3/30/2006 REPORTS: KS,NE,OK,TX

[Daniel Christianson]

No tornadoes today for me -- and not much of photogenic anything due to the persistant cloudcover. But a really fun chase, nonetheless, especially considering it was in my back yard. I started out by driving west a bit on I-80 and waiting at a rest stop just east of Goehner, between Lincoln and York. I got the impression that the dryline storms out west were going to be completely linear, and I noticed that convection was trying to pop from an area basically overhead to points south into Kansas. So I dropped south. Eventually, a supercell formed south of Beatrice, so I headed back east to HWY 103, then dropped south to Crete. As I was doing this, the Beatrice cell was really getting wound up, and given the fact that everything was tearing along at 50+mph, I only just barely got NE of the cell on HWY 33 before the core could catch me. This was actually pretty cool, as CGs were dropping left and right around me about once every 2 or 3 seconds -- and they were really, really close, close enough to get the 'radio hum' before the strike. I stopped about 2 east of Roca to watch the 'meso' (not too impressive looking) roll by and to get in position to try to close in on it (briefly) once I had a clear shot at the inflow area. Unfortunately, the storm started falling apart at around this point. Still, it was the only game in town at the time, so I tailed it by taking the grid roads to the north. While I was doing this, I noticed another cell forming to the south. To be honest, I didn't have a lot of hope for it, as it had plenty of crap convection surrounding it, but the original cell I was on was limping into Lincoln like a wounded deer, so I decided to "try" to get east before the core of the new storm overtook me. Drove east on Hwy 2. No luck, but at least I only caught the blinding rain and wind part of the core, not the hail part. It seemed pretty clear, though, once I got to Syracuse, that the storm I was positioning for wasn't going to make the cut. I munched out on Slim Jim's & Strawberry milk as disorganized storms marched overhead. Once it was clear the the squall was going to march in and finish the day, I decided to go and try to meet it somewhere picturesque, so I took HWY 2 back to Lincoln. Got to the outskirts of Lincoln just before the squall did, and let me tell ya -- it was one of the more visually frightening things I've ever seen. I knew I wasn't in danger, but it looked like something out of one of those Apocylpse movies. I sat in my car with my jaw dropped as I watched a massive, impenetreble fist-like curtain of rain sweeping across the horizion towards me. I mean you could really see it coming. I parked next to HWY 2, and boy was it was making the traffic on HWY 2 freak out! Once it got right on top of me, I could literally see the power of the downdraft -- the rain flying horizionally several thousand feet overhead, and then whoosh! The car rocks as the gust front hits and the visibility goes from 5 miles to 5 feet in just a couple seconds. It was all over in five minutes, but wow! I'll never get the image of that squall coming in out of my head. It's one of those things that's so surreal that you wonder if you're dreaming.

Now, I saw no tornadoes today, but I still had an awesome time. Between the wondergul squall and the challenge of getting in position (even though the storms died), I had a good chance to shake down my equipment setup and have fun doing it. Plus, the usual chase magic was following me around. For example, at the gas stop in Syracuse, the clerk who was ringing up my Slim Jims seemed really distracted... and then she suddenly got this huge smile and blurted out to me that her sister, who has had cancer for the last 3 years, just called her and told her that her cancer was in remission. Outside, the last storm had just rolled through and the sun was poking through the clouds for the first time of the day. Yeah, it was a pretty cool chase.
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Im getting ready for Ok/KS in about 4 hrs from now.. i been driving all night and caught an HP supercell near NEB City im pretty sure it was a brief one .... i observed hail to the size of marbles... id say if any size exactly about Dime Size.... other locations in MO and IA i had pebble .. to tiny hail but heavy rain... got a few nice pic i was upset ot be to west of the tornadic sp' thatd had come up through Fillmore Co mo producing tornadoes i dont know if this was reported but just about 3 1/2 miles north west of Lamoni there was a brief touchdown im pretty sure it was a tornado... i mean i was looking at the lightning flashes west of me, ouside of lamoni, the SP was tornado warned... ill have to go back through video but im pretty sure there was a brief tornado touchdown, i headed off in that directiona d found alot of mud covering the county road on P-64, also there were some trees knocked down, i assume it was the circulation hoever i couldnt confirm an acutal touchdown.. i didnt see any debri on the ground... it was diffacult to tell with heavy precip falling... also when i had turned up towards Ellston many metal signs had been bended over and 3 were laying in the road... maybe it was staright line winds.. or a brief touchdown.. i saw from lightning flashes waht appeared to be a long skinny funnel.... cany anybody confirm a touchdown if you were on the cell????

