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04/29/10 REPORTS: KS / NE / IA

What a day. Witnessed the brief tornado near Washington, KS under the awesome structure and lots of other fun stuff. Here are a couple pictures, I'll have the video and full log up later.

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Chase from 30,000 feet

As a regional chaser, I don't usually venture too far out of my area to chase due to job and family responsibilities. These storms were well outside of my usual area, but I was fortunate enough to "chase" them anyway. I left for Tulsa from Salt Lake City around 2 (well actually 3 due to a flight delay because of heavy snow on the tarmac. It was really coming down and we had to de-ice). Our flight path took us through southern Kansas, and I made sure to sit on the left side of the plane so I would get a good view to the north and a perfect vantage point along the dryline if anything should fire to the south. The southern-most cell that was starting to form around 5:30 peaked up through the cloud deck and I had a decent view of it for about 30 minutes or so. I've never seen a storm from this viewpoint since I started chasing, so it was a good experince to see what things look like from that height now that I know what I'm looking at. I really wish I had been closer or had a better zoom lens.

This one looks like it was shot from the freaking Shuttle, but I suppose it was my settings or something.
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Here is a closer view of the top of the updraft. This was around 5:30 or so, which I believe was before they really started getting rowdy.
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Parting shot.
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I also had a very nice chase down in Kansas. Got on 4 different storms, 3 torando warned, 3 wall clouds, and one awesome shelf to cap it off. Spent most of the day along the IA/NE border as I really didn't think anything would go in KS. By mid-afternoon I realized the CU I was watching near Nebraska City weren't gonna do anything and that I would need to be much closer to the front than I orginally thought. Booked it down to northeast Kansas and got on my first storm north of Marysville. On the way to Marysville I watched tower after tower go up in Nebraska only to get sheared right off, can only imagine what they would've done with just a little more instability. Anyways, the first storm had a little wall cloud, drew up some scud, but bailed on it since it wasn't doing much. There was another storm to the southwest. Didn't look good at first but it was the only other storm at the time. By the time I got to it it was beautiful and likely the most photogenic storm of the day. Kept on it for about 30-40 minutes before it puked out. Thought it was gonna produce a couple different times around Washington, KS but I never saw any contact with the ground. The wall cloud and structure were to die for. Not obscurred by any rain/hail, just north of a west-east highway and moving east/northeast. I think I saw a funnel while I was driving between stops to watch it and couldn't tell if it was actually a funnel and if it was if it ever came in contact with the ground. Was thinking about starting to head because I hadn't even noticed the other tornado warned storm to the south of the one that just died. Took a quick look at velocity and I jumped back west. It was getting towards dark so I knew I wouldn't have a ton of time to play around with it. While heading west a storm just to the north also became tornado warned. Had a view of the base of the northern one and it had a wall cloud on it. Nothing impressive, but cool nonetheless. By the time I made it to the north-south road (Highway 15?) the storms were lining out. But it was maybe one of the most impressive shelf clouds I've ever seen. Lots of chasers along the highway taking in the last sights of a pretty successful chase. 1194 miles for a one day chase. Definitely worth it.

First two are just west of Washington, KS:

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These two were taken just east of Washington, KS

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And to top it off we were treated to a great shelf. Taken about 10 miles northwest of Washington.

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EDIT: Here's a link to a video I put together of the Washington county storm:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrCd4wItiDQ
 
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Caught the same cell as everyone else, well the 2nd to come out of KS north of Concordia. Beautiful storm, crazy arcus as mentioned , to sit and watch a cloud move so fast, and the storm itself not producing at the time was wild. Saw a bunch of chasers and spotters out, severe studios with CA plates lol. TIV was out as well. Couldn't ask for more, i agree i am ready for slow storm motions. I ended up driving back home on Hwy 77 and got on a tornado warned cell, then as i reached Hwy 50 the Otoe County NE cell which was tornado warned i saw some ominous lowering's to the northeast, but heavy rain quickly would ruin your visibility as you would see the storm base and it's wall cloud. Once i get video done ill add a capture to this post.
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Targeted near Nebraska City, NE for the day. The wind fields and spreads were better in that area, however storms initiated a bit to the west and southwest. I was chasing with Jill Gilardi meteorologist for KSFX/KOLR Springfield, Mo. We witnessed an impressive wall cloud near the Pawnee area or to the southwest and jumped off that cell after witnessing a gustnado and great structure. The next cell was one of few that did produce briefly in the Washington County, Ks. area. Had a run in with the infamous Kansas mud roads and nearly got stuck if it weren't for expert driving. Successful day in the regard that we can chalk this up as a Tornado score albeit weak and short lived.

VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAZZGEZD8UA
 
I basically went for broke: early evening dryline initiation farther south. I ended up seeing virga showers. Fortunately, I recovered enough to catch the cold front activity right and shortly after sunset around Wilson Lake, KS. The storm was electrically active and showed signs of some supercell tendencies despite being part of a line of severe storms. I followed this during the late evening hours until I got a flat tire and had to have the storm roll over me, completing the spare tire change afterwards along a paved farm road northwest of Salina. More details on my blog at http://www.underthemeso.com/blog/?p=1331

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I had a late start considering I did not leave home until I finished a job I had to do in the morning. I did not plan to make it to Nebraska but ended up chasing a few tornado warned storms. The real treat was right
before dark I filmed the tornado warned storm that was near Beatrice. I opted to not intercept in the dark but instead watched in awe of the bolts being emitted from the vault of this storm. This really made the
trek worthwhile.

Video for those interested.

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Going through more picture I noticed this. Possible funnel possibly making contact with the ground? Second pic looks like it is making contact, but I can NOT confirm that. Topeka said in their little blurb about the tornado that it did not have a condensation funnel, but this feature was blocked from view for anyone looking from the east/southeast of the large, main wall cloud so I wonder if this feature making contact with the ground is what people were seeing? I say that because no second report of a TOR was ever made, and this thing looks like it right on the ground. My view was looking north/northwest from highway 36 just east of Washington, KS. Again, cannot not confirm but it's a definite possibility. Timelapse video shows this feature rapidly rotating. I would've been too far away to see a little spinup even if there was one...

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CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE TIMELAPSE
 
Was on the Belleville, KS supercell which, initially, looked like garbage. Then for whatever reason, went from crap to this (below) in about 10 minutes. It came very close to producing (although looked rather cold at points) somewhere northeast of there about 20 miles, but we lost it thanks to solid mud roads. I believe this was the supercell to the southwest of what mostly everyone else has posted.

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