3/23/09 REPORTS: KS, OK, NE, SD

[Andrew Pritchard]

Wall clouds ruled the day on my end, one of which came pretty close to producing a tornado near Herington.

Wall cloud on first supercell near Herington. It really got it's act together after it's initial downfall to the south.

Storm then proceeded to hit the after burners and was soon nothing more than a nice distant storm to me. Looking northeast from Herington.

Then drifted about 2 hours south for another cycling supercell near Lost River, Lost Falls? Don't remember which it was... south of Yates Center by about 20 miles.

This one had another blocky wall cloud, but lacked much in the way of organized rotation. Looked pretty cold and outflowy pretty quickly.

Don't you hate when your road turns into this without so much as a hint of a sign?

 

[markstauss]

Not a bad chase for the first one of the season that went beyond trying to capture some lightning pics from my driveway. This also could be near the top of my list for the most disorganized chase I've ever had.

Tried to assemble everything this morning in case I decided to chase this afternoon after work. SLR - Check, Video Camera - Check, Tripod - Check, batteries - check, blank tape - check, gps - in other car, maps - MO map but no KS map, - weather radio/scanner - in closet at home, tripod mount for vid camera - on desk at home office, Kestrel 4000 - next to wx radio at the house.

Had to drop my vehicle off at the dealership this morning for a check engine light and some normal maintenance. After working a full day I picked it up late this afternoon and took advantage of their free wi-fi. Noticed a discreet cell south of Manhattan, KS speeding to the NNE. Decided to leave Shawnee Mission, KS with the hopes of this cell still being discreet when it crossed 36 highway in KS. Called home to get a radar update when I was between MCI and STJ. Tried to walk significant other through a quick radar lesson to find out if I could catch the storm and if it was holding together. I decided to take the chance. I got to 36 and 75 just as the storm was a few miles to the SW of the intersection and caught these pics. Nothing very exciting, some scud clouds, high wind (wish I had packed the Kestrel this morning) and a small dust storm.

Images can be found here.
http://www.houseofstauss.com/images/storm/032309/Dust1.jpg

http://www.houseofstauss.com/images/storm/032309/Dust2.jpg

And one about 5 miles down the road.
http://www.houseofstauss.com/images/storm/032309/Hay.jpg

After this storm passed I headed west on 36 to try to catch the storms nearing Seneca, KS. Deputies had the road closed off so I turned around and headed toward Hiawatha, KS. Stopped for a drink and a snack and the local radio station said another storm was headed that way. Headed south of town and had some help from Lassie that showed up while I was trying to take hand-held lightning pics in 40+ mph winds. That wasn't working so I decided to head on home. Except Lassie decided to take shelter under my truck. I tried to get the dog out from under my truck so he/she walked in front and disappeared. I didn't want to run over it so I got out and found that it had moved to the passenger side for shelter. The storm is getting real close now. Eventually I had to lay on the horn to get the dog to move away. All's good except for the 1" hail reported 2 miles S of Hiawatha is now falling on my truck. Finally made it back to 36 headed east and escaped the hail.

 

[Brian Emfinger]

More pictures/eventual full report - HERE

Drove right in on the storm that eventually became the supercell that tracked from near Enid, to I-35 into Kansas, and eventually through Arkansas City and NE from there. Was in pretty good position throughout but missed the tornadoes. It seemed like everytime one of those tornado obs popped up we were repositioning and getting around toward the east side. When the storm was still in Oklahoma N/NE of Medford it really looked like it wanted to drop a tornado. It had a great RFD cut with a really low hanging wall cloud but it looked like the RFD was a bit too strong. Here are a few pics... i got a decent amount of lightning pics off of the dying supercell (that I think tracked near Stillwater) earlier north of Tulsa.

and a few min later when the door closed behind the rfd: http://www.realclearwx.com/images/2009/032309st02.jpg

 

[Connor McCrorey]

I left Plano with David Reimer at around 12:45 PM, and headed up to our initial target of NW Oklahoma City. By the time we arrived, it was clear storms would fire earlier than expected, and would be in better conditions (more instabililty, mainly). We got on the supercell that formed near El Reno and followed to I-35, before leaving it to move on through Stillwater.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1B_GeWbCLw

 

[Aaron Estman]

Left DFW around 9:30, got to Norman around 11:30 or so. Waited there about an hour then headed west to El Reno. Storms began to fire, me and Erin Wheeler followed a few storms until we saw that the main dominant storm to the south was coming. Blew back south, caught the very nice wall cloud. Then it fizzled out

Video soon.

