Quincy Vagell
EF4
I started the day in Pueblo, CO to keep two targets within range, but quickly decided that I would favor southeastern Colorado/southwestern Kansas due to better moisture than up north and hints of a residual boundary, reinforced from early day convection.
The first storm popped up relatively early in the afternoon southwest of Lamar. I didn't stay with the storm long, as it was struggling and downstream dew-points only in the low to mid-50s in southeastern Colorado led me to believe the storm would probably not intensify much.
I drifted east into Kansas and decided to take a shot at convection over Texas County, OK, in the central portion of the panhandle. The storms were rapidly developing within a narrow plume of moderate instability/favorable boundary layer moisture. I approached the storms and noted at least two different shear funnels, that were clearly not connected to the base of the storm. I was only able to get one somewhat visible photo of one from a distance:
One storm within a cluster of cells became dominant, just south of the Kansas border and this would be the storm I would target. It's also the storm with the shear funnel in the photo above. The cell had a solid updraft, but never really gained much rotation. There was a left split and it may be hard to make out in this panoramic photo, but a small updraft can be noted on the left, while the parent updraft encompasses most of the field of view.
That's about as interesting as the northern cell got. The main limiting factor appeared to be low-level wind shear, in my estimation. The moisture plume was also fairly narrow, as earlier convection over northwestern Oklahoma created a environment that was substantially more stable downwind of this storm, not giving it much room to work with.
I cruised into Guymon to get gas and noticed that a small storm in the distance showcased a little updraft, contrasted nicely with some mammatus. I wandered around a bit and went back to investigate the earlier storm, as it intermittently showed some modest signs of organization. To make a long story short, it never evolved into a robust supercell and it dissipated before sunset.
It was not the most thrilling storm chase, but having a few photo opportunities and being able to bail on one storm and still catch another storm to the southeast made it worthwhile.
The first storm popped up relatively early in the afternoon southwest of Lamar. I didn't stay with the storm long, as it was struggling and downstream dew-points only in the low to mid-50s in southeastern Colorado led me to believe the storm would probably not intensify much.
I drifted east into Kansas and decided to take a shot at convection over Texas County, OK, in the central portion of the panhandle. The storms were rapidly developing within a narrow plume of moderate instability/favorable boundary layer moisture. I approached the storms and noted at least two different shear funnels, that were clearly not connected to the base of the storm. I was only able to get one somewhat visible photo of one from a distance:
![180517a.jpg 180517a.jpg](https://stormtrack.org/data/attachments/33/33756-dbb917bf205adc0d61977f3acaf39b30.jpg)
One storm within a cluster of cells became dominant, just south of the Kansas border and this would be the storm I would target. It's also the storm with the shear funnel in the photo above. The cell had a solid updraft, but never really gained much rotation. There was a left split and it may be hard to make out in this panoramic photo, but a small updraft can be noted on the left, while the parent updraft encompasses most of the field of view.
![180517b.jpg 180517b.jpg](https://stormtrack.org/data/attachments/33/33757-c5cd2e5645ed44d0231fee2846beb7f5.jpg)
That's about as interesting as the northern cell got. The main limiting factor appeared to be low-level wind shear, in my estimation. The moisture plume was also fairly narrow, as earlier convection over northwestern Oklahoma created a environment that was substantially more stable downwind of this storm, not giving it much room to work with.
I cruised into Guymon to get gas and noticed that a small storm in the distance showcased a little updraft, contrasted nicely with some mammatus. I wandered around a bit and went back to investigate the earlier storm, as it intermittently showed some modest signs of organization. To make a long story short, it never evolved into a robust supercell and it dissipated before sunset.
![180517c.jpg 180517c.jpg](https://stormtrack.org/data/attachments/33/33758-37dfa43787f8290908a4a0e180dcc082.jpg)
It was not the most thrilling storm chase, but having a few photo opportunities and being able to bail on one storm and still catch another storm to the southeast made it worthwhile.