2011-05-21 REPORTS: KS/OK/TX

[J Holder]

Storms blew up in Topeka and went TOR warned while I was on my way back from Ottawa, by the time I'd made it to Worden you could already see one well defined wall cloud with funnel nearly 20 miles away. I lost that wall cloud into the rain but I was able to intercept the storms later on the Southeast side of Shawnee county where I could see a huge rain free base with one well defined funnel on the Eastern end and another area of rotation well to the West. I followed the East funnel until it was well beyond Shawnee county and helped the ARES group with damage assessment. I have pics of both the funnels and of 2.5 inch hail that had 30 minutes to melt before I tool the pics but I'm trying to get things cleaned up and dried out for tomorrow.

As I was returning home to Osage City from Topeka I attempted to intercept the Lyon/Osage county tornado warned storms that struck Reading, however it was well after dark and I was on the North end with no safe way of seeing in or going around for a vantage point. I was able to follow in some other chasers into Reading where they have extensive damage to the center of town and from what I could see probably no building in town escaped some sort of damage. Quenemo, KS also got hit. It appears to be the same storm that produced the Reading tornado.

BTW K-170 through Reading is closed due to downed trees and power lines, so anyone trying to get into the area to see damage is going to be very disappointed. The reroutes are taking folks about 3 miles away from the town, FYI.

 

[Jim Saueressig]

To make a long story short I abandoned the cells that had formed near Emporia in the beginning as they made it into N Osage in favor of returning SW for further development. I went after the newer storms and ended up West of Topeka anyways as the reports started rolling in from there. I took a quick shot from many miles West of Topeka.



After seeing numerous funnels up to and including near Topeka I ended up near the casinos north of Topeka before heading back to catch the cell that eventually made it to Reading. The North side of the cell looked pretty good as well:



I managed to get South of Lyndon about straight East of Reading just minutes after it was hit for these awesome nighttime views of its cell and wall from directly East of it in its path as I let it overtake me for these 10mm super wide shots.





This was some excellent structure considering we are talking about Eastern Ks.

More from today on my Flickr (more later in the day as well.)

Coffey County Emergency Management has some pics up on FB from Reading now as well: Here.

 

[Brandon Lawson]

Can OK and TX be added to the thread title? Curtis McDonald, Brett Roberts, and I left Norman yesterday afternoon around 3:30pm. We dropped south on I35 and made our way to just north of Ardmore where we watched tower after tower go up and fail to break the cap. This must have gone on for at least an hour and we were starting to get a little concerned about capping issues. But finally, an updraft succeeded and would become one of two very entertaining storms. We drove up highway 177 just in time to meet the storm heading into Sulphur.

After getting through to the west side of town, we watched numerous funnels with the initial circulation. This occluded and we jaunted up to the north side of town just in time to watch a brief (it probably only lasted 5 seconds) but intense vorticy spin up no more than a half mile away. I believe we were on W. 14th st. and it happened just south of the Chickisaw Turnpike. This had barely condensed all the way to the ground and ripped through some trees before it was gone.

Next we flew east on highway 7 east of Sulphur as the storm developed a very large base with broad rotation. After going north on highway 1 for maybe a mile we turned off on E1700 rd (not 100% sure). At this intersection (just now realized we were next to Chris Collura and i apologize for getting in his shot) we watched as the storm put down a funnel halfway to the ground and then later and slightly further east, would put down two obvious tornadoes, one a very thin and brief rope, the other a more significant cone with a wet swirling debris cloud at its base. Unfortunately, after that tornado, we got caught watching structure for too long and the storm's meso lifted north by quite a few miles. Due to poor muddy roads, one of which was a dead-end, we could only watch from a distance as a massive meso put down multiple vortices from afar. Accepting our fate, we drove east thru the trees and mountainous roads to get on highway 99/377.

It was obvious that the northern storm, which we had not even noticed before on radar, was getting its act together. The southern storm completely evaporated and the core we thought we would have to drive thru to get to the northern storm was nothing more than a clear view of some amazing structure to our northwest. We took highway 19 west of Ada and arrived just in time to take some awesome structure shots and see the cone/stovepipe tornado somewhere near Gaar Corner. I'm honestly not sure where our exact location was at the time. We couldn't have been more than 5 miles west of Ada and the tornado was maybe 5 miles west-northwest of our location.

