2013-05-28 REPORTS: KS/IL/CO

[Winston Wells]

After several false starts that took me south and east of Salina, I caught the nearly stationary Bennington,KS tornado from start to finish. A few pictures follow. I shot each from KS-18 two miles east of Bennington. The view is to the west.

 

[Dan Robinson]

I was on the Bennington tornado from birth. I caught it on the county road that runs parallel to the west side of Highway 81. The tornado came in and out of the rain, and finally appeared next to the road several hundred yards away. The road curved around from north to west, and the tornado seemed to be following me as I made that westerly turn. I escaped from it by driving west. I caught some glimpses of it in the rain afterward, but lost sight of it for good for its last 20 minutes or so. Very close intercept and the best ever tornado experience for me personally.

A few images and a video clip are posted on my blog:

http://stormhighway.com/blog2013/may2813a.shtml

 

[samuel stone]

since I worked til 5 in manhattan, I obviously arrived just in time to see the rain wrapped mess. good structure though I must say. (that's me trying to find a way not to kill myself)

 

[Bill Hark]

I'll write a report later. Below are some images from the chase. All taken just west of Bennington, view to the west. Coming from the east, it wasn't clear if the tornado was coming toward me or just stationary and getting bigger. I elected to stay a bit further away. I missed the close up video but enjoyed more structure.


http://www.harkphoto.com/052813tornadowide2269.jpg

http://www.harkphoto.com/052813closeview2259.jpg

http://www.harkphoto.com/052813billandtornado2528.jpg

http://www.harkphoto.com/052813tornadopolice2532.jpg

http://www.harkphoto.com/052813wideanglestructuretornado2274.jpg


Bill Hark

 

[chrisbray]

May as well add Illinois to the thread title.

While it certainly was no wedge tornado, I did have a nice backyard chase last night. I intercepted the severe warned line that went through northeastern Illinois at about 8:30, on route 17 near Union Hill. I was able to get some pictures of that shelf cloud and then some lightning pictures later on, west of St. Anne, after the line passed through.


P5283712 by inflow55, on Flickr


P5283732 by inflow55, on Flickr


P5283715 by inflow55, on Flickr


P5283724 by inflow55, on Flickr

I apologize for the blurriness. My olympus e-510 really doesn't like to focus on infinity. Frankly I'm tired of trying with it. As a side note, if anyone has a good DSLR they are willing to part with, one that would work well with low light and/or long distance focus exposures, to someone on a limited budget, feel free to PM me! I'm ready to upgrade.

 

[Hannah.Taylor]

Add Colorado to the title please.

Chased yesterday with Adam Adkins. We left at 12:30 PM and headed for WRAY, CO. Arrived in WRAY about 4:00 PM. Adjusted north to Holyoke, CO where we sat on a road in the middle of nowheresville USA. Watched two separate towers form from the cue only to fall in on themselves and die. A storm a little further to the west started to get its act together and we headed west and ended up on the only tornado warned storm in the entire state. It had nice rotation, outstanding structure and put out racketball size hail (Adam has those pictures). We followed it to the Colorado/Nebraska border where it promptly died. Called it a chase and headed home.

took this near Sedgwick, CO

 

[tmesias]

http://youtu.be/5WrkSP4rCNQ

And there you go... front row seat..

 

[tmesias]

oh an since I couldn't help but take advantage of the once-in-a-lifetime-if-I-don't-die-first opportunity

 

[Adam Adkins]

Followed a structural LP Supercell in northeast Colorado. It had a nice rotating wall cloud for a bit but did not produce a tornado.

Here is the rotating wall cloud.

Here is my best shot. It maintained this great LP structure for a while. Typical type high plains storm.

And then of course some nice 3 inch hail.

 

[cdcollura]

Good day all,

May 28 was a very interesting day indeed, and ended up with seeing a very significant tornado to the northwest of Salina, Kansas and near Bennington, Kansas! The dynamics in place (in addition to good heating and upper support) were a dryline, stationary front, and outflow boundary intersection just east of a surface low.

Above: Supercell storm wide angle and awesome structure with developing wedge tornado!

Above: Wedge tornado near Bennington, Kansas.

Above: Myself in the chase vehicle (my 'office' for two weeks) near Minneapolis / Bennington, Kansas on May 28, 2013 watching the wedge tornado becoming rain wrapped. This is on old highway 81 and I am facing West.

