1/28/2006 NOW: Central and Southern Plains

[John MacKay]

A cluster of storms from north of Clay Center up to the Nebraska/Kansas border just became SVR-warned. Another line is intensifying from roughly 20 miles east of Salina to 5 miles east of McPherson.

Edit: The two lines are joining up to form one line from just north of the Kansas/Nebraska border. The line is roughly along KS Highway 15. Some cells look discrete as of 3:15.

 

[Rob Satkus]

Low topped, highly sheared towers trying to go up over Norman now (3:20pm)

Rob

 

[nickgrillo]

I'm thinking that the activity will remain rather elevated... Considering the stable boundary layer (with very weak, if any CAPE available)... However, the cold air aloft (resulting in steep lapse rates) and strong vertical shear will likel be conductive for large hailstones (including an elevated supercell or two). Not too sure why there isn't a blue box issued for at least KS yet...

Further south, there could be a risk for tornadoes -- given stronger surface-based instability, in addition to the favorable 0-1km SRH (150-250m2/s2 in central/eastern OK ahead of the dryline).

 

[Matthew Havin]

1" hail reported in Clay Co.

C'mon spring!

 

[John MacKay]

I agree with you nick that the tornadic potential is better down towards OK. The SVR statement for Clay County mentioned spotters reporting funnels. Hard to tell if that is actually happening. The storms have merged into a line of strong to borderline severe thunderstorms.

Another note: the NWS offices in Kansas do not issue SVR unless the possibility exists for quarter-size (1") hail. So just because a SVR is not issued for that area does not rule out the possibility of scattered penny-to-nickel sized hail falling from the storms.

Looks like a SVR has been issued for the central part of Riley county. I'm going to have to head just north of Manhattan to look at it.

 

[Rob Satkus]

LSR from ICT indicates a brief, weak tornado just northeast of Newton with minor damage....a low topped cell has developed northeast of Norman...as it passed over my chase partners house near Lake Thunderbird he saw a funnel with it about halfway to the ground..from the pics he sent me it's hard to tell if it was "real" or a shear funnel


Rob

Edit: The funnel my friend saw was indeed a mid level/shear funnel, albeit very well developed

 

[Andy Wehrle]

Were I chasing today I'd want to be at the aptly named Chase, KS where a new tail-end cell is forming that is more discrete from the rest of the line.

 

[samuel stone]

I just got back from chasing harvey to marion county storms where the "tornado" was spotted I was on the exact storm that produced the "tornado" 2 miles ne of newton, I saw the funnel cloud that was reported as a tornado (dont have pictures as it was so breif that I didn't
bother) and there is no way i hell that it touched the ground. How the damage was caused, I dont know but it had nothing to do with the tornado. Maybe downdraft winds or somthing but funnel that I saw did not reach the ground, and was probaly similar to the other funnels spotted in clay county and the one Rob's friend spotted.

As far as the chase goes in was a very nice chase for january seeing as I saw nice storms and 2 funnels and only had to drive about 120 miles round trip. A chase, in kansas, in January. The words chase, kansas, and january dont even belong in the same sentence so for january this was a GREAT chase.

Interested to see pictures of some of the other funnels spotted today if anyone has pics of them.