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

[Chad Ringley]

no pics yet...but will post them tomorrow. 5 tornadoes S to SE of Wichita today, 3 near the town of Mulvane, KS....

Shelia...I can confirm that your last photograph was indeed a tornado...will have both great stills and video of full condensation to the sfc and debris cloud...was on the ground for ~1 min (maybe more).

 

[Bryce Stone]

My target was Wichita, but I got a late start. Storm looked incredible moving north on I-35 torward the Kansas border. Took the last free exit in Kansas (exit 4), and moved east to 77, then north. After that, I saw pretty much what everyone else did: several photogenic tornadoes, which I captured on video and took stills of. My pics don't look much different than what's been posted, so I won't bother taking up space. The chase day was incredible, and was worth 10x what it cost in gas.

Did notice a whole horde of locals clogging the roads, including several with the wives and kids in tow (saw whole families standing outside in the lightning). I quickly tired of this, so I hunted down a desolate county road, where I was not bothered until just before I decided to head back home. As I was getting into my car, this truck drove up with four adults crammed into the cab.

The driver said, "A friend of mine told me there were some tornadoes out here, and I told him he was full of shit. But we thought we'd come out and see." He had just missed a very nice 1-2 minute rope. :wink: They were drinking Keystone, by the way, and made no attempt to hide it.

I wonder how many of the bad reports chasers get from law enforcement and EMs actually are initiated by locals?

Yes, I DID notice that Oklahoma has had practically nothing this year. First we have 9+ months with no tornadoes (longest in recorded OK history), and then this tornado-handicapped spring. Makes it rough on the budget to travel to Kansas week after week. Maybe next year the SPC can move the good stuff back down south where it belongs.

 

[Eric Edgar]

Just for the benefit of those obscured by trees, I never saw the SC Kansas storm produce a funnel that _didn't_ have ground circulation at some point. Not always condensation to the ground though (this goes especially for the twilight needle that skipped east S of Atlanta, as well as the very brief circulation S of Crowley County 2 that closely followed the dissipation of the NE of Rock tornado).

 

[Shane Adams]

Graham Butler, David Drummond, and I observed 5 tornadoes ESE of ICT yesterday, including two near Mulvane, one of whch we were within 300 yards of as it obliterated a structure. The roar was unbelievable, first time I've ever experienced the sound/feel up close. We broke off the chase to check on the occupants, but were blocked by downed powerlines along the road leading up to the damage. There were already several people on the scene, including some emergency vehicle (they got there FAST).

We then contnued to the chase, and saw three more tornadoes, SE of Mulvane, wst of Atlanta, and just SE of Atlanta. We called in the tornadoes and storm situations constantly, sometimes with the help of locals (who would tel us exactly where we were in some rural areas). It was a great day of locals, chasers, and the NWS working together.

Sitting in ICT watching Bruce Almighty, getting ready to head out again for another possible round of action today.

 

[Jeff Snyder]

Pretty much similar story as others who were on the Mulvane storm... Saw four tornadoes today...

1. West of Mulvane ... relatively brief tornado
2. Relatively long-lasting tornado from in Mulvane to southeast of Mulvane
3. Tornado near Rock ...
4. Small rope Tornado south of Atlanta after sunset

I again forgot to record my GPS tracks, so I'll have to await the video review before getting more specific. This storm had awesome structure and numerous areas of rotations a few times... An occluding wallcloud to the west, and mature wall cloud in the middle, and a developnig wallcloud to the east. Awesome.

Oh, yeah, one more thing... I will NEVER try to go through a small town which had a close encounter with a tornado... A couldn't-happen-at-a-worse-time bridge closure on K55 south of Mulvane caused us to have to go through the town... It took us, no doubt, probably 30 minutes to work 5 miles before we could clear the incredible traffic in Mulvane. It was the most ridiculous traffic I have ever seen in a small town. People parked in the middle of the road, people stopped in large intersections pointing out the window with 15-20 cars behind them. Folks just walking clear across large roadways. UGH! 99% of them were locals too... And ya know, people question how storm chasers get happy over tornado (which can cause destruction) yet I saw tons of families with their kids on the front lawn looking at the tornado, all hooping and hollering with camera in hand...

On that note, I have to give props to the chasers I saw out there.. I think we, as a group, practiced excellent driving habits... I don't think I saw a single 'chaser' car (yes, ambiguous, but antennas give it away sometimes, or tripoded cameras/camcorders, etc) that wasn't pulled completely off the roadway. It was excellent to see some of you out there that were indeed very safe as far as parking is concerned. It just greatly frustrated me to see the locals creating all the traffic problems (parking in the MIDDLE of the road, driving 5mph down a state highway, parking in intersections, UGH!)...

