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05/22/07 REPORTS: KS

Much the same as everybody else I guess, although at one stage earlt in the wallcloud development I was relatively alone !!

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Just a quick report....was on the same storm as many others just north of WaKeeney, KS. Man that was crowdy with hundreds of chasers out there! There is no words to describe this amazing day...perfect target, outstanding storm structure and my best tornado ever. Just incredible!

Here are few shots...

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Ended up in Dodge City to get some sleep for tomorrow, it looks more than juicy for OK Panhandle area :D
 
Hi all,

sitting in Great Bend after hours of lightning, hail and high winds. Did see the CL/HP storm near Wakeeney, KS and the short-lived tornado in nrn Trego county. The structure was amazing, my 2nd big sup over here in the Plains and already a beast ;) .

We drove east toward Hays and watched the severe line coming in as the sirens went off and an incredible lightning show could be seen out west. Shortly after, we were hit by very strong winds, 1 inch hail and tons of rain while sitting at a gas station on the north side of town. I am not suprised of the 80 mph report from Hays.

Cheers,
Lars
 
I have to be brief since I am using batteries on a slow wirelesss connection from somewhere. The hotel's high speed is down and I don't want to connect the the wall because of lightning power surges. The area is getting hit with a severe storm. I am in Great Bend, Kansas after an amazing day of storm chasing. I saw both a nice tornado and great storm structure. I awaited initiation in Hoxie, Kansas. Three storms formed, one to my north, the other over me and one to the south. The southern storm was stronger. I drove east, then south on a gravel road. The southern storm (that was moving north) split too soon and the righthand split was moving more east north east. My way south was blocked and the road network east was very poor.I had to double back, then go east on 24 then south at Hill City on 283 . As I drove, I could see the righthand split developing and become tornado-warned on radar. I turned west on a gravel road. The storm was to my southwest. it was high-based but already had a wallcloud.

http://www.harkphoto.com/052207wallcloudfirstmeso.jpg

The first storm developed a brief funnel but no touchdown.

http://www.harkphoto.com/052207funnelfirstmeso.jpg

The storm was backbuilding to the south and another meso formed. I dropped southwest for a better view.

http://www.harkphoto.com/052207mesovault.jpg

Here is a wideangle view.
http://www.harkphoto.com/052207mesovaultwide.jpg

As the storm slowly moved northeast, the base lowered and it stregthened. I drove east and north.

http://www.harkphoto.com/052207stormbeforetornado.jpg

I saw a rapidly rotating wall cloud, then a funnel formed.

http://www.harkphoto.com/052207funnelcloud.jpg

Here is a wideangle view of the developing tornado

http://www.harkphoto.com/052207wideviewdevtor.jpg

I drove north on a dirt road that paralleled 283 and east of the town of St. Peter. Here is the tornado with a debris cloud at the basr

http://www.harkphoto.com/052207tornado.jpg

I drove north to get a better view. As the road turned to mud, I drove a short distance east to get on 283. I could see the white cone tornado to the north.

http://www.harkphoto.com/052207whitecone.jpg

It soon "roped-out".

http://www.harkphoto.com/052207ropetornado.jpg

I continued east for another mile, then north on on 283. I could see more rotation but no tornado. There were chasers everywhere. At this point another storm formed to the south and I was trapped between two hail cores slowly moving north. I wanted to be on the southern storm but had no road options. I slowly moved north and got some helpful radar data from Dave Lewison. When the main hail core had diminished on the weakening storm, I drove back to Hill City, then east and south to intercept another tornado-warned storm. By this time is was getting dark. I watched a wild lightning display as a line of storms moved over Hays.

I will eventually post video and a more detailed account when I have time. Gotta get sleep for a another potential outbreak day.

Video of the tornado and supercells inclusing time-lapse
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXoUhctDtQk




Bill Hark
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Well, I TOOOOOOOOOOOOOO (along with everyone else and their mother) was between Wakeeny and Hill City and caught the tornado southwest of Hill City. Watched the storm from cumulous tower to HP rain out. INCREDIBLE structure.

Funniest thing ever: I'm sitting at the beginning of a farm road and a lady pulls up; asks what the heck all the people are doing and what's going on, as the northern meso was getting organized and putting out brief funnel clouds. I said that's a tornadic thunderstorm about to produce a tornado. The lady freaked and said I live at the end of this road! Funny stuff.

I'll try and get some pics and that vid up soon.
 
Just back from a satisfying chase with Scott Currens and Eric Flescher in the Trego-Graham Co. KS area....truly awesome storm structure...and to top it off one short lived but decent tornado. The structure rivaled anything I've ever seen....the supercell reminded me of something that would be found out in the Texas Panhandle. It was certainly a jaw dropper!!
 
Definitely the best structure I have ever seen...and for hours. Darin Brunin, Todd Beal, Jordan Wrecke and I followed a Cu field south of Amy, KS. We watched it tower near Healy, KS and were with it for the next several hours. I've never watched the birth of a storm to a supercell before! Incredible.

Thank God for 10 mm. It still wasn't enough for the second pic!



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Enjoyed a fun (if too short) chase opportunity last evening. Due to time constraints we were unable to make Kansas our target and so were hoping for some scraps or development to make it interesting into Nebraska. Left Kearney around 4:30 pm with nephew Jordan Rosado and Dan Apolius and had Ryan McGinnis nowcasting from Lincoln (THANKS again, Ryan!). Other than the cellphone we were data-less. Made it to Alma, near the Kansas border, as storms were getting organized to it's west (and south).

Encountered some chasers just SW of Alma who appeared to be from out of country and perhaps part of a tour company (white unmarked van with Missouri plates followed by a rental car with Illinois plates). They were not friendly and so did not get the opportunity to officially meet them. If I could read their body language and the data on their laptop they were more than a little disgusted that they were not in Kansas. :)

The string of cells in Nebraska all continued northeast and we stayed on the tail-end Charlie of the group. Saw some decent structure (though nowhere near as nice as the KS supercells) and a lot of promising lowerings from that storm, but don't believe it was ever tornado warned.

Met Pete McConnell and his chase partner when they stopped alongside us and he shared his XM data with us (THANKS again, Pete!). Pete's a super-nice guy who resembles Tim Samaras (IMHO). Together we trailed the storm (as it seemed to cycle between better and worse organization) towards the Northeast where we left Pete on the storm and departed near dark. The ride home was interesting, as we now had a number of HP storms between us and home base. When the heavy rain turned to hail we'd pull over and let it move on. We had a stretch of road south of Holdrege that was blanketed with hail for miles. The storms dumped a tremendous amount of rain in a short time and erosion damage to the newly planted fields was significant in that area.

Congrat to all who bagged storms (and tornadoes).
 
Headed to the northern end of my target at DDC. Saw towers explode north of Garden City and followed them northward. Storm got its act together near Wakeeney. Like many of you, we saw the great structure, the funnel-shaped tornado, and excellent lightning show. Nice to get a slow moving storm for once. TM
 
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