2014-05-11 REPORTS: NE,KS,IA

[Skip Talbot]

Video account of our chase through southeast Nebraska on Sunday. Should have a log posted in the coming days hopefully:

Watch video >

 

[Joe Pudlik]

Ended up on the HP supercell in SE. Nebraska, and encountered 6 tors.

Chase log: http://www.turbulentstorm.com/blog/may-11th-2014-se-nebraska-chase

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[Marcus Diaz]

No joke, this was probably my best chase since November 2011. We experienced everything a supercell could offer us. Great LP structure, massive hail, some tornadoes, and some core punching. Plus, almost no chasers at all. Couple that with the great road network, great terrain, and great data coverage, and you too can have a great day. Overall we scored 3 tornadoes on 2 different storms. The second tornado east of Lewis, KS seemed more like a landspout than a classic tornado. But you can definitely see rotation above it.

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[John Farley]

I have a full chase log posted now at

http://www.johnefarley.com/chase51114.htm

Here are a couple more pictures from this chase:

Lots more pictures in the chase log, and also links to video of the funnel cloud southwest of Garfield and the tornado just west of Larned.

 

[StephenHenry]

Had a super fun day in south central Kansas, despite some blunders. Blunder #1 came before the chase even started as I forgot all my extra batteries and chargers at home. 1 battery per camera makes you feel pretty restricted in what you film. Per the HRRR's suggestion, we sat south of Dodge City and watched the dryline light up. You could really see the upper level winds carving out the crisp, initial updrafts. As expected, the first storms were really high-based, though we did see a nice RFD cut in one of the first cells to roll through DDC. A second cell that followed behind actually got a surprisingly low, yet scuddy, wall cloud as it pushed north and east of town. We followed this one up to Kinsley where it was clearly gusting out. This is where blunder #2 occurred. There were still more cells firing back in DDC heading directly towards us. But there was also a lone, tail-end Charlie southwest of Greensburg. The radar-pattern-recognition part of my brain screamed that this cell was about to root down and right-turn, with clear rich inflow. Thus we opted to drop south. But upon arrival in Greensburg, we were greeted with a very elevated, almost LP-ish supercell that didn't look like it had much potential. Meanwhile storms back where we had been were getting the first Tor warnings of the day. At this point we cut east to Pratt and then north in order to keep up with our southern storm (not to dis it, it had beautiful structure). This then put us in position to catch the two beastly HP cells that track between Kinsley and Great Bend at sunset. The final supercell in particular had a really intimidating RFD-turned-outflow gust front. It spawned some gustnadoes near Belpre, and we could barely stay ahead of it going 60MPH. Like others mentioned, great storms, great roads, great structure, and great data coverage - what more could you want?

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[edward oneal]

Here is the only picture of the tornado SW of Kinsley we got, it is from my son Christopher's camera it was on the ground the first time for 15 seconds or so and a 2nd time for less than that.

 

[Joshua Nall]

Woke up this day in El Dorado KS and drove on over to Dodge City early enough to watch towers go up. Got on a few cells early but nothing to get excited about. I ended up making my way East of Larned wanting to be sure and stay downstream a ways and also thinking I might should drop down to the storm that was taking a more Southerly route.... but then I noticed a couple of cells back to the SW were looking better so I headed back to Larned. At this point one was showing some decent rotation as they began to merge, or one killed the other off... don't really remember. It seemed to be intensifying fast, so I drove on back West of Larned to get a view and saw a massive wall cloud to the SW, very low to the ground, with impressive vertical motion. Then 2 or 3 spinnups reached down from the base of this and I assumed I had just witnessed brief tornadic vortices. Unfortunately it was partially hidden by the only small smattering of trees in that area, lol. One spinnup can be seen just above and to the left of the copyright symbol in this photo. Not long after this the storm acquired a confirmed tornado status... so someone must have had better visibility than I.


Close up.... stupid trees.




This was heading directly for me so I drove East a ways and stopped in Larned. As I did it appeared to me that dry rfd came around the back side as the storm wrapped up, and the next photo is looking almost directly up into the clear slot with that big mass of cloud spinning in the center.




