05/22/07 REPORTS: KS

[Joel Taylor]

Here is video from the Graham County, KS tornado...Unfortunately we got stuck in the mud right after the tornado lifted..and were forced into some evasive maneuvers!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=qH0z1U53KsM

 

[sdienst]

I was also on the tornado south of Hill City. I'm currently in Hays getting ready for the line to overtake. I'll post a pic when I get them up.

http://learn.ou.edu/pages/personal/72118/52207web4.jpg

 

[Chris Hayes]

Saw the Saint Peter Tornado

We saw an awesome LP storm that transitioned into the classic/hp storm that dropped the tornado near St Peter and Hill City. The storm had awesome structure and a hail roar could be clearly heard overhead. I'll post pictures as soon as possible.

 

[Darin Brunin]

What a great day! Structure, structure, more structure and then this little guy to top it off. Will post more later....trying to outrun a monstrous shelf east of Hays.

 

[Andrew Pritchard]

No sense in writing anything more than "we were there too". Agree with Amos' in the other thread, the structure was enough, but the nice cone with long extended rope out was just the icing on the cake. Two days, two tornadoes... almost a thousand miles apart! I have video of the tornado condensing all the way to the ground, but don't have the desire to go through that tonite so here's a couple photos from the day...

 

[Mikey Gribble]

Here is a video grab from the tornado South of Hill City right after it touched down.


I chased with Lindsey Butor today BTW. I got on the worst mud roads I have ever been on while chasing. There was a huge ledge on the side of the road and I kept getting sideways and scrapping my rear quarter panel against it. It wasn't fun. I broke in the new truck with some pretty good hail damage too. I'm not terribly excited about that either, but it was bound to happen sooner or later. All in all it was a good chase day. We got pretty close to the tornado and it was a great show. Congrats to everybody who bagged the tornado today.

 

[Chris Gullikson]

Congrats to all who got on this beautifull storm. Got stuck in the mud while watching the tornado but it was worth it!!

Awesome structure and a pretty tornado as a bonus.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Finally, a chase I can report something good from. It's been awhile. This was an all around very fun chase day. Saw the whole evolution of the two structured cells, then the lone one to the south. I kept holding off shooting north at Collyer as I did not want to mess with unpaved roads in my rear wheel drive car out here. But, I was getting more and more willing to as chaser after chaser goes by, and the track was slowly ne. Hoping it'd go more east than the n cell was, I just drove east on a gravel road north of I-70 half a mile. Then what do I wind up doing? Taking a worse set of unpaved roads later anyway, zig zagging ne. It had some pretty sweet structure the whole time, almost jaw dropping(I wanted to take back my post in the now section after I said it....it was close).

I get to the highway south of Hill City and shoot north trying to get a better angle for structure. Well I got it, but now I was too close to the storm for my 17mm to work(I realize I need a 10mm now, to avoid what I do/did next). I shot north into the rain, leaving the second big gathering of chasers behind(I should have stayed back there too). I then shot out east of Hill City, seeing the storm take a more right jog on the last few frames. I was never treated to that better angle I was looking for, but I was just able to make out the tornado from a position to the northeast of it. It looked like the whole storm was much more wrapped now with rain, as well as rain forming south of it from the new convection. I did miss out on a better view of the tornado, but oh well I guess. I didn't think it had much chance to do it yet, as I drove north to Hill City, even though you could see a small area pulled back around the rfd cut.

I was happy with what I'd seen, but not overly happy. The cap off was the storm that moved into Hays after dark. First it was just nice to watch the wild lightning show(mostly zits and short crawlers that didn't show well, but the frequency of the flashes was enjoyable).

I then leave my spot behind the walmart, to get my room at the super 8. Well, the sirens start to wail again as a new warning for Hays comes out. I go in and the counter people are deciding to take shelter as the fire dept was yelling over their loud speaker for people to do so. That's something I can't say I've ever seen before. I felt it was safe here as the shelf to the northwest appeared to stretch south far enough, that I just figured there was no way in hell. But, it hooked up to a base just south of I70 that was lined up more n-s. I figured it would soon allign ne-sw like the rest of the shelf, and I blew the whole thing off to get the room.