Above: Large (Wedge) tornado starting to become rain-wrapped while nearly stationary. Shot is looking west from near Minneapolis / Bennington, Kansas on May 28, 2013. This tornado was rated EF-4 and was on the ground for OVER an hour!

 

[Verne Carlson]

Got on the Bennington, KS Tornado early and stayed close to it till wedge stage. After seeing how the earlier tornado behaved up near Topeka I figured this one would be a slow mover as well. It looked like it rooted on the warm-front and outflow boundary intersection from the overnight convection. The RFD winds were INSANE at our location. Had to point the car into the wind to keep it from tipping. Next day found grass in my tail-lights and the loose chrome on my front grill scoured off!

 

[Marcus Diaz]

Add Texas to the list. Chased the supercell near the TX/NM border that dropped several tornadoes near Friona, Bootleg, and Simms, TX. The first glimpse of the storm was driving SW towards it on US60 and seeing an ominous green tinted mesocyclone over Friona.

We drove south and watched the storm go through the first of many odd transformations. With strong SEly winds, our base somehow dissolved and the updraft was no where to be seen. I found this very strange, thinking maybe the lack of storm motion caused the storm to kill itself in the stable air. Radar showed some precip to the SW so we thought that was the new area, so we drove into Friona and the radar was showing a rapidly intense core NW of town. Again...very strange. So we drove out of town and were greeted with a beautiful sculpted updraft with strong inflow.

After tip toeing closer to the storm (no radar or data in this area) we decided to pass west of it and wait for it. We were in southwest Deaf Smith county near the border. With no data still we decided to head across the border where a new updraft seemed to have formed. The storm cycled twice, each time producing a decent wall cloud. After a quick radar grab it was clear the main show was further west. So we traveled back into TX and met the storm again. Only this time, it was beautifully sculpted at sunset. This wide angle view basically views from west (far left) to northeast (far right).

We eventually caught tornadoes and the rest is history. Just heard some news about the El Reno tornado that make me not give a about this post anymore.

 

[Brett Roberts]

This was kind of a surreal day for me. I'd chased the Smith Center storm the day before (5/27), and while eating a late dinner in Salina, I kept going back and forth on whether I should stick around or just head home to OK, since 5/28 looked rather marginal. I somehow convinced myself to grab a room at Motel 6, despite having no one to split costs with (if it hadn't been only $33.99 for a room, I probably would've been swayed the other way). "When it's May, you chase." Thank goodness I've taken that adage to heart over the years, after witnessing enough compelling evidence.

I woke up around 10am and spent all morning and afternoon bored out of my mind, tooling around town and even wandering the local mall, seeing no compelling reason to be anywhere else geographically. I'm antsy to a fault, and tend always to start losing morale if I'm sitting around in one spot too long, regardless of how the data looks. So by around 2-3pm, I was feeling rather dejected, wondering why I wasn't at home working after a good night's sleep and preparing for the "better" setup on 5/29. Not long after, I meandered up US-81 and spent a good half hour watching towers rise and fall along the Salina/Ottawa Co. border, mere miles from where all hell would soon break loose. The initial NE KS tornado machine unfortunately drew me briefly down I-70 to Solomon; if not for that, I might well have had a sub-50-mile day.

Needless to say, once new updrafts succeeded explosively in breaking the cap around SLN, it was off to the races with everyone else. I witnessed the first 10-15 minutes of the stationary monster from ~2 NE Bennington, where I was just barely able to capture the entire storm structure.

Once the wedge started to wrap in rain from this perspective, I made the jaunt W to around US-81. There, I caught a few more fleeting glimpses from much closer range when the rain cleared for brief periods. Unfortunately, the entire circulation was too "wet" to allow me to get out and use the still camera. My video pales in comparison to many, but here it is for reference.

Watch video >

 

[Josh Durkee]

Shortest chase record for myself. We had spent the night in Salina, KS the night before at the Holiday Inn Express and watched the Bennington, KS storm initiate over our hotel from the parking lot. I believe we drove 13 mi and parked for an hour or so before it got swallowed up in precip. We then went east, south, and back west past the hotel to snap a couple more pics from the back side before driving to Andover, KS for the night. Incredible day to say the least.

 

[Dan Robinson]

I have completed my chase log for the May 28, 2013 Bennington, Kansas tornado. This chase account page has HD video, video frame stills, DSLR stills and a GPS log track from the day's chase:

http://stormhighway.com/may282013.shtml