Andy Wehrle
EF5
A late report; finally got my video done for a week ago this past Saturday.
Another good day out with the Storm Chaser Coaching Founders' Tour group. A solid parameter space for all hazards was expected to be present across portions of the central and southern Plains, particularly along a warm front which was forecast to set up somewhere in the southeast to east-central Nebraska vicinity. The problem was that synoptic-scale foci for ascent were weak to nonexistent across the region, even along the warm front itself which was also not very convergent with only a subtle wind shift across it.
We started the day in Salina to keep an eye on the warm front target but also to keep our options open as some CAMs portrayed modest attempts at convective initiation across central or southern Kansas. By early afternoon a subtle MCV (likely what these models were picking up on) was apparent moving into south-central Kansas which was already initiating storms out ahead of it. We set off, aiming for an intercept south or southwest of Hutchinston. The storms went through an extended period of updraft clustering and organizing until a large, slow-moving, HP supercell emerged just west of Pretty Prairie, west-northwest of Wichita which we ended up following for over two hours. It went tornado-warned for a short time, but nothing was confirmed as far as I know.
The warm front target also initiated (despite minimal to no support from morning CAMs; in fact SPC had later upgraded that area to a 5% tornado probability contour and issued a tornado watch). One of the storms, despite looking like garbage on radar, took on supercell characteristics and produced a rainy, grungy tornado that was at least fully condensed for a few moments in Thayer County, NE. Our storm produced several damaging RFD surges, semis were rolled near Pretty Prairie and a 79 MPH gust was recorded at Mt. Hope.
Another good day out with the Storm Chaser Coaching Founders' Tour group. A solid parameter space for all hazards was expected to be present across portions of the central and southern Plains, particularly along a warm front which was forecast to set up somewhere in the southeast to east-central Nebraska vicinity. The problem was that synoptic-scale foci for ascent were weak to nonexistent across the region, even along the warm front itself which was also not very convergent with only a subtle wind shift across it.
We started the day in Salina to keep an eye on the warm front target but also to keep our options open as some CAMs portrayed modest attempts at convective initiation across central or southern Kansas. By early afternoon a subtle MCV (likely what these models were picking up on) was apparent moving into south-central Kansas which was already initiating storms out ahead of it. We set off, aiming for an intercept south or southwest of Hutchinston. The storms went through an extended period of updraft clustering and organizing until a large, slow-moving, HP supercell emerged just west of Pretty Prairie, west-northwest of Wichita which we ended up following for over two hours. It went tornado-warned for a short time, but nothing was confirmed as far as I know.
The warm front target also initiated (despite minimal to no support from morning CAMs; in fact SPC had later upgraded that area to a 5% tornado probability contour and issued a tornado watch). One of the storms, despite looking like garbage on radar, took on supercell characteristics and produced a rainy, grungy tornado that was at least fully condensed for a few moments in Thayer County, NE. Our storm produced several damaging RFD surges, semis were rolled near Pretty Prairie and a 79 MPH gust was recorded at Mt. Hope.
