05/05/2007 NOW: NE, KS, OK, TX

[Mike Johnston]

Confirmed tornado Pratt County KS S of Byers per KSNW streaming coverage. The hook appears to be tightening up on this increasingly isolated cell - moving into an area with better directional shear, at least as indicated by the 850/500mb crossover.

 

[Chris Strahan]

 

[Ben Prusia]

I am sitting in the Wal Mart Supercenter parking lot in Hays and am noticing some developing Cu to the west. Measured a 66 degree Td on the Kestrel so am hoping that developing Cu to the west develops into something with the juicy air.

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

I'm in Lincoln Nebraska right now (because I have to work). Stepped outside to put my car in the parking garage due to the inbound cell hailing like an ice machine, and good lord are the mammatus beautiful. I'm getting a little worried, right now, actually; there's no concrete meso on the velocity tilts, but the storm started turning right about 20 minutes ago and is b-lining right for Lincoln. I was sad I couldn't storm chase today; looks like they're coming to me.

 

[CraigFisher]

Sitting in Beatrice NE. I have to work too, going crazy here. That storm looks like its sitting over Crete NE. Looks to have rotation in it from OAX base vel. Same cell that was torn warned for Thayer Co.
TWX base vel also showing rotate with this meso, 16 min from Crete. Definately has a more easterly direction.

 

[Kevin Crawmer]

Things getting going in KS now. Confirmed tornado heading towards Stafford. I hope those you chose central KS this morning stayed put! Things elsewhere continuing to get more discrete with cleaner air to feed off of. Looks like the day may just be starting for everyone lucky enough to be able to get away today.

Please stay rural...I don't want to see a repeat of last night.

 

[James Siler]

Heading up towards Arnett on highway 283. Since the activity seems to be more up in Ellis county and trying to build down the dryline.

 

[Todd Segraves]

My parents live in Stafford and my father is on his way home from work trying to dodge this storm. Storm seems to have lost a little rotation.

 

[Kevin Crawmer]

Another storm with strong rotation heading towards Hodges, KS now....just north of Greensburg. Again, other storms are really getting their act together in central KS.

 

[Andrew Pritchard]

Darin and Dick have excellent views of the Stafford cell here...

http://tornadolive.com/live.html

 

[Mark Farnik]

Should add SD to the thread. The supercell in northern Davisson Co., SD has a confirmed tornado with it. The tornado was reported just north of Mitchell, moving north at 40 mph. Another tornadic cell was located in Todd Co., about 23 miles southwest of Mission, moving northeast at 45 mph.
In northern NE, a tornado has been reported on the ground by spotters in Knox Co. 5 miles south of Crofton, moving north at 55 mph. The couplet is very tightly wound, so a potentially strong tornado will likely pass directly through Crofton in the next ten minutes or so, then cross into Yankton Co., SD and pass just west/southwest of Yankton in the next forty five minutes. But if it makes even a slight right turn... God help Yankton.

 

[John MacKay]

Bob Kotcher was on the Stafford county storm, and noted rotation ~30 minutes ago. I have not gotten an update on what he has seen since the cell tower in that area is busy and I cannot get through. He was a few miles south of K-19 on US-281 the last time I talked to him.

KWCH out of Wichita has streaming live coverage of for the storm in Stafford county, the one in Edwards county, and the one in Clark county with occassional KWCH storm chaser reports.

http://www.kwch.com

Click on the 'live streaming video' link at the top of the page.

Edit: They just started the 6 PM evening news, so they have cut off the continuous live radar.

 

[Jeremy Ludin]

Joel Wright and I are in Salina, Kansas watching a TOR warned cell move NE. We had some problems today, not a good start to the vacation, but now we are back on the road. Storm closest to us looks very weak, TOR warning probably won't last much longer.

 

[Jeff Snyder]

Some chasers drives 10s of 1000s of miles each year in pursuit of supercells and tornadoes, while the citizens of Protection have been able to watch 3 tornadic supercells over the past 2 weeks out their backyard (4-23, 5-4, and 5-5, today). The rural area northwest of Protection KS is the new Moore, I guess.

The meso that looks to be sitting above Hwy 160 between Sitka and Protection looks moderately beefy, though I haven't heard of any reports other than rotating wall cloud. The OU/Umass Xband group should be near Buffalo now, heading northward (unfortunately, I'm in central Louisiana heading to a friend's wedding in Florida, so I'm not with them today). The cell east of Kinsley is showing a large area of moderate rotation, as well as a nice hook echo. I missed a couple of scans in the past 20 minutes, but it looks like it turned rather substantially to the right, which may allow it to stay ahead of the storms in Comanche and southeastern Clark counties.

Similar to yesterday, moisture mixed out a bit between near and north of Woodward this afternoon. In the past hour or so, however, it appears as though moisture is surging back to the north, very similar to yesterday. Best low-level shear is a bit farther east, but these storms should be just fine if they make it to US 281.

I'm wondering if there will be negative cell interaction between the supercell northwest of Protection and the storm south of Sitka.

EDIT: latest scan shows that there may be interaction between the two southernmost storms (Protection and Sitka). I'm surprised there isn't a tornado warning for the nice looking supercell west of Saint John, but I'm limited to LIII data. I like when storms show higher reflectivities aloft (in this case, BR2) than on the lowest tilt(s), as that storm is showing. Perhaps some big-time hail ready to fall.

EDIT2: For those w/ GR3 or GR2/GR2AE --> Load up http://www.spotternetwork.org/grlevelx.txt . It's a good way to see which chasers are on which storms (only those chasers running SpotterNetwork will show up on there). I just starting running SpotterNetwork, and it's a useful (and interesting) tool!

 

[James Siler]

Sitting in Shattuck, Ok, right now watching an area trying to do something but it keeps falling apart. Anyone else up in this area?