I came really close to repeating yesterday. I may as well have, really. Sat in Grainfield waiting to do yesterday over, but I forgot to do it over the right way lol. Went south of Quinter, but turned around, since I hate being in the way trying to turn around on small roads and not get stuck in my rear wheel drive car. I just foresaw a huge mess of chasers as that storm moved north. So went east on I70 to try and get a view first. I sat EXACTLY where I did the day before with nearly the same conditions....no contrast and rain. And I was well out of the path. So I hop back on I70 and inch nw to get a view. It sucked, all hazy and a million chasers with the same idea to use the interstate shoulders(beats teh hell out of being stuck on a wet gravel road cluster). I got sick of the haze, but more sick of so many chasers. I'm getting wierd with that anymore. I think a big chunk is being paranoid about getting my car stuck trying to turn around real quick or get out of the way. When I get annoyed, I just say scew it, so I did. I thought, I'll let this go and flyyyy south away from everyone and let whatever happens happen. Problem was I saw the repeat of yesterday starting to unfold on radar behind me. I KNEW what was going to happen at that point but didn't really care. I should have, but I get in the mood and just don't. The thing was the number of chasers near me before this was pretty big, all while spotter network showed hardly a soul near me when I was east looking sw. The ton on spotter network just didn't sound too good considering what I was seeing not even on there.
So flew south, and it was really nice to be out almost on your own lol. I targetted the cell sw of Dodge City. It began to look classic on radar. I jetted west from Jetmore for an intercept. Saw a far off cone tornado in the occluded area. I essentially got the cell as it was cycling, as it had a tornado before this, and had issues as I was on it. It was reorganizing but it was doing so right on my location. It just about put down a nice one in the field. I went ne with it on gravel best I could, but it turned to more dirt and sand. Sucked I couldn't continue since I had no clue how the roads would be or if they'd even get better. Sucked worse trying to beat the rain all the way back south to the highway west of Jetmore. As I do this, a cell goes up sw of the first one, and east winds became insane. Rain ripping west into that new cell that already had a nice big fat lowering. I was glad to reach pavement again as that rain increased. Seems this is the theme with storms in this setup. For whatever reason something fires behind the lead main storm and then that is where it really intensifies. Just like it did north the last two days, this one did that whole deal too. Raced back north to Ness City(after pondering dropping south agani for that other southern cell).
It beat me to Ness City, but wound up in an amazing horseshoe. Of course now I was back with the masses, right behind the TIV. Funny thing I wasn't annoyed at all(makes no sense). I guess driving in a train isn't as annoying as just trying to park and have a route out. I just thought about it at the time, thinking how bright it was to up and leave the earlier storm over crowding. I've never driven away from something I was that close to, knowing pretty much for certain what it was about to do...and completely not care at the time.
Anyway, drove north with the train of chasers, watching the amazing structure from the back. Then a tornado forms in the horseshoe to the ne. At the same time there was a persistent area over the n-s highway to the west of it that seemed it wanted to be teh main area on the ground. Just very low, pointed, mass of convection at the end of the horseshoe. Seems like I saw two tornadoes east of that, but can't remember for sure. One was a pretty nice white cone. After going east with it for awhile I opted to let it go since it was getting a really cold, not so organized look to it. Having a room booked in McCook helped.
Congrats to all the baggers again today. It's a hair painful now to consider all I had to do to see that along I70, even though I 100% did not care at the time if I missed anything. It's like annoyances slowly build and I don't think sanely. It's just amazing how many chasers there are now. Film crews with them. Tours! College groups. Trying to sneak a view of that intial grungy area on I70 did not help anything, neither did the damn rain leading up to that. I must learn to stop saying screw it and leaving the area. At least it doesn't hurt that terribly anymore.
