06/04/05 REPORTS: Plains

[Mike Peregrine]

Full chase report, link to video and many additional photos of this tornado can now be found on my website: http://www.stormseason.com ... just click the photo of the cone on the front page to access.

 

[Mikey Gribble]

I got on the tornado warned storm NE of McPherson Kansas. It did develop a lowering, but it never showed much rotation or vertical motion when I was on it. I had planned on dropping South once storms started to fire closer to Wichita. I had thought the storms around McPherson would have tornado potential early and then I would be able to make it to more isolated storms farther South for better evening potential. The storm I was on wasn't showing signs of improving so I finally took off for the tornado warned storms in Butler and Cowley county. By the time I made it to them they were starting to go linear so I decided to head home. It was a disappointing end to a day that was showing a lot of potential this morning. I really thought storms would stay more isolated for a little while. I think I have forgotten what it is like to see a tornado. I never imagined this season could be so bad. Congratulations to those who got tornadoes today.

 

[Philip Flory]

Very dissapointed here this evening in ICT.

Target all day was Winfield-ICT-Eldorado-PNC region. I was extremely confident in the forecast veriying for discrete tornadic supercells. My forecast today failed (away from the brief tornadoes (?) others saw)...

Sat in ICT until around 4:00pm-- noticed strong dry punch pushing up thru Sumner/Harper Counties in KS.. decided I wanted to be on the storm that would develop right on the head of that. At around 4:30- a large well developed TCU formed rapidly about 5 miles E of my house in SE Wichita. Being right where I had forecasted development earlier/right by my house, I was not going to deny it. One thing I will note of interest: I had a concern most of the afternoon of the SFC winds-- they did not back near as much as the RUC had forecasted, I had S/SSE winds most of the early afternoon, I felt they would likely back more later in the afternoon-- didn't happen, I think this is one of the major reasons the storms never really were isolated.

I jetted ENE towards El Dorado, the storm strengthened and became SVR in N Butler co around 5, I believe after that, the storm either split or another storm formed rapidly to it's SE and strengthened. I watched this S storm as it formed a fairly well-defined wall cloud in N Butler co, some weak low-level rotation was also noted. I have no doubt this storm was fixing to produce within the next 15-20 min. Rapidly, other t-storms developed to my storms SW and obviously helped destroy it quite rapidly.

Decided to head farther south into C Butler county and watched a nice little storm back towards the El Dorado area. This storm appeared to have some potential at a time, it however never was able to really get going. Heard of the TOR warning in SE Butler/N Cowley co's and decided to blast south (I was only 5-6 miles away) by the time I arrived, the storm previously with strong rotation was nearly complete mush/huge hp mess over SE Butler county. What appeard on radar as a well-developed hook for a cpl scans quickly lined out.

Decided my best shot was to head south into S Cowley to try to intercept the storm with a "brief tornado" E of Arkansas City, well, that wasn't possible. Roads in N Cowley (bad road options today.. was not fun) that I attempted to go south on were flodded out quite badly, and seeing as I would have to punch the core to intercept likely I decided to not proceed S.. mainly due to high flood threat and also trends on radar suggesting tornado threat was not very high. Sat in the city of Leon, KS for nearly a half-hour thinking and trying to figure out what in the heck had just happened. Overall, congrats to those who were able to intercept the tornado/tornadoes in Cowley county.

Overall, today was a very hit or miss day. It appears really two areas (small area of S/C OK) and extreme NE KS were quite successful.

This is a tough one to swallow, really. I really liked the setup today in SC KS and I was rewarded with a convective complex, not isolated tornadic supercells I envisioned.

2005 is a very hit/miss type of year, you really have to be in the right spot at the right time to see something, very little room for error. I have no reason to complain, I have witnessed a couple great tornado days this year and I am very thankful for that. 2005 has just been a weird weird year, so far.

Congrats to all those who bagged tornadoes in NE KS/SC OK today!! And anywhere else for that matter!

 

[JHadorn]

First off: I did not intentionally core punch this storm. When I left my house the storm was going to pass well to my south and I was planning on sneeking up from behind on it. The storm threw off a cell that moved straight north which I didn't know at the time (because I was on the road). I was completely unaware of what went on.

I left the apartment after seeing a storm coming up through Marshall County that was beginning to look interesting. At the rate it was moving I figured if I took 77 south a ways I could sneek up behind the storm and follow it for a while. I had pretty much blown this high risk day and I was bored. As I got about ten miles south of town all of a sudden this updraft loomed out of the mess behind it. The updraft has striations and wrapped inflow up top like MikeH's pictures of that supercell that was our logo for a while. The thing was hauling balls and as I continued south it rolled right over me. It had a shelf cloud at it's leading edge that had parts that were almost touching the ground. No exageration. The storm was an HP beast and began dumping a massive downpour on me. Then came the hail. Small stuff for a few miles. Then came the quarter sized hail. Bang. Bang. Bang.

