06/04/05 REPORTS: Plains

[Kyle Loftis]

Originally posted by Scott Olson
Well me and Ashley Wakeman first intercepted a cell just west of Nebraska City. After watching it a while I wasn't very impressed so we begin going SW towards Lincoln. We intercepted the cell was tornado warned there and it did show healthy features. I was drawn to a cell that at that time was just a little NW of Lincoln, healthy looking with good inflow. The cell was beautifully structured with a sort of brewing cloud movement and a wall cloud. We took east quickly to make sure we still had visibility on the wall cloud. As we moved north of Waverly a condensation funnel reached down towards the ground and we got out and taped it's 10-15 second lifespan. Just looked at the footage and it looks pretty convicing. LSR's don't seem to show this tornado and im curious if anyone else saw this tornado which would have been 2-3 miles north of Waverly/Greenwood. I'll post once I get back.

Man, we must have just missed that because we ran around the backside of that storm at around 8:00 PM about 15 minutes from waverly after it had passed there, so we must have hit it too late, it seemed to blow up right over us though and we got a pretty awesome light show.

Also watched a storm form over Council Bluffs IA about 6:30PM which just produced some light hail, but it was beautiful, it had a really cool wall of rain.

I have a video I'm rendering right now, not extremely exciting, we saw some minor rotation from the same storm you are talking about, but nothing threatening.

The video has both storms in it and will be up in 15 minutes, if you're not bored, probably not worth the download, its maily just a neat light show

http://www.1320video.com/vids/storm6.4.wmv - 16mb

 

[Terry Kollmeyer]

Picked up Craig Maire and targeted SW IA. Thanks to the excellent nowcasting of George Tincher, realized nice supercell heading towards us from NE KS. Headed south down US 71 from Clarinda, IA where we intercepted it coming into Maryville, Nodaway Co. MO. Did our best to get ahead of it down Rt. 46 and ended up netting a brief tornado in Worth Co. Hard to tell whether it was completely to the ground or not due to the road being like a roller coaster, but my suspicions were confirmed when we came across broken trees spread all across the roadway. Ended up in an "on the spot" convoy as other chasers ended up behind on the same cell. We broke off to the east to get better structure footage. Went through some little town just west of I35 (I believe this was Lamoni, IA) where it seemed like virtually everyone was on either side of road watching this thing come in (almost like everyone watching the UFO in Independence Day).

I did learn one thing yesterday, that the roads in northern MO definetly leave something to be desired! Congrats to all bagged. I'll let Craig post pics, he got better footage than I did due to me trying to drive and manuever those roads.

 

[Mikel Shively]

Well, It was the best of times, it was the worst of times....


I initially targeted Manhattan Ks, but due to some problems, didnt get on the road in time. The storms broke about the time I got to STJ. Well then called nowcaster who directed me to keep on going on 36, to Hiawatha. went through wathena, and i might add they have a very strange looking pizza hut sign...didnt get a picture of it, but anyway, kept on going stopped at this little road side park near troy. tried to consult with nowcaster, but due to crappy cell phone coverage was unable to do so. now im just kinda playing it by ear...really. I have no on-board computer just yet, so i was listening to wx radio trying to get a fix on the storms position to me. Decidied to keep on going west on 36. about 4 miles or so saw a lot of rotation in front of me so pulled off the side of road. it was very low visability down to about 1 mile or so. All I could see was rotation, no visible features at this point. then it crossed the road, so i continued my chase. Started down a road northbound to the town of Highland....This is where the fun begins. As I begin down the road, with a wall cloud and funnel in front of me about 2 miles or so, my transmission starts acting up....just f-ing great. a couple of chasers pass me going full bore, now im starting to get upset. But then it decides to get its act together and work again. I get to the town of Highland and take a county road that goes east of town and then take K-7 north to Iowa point where I lose the storm as i am trying to figure out where the hell I am. I do have some pretty good pictures and I will post them as soon as my wife does some messing with the contrast. To finish the story, as im heading home, the transmission COMPLETELY goes out, as I am coming in to town, and leaves me stranded. luckily, however, I was only about 6 blocks from home. The good news is that now I have a new storm chase car, a red 2000 ford taurus. (as opposed to my old hunk of junk, a 1988 Brown Ford Taurus)

 

[Scott A. Kampas]

Posting for Court Hubbard (congrats on a beautiful catch!) who also was on the Hiawatha sup that produced until Lamoni IA.

Near Fillmore MO:

 

[Bill Tabor]

Stephens / Murray Counties OK, Tornadic Supercell

**Edit Update: I have just created my chase account. It is located here:

http://www.tornadoxtreme.com/2005_Chases/J...05_account.html

**End Update

http://www.tornadoxtreme.com/2005_Chases/J...une_4_2005.html

I just posted my pics and updated the website. I'll try and write an account of this exciting and fruitful chase soon.



Enjoy,

 

[Craig Maire II]

06/04/05

This was an excellent day for me and my chase partner Terry (who came from Illinois)! Here is a list of what we encountered on this date:

1. Large hail-Maximum approximate size-1.75 inches-Nodaway County, Missouri
2. Wall clouds,Worth County, Missouri
3. 1 Beautifully brief but awsome tornado near Hatfield Missouri
4. Tornado damage (trees knocked down across the road-hwy 46)
5. Shelf cloud, Decatur County, Iowa
6. 58+ mph wind gusts in Decatur/Clarke Counties, Iowa
7. TONS of AWSOME CG lightning!
8. Extremely heavy rain

Later that evening as I was driving home on I-80 I left Terry and decided to chase some severe storms along I-80 in southeast Iowa, encountered very severe storms In Iowa, Johnson, and Linn Counties that had required a number of severe thunderstorm/tornado warnings, produced 58+ mph wind gusts, extremely heavy rain (near zero visibility at times), excellent lightning, etc.

