2014-06-29 REPORTS: NE/ IA/ KS/ MO

[Mike Peregrine]

I don't even know the last time I posted a report in here, much less the last time I actually chased at night. I observed a large wall cloud/funnel that I could not confirm in contact with the ground (and will post vid stills as soon as I snag them), north of Weston, Missouri in the hills across the river from just south of Atchison, Kansas. It appeared quite large and the single leader strobe lightning around the meso was among the best I've seen in close proximity to the meso. It became very obvious when the storm began to produce. I'll go through video and amend this post a bit later with greater detail.

Edit w/details:

I arrived just east of Atchison about 9:10 p.m. I was with friends in Nebraska this weekend, so I wasn't expecting a chase on the way home, and didn't have the good video camera. The red box shows my location and direction the camera was pointing:



This was shot using a dashcam that is always rolling in my car at 9:20 p.m. (not designed for night chasing). Image was semi-backlit ... the intense CGs were flipping my camera out. I'll post video later just for the lightning (too tired to edit tonight). If you look close you can see what appears to be a tornado ... This was persistent for several minutes In the video and visually.



Here's the first storm I was on east of Mound City, Missouri as it grew much earlier. It developed a wall cloud but I left it because I was more interested in the convection to the south. About 15 minutes after I left a tor-warning was called.



Just some mammatus I got a glimpse of through the mucky atmosphere tonight on the Atchison storm as the sun went down:

 

[Austin Jones]

Mike I chased the same storm and sounds like we had about the same experience, i cant wait to see your pictures as all mine are horrible quality. I watched the storm from the river flats just to the south east of Atchison and the barrel meso was amazing , the only thing more amazing was the lightning, I witnessed several strokes close enough to see the fire and sparks on the ground. I also saw the wall cloud but can mot confirm it on the ground as there was a hill between me and it , but you are absolutely right the level of intensity when the storm produced was insane , i wouldn't be surprised if there was a wedge on the other side of that hill. I feel like I witnessed something special tonight.

Edit : Detailed Update

We left Peculiar Mo ( 20 miles south of the KC metro) and headed north to the St Joe area around noon, we met a small storm at Mound City and it quickly fell apart. We then traveled to Cameron Mo to see my chase partners uncle , a few hours had past and with clear skies my chase partner and driver feared it was a bust and wanted to return home to let out his dogs. I wanted to wait it out but it was his car so we headed back south to Peculiar. To my horror storms went up north of Topeka KS headed straight to our original target area around St Joe. I couldn't let these storms go, so upon arriving back home I immediately got in my car and headed back north planning to meet the storms some where south of St. Joe. With the storm being in full spercell mode for a couple hours now , a one hour drive to meet it and only one hour until sunset I figured I was just wasting my time and gas. Boy was I wrong, with a lot of luck, and I mean a lot I ended up on a road running north south along the river flat , just SE of Atchinson at 9:00, with a massive barrel Meso cyclone lit by the already set sun spewing out CG strikes with an intensely churning wall cloud and a rocketing inflow trail. It was an unworldly experience.

Here are Pictures and Video

Watch video >

 

[Hannah.Taylor]

While, I didn't actively chase yesterday, I was at Worlds of Fun and had some awesome aerial views of the anvils of some of these storms off to the North and West while riding to the top of the Patriot rollercoaster. Outstanding mammatus where overhead afterwards, and my camera was back in my hotel room. smh. Afterwards, I did go after some excellent fork cg lightning last night near Platte City, Missouri just off I-29 at the truck rest stop area across from the weigh station and got these 2 shots.

and then I got this one near 118th & State Avenue in KC,KS

 

[Winston Wells]

I chased the first supercell of the day - the one that fired to the north of Fremont, NE - from Missouri Valley, IA to Exira, IA on an excellent county road that afforded a great view of the storm as it moved nearly due east. I began the day in Columbus, NE with an initial target of Syracuse, NE. It was a messy and complex set-up to forecast. After crossing the Missouri River at Nebraska City, I sat near I-29 but was soon chagrined to see the best cu field develop back to the north. Sure enough, I then had to blast north on I-29 past Council Bluffs and Omaha in order to intercept the Fremont storm as it crossed the river. It tightened up gradually, and by the time it approached my position just off the interstate in Missouri Valley it was sporting a well-defined wall cloud. The following picture looks west from the crest of a hill on U.S. 30:

Like almost everyone else, I went through town and then headed east on Country Road F58 with the storm just to my north. About 15 miles later the first (and only) tornado reports started to come in from near Persia, IA, but I didn't have a good view as I was passing through town. This is what the storm looked like just west of Persia:

