and quarter-sized hail, but bet there was larger stones north of the meso. Nice CG-action in the vault!

Simon

 

[Bryan Stokes]

My target area was Harper, KS. However, I made a beeline towards Alva when the cells initiated near Woodward. The radar signature looked really impressive and the storm became tornado-warned when I was in Kiowa. I observed a very low wall cloud with impressive inflow when I was between Capron and Burlington. Not too long after, it became rain-wrapped. Since I was more or less in its path, and it was obvious that the hail core was rapidly approaching, I got out of there quick. I stayed out in front and snapped a few shots along the way.

It ended up being a 230 mile chase and I made it home in time to have dinner on my deck while watching the MCS lightening/thunder show roll into town. Not a bad way to end the day!

Bryan

 

[Lanny Dean]

Had prior commitments with my wife so I got a late start on todays event. Ended up racing up I35 to Enid and then west to North on HWY 132. We were able to see some really nice structure on the Alva cell and decided to go for it.
Ended up stopping south of Alva and filmed a decent wall cloud and brief funnel.
At this point the storm looked like it was trying to bow and we decided to go east and south.
Made it all the way back to Cleo Springs and stopped to take pics of the monster shelf coming at us. Both Pics are below.

All in all not a bad day....congrats to Ed and those who got the stuff up northwest of DDC.

 

[Isaac Pato]

I was on the Woods County, OK storm when it was west of Alva. I sat through the core and saw at least 30 minutes of hail. The hail accumulated 3-4 inches on highway 64 in Cora, OK.

We drove east into the backside of the hook, which had up to baseball sized hail! The wall cloud was rotating very rapidly, but the storm turned linear after passing through Alva.

I'll be uploading pictures and video soon.

 

[A.Theunissen]

We were on the Alva, Ok storm as well. Saw a nice rotating wall-cloud, the vault was intense. The only thing missing was a tornado!

 

[Colt R Forney]

Me and a couple friends intercepted the Alva supercell shortly after it developed, it had a nice wall cloud with some good rotation for awhile. We encountered hail up to base ball size about 4 miles east of Cora. Most were golf ball to tennis ball, but there were some base ball sized stones sporadically. My friend ended up losing his windshield, but luckily I managed to somehow escape without any broken windows. We then followed the storm east to Alva until it became outflow dominant. It turned out to be a great chase! Although it would have been nice to see a tornado or two! Congrats to all those who were up by Dodge City.

 

[Greg McLaughlin]

Justin Teague, Joseph Tyree and myself departed tulsa around 11:30am and headed to our target: Alva, OK. We intercepted the "Alva Supercell" right as it took on supercell characteristics. The storm had to battle cold outflow most fo its duration. We witnessed several meso occlusions. We closely tracked the storm along and south of HWY 64 around the town (if thats what it really is) of Cora, OK. We dropped south from 64 on a county road (N2340) two miles east of HWY 14. At 4:38pm we witnessed the meso to our south begin to wrap up as a clear slot work its way around the meso. A nice cone-shaped funnel developed and began to rotate vigorously. At 4:41pm Justin pointed out a rapidly rotating dust swirl about half a mile to our southwest. This was directly under the rotating funnel. We waited to call it a tornado spin-up until further video review.

When I got home last night, I hooked the HD dash cam up to the tv and watched the video. The circulation clearly shows up on the video, and after the first time I watched it I was 100% sure the circulation was tornadic.

So to sum things up, we saw a brief tornado spin-up (emphasis added). This won't go down as my first tornado of the year because of its brief duration (<30 seconds). My standard for claiming things as tornadoes is very high, and this doesn't quite make the cut in my mind. But by the very definition of a tornado, we did see a very brief tornado.

 

[Shane Adams]

MODS: Might want to ad OK to the subject, since all reports but two are from there

 

[Jeff Snyder]

Really not much about which to write... I didn't have enough time to get up to the KS area, nor did I have enough time to make it to Alva. So, I played with the weak storm that appeared to have decent updraft structure from time to time. Low-level inflow was pretty much absent during the entire time I was SE through ENE of the updraft, and that was reflected in a cloud base that looked static for much of the time. The updraft looked best when it was near Fairview and Isabella, but it quickly dissipated as it approached Ringwood. I then made my way, slowly, back to the OKC area in a fashion quite similar to Dave's (i.e. stopping every once in a while when things looked mildly interesting). Wasn't really expecting too much, it was as much of an impromptu chase as any I've done, and I made it home by 8 pm.

 

[Michael O'Keeffe]

I got a chase log up from yesterday's chase near Alva, OK.

http://www.supercellcrazy.com/18April2009.html

 

[Jordan Hartley]

After hearing of all the crazy things happening out in W KS I got a wild hair and intercepted the cells that formed NE of Hutchinson, KS yesterday. Storm was supercellular for about 20 min when I arrived before the RFD gusted the thing out. Got some pics of a ragged looking high based wall cloud that actually had some rotation for 10 min. Also got pics of a wierd funnel that formed from an area that was rotating rather fast but was very high based and then decipated about 5 min after I noticed it. Only reason im calling it a funnel is cauase I visually confirmed it rotating. Didnt feel so bad about heading out after I saw a couple of chasers drive by as I took some pics. Probley should have saved the gas but had fun and got to test out my new laptop. Nice having internet out there, no more blind chases for me

 

[Dave Holder]

Matt Van Every and myself were able to intercept the cyclic supercell in Kalvesta and show our tour guests a fairly stout tornado... never seen so much hail covering the ground! I felt like I was driving back in Alaska!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKCf6Aa8qEY