Shane Adams
Another great day...
Observed the tornadoes in and north of Dighton, KS. (Reports 1 W and 1 NNW Dighton were ours). We got to town and set up on the north side, well before the storm arrived. We didn't move for over half an hour, as what had been a persistent but benign wall cloud suddenly came to life, producing the most dramatic and violent merry-go-round rotation I've ever seen. Eventually it produced a multi-vortex tornado inside wrapping rain curtains. This tornado lasted a minute or two, then the RFD really cut in and began to rip out the original circulation. We moved north and witnessed a second tornado develop from the old meso as it continued to occlude, looking very similar to the May 15, 2003 TX pan wedge tornado. It was spectacular to watch, as this tornado persisted for several minutes while the parent storm began to move away, leaving this cut-off meso/tornado just going bonkers in its wake.
Fortunately, Dighton avoided disaster; we could not believe there wasn't a violent wedge right in town, the parent rotation was so intense.
The storm moved north and we trailed it, but eventually lost it. So we then dropped south and east to pick up the next sup coming up into SW Ness county. We intercepted this one about 7 or so miles SW of Ness City, and were treated to an awesome rotating wall cloud with several white cone funnels and attempted TG, but nothing we could see on the ground. This storm kept wrapping its circulations in thick rain, and eventually we had to bail out, as we were on backroads only a few miles east and were in danger of getting stuck. We bailed out back east to US283 and headed south and east again, looking for the sup headed to Greensburg. We finally caught up to it west of town, but the hook/precip wrap just would not move north of US54 before dark, and we wanted no part of trying to punch in through the backside in the fading daylight. We were watching velocity and knew what was going on, but it just wasn't worth the risk; after reading the reports page, I'm glad we backed out when we did.
Like yesterday, we were on several tornadic storms, but missed a lot of tornadoes because our timing was off with road networks, storm cycles, position, etc etc. But also like yesterday, we saw some tornadoes too, and they were spectacular.
Just wanted to say that we had two very good experiences with LEOs these past few days; yesterday in Bucklin and today in Dighton (of all places). I spent quite a while talking with a local deputy in Dighton, and he gave me the direct number to the local Lane County EM, that has direct access to the sirens. He took my name and said he'd give it to them, and for me to call that number if we saw anything threatening in Lane county. I never used the number, because the sirens were blowing in Dighton several minutes before the wall cloud was even rotating (great lead-time warning), and once the tornadic threat started, we called DDC directly.
I almost feel guilty, as he asked me what to expect and when I told him "a repeat of yesterday" he was like "sh*t man, don't tell me that." A little over three hours later we were observing a tornado in the same area where I'd talked to the deputy.
Observed the tornadoes in and north of Dighton, KS. (Reports 1 W and 1 NNW Dighton were ours). We got to town and set up on the north side, well before the storm arrived. We didn't move for over half an hour, as what had been a persistent but benign wall cloud suddenly came to life, producing the most dramatic and violent merry-go-round rotation I've ever seen. Eventually it produced a multi-vortex tornado inside wrapping rain curtains. This tornado lasted a minute or two, then the RFD really cut in and began to rip out the original circulation. We moved north and witnessed a second tornado develop from the old meso as it continued to occlude, looking very similar to the May 15, 2003 TX pan wedge tornado. It was spectacular to watch, as this tornado persisted for several minutes while the parent storm began to move away, leaving this cut-off meso/tornado just going bonkers in its wake.
Fortunately, Dighton avoided disaster; we could not believe there wasn't a violent wedge right in town, the parent rotation was so intense.
The storm moved north and we trailed it, but eventually lost it. So we then dropped south and east to pick up the next sup coming up into SW Ness county. We intercepted this one about 7 or so miles SW of Ness City, and were treated to an awesome rotating wall cloud with several white cone funnels and attempted TG, but nothing we could see on the ground. This storm kept wrapping its circulations in thick rain, and eventually we had to bail out, as we were on backroads only a few miles east and were in danger of getting stuck. We bailed out back east to US283 and headed south and east again, looking for the sup headed to Greensburg. We finally caught up to it west of town, but the hook/precip wrap just would not move north of US54 before dark, and we wanted no part of trying to punch in through the backside in the fading daylight. We were watching velocity and knew what was going on, but it just wasn't worth the risk; after reading the reports page, I'm glad we backed out when we did.
Like yesterday, we were on several tornadic storms, but missed a lot of tornadoes because our timing was off with road networks, storm cycles, position, etc etc. But also like yesterday, we saw some tornadoes too, and they were spectacular.
Just wanted to say that we had two very good experiences with LEOs these past few days; yesterday in Bucklin and today in Dighton (of all places). I spent quite a while talking with a local deputy in Dighton, and he gave me the direct number to the local Lane County EM, that has direct access to the sirens. He took my name and said he'd give it to them, and for me to call that number if we saw anything threatening in Lane county. I never used the number, because the sirens were blowing in Dighton several minutes before the wall cloud was even rotating (great lead-time warning), and once the tornadic threat started, we called DDC directly.
I almost feel guilty, as he asked me what to expect and when I told him "a repeat of yesterday" he was like "sh*t man, don't tell me that." A little over three hours later we were observing a tornado in the same area where I'd talked to the deputy.
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