2015-03-24 REPORTS: KS/MO/OK

[Jared Orr]

My team and I departed Kansas City at 2:30 for SW MO and were just in time to intercept the first cells that were firing along state line. Over the course of the evening, we spotted 3 wall clouds in three separate cells, two with RFD. The below picture is one of the more impressive features near Lockwood, MO. We also saw a some great structure NE of Springfield just before that supercell weakened (but I don't have a picture of that handy).

It was a good first chase of the year. We were in all the right places, but the cells were affecting each other, and the air was just too cold & soupy for the marginal updraft intensity.

 

[Dan Robinson]

I targeted the northern end of this setup in the vicinity of Clinton/Sedalia/Warsaw, right on/just north of the warm front where winds were still backed. The plan was to stay with the lifting front northward and hope that a discrete storm on the northern end of the cluster would isolate and cross the boundary. I abandoned this plan when the extensive leading stratiform/junkvection from the initial development all but killed this environment. I wasn't really in position to go after anything else, so I hopped down to I-44 to go home, staying just ahead of the dwindling but racing-eastward MCS. Despite the bust, it was great to get back out and see lightning/hear thunder after this long and convection-less winter.

This is what that leading junk looked like from Hermitage.


A daytime lightning shot from near Newburg.


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