2013-05-29 REPORTS: NE

[George Grant]

Started out the day planning on tornadoes around south central Nebraska into north central Kansas. I made it past Grand Island on I-80 to the Cheyenne State Rec Area exit and decided that the storm back by Hastings looked better than I thought. I backtracked on black top and gravel roads to Hastings when the storm went tornado warned and reported. Ugh, I was still over twenty miles away and behind slow-moving traffic on US6. I finally made it to Sutton and turned north towards Henderson. I pressed on towards I-80 and basically stopped at the entrance ramp going eastbound. North to US34 and then east or east on I-80 and north on Road "H?" A phone call pretty much sealed my fate for the day. Not that I wouldn't have stayed in that general vicinity and seen any tornadoes, but, this decision planned my chase for the day. The phone call was from NWS GID and it was the first of several conversations we would have yesterday. So, I rolled east on I-80 and saw the white rope tornado just north of the interstate about halfway between exits. It roped out as I was back on the phone with GID. It wasn't even enough time to snap a pic with my still camera. I made it to the next exit and turned north in pounding rain. I rolled one mile north of I-80 and stopped in the road as a Deputy came flying up to me from the north. I advised him (yeah, seriously) to stay back to my south until I could see this storm well enough again as it was going to move to the northeast in front of us. I feel badly for these guys. They're told to go sit at the intersection of x and y and call in what they see. The rain subsided and this storm moved to the east of me. As I made it up to US34 I watched as the storm approached the York airport. It dropped a slender cone for a few minutes. I lost it behind some trees and when I cleared the tree-line it had dissipated. The storm appeared to be moving in a more northerly direction now, but it was hard to tell from several miles away. I pulled off on a gravel road to assess the radar scenario. At some point in this small timeframe, I just happened to look off to my left (north). I saw a good-sized cone on the ground associated with a storm that would be west of my original storm. I called this one in to GID as I had done with the previous two. I viewed this cone for a few minutes and then it quietly dissipated. For some reason, I now decided that I would move south on US81 to meet up with another tornado-warned storm. As I was driving south on the expressway west of York, I started taking almost horizontal winds and heavy rain. Could this have been rotating winds? Sure. Straight line? Sure. But, I just wasn't in the mood to hang around and personally find out the difference. So, I pulled a u-turn across the nice brick median and shot back up to US34 and shot west. I noticed a shear marker north of me towards Benedict. I pulled onto the gravel road (I think this was the same gravel road where I captured the entire life-cycle of the Bradshaw to Benedict tornado a couple of years ago) and started north. At this time, I saw my fourth tornado of the day and second wide cone of the day. I again called this in to Scott at GID.

All-in-all, another fine tornado-chasing day in the great state of Nebraska. And, it was my personal best with four tornadoes in one day. Also, I was happy to be able to help Mike and Scott at GID with spotting. I was able to get a small bit of video on the last cone, but it's a little shaky from the ribbed gravel roads. And, I was also worried about the water over the road in two places. The first area I traversed easily, but the second area on Road "J" was flowing over a small, wooden bridge that I wasn't sure still had a small, wooden bridge. So, back up the hill I went and back to US81 for the trip home on NE92.

Geo

 

[John Farley]

Mods, can OK be added to the thread title? I caught, then was more or less chased by, the bow echo in western Oklahoma, from Roll to near Putnam. Then, toward sunset, I intercepted a supercell southwest of Elk City that produced some nice structure and, reportedly, a brief tornado southwest of Sayre. The tornado was rain-wrapped from my perspective, but I was pretty suspicious something was going on back in there. Here is a picture of the spectacular shelf cloud associated with the bow echo, and of a lowering that formed south of Elk City a while after the brief tornado that had occurred farther southwest:

Full report at:

http://www.johnefarley.com/chase52913.htm

 

[Danny Neal]