All in all good day. Cant really hate on it

 

[Zac Goode]

Drove to enid and watched 3 or 4 storms fly past me trying to get there act together but really didnt(except the ark city storm). Saw the Cresent storm looking better than most that came buy me and hopped on it just south of Mulhall. Watched it wrap up in precip and followed it across I-35 a couple of miles and then called it a day.

 

[David Poch]

I started the day sitting off I-40 south of Calumet. Decided to head up to Kingfisher and wait. One cell starting to look ok so I followed it up north to Hennessey. I lost that storm but noticed the one that was coming up between El Reno and Kingfisher. I dropped south on HWY 74 and ended up just north of Cimarron City to wait for the cell to pass. It developed a nice wall cloud and had some good motions. I sat there and just enjoyed the display it put off.

 

[Shane Adams]

Full summary now online:
http://www.passiontwist.com/32309chase.htm

 

[Andrew Ryan]

Great chase day. Chased with Scott Peake, Greg Blumberg, and Kevin Rolfs. Started off the day getting on the Ark City storm, if you want to call it that, around Pond Creek, OK when it was still a multi-cell. It quickly organized into a supercell but it really couldn't decide whether it wanted to be HP or classic. Once we got to Medford we almost abandoned it because it looked like outflowy garbage but decided to stick with after we saw strong rotation right above our heads.

Storm near Medford, OK

The storm finally got its act together when it crossed over the Kansas/Oklahoma border. We swear we saw a tornado briefly spin up near Ashton, KS. I'm not sure if the dust whirls were from a tornado or inflow winds. But either it formed really quickly, within about 30 seconds, from nothing to rapidly rotating wall cloud/tornado.

Right after the brief spin up near Ashton, KS. Note the RFD wrapping almost all the way around the wall cloud.

We finally left the storm for good just N of Ark City. It looked like it was trying to gets to act together again, but we didn't have the confidence to keep chasing after it. I do have some regrets for leaving it after hearing that it produced.

After leaving that storm, we quickly headed south back into Oklahoma to intercept some intensifying cells. We were targeting the cell that was moving slowly, relatively, towards Perry. As we got closer, it started to look really good and become tornado warned. Once we could actually see the base of the storm, it looked it might produce something, but it became elevated after that and quickly went to crap.

After dark we watched storms near Duncan, OK. Not much happened there but some decent wind gusts and ping pong sized hall.

Overall it was a good March chase and the storms gave us a lot of rain, which is great!

 

[Rocky Rascovich]

Started out from the TUL area.. with only limited knowledge of current data.. had no internet where I was staying. Based on progged helicity values, cape bullseye that NAM and RUC projected, I targeted the area roughly around Enid to Perry. I was mindful that the NAM also had a convective feature taking off through Canadian into Logan counties by 0Z.. which reasonably verified.

Highlights of the day was intercepting a LP/classic supercell that trekked up into Grant county. I observed this in Hunter which is about 20 miles NW of Billings. A wall cloud tried developing but with little fanfare. There was some respectable south winds that were occurring.. gusts to around 45kts, probably enhanced due to some inflow from the storm. I observed pea sized hail as I was on the edge of the precip. shaft of this in Hunter. I followed the storm to Tonkawa where I briefly met up with Dave Ewoldt. It was at this time (aprox. around 1800cdt) that it spun up the best wall cloud of the day, nice rising motion with moderate rotation, but it was screaming off to the northeast, so I decided to the bail on that.. thankfully, to my knowledge, it did not produce.