Afterward, we headed back to Norman and stopped at Whataburger. It turned into a random gathering of chasers as we ran into Doug Speheger from the Norman forecast office, Gabe Garfield, and Amy Edmonds. Good times all around.

Best chase of the year for me, thus far, and hopefully the start of some better chase days to come (today perhaps??). My video was sloppy as usual. I'm hoping Brett may post some of his still pics.

 

[Bill Hark]

I was chasing with Dave along with Scott McPartland and Canadians Mark Robinson, Brad Rousseau, Meghan Yeo, Dayna Vettese and Heather Reynolds. We started in Enid and had initially planned on not chasing and just going to Rocky's picnic. After reviewing data we then had the difficult decision of chasing vs Rocky's party and getting in position for Sunday. My initial marginal target was northeastern Kansas but it would be too far for Sunday's storms. I really didn't like the veered 850 winds predicted for the entire area. The other possible chase target was southeastern Oklahoma but again veered 850's and lack of precip forecast on the 00Z NAM. (a small area of precip was evident in SE OK on the 00Z WRF.) Finally we decided to head south, stop by Rocky's if we had time, and monitor the situation ot our south. We had a great time at Rocky's. By late in the afternoon, there were signs of development toward Ardmore. After some delay, we left the party at 6PM and headed south. The storm was visible in the distance. With Chris Kridler reported a rotating wall cloud on the initial storm and later brief tornadoes, we were concerned that we would arrive too late. As we vectored toward Ada, there was some additional development to the north of the inital storm. Near Ada, a storm the north of the initial storm was showing signs of rotation. Being a closer, we decided to intercept it rather than going after the initial storm. We drove toward Ada, then west on 19. Road options were limited. Although one usually targets the southern storm, in this case, the southern or initial storms was rapidly weakening. West of Ada, we got an amazing view of the updraft and inflow bands through the trees. We stopped after a brief spinup was seen and were able to see a nice cone tornado form and cross the road. We headed east, then northwest on 3W watching the storm cross that road. As it getting dark, the chase ended and we had a steak dinner in the Ada Applebees along with many other chasers.

Short YouTube video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYqPnU-PqJc

tornado and storm video stills
http://www.harkphoto.com/052111tornado.jpg

http://www.harkphoto.com/052111tornado2.jpg

http://www.harkphoto.com/052111tornado3.jpg

http://www.harkphoto.com/052111tornado4.jpg


Thanks to Rocky for his hospitality!!

Bill Hark

 

[Tony Laubach]

Full report here...

TWISTEX and I intercepted the Topeka supercell and followed it to Perry Lake, eventually calling the chase in Leavenworth. We documented tennis ball hail in Topeka, several funnels, the strongest rotating wall cloud I have seen since Conway Springs ('04), amazing structure, and a brief look through the trees at the Perry Lake tornado.

 

[Rick Schmidt]

I originally targeted east of Emporia, but opted for the better odds of seeing something in daylight north of Topeka. Tim Metz and I chased a storm from north of Holton to north Of St. Joe, and were rewarded by views of rotating wall clouds, 2 of which are posted here. Even though we did not see the tornadoes south of Topeka, the chase was a successful one.---Rick Schmidt




View attachment 6286View attachment 6287

 

[Doug Drace]

For what was supposed to be a relatively lower end risk in SC OK, it turned out to be locally incredible! One of the best chases, if not the Best Chase I've ever experienced in 16 years! March 28, 2007 in the TX Panhandle is the only other chase that rivals this one for us. Chased with Brandon from HolyTornado, and caught at least 8 different tornado touchdowns! Most were short lived, however 2 were pretty significant. The one south of Roff, OK developed into a large multiple vortex, then a pretty big wedge for a while before the storm weakend. Also the Ada tornado, which didnt last that long, but was an impressive stovepipe for a few minutes. We were on the first monster supercell from initial towers west of Springer, then got directly under the first intense circulation on the west side of Sulpher at the WalMart. Didnt do any damage. After that we watched a tornado to the north of Sulpher, while another developed east of Sulpher from a new rapid developing meso/wallcloud. Low storm motions were awesome for keeping up with it as it moved right along the north side of HWY 7. Broad intense rotation all the way to HWY 377. From there we witnessed a big cone tornado 8 miles south of Roff, and got on a dirt road with the chase convention. Thats when the meso really lowered, and was practically scraping the ground with multiple vorticies...then the wedge (contrast wasnt the greatest, but good enough to get some nice shots). Once that supercell began to weaken, headed to the storm moving into Ada, and was treated to some of the best twisted updraft structure I've seen in a long time! Once I quit drooling over the sculpture, I saw the Cone/Stovepipe develop. Unfortunately I was about a mile and a half away, but it still looked awesome from my location on HWY 377/3