About two miles east of Persia I saw this area of circulation to my north, which seemed to be falling apart rapidly:

About a minute later, a rope funnel appeared and quickly dissolved; I was unable to see whether it actually made contact with the ground. Both of the following shots look north from F58 two miles east of Persia and just before the intersection with Yale Avenue:

Here's a GR3 screen shot a few minutes before this funnel appeared. It was certainly impressive on radar:

The storm appeared to cycle a couple of times after that before becoming disorganized to the east of Aubudon, IA. Here's the last good shot I had of it as it moved off to the northeast. This is from just west of Exira, IA:

I chased solo, so my situational awareness of nearby cells suffered. I missed the trailing storm back to my west near Portsmouth, IA that prompted a second flurry of tornado reports a bit later. Overall, though, it was a good chase in light of the uncertainty that plagued me for most of the day.

 

[Kyle Schanus]

I also chased the first storm that developed from Fremont to Blair, NE. We noticed the quickly enhancing area of cu heading east from central to eventually eastern NE and a small area convergence evident on the OAX radar so we quickly headed west of Blair, NE and the storm began to develop. Witnessed a nice wall cloud develop and a funnel west of Missouri Valley, IA and tracked this storm east to near Hamlin, IA. Once it was evident that this storm was on the down trend we dropped back west to the new supercell near Portsmouth, IA. Once we got close we realized this storm had amazing structure! This storm also produced a funnel and great structure. I didn't witness a tornado on either of the cells but there multiple reports via spotternetwork.
Wall cloud with brief funnel west of Missouri Valley, IA
https://scontent-a-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/t1.0-9/10401556_10152300614862955_8457054933115057723_n.jpg
Somewhere east of Persia, IA

Second storm near Portsmouth, IA



My time lapse video of both of these storms:
Watch video >

 

[Scott Kapser]

I also chased the initial supercell in western Iowa. I started the day in SE Nebraska and watched the weak storms that would soon develop into the supercell move north of me. Once these storms started to intensify i hesitated a bit hoping some activity would build to the SW however since I did not see even any towering cumulus SW of the growing supercell I moved to catch up to it. Luckily Sunday traffic was light in Omaha and I was able to catch up to the storm west of Elk Horn Iowa. The storm looked a bit ragged at first so I moved east to Elk Horn and let it come to me, the meso looked pretty impressive here even though the radar image was worse. At this point the storm unleashed a terrifying barrage of lightning in the inflow notch area. For about two minutes close range bolts rained down about every ten seconds, it was certainly unnerving. I decided to let the storm go at this point as garbage storms were popping up all around it now and likely spelling its demise.

 

[Taylor Wright]

I'm finally getting around to doing a report on this day. I've been wanting to for awhile mainly because of the odd-encounter at the end of the day. Bear with me.

Started off meeting Brandon Ryno in Emporia, wondering whether we should stay south or head to southeast NE, given that helicity was pretty much lined from Emporia up to there. We decided to head to the NE border and figured we could head north or south depending on how things changed. By the time we got to Nebraska a supercell had developed in northwest Omaha, and it became apparent if we didn't want to bust we should make the trek up there. After arriving in Council Bluffs almost 2 hours later, the supercell was still going full strength, but with no tornado report.

After hoping it wouldn't drop a tornado before we got there, we finally intercepted the cell near Kimballton. Got some nice pics of the ground-scraper wall cloud and structure as we eventually let it go. No rotation was evident, however.




We headed weest to a more isolated cell that looked impressive near Shelby, IA. Shortly afterwards it went tornado warned, with an apparent multi-vortex tornado reported with it. We raced to get there in time, but as we got there about 20 minutes later, there was no rotation evident, just some very impressive vertical motion.
Here's when things get interesting. We let the base pass over us as the mesocyclone occluded. The cell had all but died, a tiny spec on the radar, but we noticed it oddly started developing rotation. We continued following it despite the sun setting, and it appeared to drop a funnel. We joked to ourselves about how it would be our only tornado of the day, but as we continued following it started to look like not so much of a joke. Here's the only pictures I got, which appear to show a funnel possibly on the ground.




One might quickly dispel this as some scud given the hilly terrain, but as we got closer and came over the hill the funnel was clearly rotating and a firefighter agreed that it appeared to have touched down for a couple seconds. This made no sense, because there was nothing on radar, and the cell appeared to have choked itself off about 20 minutes earlier. Is it possible that this cell morphed into an LP and dropped a tornado? I'm highly doubtful, but I'd like to get other's opinions as well.