[h=2]“All good things must come to an end….”[/h][h=4]Summary:[/h]A day after one of my most triumphant chasing days of recent years, we woke up in our hotel room in Salina and prepared ourselves to make a statewide trek to Western Kansas or Oklahoma. After nearly five hours on the road and battling very strong winds with blowing dust, we made it to Garden City. Isolated cells were in the vicinity, while tornado warned storms were equal distance north [near Goodland] and south [near Shamrock]. After those isolated storms dissipated, we called off the chase and ate Pizza Hut in Garden City. Upon doing so, newly developed convection sprouted twenty five miles to the west and the chase was back on. Spent an hour toying around with briefly severe storms before making a Hail Mary attempt at a tornado warned Tail End Charlie near Ulysses. All in all a failure of a chase, but the wound stung a little less knowing we didn’t miss any photogenic tornadoes. My streak of 5 straight chases with a tornado was over.
[h=4]Introduction:[/h]We spent the night in Salina at a hotel on the north side of town watching our prized tornado video from Bennington the day before. When we woke up, we quickly packed and hit the road. We knew we had a lot of ground to make up to so we hit the road. The day held some pretty decent tornado potential and we were going to give it our all considering our respective tornado streaks were on the line! We left Salina and went down to McPherson where Alec needed to pick up some supplies at Walmart. Adam and I went across the street to grab some lunch. Looking over the data at noon it became apparent that we were well behind the eight ball. Towering Cu were already developing near Amarillo. If storms blew this early and that far away then that would throw a massive monkey wrench in our plans.
[h=4]Forecast:[/h]Today’s forecast was a very tricky one. At the surface, a low pressure system was located near Grand Island, NE. A dry line extended from Western Kansas through Oklahoma/Eastern Texas Panhandle. Deepest moisture advection was occurring well east of where the focal point for severe weather would be. SBCAPE was in the 3,000 to 4,000 J/KG range by mid to late afternoon. Shear was not the best for tornadoes. I was worried about the veer-back-veer profiles, the lack of jet support, and the lack of overall bulk shear. The saving grace for tornadoes would be the effect of a low level jet toward sunset in Oklahoma where helicity values may rise.
[h=4]Chase Log:[/h]We traveled for hours battling grungy skies and overly windy veered low level flow. Thunderstorms began to develop toward the Northwest Oklahoma area and began to move north-northeast into the Pratt and Greensburg area. We briefly entertained the idea of making a play for those storms, but decided to by pass them and head for the dry line which had cleared out pretty decently. By the time we reached Dodge City, skies were mostly clear thanks to an area of subsidence behind the line of storms to the east. Off on the horizon, towering cumulus along the dry line west of Garden City caught our attention. There was a big cluster of tCu to the northwest and another cluster toward the southwest. We had a couple of options. The storms to the north looked better visually, but were moving away from us and also taking us farther away from the target area for tomorrow. The storms to the south were struggling, but had potential. We chose the southern storms and head to Garden City. Cirrus and other mid level clouds had over spread the area with skies also being blotted out by blowing dust. By the time we made it to Garden City our storms were struggling and the promise for a good chase day was quickly dimming. We decided to make a play at some convection near the Scott City area about an hour to our north. Halfway there we noticed blossoming convection to the west of Garden City that quickly went severe warned so we detoured to the west near the town of Friend.
We drove a handful of miles on Finney Scott Road and parked at Hereford Road and watched the approaching cell move north-northwest. It never really showed any decent structure, but had a nice core and we figured maybe we could get hailed on and salvage something from the day. The storm slowly organized and moved at us, but quickly weakened as it passed overhead. A brief bout of heavy rain, one or two peas, and more disappointment. We turned around with our tails between our legs and crawled back south to Garden City to find some grub. Once we arrived in Garden City, skies were clear and more tCu were developing along the dry line. We ignored it and went into Pizza Hut. Fifteen minutes later, our iMap Weather Radio app simultaneously started alarming for a severe thunderstorm warning for our location. We ran outside and noticed the entire western horizon was dotted with anvils and dark skies. Evidently the fuse was lit and storms just exploded all the way up and down the dry line. The tornado threat with these storms was minimal, but the opportunity for large hail and seventy to eighty mile an hour winds was extremely satisfying. We darted off from Garden City and had one goal in mind. Find the biggest core and punch it. Wind blown golf balls was the goal.
We reached the town of Deerfield as the storm was overtaking us, but decided to blast back east because that section of the line was weakening. We backtracked another ten miles before pulling off the side of the road to film some unimpressive structure and to try to get a few lightning shots. Other chasers showed up at our spot and we conversed for a little bit before our storms evaporated. At one point in time you could see the sun shining through the void in the line. Once again we backtracked and headed for the town of Holcomb, just outside of Garden City. We evaluated our options and toyed with the idea of making one last hurrah back west toward Ulysses, KS where Tail End Charlie was situated. A random tornado report came out from the storm and it immediately went tornado warned. There were only two chasers down there at the time and the one who made the report was Mike Umscheid. Feeling snake bitten we decided to haul our indecisive asses back west to try to intercept the storm. It was over a half hour away and the only hope we had was if it became a cyclical tornado producer. A couple of things weighed on my mind namely that temperatures and dew points had mixed out, convection well off to the southeast in Oklahoma was robbing our abundant LLJ, and quite simply every storm we got on today flat out died immediately. We made it to the storm and within five minutes the warning was dropped and the updraft shriveled up to nothing and died. We called off the chase after that and our streak was over.
[h=4]Reflection:[/h]We stopped in the town of Ulysses to ponder where we should go for the night. It was ninety minutes to Dodge City or three hours to Pratt. If we drove to Dodge City we could get to a hotel room quicker and relax, but be farther away from the target area for tomorrow. If we drove to Pratt, we would be getting there well past midnight and I hate paying for a hotel room that I am only going to use for a couple of hours. The pro would have been that we were much close to the action for the Oklahoma play tomorrow. Ultimately we chose an America’s Best Value Inn in Dodge City…. and that decision would not turn out to be a wise one.
[h=4]Pictures:[/h]

Severe warned thunderstorm near Friend, KS.

Severe line of storms near Deerfield, KS.

Other chasers watch as convection dies.

Line of weakening storms near Holcomb, KS
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