I then targeted the storm that was rapidly intensifying over northern Canadian/southern Logan counties. I intercepted that around Mulhall, a few miles west of I-35. The wall cloud I saw was disorganized with minimal rotation but I noticed there were intense downbursts blowing toward the mesocyclone from it's north by the way I was seeing the rain shafts occur. They would come down in big blobs and produce spectacular rain foots. I could hear a definite hail roar with near continuous thunder from the copious amounts of IC lightning. I went back to the interstate, listening to one of our local media outlets amping up the possibility of a rain wrapped tornado. I tried heading south of Mulhall on I-35 but the core rapidly caught up with me and winds suddenly shifted to the north and increased to at least 40 kts. Fearing that I may run into something that could have ruined my day, I turned around. Winds suddenly backed to the NW, and was throwing at me some occasional big hail stones, not sure how big, but they sounded big, enough that I was concerned about a broken windshield or side window. I took shelter on the east side of a church back at the Mulhall exit, thinking this could be a riveting couple of minutes. Turns out the hail at that location was minimal, winds were 40 knots at the most, and it was over with within 2 minutes. Afterwards, I tracked the storm toward Stillwater as it attempted to develop a wall cloud. Hail drifts on Hwy 51 west of Stillwater was impressive, most of the hail was quarter size at most. Afterwards, I decided to head back to the farm as I was treated to some occasional lightning and experienced a brief microburst east of Langston by a couple of miles.. winds were the highest of the day.. at least 50-55 knots.. lasted less than one minute.. definitely had my attention though.. that occurred around 2030cdt (estimated time).

What really capped off my day was what happened at our farm (5mi. NW of Piedmont) between 0115 to 0130. I awoke to go the bathroom and noticed a near strobe light display of mostly IC lightning, infact, it was one of the best displays of lightning like this I've seen in many years. What was really bizarre was the thunder.. absolutely constant, non stop thunder.. it sounded like a bunch of jet engines in the distance.
I think some of this was a hail roar too, because what happened around 0120 was a DELUGE of nickel to quarter size hail. It was starting to cover the ground pretty good and then abruptly ended by about 0125. Surprisingly, the wind as not an issue, maybe 30 knots, if that. By 0145, lightning was distant and the storm well over with.

Thanks to Dave Ewoldt, Jim Leonard and Ray Walker for their nowcasting. Overall, a good day to get the season officially started!

 

[Steve Miller TX]

Played with the tornado-warned cell around Kingfisher/Guthrie and then intercepted the storms around Chickasha and Rush Springs after dark. I was lucky to get a couple of good CG shots before it all ceased. All in all, a fun but exhausting chase trying to keep up with 40mph+ storm motions.

 

[David Drummond]

I too was on the Kingfisher to Stillwater storm. A little hail, some really nicer wall clouds, some more hail. That about sums it up. Thought we were going to have a tornado a couple times there. Posted a video on Youtube of one of the rotating wall clouds.
http://youtube.com/drylinemedia

 

[Jason Young]

Well chased the Lawton cell , nice updraft , good lowering , no tornado. But did see 3large power flashes in Lawton at night fall . Chased the cell west of Marlow and watched it die. Long night and I am ready for a good May.

 

[Verne Carlson]

Here's a timelapse of our entire chase as streamed live on TVN. Starting at Russell, KS ending up at Perry, OK. A fun March chase!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_c37N8MPxk

FULL REPORT HERE

 

[Chris C Sanner]

Had an interesting day, was on the Geary - Stillwater Supercell like many others. Basically started the day in Hinton and started moving ENE throughout the rest of the day until we finally got a storm to finally mature along the dryline. It was a pretty decent chase for March, got some good structure and such. Video and pics are both available at:

http://www.supercellhunting.com.

Will be trying to get some bigger versions of stills from the DSLR up sometime later, but the HD vid is up, which includes a bit of a core punch at the end.