Oh balls.

I continued down 77 until I had just gotten past the intersection where you can head to Wymore (continue on the curve) or go to Odell (go straight) and pulled into the first driveway I saw for some protection. I stopped for just a second to take a couple hail pictures, and got two pictures, when I heard the sound that every chaser dreads: a loud whap followed by the sound of shattering glass. I turned around and found a section of my rear windshielf about six inches across was suddenly gone and there was a monster of a hail stone shattered in my back seat. The stone exploded when it hit my car, but estimating by the size that was left in my seat I'd say this stone was about the size of a tennis ball when it hit.

So now I have to drive home with my tail between my legs. I call my gearhead brother to tell him what happens and he's all like, "Yeah yeah. Whatever. Jon, there's a massive wall cloud passing right over Beatrice. It's spinning like crazy. Don't come to the apartment, go to Dad's."

WTF?

I soon found out what he meant. I got to about maybe seven miles south of Beatrice when the wall cloud popped out of the rain. It was rain wrapped, but I could see it clear as day. Passing over Beatrice. I didn't stop for pictures for the obvious reason. The wall cloud fell apart, but later reformed just north of town. The storm was later tornado warned over Lancaster County.

My pictures:

http://www.thespiralingshape.org/img/wx/busted.jpg
http://www.thespiralingshape.org/img/wx/buster.jpg
http://www.thespiralingshape.org/img/wx/stone.jpg

They were taken at my Dad's house, so the stone had melted quite a bit by then.

So that's my shameful story. I'm certainly left with a bad taste in my mouth.

 

[nickgrillo]

Busted. We played the SC/SE KS setup, and busted. It was so hard to believe what I saw, and that would be cells STRUGGLING in the envirement we had. I guess 2005 really is cursed...

Oh, and yeah, we lost Jason and John. They had my SUITCASE in their trunk, and I'm gonna be out for here at least a week, maybe two (maybe alot more, depending on the WX), and I have no clothes, etc. They also have NO cellphones, so I had to pull an arm and a leg to get contact with Jason's MOTHER and hopefully she gets the message, and Jason will call her, and she'll repeat it to him. Jason, if you are out there (LOL), we're gonna be in NORMAN, OK tomorrow...

Worst day ever...

 

[J Holder]

Had to go to Salina this morning for a Civil Air Patrol conference, was 30 minutes late due to flooding on K4 in the Gypsum area.

Left there abt 3:30, tried to go back through Gypsum in hopes the water receeded (not) and caught the Dickinson County storm south of Abilene on K15. Nice wall cloud with rotation but no funnels at that time. Got back on K4 toward Herington where I intercepted one chase group just West of Hope. They were getting ready to roll as I got there so I followed them through Hope where they turned North toward Enterprise and I continued East. I did catch a wall cloud with rotation just North of Herington but no photos or video, all my stuff was at home to be installed in the new truck
javascript:emoticon('')
Sad
Just to the West of Council Grove I realized I was following another group of chasers: 2 Vans, one white, the other grey, with Indiana plates and a massive antenna arrays on each vehicle.

I dunno who y'all need to go to church tomorrow and thank the good lord the local cops weren't on the main drag when you went through town because 1) They love writing tickets, 2) They don't like out of towners and 3) 35 in 20, on the main drag and passing several vehicles to the right and in no passing zones ain't cool.

Between Council Grove and Osage City my ARES pager went off - spotters needed South and West of Topeka. I had to gas up, get a radio and started North on U.S. 56 again to my usual spot W. of Burlingame. Norht of Osage I saw a large groups of chasers on their way to Osage, Texas tags and CB's. Welcome to Osage County!

Watched for the next 3 hours several storms roll up along the turnpike, lots of rotation from all the cells and one funnel reported but nothing damaged. I backed off and went home after it got too dark and cells were getting stronger over Osage City.

A truly minimalist chase, lots of weather and lots of chasers out.


Jon Holder

 

[Chris C Sanner]

I haven't gone over video so I can't confirm much, but I intercepted the Marlow beast just after the first large multi-vortex tornado touched down or when it was just SW of Marlow. I can confirm this storm was up and down through all of stephens county, at one point I think I had a cone funnel on the ground in the rain. I did not see a single chaser on this, so I'm not sure if I was the only one that didn't get to travel today due to prior obligations, but I sure hope someone got some pics of that first tornado and the rest of this storm. I came close to getting the hail as I got backed into a corner on county roads, but luckily, I got out without seeing any hail, which means I only have gotten hailed on once this year so far. The cone looked to be NW of Pernell and during that time I got some great video of a clear slot poking in, the RFD rushing and a silouette of a white cone behind all this, so I'm hoping after I review the video that I can confirm this as being a tornado or if my already exhaused eyes were playing tricks on me (I had to throw..a lot today and I was already tired). I might add that two other tornadoes, at least, occured in Oklahoma today, one near Ponca City and the other just E of Waurika per media reports. The Waruika cell might have put down multiple ones too from what I have gathered....

