06/12/04 REPORTS: NE, KS, IA, MO, TX, KY

[Larry J. Kosch]

After a busy day of severe weather activity that started at 8:30 a.m. in the morning :shock: , it's time for the first-hand chase reports. Post your reports here. 8) LJK.

 

[John Diel]

Reporting a bust

Well, I have to report a bust. We were on the Wichita Storm as it started getting some good motion to it over Conway Springs. As we followed it east out of Conway Springs, the storm would pulse and lose something then really took off.

Unfortunately, this was pretty much out of the Radio listening area and we were called back south for a small storm that died a miserable death over Great Salt Plains lake.

Driving back into Ponca, we could see this storm had really gone wild. Vertical towers, into a perfectly shaped anvil. We actually watched a portion of this storm as we turned south on US 81 in Wellington.

I wait patiently for the reports to roll in tomorrow for this storm. I am absolutely sure it was an awesome sight of nature.

John

 

[Mike Peregrine]

Hallam Revisited

Left St. Joseph around noon, headed west to Washington, KS, where we arrived at 2:30 to a building CU field. Early convection had initiated, with one storm moving to the north of the state line east of Beatrice and another that was quickly weakening closer to Topeka. We decided to ignore the northern cell ... it stayed in good view of hwy 36, but appeared fragmented to us, and we were more interested in what would come a bit later down the line. So we stuck with the plan to head west. Tower went up to our north over Nebraska, and we intercepted near Tobias in Saline County as the storm became tornado-warned. Great looking wall cloud and occasional funnels with beautiful green RFD wrapping around it ... just never could get it together enough to put one out. We followed eastward as rain wrapped the meso several times. As the initial meso pushed off to the northeast, it became less interesting and more outflowy, so we headed south to a newly formed meso that was taking shape almost directly over the damage path from the Hallam storms. In fact, quite a bit of my video tonight of this wall cloud/funnel has a badly damaged house with stripped trees in the foreground from the Hallam storm a couple weeks ago. Those poor people must have been scared tonight. We actually followed the cell through Hallam and to the north again, where it again became very outflowish ... this time developing a stack of plates appearance backed by some heavy duty winds. So we decided to book south and west and hope to catch any western development ... had to get through some big time winds under the gust front ... but nothing like what would come once we got southwest of Beatrice near Fairbury ... this was one MOTHER of a gust front ... unbelievable motion in this baby - several HUGE dust plumes sucked up into the cloud base ... really eerie and extremely powerful. We just kept booking south to try to stay ahead of it, afraid of what would happen if we got caught. Finally arrived back at hwy 36 in Kansas, where we cut back to the east to head home ... got behind a SCAT van who was also mounting an escape and we just went and went trying to stay ahead of this thing. Got caught by it once in Marysville (super footage of the dust blowing through town there), and finally managed to get out ahead of the line. If we would have slowed down for a second at any time we would have been caught by the 80 mph winds. Got back to St. Joe, where additional tornadic cells had developed in Andrew County. Could see it, but couldn't get up there in time - and we were still being pursued by the gust front from hell that was just constantly in the rear view mirror, so we came back to town ... literally got the car in the garage, and it hit like 10 minutes later ... so a lot of the town is without power (ours has been flickering). Got some cool video and shots today in spite of there not being a tornado.

Would love it if someone came up with one somewhere, but I can't figure out where it would have been. The storm was most capable right after initiation, and it was close to touching down as we came upon it, but I just never saw it if it did.

Had a blast today - - - saw many of you out there several times.

 

[Melissa Moon]

Just talked to a friend on the phone, and he said that he and his group saw at least 2 tornados with the storm south of Wichita. Shucks! I should have gone!

 

[Chris Hayes]

WHAT A DAY!!! We were on the storm that formed SW of wichita. Kind of had LP characteristics for a while before turning classic. soon the inflow began picking up and a needle tornado touched down breifly. We followed the storm east where it produced a large cone-stove pipe tornado. Looked to be a strong tornado even as it was roping out with a debris cloud high in the air. Followed the storm a little further east and watched as it exploded into the atmsophere. We looked up and you could watch as the rock hard convection skyrocketed into the air. Soon 2 large beaver tails were wrapping into the storm and a large wall cloud formed dropping the 3rd and final tornado that we saw. Best chase day ever with awesome structure, 3 tornados, multiple funnels. WE NEVER GOT INTO RAIN OR HAIL. We stayed on the southern and south east side of the storm the entire time. TORNADOFEST.