Congratulations to all who had successful chases today and I would like to offer a BIG THANK YOU to George Tincher who gave me excellent nowcasting information!! Thanks George!

 

[Jeff Wear]

Jay Barnes, Shawn Keizer, Ed Henry, and I intercepted one of the initial cells in Saline and Dickinson Counties in KS. May have seen a funnel cloud between Holland and Navarre between 4:34 and 4:36pm, but I'm not sure since our view of this feature was through precip and I haven't seen any other reports of it yet. We also found some 1.00 inch diameter hail behind the storm west of Navarre. Storm went outflow dominant and became part of cluster further NE, so we went south to new storms firing E and NE of Wichita. These storms formed into a line by the time we got there and we never could get on the other side of them. We stopped near Cassoday to watch these storms for a while, then went to McPherson to stay for the night.

 

[Ben Cotton]

Grunge busts make me cry. We ended up near Manhattan, instead of Nebraska City like we had planned earlier. Oops. My anger has abated some, but its still a big disappointment for 1500+ miles of driving.
[url=http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~bcotton/wx/chase/04jun05/]http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~bcotton/wx/chas.../04jun05/[/url][/url]

I've started the 6/4/05 bust club (http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~bcotton/wx/chas...5/bustclub.html). I'll be ordering t-shirts with "6/4/05 Bust Club" on the front and a map of preliminary tornado reports on the back with the words "We got nothin'!" PM me if you'd like to join in (the cost will be about $15).

Is it 2006 yet?

Ben

 

[Mike Johnston]

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.

 

[Dick McGowan]

I'll just add a couple of crappy photos i shot from a distance stated by mike. Not very proud of these. I need a better cam! Visible ground rotation, definently not what we were expecting on a day like that. Also, ran into a female chaser from around topeka/lawrence area, who was very nice. She had nothing but her car radio on, and decided to core punch the jackson co. tornado warned cell. She had guts punching through this beast, and we were in shock that she was doing so. Congrats on everyone else's score.

 

[Bill Hamilton]

I headed out towards Lawton, OK from Duncan, OK and only about six miles west on Hwy. 7 from Hwy. 81 I caught the first of several lowerings.
At about 6:09PM I caught the small wedge that dropped about 3 miles SW of Pumpkin Center on Hwy. 7. I followed the cell through Marlow where I caught the second tornado that dropped.
I was blasted with a very strong RFD on Hwy. 29 headed towards Bray, OK. Once it got rain wrapped I decided to drop off and call it a day. All in all I had a great day and really liked the local backyard style chase.
Tornado less than ten miles from home and a total chase trip less than 50 miles.

 

[Scott A. Kampas]

Ross Lazear also intercepted the Hiawatha cell and caught the Fillmore MO tornado: http://aurora.aos.wisc.edu/~lazear/chase4jun05.html

Scott

 

[Jeff Snyder]

Originally posted by Kory Hartman

OK... here's the video clip:

http://www.kellymartinson.com/breakingweat...O_tornado_1.mpg
and the chase report:

Left Mitchell, SD at 11:30 am after having to Shop-Vac water out of my basement (Mitchell got over 3 inches of rain today) and clean the gutters.

Didn't think I was going to have to go quite as far SOUTH as I did, but that's where the PDS Tor Box was. Flew south on I-29 and arrived in Mound City, MO as reports of tornadoes were coming in fast and furious from NE Kansas (GREAT radio station out of Hiawatha, I believe KNZA 103.9, that had solid coverage and had a tornado go right south of their studios).

Waited for a Tor warned cell to cross the river near Oregon, MO... major chaser convergence... Wisconsinites and more! Nice rotation and RFD helping to feed the beast. Followed it east on Highway 59 to Highway 71. Blasted north on 71 and found our cell again near Fillmore. Stopped to film on a nice hill near a cell tower. Storm dropped a BRIEF thin funnel... had to be less than 30 seconds on the ground... in fact, by the time I zoomed in, focused, and zoomed out, it had roped out!

We tried to follow the storm to the NE, but the MO landscape is not very \"chaser-freindly\". Did hear other damage reports east of Maryville and down near St Jo. Went to catch some stuff by Omaha, but it was dropping baseball size hail and it was getting dark. Back to Mitchell by 12:30 am.

Not sure what's on the video and too tired to edit tonight, but will check it out tomorrow. Thanks to Brian Karstens of KELO-TV for nowcasting.

Kory Hartman (Kelly Martinson)
KOOL 98 Radio
Mitchell, SD

 

[Stan Olson]

Here's my chase log from 6/4/05...

Chase Log
http://www.stansweather.net/2005/06-04-05-chase.php

Pictures/Radar:
http://www.stansweather.net/gallery/index.php?cat=45

Stan, K9SWX

 

[Colin Davis]

Can't add much to Scott Kampas' chase account, other than another photo. Wish I would have had time to get tripodded video... the graceful rope out and death of the 20-mile Hatfield tornado would have made a cool TL.