 

[Amos Magliocco]

First, it sucks that people's homes were destroyed by this tornado and related storms. Their problems tonight exceed mine by an inestimable amount as I am safe and sound in a Kansas motel. That acknowledged, here's my report.

I chased the storm that produced Mike's tornado from initiation until about five minutes before it dropped the stovepipe, according to my calculations. We were in the Kickapoo Indiana Reservation west of Horton when we concluded that the storm looked bad visually (it did), was generating outflow (it was), had turned toward less favorable terrain, and that the storms west of it were more appealing on radar.

We had seen a wall cloud that fell apart quickly before our outflow began, but thought that storm #2 in the line was a stronger candidate. That storm generated a large bell-shaped lowering that began rotating but never touched down that we could see.

According to my calculations, we missed the first tornado by about eight miles or five minutes. After chasing over 10,000 miles this season with very little tornado imagery of any worth, that is a real kick in the teeth.

Congrats to Mike and others who stayed on the storm all the way to the river (or even back across). This is the second time in two years I've made a disasterous choice in that same little area--I hope to never see it again as long as I live.

And again, it sucks much more to lose your house than to miss videotaping a tornado, so it's all relative.

Amos

 

[Lance Maxwell]

Interestingly enough, after posting earlier today that I would be confined to the Norman area to chase because I was going to have to pick up a friend at the OKC airport at 4pm, I ended up in Ponca City only to find out that I would have been better off staying back in Norman.

Derek Williams, Brandon Miller and I left Norman at about 230 and made it up to Tonkawa, OK at about 430 where we sat at the Northern Oklahoma College Student Union for about an hour going over data and watching TCU develop to our west.

At about 515, some very good looking sustained TCU went up due west along I35 and our eyes got extremely large. However, I quickly noticed a problem that sure enough became the issue of the day, towers going up everywhere -- a convective mess about an hour later (AKA Grungefest).

We ended up deciding on the PNC cell and apparently just missed the so-called "tornado" that dropped down along Hwy 60 at the exact time we were at the location (Note: we saw no signs of any tornadic activity and we circled this cell for a good 3 hours).

After driving in and out of the core looking for something exciting, we withdrew west of PNC on 60 to spend about a half hour taking some of the most breathtaking sunset shots I may have ever seen. Furthermore, the drive back to Norman was made interesting by some of the most explosive lightning I have witnessed in years.

All in all, an interesting day, but considering how dead-on I thought I was with my forecast, a disappointment.

 

[mikegeukes]

Summary: Ringgold and Decatur County Iowa
Zero Tornadoes
Shelf Cloud
Hail
High Winds
Lightning

Sat around Ames for the afternoon, in the motel. Finally decided to go after the stuff in southern Iowa, that was moving out of Missouri.

Laptop computer problems, no steady power supply, there is a short
somewhere in the computer,
usually I run the computer off a power inverter, and being stupid, I left the battery recharger at home.
So basically, I could not use wx worx at all or get data getting wifi.
NOAA Weather Radio and I actually finally use a nowcaster for once.
Thank you kindly GEORGE TINCHER, a very outstanding nowcaster.

Went after the storms in Ringgold and Decatur County Iowa, that were
tornado warned, had to reposition myself numerous time, to avoid the
hail core, with reports of baseball and softball size hail. Finally headed back to 1-35 and Iowa State Road 2, and watched a shelf cloud come in,
high winds and hail. Took cover along a side of building, to shield the car
from the wind driven hail.

Mike

 

[Joe Zemek]

Denied!

What can I say that hasn't been said already... by Mike Gribble and Amos.

Headed W and N of Topeka after the first line of storms started to rip the cap SW along the SFC boundary. Saw the top of a straightup tower w/ overshoot and headed toward it... only to totally lose it in the LL converging gunk. Felt too cool for explosive updrafts and visibility was shot. Left this storm which was probly the one to produce Hiawatha tornado further N. Went back S with idea of getting into Manhattan for more data. Stopped by a massive hailcore on HWY 24; turned and headed S to I-70. While fleeing the hailcore we heard the TOR warn for that storm, but structurally the storm was HP shelfy and we couldn't see more than a very short lived funnel.

From there, heard the Alma report and headed over there. Saw a nice wall cloud... quickly become rain wrapped. Such seemed to be the order of the day. You want to see something? OK, here it is... no, there it goes, behind rain/haze. Finally decided to book S and try to get a visual on the discrete storms E of ICT. No! Visibility shot except for nice anvil crawlers. Currently in Emporia before returning to Phoenix via Denver tomorrow.