CORRECTED( added pic


Im nto good at sticthing photos heres the storm i encountered near Nebraska City , it quickly gulped me over with heavy rain, hail and wind.... it was pretty awsome to see before it got me ;-)

Im exhausted goodnight"


Long chase day for me ... not to much excitment but i had a feeling the storms in MO would have tornado potential after dark i followed one storm all the way to North of Osceola and gave up.... now for the long drive in a few hrs.... here's just a a few quick shots from the digi( ok i got ahead of myself today is only FRI... yawns... i can sleep woo hoo"

 

[Brian Stertz]

Thursday's blasting supercells left me tornado less as flashbacks from the 3/12 chase (daytime) started replaying before me. Had 2 incurions on fairly strong circulations near Goddard KS and Florence KS where it came close but no cigar. At Florence (Marion Co. KS), did see some spectacularly lobed and sheared 2" hailstones which fell to our north while we watched the broad circulation approach from near Whitewater. I am just now salivating of the hopes for much slower moving tornadic supercells for Saturday. Hopefully the calendar change from March to April will drop the storm speeds by a third or a half !!! Glad to see the intercepts for some chasers netted tornadoes Thursday. Glad to hear that Mike Peregrine is still with us to chase another day. That Savannah MO circulation looked incredible at times on radar so imagine the roar speaks for itself !! One more item of note: I guess the city of Sedalia MO is now the tornado bullseye for 2006. Yet another damaging tornado tracked into town last night.

 

[Melanie Metz]

To make a long story short I ended up in Cloud county Kansas at initiation, chased a tornado warned cell just before the line filled in, drove through the hail core just before tennis ball sized hail was reported on the cell, chased another tornado warned cell further east from Morris county into Pottawatomie county and ended up watching the line book NE. I saw a decent wall cloud before the line filled in but it was quite obscured by rain. Other than that, a couple ragged bases, cool mammatus, and dark stormy skies! No tornado but it was fun! Good to be out again. Here are a few pics from my day.

Thanks much to Peggy for nowcasting!

 

[Philip Flory]

My report is pretty close to Brian's above..

I left Wichita around 11am and targeted the storms moving up from NW OK that were beginning to show signs of maturing on radar. I was eventually greeted by the storm about 15-20 miles SW of ICT. My first reaction was to notice the huge beaver tail that was feeding into the storm from the S. Over the next 10-15 minutes the storm seemed to rapidly strengthen both in person and on radar and it quickly became svr warned. Eventually, I managed to get a up close look at a lowering that seemed to pretty rapidly develop, observed some fairly strong rotation for 5 minutes or so and was pretty sure I would hear a tornado warning coming over the radio but to no avail. The rotation abruptly stopped over the next few min, I have a feeling the storm over S Sedgwick county at the time which was strengthening played a role in limited inflow into our main storm at the time. I decided to target the storm down by Clearwater that was over 60dbz on radar now. I managed to get into West Wichita near the airport when I began to encounter some pretty large hail, over the radio I heard a report of near to over golfball sized at the airport so I immedietly found a carwash and took cover as the area was slammed by near golf-ball sized hail. I let the storm pass on to my NE and was able to capture some great structure shots on the back of the storm. I eventually followed the storm all the way into Marion county without much luck. I decided the storms to my SE were moving to rapidly and I decided to head back west for the tornado warned line of storms out near Hutchinson. I arrived in Newton and headed just west of town and observed a pretty organized slowly-rotating wall cloud that persisted for a good 20 minutes but failed to produce. I called it a day after this and headed home.

Ready for some slower-moving sups tomorrow..