I headed on east a little ways further and stopped and took the next few photos. As the occluded area lifted almost due north it seemed to be in contact with the ground and became cone shaped at the base. As it transitioned to this smooth cone shape it had the look of a tornado for sure, but at the same time it was wrapping in heavier precipitation so it was hard to tell. I checked NWS for that area, but I have yet to find any info on tornadoes near Larned other than the initial brief spinnups.








I dropped south to catch a few other cells, one of which had some great structure.

 

[John Farley]

Joshua, it looks like your view near Larned was pretty similar to mine, though I was a little west of where you were. There are no NWS reports near Larned, but the Larned newspaper reported damage to a farm just west of town, and I did see reports from other chasers who said that it was down in that location. Like you, I could not tell from my viewpoint, but apparently it was down and caused at least some damage. Unfortunately, I missed the initial touchdown closer to Garfield because the view from my angle was blocked by rain. There were two supercells that merged. The western one earlier produced a funnel cloud, but it was the wall cloud of the eastern one that survived the merger and produced the tornado or tornadoes.

 

[Joel Wright]

This one ended up being a solo chase for me. Left the QC around 9am, and made good time out to the general target area of southeast Nebraska by early afternoon. I held a bit further east than what would be necessary though, hoping that some of the convection firing up ahead of the main WF riding supercell would end up being the main show. Radar trends became undeniable though, and I quickly busted west toward the Friend/Cordova NE area to meet the incoming tornado warned sup. I set up about 4 miles north of Friend on route 80E. Had some nice inflow blasting westward towards the incoming storm. Shot a time lapse here for several minutes as the storm approached. Couldn't see too much back underneath the murky updraft region. Ended up busting south before the intense RFD blast reached that location. The power poles along that road ended up blowing down, which showed up in Joseph Barton Comstock's vids. From a few miles north of Friend I watched what was probably a rain-wrapped large tornado pass by to the north east of Cordova.

Ended up zig-zagging north and east all the way up to north of Lincoln before calling it off. The only real glimpse I got of a tornado was east of Beaver Crossing. It was barely visible tucked back in the rain, but at least for a brief time you could actually see it.

Here's the time lapse footage. Starts southeast of Cordova as the sup approaches, and finishes a few miles north of Lincoln NE.
https://vimeo.com/95031289

 

[Joshua Nall]

John, yeah I was still East of Larned when the more Western cell produced the funnel cloud so I missed it and the actual merger. You have a good detailed report on your site. As I was watching the occluded area skirt Larned and then become cone shaped I was thinking "that has to be a tornado".

 

[JeremyS]

Chased the monster supercell in Nebraska. Arrived just as the first tornado warning went up for the storm and followed it all the way back home to Omaha. My chase partner and I saw a brief tornado between Fairmont and Exeter, that I believe was reported as anti-cyclonic. We couldn't tell from our distance and brief view. Otherwise didn't try to do anything crazy to get a view of the rain wrapped tornadoes. Still had several thrilling moments with the intense inflow, strong RFD winds, and the amazing lightning. We just made it to the Milford exit on I-80 before blasting east just as the RFD winds went crazy. Damage started occurring and winds were estimated at 90 mph. Almost made it home before the storm overtook us as we were south of Elkhorn Nebraska on the west side of Omaha. Watching the radar, I noticed a pretty good couplet and we pulled over to let it pass in front of us. After the 70-80 mph winds passed we continued north and ran into some damage that was later confirmed to be caused by 2 EF-1 tornadoes. The latter went with a mile and half of my house in NW Omaha!

 

[Skip Talbot]

Detailed written account, annotated map, photos, and video:

http://skip.cc/chase/140511/

 

[Marcus Diaz]

Finally got the pictures worked on. My girlfriend was in charge of pics while I drove, navigated, and worked the video.

South of Kinsley on HWY 183 where it curves to the west:

South of Kinsley again with the first tornado:

Near Lewis, KS with a small spinup under the rotating wall cloud. Counting it as a tornado since it lasted a good couple of minutes or so.

Rest of the pics taken on this chase. Click here.

 

[Terrence Cook]

Got bored a couple weeks ago and decided to do something with the video from this day... Philip Glass, that was the answer. lol