Video coming as soon as we get past Tuesdays Severe Weather.

http://www.youtube.com/user/FirstIntercept1972?feature=mhum

 

[Isaac Pato]

Colt Forney and I were debating about going out all day, but when we saw towers going up near Ardmore on satellite, we decided to head down I-35 to check them out. We ended up on the southern cell that went through Davis and Sulphur. We witnessed the storm produce several brief tornadoes. We got close video of a tornado in a field east of Hickory.



Our storm went on to produce a larger cone tornado as it moved off to the northeast as the sun set and lit up the RFD cut and meso.

As the southern storm shrank, we blasted up to the storm west of Ada. The storm by Ada had amazing structure and a large stovepipe on the ground for a few minutes.

 

[cdcollura]

Good day all,

Really fun chase day near Sulphur, OK and later near Ada, OK. Saw several tornadoes, including the one NW of Ada near dark.

Above: Contact dust / spray swirl of developing tornado north of Sulphur, OK.

Above: Beautiful tornado north of Sulphur, OK.

Above: Large RFD clear slot and tornado under rotating base.

Above: Multi vortex tornado later to the north.

 

[Bob Schafer]

I chased the Topeka storm from initiation at Emporia. I took vid several times. Just on principle I hate paying tolls, so I ended up driving right through the heart of downtown Topeka, where there were plenty of leaves and small branches strewn about, and hailstones I would guess were a little less than 2". Having fallen behind the storm and not wanting to get too far NE (in anticipation of traveling to OK for 110523) I opted to break off the chase and head back down toward Emporia for the night.

On the way to Emporia I saw that I was driving under an anvil, so I scrolled the GRL3 down, and.... whoa!

I drove right under the RFB going into town, and got blasted by gusts from variable directions. I saw a funnel dropping down to the N as I reached US99, so I exited there and filmed it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CQvIz1vO7c

<object style="height: 390px; width: 640px"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/7CQvIz1vO7c?version=3"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/7CQvIz1vO7c?version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="390"></object>

 

[Zack Hargrove]

We also chased the entire Topeka storm from initiation and caught the first funnel, followed by several funnels, and we also got video of the tornado on the ground for a short time. We are sure it was down in the video because the confirmed report came at the exact same time and it is clear by its appearance that it is down. We chased the storm till the one below it became the dominant one. We chased it also, but didn't really see anything with it. Here's our video account. I will put some pictures up later.

Watch video >

 

[B. Hey]

Got a late jump on the storm that developed southwest of Topeka. Finally caught up with it south of Oskaloosa and followed it to Leavenworth. By then it had a pretty ragged wall could and it was getting dark so I headed for home. It sounds like I missed the best part of the storm. Northeast of McLouth it had a well defined wall could, but could never get it's act together. I never stopped to snap any pics as I was playing catch up all day. I don't know if there were that many chasers out or if it was just the general public that followed it out of Topeka, but I couldn't believe how many vehicles were pulled off along side the road. I agree with Jim this storm had really impressive structure for this part of the state.

Update: My parents live 7 miles south of Lawrence found a receipt in their yard from Reading Grain and Lumber Co.

 

[Jenn Brindley]

Heya!

Full report and somewhere around 50 photos or so... here.

This was from the chase in KS with Skip.

What a great day! Swirling, churning, gorgeous skies, a brief and close encounter with an angry corkscrew of a tornado, and some amazing phenomenon in the light.


~Jenn

 

[Marko Korosec]

A shot from Topeka beauty...

 

[Chad Cowan]

Bill Reid, Chris Gullikson and I were on the Topeka supercell from initiation and were treated to a great view of it from the east as it evolved into an incredibly structured storm with multiple mesocyclones. There was one point where there were three separate rotating wall clouds under this rain free base. This timelapse turned out great.