Since I couldn't get my room(counter people taking shelter) I opted to sit in the car with the video cam and tape the storm as it hit. Then a new tornado warning comes out for the portion just south of the previous one. I still blow it off, as the fire dept keeps driving around with their sirens on telling people to take cover. A bit later, after some rain, it hits. I had been watching the loops over and over, but still figured there was no way in hell something would happen. Then I feel the back of my car bouncing up and down. Thing was there were two semis right behind me where I backed into, and a pickup on the north side of me and a car to the south. I was like, why am I bouncing, thinking it must be damn windy to be bouncing me where I was parked. Then it surged like hell. Crap was flying east as it roared real good. It continued to ramp up and briefly I wondered if I just screwed the hell up. I was like, yep, I'm being stupid and am about to pay for it. It's weird what can go through your head as you can't see around you(vehicles, lights, darkness), two back to back tornado warnings for this area moving east, and now you're seeing some of the most intense winds gusting to some point you're just unsure of. I was a little happy to see them let off from where they were going. It looks to me like this would have been just south of a small hook north of the main thing(or, the old area that was warned finally getting here). This wind damaged the roof of the comfort inn just north of here. Oh yeah, when I finally got back inside to get my room, she said she thought something laying outside was maybe part of here satellite dish....as net wasnt working. Well I found her satellite dish, across the street at the gas station lol. Tin was ripped from something nearby here too, as it was laying over at another gas station.

After the wind happened, a decent period of maybe quarter sized hail added some fun.

Will post some images and whatnot in a few days.

Congrats to all who bagged today. I should have been stuck there with you closer to the tornado.

Couple reports from spc page on wind here:

0330 80 HAYS ELLIS KS38889932NUMEROUS DEBRIS BLOWN AROUND NEAR I-70 (DDC)
0330 UNK HAYS ELLIS KS38889932REPORTED DAMAGE TO THE COMFORT INN ROOF IN HAYS ON NORTH SIDE OF TOWN NEAR I-70. (DDC)

80 mph would not surprise me. I will be pisssssed if I screwed up the start/stop while recording this from my car. I'm affraid to even look.

Edit: Glad I parked behind those semis by the looks of it. Some folks are outside vacuuming glass out of the inside of their vehicles as the windows were completely blown out by debris.

 

[Paul Stofer]

Eric Nguyen, Scott Eubanks, Amos Magliocco and I observed the Hill City tornado which began at 7:12PM. We observed this for approximately 10 minutes before it roped out. I will post pictures later after I have time to crop and resize them. The structure today was unreal. Must go to bed for tomorrows chase. Congratulations to everyone who managed to get tornadoes today.

 

[David Draun]

MY FIRST TORNADO!

Myself, Fabian Guerra, Steve Mirsky, and our two other chasers were on the Hill City tornado as well. Thanks for getting close enough (those who did), we didn't think it touched the ground, but the fact is that it was on the ground before we even knew it. I sort of thought so. After the tornado, we got blasted by a couple hail cores, and ended up parked under another meso! After we got away from it, it lowered way toward the ground! This is when we heard of the Trego County tornado warning. We didn't see if there was a tornado though, things were starting to line out. It was some of the scariest sky I have ever seen!

Wow, what a supercell though! Mike H, jaw-dropping is an understatement to be sure! And my first tornado ever to top it off. I'll post pics soon!

 

[Steve Burrows]

On the same storm, didnt manage to get the tornado but did see a couple of funnel clouds. Saw some great structure, and great lightning display tonight.

EDIIT: added video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNbyTr0NGMI

 

[Jeff Snyder]

Me and others in my group (i.e. Howie Bluestein, Andy Pazmany, Robin Tanamachi, Mike French, Jana Houser, and Matt M.) left OUN around 1130am. We made it to DDC by late afternoon and dropped into the DDC NWSFO for a few minutes. With prospects of dryline initiation vanishing, we decided to bolt northward towards Wakeeny. We deployed the mobile phased array south of Wakeeny and collected volume scans every 15 seconds for about 90 minutes, while the dual-pol Xband group set up north of Wakeeny. Unfortunately, by the time we got set up, the supercell was beginning to fall apart a bit as linear convection developed WSW of Wakeeny. We experienced dime and nickle hail about 4 mi S of Wakeeny at 0130 and 0148 UTC (respectively) at our location, along with very strong winds. The amount of lightning with this QLCS / squall line was amazing!

