2017-04-15 REPORTS: OK/KS/TX/IA/MO/IL

[Ethan Schisler]

I originally was against chasing this day, so I wrote off the potential near the triple point/dry line in TX/OK/KS. I sat at home most of the day however monitoring radar, around 5 o'clock I noticed several storms firing up north of me near KDVN and further west. The HRRR had been hinting at a corridor of tornadic potential toward dusk in this region including a couple sizable helicity tracks west of Dubuque. So I decided to give it a shot. My first storm of target was just outside of Wilton, Iowa where I followed it to just north of Davenport, Iowa. It had some broad rotation and decent structure, I was able to get a couple still images. There was probably some large hail to the north in the core, I decided to stay out of it though....


Supercell thunderstorm N of Davenport, IA with decent structure

I eventually abandoned that storm in favor of another supercell out west toward DeWitt, Iowa. It literally sat in the same spot for about a half hour and cycled 3 times, producing several wall clouds and a couple funnels. The structure was pretty classic however and the lightning was excellent. I shot numerous still images and managed to get one of the powerful positively charged CG's in my shot as seen below....


Electrically charged supercell near DeWitt, Iowa at dusk

That storm eventually died as well and I headed northwest toward a now tornado warned complex of storms coming out of the Cedar Rapids area. I approached this tornadic circulation as it approached the small town of Anamosa, Iowa. Why it was not tornado warned at this point, I'm not sure, because the couplet and rotation were extremely strong as evidenced by the radarscope image below....



I got out of the car at this point and I could hear a waterfall type roar to the northwest along with HP supercell structure outside the town of Anamosa, Iowa. I got my tripod and sat up and got a few stills when I noticed a cone coming out of the rain. I watched it approach the road ahead of me with a faint debris cloud near the ground, we had a tornado on the ground, probably for a while before I arrived based on radar. Anyway I got hit with RFD winds in excess of 60 mph and had to move. I got caught in the rear flanking core of the supercell and didn't get back out ahead of it until I reached I-80 further east and made my way home.


Partially condensed cone tornado with faint debris cloud east of Anamosa, Iowa around 8:55PM and classic RFD.

I tried to get some lightning stills from the complex moving up from the south and later at home around midnight, but that was a fail. Still for not leaving home until around 6 oclock, this was an excellent chase day in my opinion. 3 supercell thunderstorms and a tornado....while not the most picturesque I won't complain.

 

[Mike DeLange]

OP: Can we please add NE to the title of this report forum? Thank you!

Yesterday after an all-morning obsession pouring over obs, visible, mesoanalysis, HRRR, decided take a quick drive from Omaha towards Nebraska City in hopes to see if the low parked in the SE part of the state would produce a spin up. Shortly after arriving to my first target, a couple cells popped up near Weeping Water and Dunbar Nebraska. Seeing the northern cell was about to be overtaken from it's southern sister, I engaged the southernmost meso.





Around 4:55pm a nice funnel popped out, soon pulling up dirt from a freshly plowed field. The tornado was on the ground for a few minutes and provided a scenic, albeit it surprising, view.

 

[Austin Jones]

Headed North from KC at about 1:00pm. Headed west to Pawnee City Nebraska when showers begin to develop down a line from near Omaha. We watched storms struggle for a few hours, while also seeing tornado pictures from the Nebraska City storm. Finally a storm was looking decent and we got right under it. From that position looking north we could see another storm with a wall cloud approximately 15 miles away. Suddnley a funnel descended from the storm to our north. Not sure if it ever made it to the ground or not. The storm was not even severe warned at the time. Called it in but storm didn't get Tor warned for at least another 30min after becoming a big HP beast.

 

[Austin Jones]

View attachment 15539 View attachment 15540 View attachment 15541 Headed North from KC at about 1:00pm. Headed west to Pawnee City Nebraska when showers begin to develop down a line from near Omaha. We watched storms struggle for a few hours, while also seeing tornado pictures from the Nebraska City storm. Finally a storm was looking decent and we got right under it. From that position looking north we could see another storm with a wall cloud approximately 15 miles away. Suddnley a funnel descended from the storm to our north. Not sure if it ever made it to the ground or not. The storm was not even severe warned at the time. Called it in but storm didn't get Tor warned for at least another 30min after becoming a big HP beast.

Update: After reviewing my photos, I may have captured a rain wrapped tornado near Dawson Nebraska at about 8:30pm.
Original:

High Contrast

 

[Andrew Constans]

Started off at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, decided to take I-80 up to Nebraska Crossing to check out the outlet mall and then pick up the NE City cell afterwards. This was absolutely stupid in hindsight (it was packed and parking was a nightmare), and cost me the perfect play on the Dunbar tornado. I did catch a glimpse of it as I was rushing to get south behind someone seemingly without a gas pedal, so it wasn't a complete outlet mall bust. I followed the cell east watching it form a few non-rotating wall clouds only to occlude a minimally rotating one and line out as development continued to the south. Being Saturday with nothing to do, I decided to drop a little further south on I-29 towards Rock Port, MO to get a better look at a great hail rainbow and the updraft base on the south side. As I passed the hail core, the storm went tornado warned and dropped a beautiful bright white funnel a few miles to the east of I-29. Cue second mistake, I decided to run back north to catch the hailers NW of Omaha in time for the LLJ, and immediately regretted it when I ran out of exits on I-29 to double back south of Hamburg, IA. According to spotter reports, the funnel did eventually touch down, but I was too far out of position to see anything.

I learned some things about priorities. On the up side I didn't see any hazardous driving or chaser/spotter activity out there.