2012-04-27 Reports: Ks

[Rick Schmidt]

Tim Metz and I witnessed a brief, weak tornado this evening north of Council Grove, in Morris Co., at 6:00 PM. I have video, but no stills. The touchdown was no more than a couple of seconds, but the video shows that it was on the ground. It was not a well-defined tornado, but rather wispy. This image is of the wall cloud / updraft region about a minute before formation, looking SE.





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[Rob Hepper]

Difficult chase today due to messy storm modes and evolution, as well as sparse roads. I caught the brief tornado near Council Grove from well to the East.

I tried to stair step my way down the line afterwards but the road network would have none of it, and the limited spatial extent of the instability axis kept the storms from producing much more of interest.

 

[Seth Edge]

I ended up looking in the rearview mirror just NW of council grove and there was a tornado. I was on the way to cutting the cell off since it was moving 35 mph so I turned around and it lifted I believe there is still circulation on the ground in this pic. But when I saw it in the mirror it had a condensation funnel on the ground it looked similar to the picture above. Got no footage didn't have time to get the camera out of the backseat before it lifted. Just got this one pic with my phone. Then ended the chase chasing a tornado warned cell near Topeka never produced.

 

[Fred Dearborn]

We actually witnessed two tornadoes on the ground about 20 min. apart from the same cell.Both were very brief,and we reported both on SN,but the second we witnessed on hwy 4 just east of Alta Vista did not go through due to my data service switching over at that time.It was just south of us about 1/4 of the blacktop in a row of trees near open fields. Storms were very messy,but paid off for us.It was my brother and his partner (police officers) first sighting of a tornado. Oh....and we were greeted by a Ks HP at the Topeka rest area/fuel island just east of town were he proceeded to tell me the rules and regs. of the turnpike and that we were only out for our thrill seeking adventures.We argured for a few minutes and he went on his way looking for other chasers,including local tv reporters who had been out on the road as well.Funny thing is we never chased on the turnpike and made sure he wasnt going to blame me for other people who had pulled off the pike,or under bridges. Like my brother and partner said...he was on a trip and did a poor job of acting professional for his 25 years of service with Ks. HP. Hopefully were back in Ks. on Tuesday.

 

[Ben Holcomb]

Sarah Glenn and I chased this day and scored the tornado near Council Grove and a funnel cloud about 5-10 minutes prior.

My full recap is at http://www.benholcomb.com/Chase-Accounts/20120427

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