It's interesting that storms didn't form along the dryline near DDC... The 00z DDC sounding shows a nearly uncapped environment, and the convergence along the dryline W and SW of DDC looked to be quite strong through the afternoon. I have to imagine that we were very, very close to initiation down there. Another 1 or 2 F to the Td could have been enough to initiate, at least per what I'm seeing in the DDC sounding.

We're currently in Hays, sleeping the night and dreaming about tornado chances in the OK/TX panhandles tomorrow...

 

[Craig Maire II]

Chased today along the Gove/Trego County Kansas line and then into Trego, witnessed SPECTACULAR storm structure and was in 5 significant hail storms! The LP storm along the Gove/Trego County line produced hail to the size of Baseballs BALLS, still have all my windows though thanks to my excellent driving skills and ALOT OF LUCK! Also, did see a small area of dirt being kicked up under the LP along the Trego/Gove County line (RFD?). That last hail storm that struck along I-70 at the rest stop just east of Wakeeney was INCREDIBLE! 60 to 70 mph winds and copious amounts of hail of at least 1 inch in diameter fell along with incredible lightning! This storm resembled a small HURRICANE and I thought for sure I was going to lose all my windows! Just east of the rest stop on I-70 a semi had part of its haul blown over and blocked part of the highway and then a couple more miles down the road a lone sign (pretty sturdy looking) was bent down touching the ground (microburst?)! No other damage was located around that sign (looked pretty darn localized).

 

[Jerry Funfsinn]

I waited east of Hoxie KS for the tornado warned cell to come to me. With a reported storm motion of 55 mph I thought I would not have to wait long. Well I waited about a half an hour before blasting south to intercept the left split which had nice structure. I quickly tossed that storm and headed further south to have a piece of the "wedding cake". Incredible to say the least. As I was heading out of harms way later on I notice tendrils rapidly rising into the wall cloud in my rearview mirror. So I stopped to film the classic Kansas tornado on the green prairiescape. Oh did I mention, I LOVE KANSAS!

Link to Video

Jerry Funfsinn
CreativeJetstream.com

 

[Bryan Putnam]

Was on the hill city storm basically from the beginning. I was following Curtis Mcdonald and his group and we drove north out of Liberal, KS after staying the night. We passed through Garden City and hung out for a little while and checked the obs before deciding to head north towards the growing cu field. Low and behold a tower began to rise by 4. We had a harrowing experience on a dirt road south of Park ( last time I ever drive in mud) and found a fellow chaser who had skidded off into a ditch. Glad to report he was fine and we dropped him off with a state trooper to get assistance. I was concerned for awhile that the high cloud bases would lead to a great structure day but not tornadoes. We followed the cell east from park, periodically stopping to take a look at the incredible meso. We turned north on 283 and within a few minutes saw the rapidly lowering circulation. The motion both around and upwards was incredible and seeing a funnel gracefully rope towards the ground was icing on the cake. We drove further north and watched the second area of circulation just to the east of 283 from a very close distance. After the cell began to line out we flew west on I70 to take a look at the other cell further to the west that began near the Colorado border. We experienced some strong wind blown rain and small hail. This also gave us an opportunity to see the Hill City storm and growing storms to the south from behind lit up by the sun. Again, incredible structure. We then made the brave decision to head towards Hays through the line. Im still debating whether skidding along the dirt road or going through the blinding hail piling up on I-70 was worse . The excitements of the day continued when we stopped at the IHOP in Hays and got hit by the line once again. I can definitely verify the 80mph wind report...we saw the debris fly off the roof of the comfort in and also a piece of the IHOP roof which slammed into the window. The entire building was shaking for about 10 minutes. Overall the day was a very exciting experience.. second only to March 28th in my book.