Finally getting around to posting our Saturday Report. Dick McGowan, Eric B'Hymer and I left Olathe around 1:00pm. Our original plan was to head to Emporia, but shortly after we left heard the first MCD was a little further north, so decided to set up on the NW side of Topeka. Winds were pretty much out of the due S for much of the day, sky was hazy, and storm tops - when visible at all - were mushy rather than crisp. After leisurely brief cruise down the turnpike to Topeka, we set up monitoring base in front of the Amerisuites, basically waiting for the storms to come to us. Let the very first severe warned cell to our NW pass us by, expecting more and better things to come our way from cells developing further SW down the line. However, finally decided to head W on I-70 to intercept cells starting to go severe S of Manhattan. Hoping for a vantage point from the SE, we got off the I on KS99 and drove a couple miles to Alma, where we stopped and chatted with the convenience store clerk as skies were darkening to the west. (Amazingly picked up WIFI in this tiny little town.) Decided to go out to the countryside, just a couple miles south of town, for our final approach. Area was just on the northern tip of Flint Hills, so we found a vantage point up on a crest. Watched wall cloud get itself together from quite a distance - at least 5 miles away to our immediate west. Highlight was seeing a brief little spinup - kind of a hollow condensation tube with swirling dirt underneath. This was visible I would say no more than 2 minutes. At the same time, there appeared to be another wall cloud to our NW. We decided to head back north to keep ahead of the storm, and briefly stopped at another crest with signs of mesocyclone covering a good deal of our sky view. For a few minutes, looked straight up and noticed very pronounced rotation directly above us, from cloud base on up to mid-levels - so much so that we considered leaving the area, but it shortly subsided. Drove back to the convenience store, took shots of alot of ominous lowering - but no rotation, to our immediate E. Finally left this location, and headed back E on I-70, trying to follow the WX radio reports to next target. Heard about the warned cell around the Indian reservation N of Topeka, and bolted up US 75, but soon realized we were approaching big precip core, visibility became poor and we retreated back to the Amerisuites to watch and wait. Next event was a severe warned cell just heading into Shawnee Co. at twilight. Stayed right in front of hotel, as winds started gusting fiercely and looked like hook was trying to form on radar just to our WNW. Hotel was pretty full of guests. The manager - who knew of our presence throughout the day - came out and asked us about the storm. We told him it was severe, but no tornado. He still decided to move all the guests to the first floor, and soon there was a crowd of people in the lobby - with children and adults alike occasionally venturing outside the front door to come and consult us and our radars about the storm. They wanted to know how much we got paid for doing this!! With darkness setting in, we let the storm pass, had dinner in Topeka, and later on our way home met up with Marcus Opitz in Bonner Springs to exchange war stories. Not quite the day it was advertised to be, but on a Saturday close to home it was nothing to complain about.