Congrats to everyone who managed to see anything noteworthy on this lowest of visibility days.

 

[Damon Scott Hynes]

Here's my report:

http://www.opensecrets.us/20050604.html

 

[John Farley]

No tornadoes for me today. I did much the same as Amos, except I was never on the Hiawatha storm at all. I debated going right to go after it as I headed up 75 from TOP, but elected to go left instead thinking that the cells further west and south would be in better instability/inflow/helicity. Good in theory, but Ma Nature does what she wants. I did see a large wall cloud near 75 and 36 as the storm near Sabetha went TOR-warned, and really thought for a minute that storm might do it - until until rain and hail quickly surrounded the wall cloud and killed the inflow.

Here is a picture of the wall cloud:

This picture was taken from just east of Fairview on route 36. The storm produced up to 1.5" hail just north and NW of my location around this time. Here are a couple pictures taken earlier just west and southwest of Fairview, around the time the storm went TOR-warned:

RFD begins to cut in: www.siue.edu/~jfarley/FairviewKS1.jpg

Lowering begins to form: www.siue.edu/~jfarley/FairviewKS2.jpg

Earlier, on the same cell, I saw some smaller lowerings near Goff; met up with a tour group whose leader kindly let me look the group's live at radar, and warned me about the "larger than golfball" that turned his group around a few miles north. I waited until I was confident the storm had passed, then headed through Goff and back to 75 for the intercept near Sabetha.

Later, heading back south toward TOP, I thought I could get ahead of a severe storm coming out of Pottawattomie Co. However, the violent outflow caused the storm to surge forward, and confronted with a nasty looking shelf cloud and a suspicious blue color in the clouds, I turned around, avoiding the 60+ mph wind and 1+ inch hail in this storm. Eventually, this cell produced a tornado just east of the Pottawattomie Reservation, but of course I was completely on the wrong side of the storm to see it.

Returning to TOP after the storm passed, I watched the hail shafts on the next storm as 1-inch hail fell on north Topeka, and caught a nice wall cloud at sunset on a SVR warned storm west of TOP. Spending the night in the KC area, where I watched some wind-driven rain shortly after my arrival. Heading home tomorrow for a possible backyard chase in IL. Though I did see several severe storms, it was a disappointment today compared to the promise it seemed to hold. Such is 2005, I guess.

Congrats to all who caught the Hiawatha tornado - very impressive pics!

Oh - almost forgot a highlight (lowlight?) of the day - as I got on the Kansas turnpike at Emporia, coming through the toll booth the other way, getting off, was the "Tornado Attack Vehicle" or whatever they call that thing. I can't imagine what the toll booth attendant thought when that thing came through! Of course I had a line of cars behind me so could not dig out the camera for a pic!

EDIT 6/4: Corrected name of town mentioned in report, Goff.

EDIT, 6/5: Added pics, and corrected name of another town, Sabetha (not Seneca). Had a rought time with town names today!

 

[Dan Robinson]

Bill Coyle, Dave Crowley, Justin Teague, Lisa Wadlow, Grant Johnson and my brother Matt and I ended up cell-hopping and core-dodging today from El Dorado to Atlanta, KS. Saw several wall clouds and circulations near Atlanta, two with very rapid rotation and rising motion, and one producing a fleeting narrow funnel condensed nearly halfway to ground. The latter sights prevented the chase from being a total loss, though the day promised so much more. Ended the day in Coffeyville, where we are resting up for the 6-hour drive to Illinois tomorrow for our last chase of spring 2005.

 

[Jeff Lawson]

Sigh.

Left Omaha around 2PM, headed in the general direction of Topeka. I skirted around the core of the initial Brown County storm, and hooked up with Amos and Eric Nguyen in the vicinity of the Kickapoo Indian Reservation. We started toward Horton, but, upon deciding the storm looked like crap (honestly, it truly did at the time), we backtracked west to check out new development.

Of course, we all know what happened 5 to 10 minutes later.

Spent the rest of the day driving in circles, looking at grungy junk. One of the later storms produced some sort of low wall cloud type thing - with condensation practically to the ground - but no idea what was going on there. That's about as interesting as things got.

Blasted south to Topeka in hopes something would get better organized down that way, but no such luck. Had dinner and fought the core of the big squall line back up to Holton, and then smooth sailing the rest of the way home.

I hate NE KS.

Anyway, something wasn't clicking today, it seems. Updrafts were mushy, and surface winds were light and erratic. There were times we'd be sitting right in front of an updraft, yet winds would be calm. It didn't feel like a high risk day. Frankly, it blows my mind that the initial storm produced a tornado...perhaps some sort of boundary was responsible? Very weird.

I'm not sure if I'm disgusted or not. More tired and annoyed. Dejected, I guess.