 

[Brian Brubaker]

We began our day headed to Harper Co. We saw a small group of chasers pulled off of Hwy 160 and stopped to talk. After reading a couple of reports here and trying to recall some first names, I've put the pieces together and realized it was Bob Schafer, Chad Lawson, Shane Adams and David Drummond. We only actually got to chat with Bob and Chad (and one of the ladies with the group, sorry, forgot her name), but Chad invited us to tag along. And I want to personally thank all you guys and gals in that group for allowing us to join your chase.

I won't add anything to Bob and Shane's reports, except to say that last night was our first tornado experience, for which my wife and I are very appreciative. Thanks again Chad and others!

Most of all, it was good to hear that the people who's home was destroyed SE of Mulvane were on vacation and their teenage daughters were not home at the time.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Just some quick notes and observations from Saturday:

- One of the remarkable features of the Kansas supercell was the intense lightning activity throughout the life of the storm. I have about 15 or 20 lightning-with-tornado events on video. CGs were hitting all around the tornadoes, in front, behind, all around. Amazing sight!

[Broken External Image]:http://wvlightning.com/2004/june12cg3.jpg

GIF Animation here:
http://wvlightning.com/2004/tornlt.gif

- The third tornado of the day near Rock, KS was moving *west* - I had to keep panning my video camera to the *left* during its lifespan.

- We witnessed debris falling from the sky (possibly insulation) for up to 30 minutes after the Mulvane tornado.

- The wall cloud/meso prior to the tornadoes exhibited unbelievable motion/rotation, especially west of I-35. I almost got dizzy staring up at it, it almost gave the sensation that I was spinning!

- We encountered a few raindrops near Rock, the only precip we experienced - as others have attested to.

- At sunset, the updraft took on a spectacular mothership appearance with smooth striated sides, with frequent lightning of every type.

- A couple more video grabs of the Mulvane tornado as it is apparently hitting a structure:

[Broken External Image]:http://wvlightning.com/2004/june12frame1.jpg

[Broken External Image]:http://wvlightning.com/2004/june12frame2.jpg

 

[Chris Hayes]

Would like to thank George Tincher, Angie Norris, Mike Geukes and everyone else from the storm chase chat for advising me on the storm developing near ICT.

 

[Mike Peregrine]

Last Night's Bow Echo Event

Just finished a tour of St. Joseph, which was hit hard last night by a damaging bow echo event shortly after I got back home from the chase. The north end of the city appears to have sustained the greatest amount of damage ... very large trees down - over a foot in diameter - healthy, younger trees as well as older ones. Roof damage in multiple locations ... very powerful storm. St. Joseph sustained a pretty heavy hit this time, with power being out just about all night - and still not restored completely.

One interesting thing we noticed - as the bow first started to form in southern Nebraska, all of the smaller towns began setting off their tornado sirens ... possibly either a result of the damaging straight line winds coming, or possibly because people were seeing the huge gustnadoes and dust plumes and thinking they were tornadoes ... in any event, after all of the tornadic storms that have been moving through - people were out in droves to see the storms (which were highly visual), probably hoping to see a tornado. Wish there was some way to hit this home with some of these communities somehow - - that these warnings aren't JUST for tornadoes ... you can't hardly escape a damaging straight-line event that envelops your entire town - - - and last night we were seeing lots of whole families - little kids and everyone - out to watch the gust front blow through. It was really entertaining, but a very destructive situation.

Found out that a friend of mine's home was hit by one of the tornadoes near Albany. Scoured the paint from the house and knocked out all the windows, depositing everything (paint, glass and farm equipment) inside the house. All are well and no major structural damage that can't be repaired ... life goes on in the alley!

 

[JR Hehnly]

Added some video stills today of lightning and the tornados that occurred after dark. Looks like I caught Dan's lightning bolt with tornado from a different angle.
[Broken External Image]:http://www2.okstorms.com:8080/images/chases/2004-06-12/HTML/20040612_192700_vid_ps_thm.jpg
Also added times, locations, and commentary.