 

[Mikey Gribble]

I was on the storm by Hutchinson until it collapsed at about 6. Hauled butt down South to catch the storm South of Wichita. I caugth the storm at Douglas where there was a well defined wall cloud. As the storm came close to Rock the wall cloud starting rotating faster with good vertical motion at the base. NE of Rock it put down a rope tornado that lasted a few minutes. I followed the storm East and saw another rope tornado SE of Atlanta. They two tornadoes that I saw were short lived and weak but tornadoes none the less. I saw some minor damage in by Mulvane on the way home where news crews were broadcasting from, didn't look to bad from what I saw.

 

[Eric Edgar]

After an unforgiving and disappointing May, I returned to the growing ranks of successful chasers today SE of Wichita. Followed the storm from initiation on the dryline somewhere near Manchester, OK. Through Harper Co. where it briefly looked severe and then seemed to lose all steam and come close to falling apart. Actually considered throwing in the towel or blasting north to the McPherson Co. storm, but stuck around because...

Saw the small cells firing up S of Wellington and wondered what kind of boundary was there--come to find out later that it was a confluence line. And as my storm crossed that boundary, it went nuts. Missed the 1st tornado SE of Haysville, don't know how. Got the rest until dark, including W of Mulvane, E of Mulvane, NE of Rock, a brief spinup SE of Rock moments after the NE of Rock tornado dissipated, and a persistent needle that tracked S of Atlanta generally parallel to and just south of Crowley County Road 2. This one did some skipping, but I'll count it as a single.

Beatiful storm at times, sculpted vault and the like. A few occlusions that were fun to watch. The 3rd tornado (E of Mulvane) was the largest and I believe the one that did structural damage in that town. Glad to hear of no injuries to people or pets, wish that it had steered clear of the town altogether.

More tomorrow?

By the way, has anybody noticed the 6-11 and 6-12 SPC Storm Reports? Very peculiar how OK has essentially been left out in the cold the last 2 days while all other plains states got to play.

 

[dal archer]

I had not really planned to chase today as my daughter's birthday party took place in the afternoon. However, after the party I saw how good things were looking and I took off from the Tulsa area with my chase partner Jeremiah Rosson around 4:15 (a really late start). We were targeting Wichita and I am certainly glad that we did.

As we were coming up I-35 toward the Kansas line, we could see an incredible tower and as we continued on into Kansas on I-35 (Kansas Turnpike) we began to see a wall cloud forming north of the Wellington area. I began looking for an exit road and couldn't find one, so we ended up pulling off of I-35 onto the shoulder and soon we got footage of tornado number 1. It didn't stay down long (3-5 minutes) and then it lifted. We finally found an exit to get off the turnpike (I think that it was Hwy 53) and headed toward Mulvane. As we headed toward Mulvane, we observed what we believed to be a tornado on the ground (however, due to our position it was rain wrapped and not clearly visible.) The tornado soon became quite visible however, and once again we got some really good video and stills.

We then had some trouble getting back to the storm as law enforcement officials blocked off part of Hwy 15 which we had planned to take to get both south and east of the storm. We finally managed to get back in position further east (north of Udall ?) and captured a third tornado on the ground. Once again the tornado was somewhat short lived (3 - 5 minutes) and we took off again.

Our final success was around Atlanta, KS where we managed to briefly see a tornado in very low light conditions.

I haven't reviewed the video yet as I just got home, but I plan to do so shortly and I will try to post some pic's tomorrow if I don't chase in the Missouri area. Have a good one!

 

[Bob Schafer]

Floss Ralston and I hooked up with "old friends" Chad Lawson, Chad's girlfriend Susan (Sorry...I don't remember your last name, Susan!), David Drummond, Graham Butler, Phillip Flory, and Shane Adams in Wichita.

We got to a developing storm SW of Wichita a bit after 4PM, and followed it NE and E towards Mulvane KS.

It dropped tornadoes at 3 different times, once destroying a home, which to my untrained eye may have been an F4, as the house was pretty much reduced to it's foundation, though I am unaware of the house's (previous) construction, etc. We hear the occupants were unhurt, thank goodness.

The second (and house destroying) tornado was by far the most dramatic, starting as a truncated cone with debris, then a large cone, then a stovepipe, then an elephant trunk, finally roping out 10 minutes later. It apparently passed over a small lake at one point and became white with the lake water it picked up, making for a fantasticly photogenic scene.

ScudStudBob

EDIT: There are 6 pics posted now, which may be seen from here:

http://community.webshots.com/album/34539595lubiwL

(The first 6 on the page.)

 

[David Sallee]

SW Missouri Chase...

