John Farley
Supporter
Kind of surprised there is no thread for yesterday, given how many chasers were out there. Seems like increasingly, people only report if they get a spectacular, backlit tornado, but that is a subject for another thread. Anyway, I targeted southern KS, initially around Attica or Harper. I was interested for a couple days in the southern KS area. I considered northern KS closer to the triple point, but was concerned that storms there could be messy and low-based, so even though there was somewhat better potential for tornadoes there, they might be hard to see. And then the predicted position of the triple point shifted north, making that a longer drive. The TX target was an even longer drive, and I was determined to avoid central OK because I do not like chasing within 50 miles of OKC due to the crowds. So Monday I drove to Dodge City to pre-position and then decide on a more precise target. I was concerned that morning models were predicting a lot of convection in the woods east of I-35 rather than on the dryline, but I did see signals from several models that somewhere near the OK/KS border west of I-35 might have potential. They were breaking out more isolated convection in that area, and also showing signs of some backing of the surface wind there. Hence, my morning target was around the Attica-Harper area. I drove to Harper, had lunch, and checked data. It was clear that the dryline was a little farther east than I had figured, so I decided to head a little farther east. I soon could see towers going up to my south, so I went far enough to get east of them and then headed south.
Long story short, this strategy ended up working well for me and allowed me to get on the best storm in the northern OK/southern KS area almost from the time it initiated near Wakita, OK. I was able to stairstep the back roads and stay with the storm from the stateline northeastward for better than two hours until it moved into the Wichita metro area, at which point I let it go. I did not see anything that I could confirm as a tornado with this storm, but did get a couple likely funnel clouds as well as a couple impressive wall clouds. I will post a full report later, but here are a few pictures from the chase:
This wall cloud formed right around the time when the first TOR warning was issued, west/NW of Caldwell.
Within a few minutes, the wall cloud wrapped up in rain. It really looked like there could have been something in there, but there were no reports of tornadoes at this time. (video capture)
Likely funnel cloud about 15 or 20 minutes later. (video capture) I was driving when this formed so could only video out the window. By the time I could find a safe place to pull over amid the chaser crowds, it was gone. I thought for a while this could have been what led to the tornado report, but it was a half hour earlier, so probably not.
Closer to the time of the tornado report, I observed two lowerings. One looked to me like a skinny scud feature extending most of the way to the ground. To its left (south) was another lowering that had much more the look of a funnel, but only went perhaps 1/3 of the way down at most. Unfortunately, I messed up the video of this by having auto focus off when I thought it was on, so I have no decent pictures of these features. I wonder if either 1) a spotter mistook the scud feature for a tornado, as it was close to the ground, or 2) the more likely funnel had a dust swirl or other evidence of ground circulation that I was too far away to see.
I will write up a full report as time permits and will post a link in this thread when it is ready.
Long story short, this strategy ended up working well for me and allowed me to get on the best storm in the northern OK/southern KS area almost from the time it initiated near Wakita, OK. I was able to stairstep the back roads and stay with the storm from the stateline northeastward for better than two hours until it moved into the Wichita metro area, at which point I let it go. I did not see anything that I could confirm as a tornado with this storm, but did get a couple likely funnel clouds as well as a couple impressive wall clouds. I will post a full report later, but here are a few pictures from the chase:
This wall cloud formed right around the time when the first TOR warning was issued, west/NW of Caldwell.
Within a few minutes, the wall cloud wrapped up in rain. It really looked like there could have been something in there, but there were no reports of tornadoes at this time. (video capture)
Likely funnel cloud about 15 or 20 minutes later. (video capture) I was driving when this formed so could only video out the window. By the time I could find a safe place to pull over amid the chaser crowds, it was gone. I thought for a while this could have been what led to the tornado report, but it was a half hour earlier, so probably not.
Closer to the time of the tornado report, I observed two lowerings. One looked to me like a skinny scud feature extending most of the way to the ground. To its left (south) was another lowering that had much more the look of a funnel, but only went perhaps 1/3 of the way down at most. Unfortunately, I messed up the video of this by having auto focus off when I thought it was on, so I have no decent pictures of these features. I wonder if either 1) a spotter mistook the scud feature for a tornado, as it was close to the ground, or 2) the more likely funnel had a dust swirl or other evidence of ground circulation that I was too far away to see.
I will write up a full report as time permits and will post a link in this thread when it is ready.