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

 

[Chris C Sanner]

Well this hurts. I initally was going for N. Oklahoama (which would've almost certainly put me on the Wichita Storm), but decided to try Western North Texas. I dabbled around N. Texas until 5 when I hit a dead zone with my weather radio. I headed north and saw an anvil through a dissapating cu field. So I kept north out of Altus (from Vernon) and eventually ended up about 5 miles WNW of Granite looking at a VERY dry LP. It was persistent but eventually fell apart very slowly. The base got VERY low for an LP but once a band of mid-level inflow into the storm left it quickly dissapated. Very little precip, although it had a nice core for about 10 minutes adjacent to the updraft. Not a bust, but definately a disappointment for sure.

I met up with Roger Graham and co. in Granite and after some more dabbling in Western Oklahoma the feeling was mutual to just head home and wait for the next day. Glad to see everyone else got some great shots!

 

[David Schuttler]

I made the mistake also of not going towards original target (n. of Ponca) decided to keep going west on 60. Watched the storms (?) in Woodward and Woods county. keeped thinking of going to Kansas but never talked myself into it.

Could still see the lightning in Kansas once I got back to Tulsa a little after 10 pm .
No pics posted yet since nothing exciting to show compared to others accomplishments.

 

[Scott Blair]

Mulvane, KS Tornado

Significant damage associated with tornado.

June 12, 2004
Perhaps the most incredible tornado day I've observed to date. Jason Politte, Marcie Martin, and I (meeting up at times with Eric Nguyen and Scott Currens) observed four tornadoes southeast of Wichita, KS. The highlight of the day was the Mulvane, KS tornado observed from very close proximity. This ghostly white tornado unfortunately affected the southeastern outskirts of Mulvane as a significant amount of debris was noted as this high-end F3 / low-end F4 struck mobile homes and houses with trees lofted around the vortex. At one point, the tornado turned bright white with a vivid rainbow stretching across the sky along with lightning striking nearby. The entire scene was one of the most spectacular moments I've ever witnessed.

We continued eastward and observed another beautiful tornado at sunset near Rock, KS. The sky was illuminated gold as the tornado transitioned from a truncated cone to an elephant trunk before roping out. We finished the chase observing two more tornadoes at twilight near Wilmot and Atlanta, KS as debris was kicked up under thin tubes. Without a doubt this chase will always remain one of the most memorable of my life.

Photos will continue to be posted today under my site at:
http://www.targetarea.net/jun1204.html

Jason Politte's photos of the event can be found here:
http://www.onthefront.ws/jun1204.htm

Take care!
Scott Blair
http://www.targetarea.net

 

[David Drummond]

Myself, Graham Bulter, Shane Adams and Philip Flory spent several hours walking damage path SE of Mulvane today.

We were out with the owners of the worst hit home, Allen and Chris L. this afternoon. Very nice and certainly very resolved people. The wife, Chris, took shelter with child under the stairs of the basement. The were very interested in seeing the video of the tornado that hit their home which I had already captured on the computer, and asked for a copy of it to be sent to them. We also would like to thank the family for inviting us to video tape footage of their damage and showing us where notable things were. She said we were much nicer than the other media people that had
came out earlier in the day, stating that they were very pushy about getting video and kept pestering them and finally gave in to an interview just to get them to go away. I knew this kind of stuff went on, but as a freelance media person it also disturbs me.

The entire house above ground was completely removed along with two inner walls dividing up the basement. They were mostly unharmed other than a small knot she received to her head when something hit her. Most of the sheet metal that was flying around the tornado came from a recently built barn that was just a few yards SE of the house.

There were two cars in the garage of the home, a late model Ford Taurus (14k miles on it) and a mint condition 1969 Mach I Mustang. Allen told us that he had wanted one all his life and finally had sold a portion of their farm to realize his life dream of getting one. He only had liablity insurance on the Mustang. Both cars wound up in the field MANY yards SE of the home. I walked this out from the garage to the car today at roughly 275 yards where it came to rest. Also could not see any sign that it had been rolled or drug along the ground, in fact it appeared to have just been "dropped" in place. I am certainly no expert at damage surveys but that is what it looked like to the 4 of use that were out looking at this. Doesn't the car alone qualify this for an F5?

Someone had found the son's senior ring about a half mile away in a wheat field. She is still hoping to find her wedding ring.

Anyway, we walked most of the path of this carrying computer and GPS marking notable pieces of debris. We found the bumper of the Mach 1 mustang about a mileESE of where the car came to rest.

Pictures hopefully will come soon....still in ICT for tomorrow!

 

[Joey Ketcham]

Amazing pictures Scott, and congrats to all of you who had a good chase over this past weekend!