Hey all. here is my chase account today... pics and details in link... We had just got finished with a DJ gig and headed home.... I got home, took a peek at the radar and WOW!! it just POPPED up out of no where, wasn't there when we left joplin anyway... anyway, I got some good shots of a wallcloud and a funnel.. yip, my first funnel... it's small, short lived... but it's there...


Here is the link, check it out..
www.viperschase.com/june12chase.html


Later
Dave

 

[Dan Robinson]

Today was a dream chase day - best of this year for me. We saw 3 incredible tornadoes south of Wichita, Kansas. All were very photogenic, and we were within 1 to 2 miles of all three. Full report eventually (when I get back to WV). Here are some video grabs:

[Broken External Image]:http://wvlightning.com/2004/june12a1.jpg

[Broken External Image]:http://wvlightning.com/2004/june12b1.jpg

[Broken External Image]:http://wvlightning.com/2004/june12c1.jpg

[Broken External Image]:http://wvlightning.com/2004/june12d1.jpg

[Broken External Image]:http://wvlightning.com/2004/june12e1.jpg

Bigger versions:
http://wvlightning.com/2004/june12a.jpg
http://wvlightning.com/2004/june12b.jpg
http://wvlightning.com/2004/june12c.jpg
http://wvlightning.com/2004/june12d.jpg
http://wvlightning.com/2004/june12e.jpg
http://wvlightning.com/2004/june12cg.jpg

Digital camera photos:

Tornado #2
http://wvlightning.com/2004/june12dc1.jpg
http://wvlightning.com/2004/june12dc2.jpg
http://wvlightning.com/2004/june12dc5.jpg

Tornado #3
http://wvlightning.com/2004/june12dc3.jpg

Tornado #1
http://wvlightning.com/2004/june12dc4.jpg

Video clip!!! :

http://wvlightning.com/2004/june12.rm

RealVideo, 10MB

This latest Plains trip has been great - I still have a vast amount of lightning video to go through from the past three days.

 

[Lance Maxwell]

Just got back from a long day in Southern KS.....just thought I would say what an awesome day it was -- 5 tornadoes total from another cyclic supercell in southern KS.

Hey Dan, we saw you drive by while the white tornado was ongoing.....noticed the wvlightning sticker on the side of the truck and figured that was you. Your pics of that tornado are exactly the same as mine.

I am extremely tired, so I will post a full report tomorrow.

 

[JR Hehnly]

South of Wichita... many tornados, 3 after dark. Will have to do video captures for those, but digital pics of the daytime tornados are up at:

http://www2.okstorms.com:8080/2004_chases.htm#20040612

Here's a teaser
[Broken External Image]:http://www2.okstorms.com:8080/images/chases/2004-06-12/HTML/20040612_193400_ps_teaser.jpg

I'll put comments in after I sleep some.

 

[Jeff Wear]

saw as many as 6 tornadoes SE of Wichita Saturday afternoon evening...

7:09pm.....west of Mulvane - truncated cone - lasted about 3-4 min

7:23pm.....east of Mulvane - lasted 10+ minutes - ghostly white - looked quite strong towards its rope out stage - threw lots of dust/debris in the air - moved southeast

8:24pm....near Rock - lasted about 5 minutes - truncated cone/elephant trunk all the way to the ground/rope

8:54pm....south-southeast of Atlanta - narrow cone funnel briefly came a little more than halfway to the ground - but funnel itself persisted for at least 5 minutes

9:03pm....southeast of Atlanta - needle funnel all the way to the ground - appeared to be fairly brief - not sure if this is a separate event from the first Atlanta tornado

9:12pm....southeast of Atlanta (due north of Cambridge) - needle funnel all the way to the ground (brief)

almost ideal storm to chase....forward motion was quite slow....none of the tornadoes were ever obscured by precip....think I had about 3 drops of rain hit my car the whole chase.

 

[Sheila_Ward]

Just got home from the long trip to Kansas, but it was well worth it. I almost gave up on the storm in south Kansas, but it finally got it together. Saw 3 tornadoes, lots of funnels. Here's some quick pics:

[Broken External Image]:http://www.visibleimagery.com/photos/20040612_tor1.jpg

[Broken External Image]:http://www.visibleimagery.com/photos/20040612_tor2.jpg

[Broken External Image]:http://www.visibleimagery.com/photos/20040612_tor3.jpg

Because of the trees I could not see if the one in the last pic was on the ground. But radio reports at the time were saying it was. I'll have to do some research.

Best chase for me so far. I echo what Chris said....I never saw one hail stone and was never in rain.