 

[Mike Mezeul II]

Started the day off yesterday near Ada, stuck with that storm until we almost reached McAlister. We ran into some half dollar sized hail a few times and watched a brief funnel but nothing too organized. We then decided to check out the cells firing further south near Gainesville (since it was on the way home) and saw some of the nicest structure all day, unfortunatily it was at night. We interecepted the first cell that became tornado warned and moved through the Pottsboro area. It had a great bell shaped updraft too it, a consistent wall cloud, and produced a few funnels, but nothing appeared to touch down. As that cell moved away we decided to grab a bite at Hooters. We then heard that the second storm that was moving into the area had just become tornado warned. We jumped on 75N again then to 121 NE. We were able to observe a brief lowering, but yet nothing more. All in all a fun lil way to start off the season, onward to Saturday now!

here are some quick video grabs

 

[Mikel Shively]

I intercepted a tornado-warned cell as it was exiting Cloud Co. KS and entering the Northwestern part of Clay Co. I saw no real rotation at all. It looked pretty nice on radar, with scan to scan mesos, but I never saw much rotation period. Thanks to GPS and SA I was able to keep up with this storm for about 20 miles, in western Washington Co, where I finally lost it, but I was never able to see much rotation with this particular storm. While not seeing any thing, I still had a good time, and it was test of the gps and radar, which went without a glitch.

 

[Skip Talbot]

Scott Kampas and I intercepted tail end charlie northwest of Salina, KS. The storm exhibited a wall cloud with some rotation, but failed to produce. A large linear line went up soon after so we blasted southwest after a discrete, tor warned cell north of Wichita and intercepted it near Council Grove. The storm had a large RFD clear slot and occluded base. The road network went to crap and we lost it (it was starting to rain through the updraft anyway). We headed to Topeka for data and grub and saw that conditions were still favorable in the area so hung around. We caught a few severe warned, but linear storms around 4pm that kept firing over the same location. Left at 1:45am Thursday monring and home in Bolingbrook by 2:30am Friday morning. We busted tornado wise, but the storms we saw had a great struture over great terrain (I love Kansas!).

 

[John Farley]

Though unable to chase due to a conference I am attrending in Omaha, I got to see a good storm anyway - watched a rain-wrapped meso pass right over, or perhaps just west of, downtown Omaha. The sirens blew in the middle of a session and the meeting area was evacuated by hotel personnel. I managed to find a place where I could see out just as wrapping rain curtains obscured the tall buildings in downtown Omaha. (The hotel is just northeast of downtown Omaha.) At my location, the wind and rain quickly swept over and blasted in from the southeast, shifting soon to the southwest as the meso passed a mile or so west of my location. Wind - probably wet RFD - overturned a semi at the intersection of 80 and 480 just southwest of downtown Omaha. I would guess the meso that passed over downtown was the same one that earlier produced the tornado in Papillion. There was also quite a bit of straight-line wind damage on the south side of Omaha.

The hotel folks did a good job of getting people out of meeting rooms, but from there things kind of broke down. Some were evacuated to a laundry area on the lowest floor, but others were allowed to stand for quite some time near large floor-to-ceiling windows, not a good place to have been if the hotel had taken a direct hit.

 

[Scott Olson]

Targeted Nebraska City, NE and arrived about 2:00pm. At which point there was the earlier storms moving just north and south of me and then the storms associated with the front a little further west. I decided to go east and intercept the storms further west. At around 3:00pm I arrived in Douglas, NE and saw a nice shelf cloud and quickly approaching storm. There was a lady walking down a dirt road with her dog, I grabbed my camera and took a couple shots.

Suddenly you could see rapidly approaching white curtains of rain (like a tsunami) and a speed of at least 60kts. I ran out to let the lady know but it was but by the time I turned around the the curtains had traversed nearly a mile and slammed in with at least 60kts force. I then jammed out of Douglas east for about 20 minutes through heavy winds and rain until I emerged in front of the storms again. I should also mention the storm appeared to have bow charestics. As I was in front of the storm I saw a lowering west of Nebraska City just to the north of the highway I was on. I didn't see a tornado there but I saw that it was in the prelim reports as a tornado but I don't remember there being to much rotation. I was chasing without radar so I just kept going east and into Freemont County Iowa. Here the storms looked more quasi-linear and the one to my north actually looked quite healthy with a wall cloud at times. This would be the case for the next couple hours as I raced east to stay ahead and stopped briefly to take some pictures. At the time the Montgomery County storm was tornado warned I could see the impressive lowering (nice rounded base too) but lost visual after a couple minutes. As my highway turned slightly south (between New Market and Bedford) I was treated to yet another Tsunami of wind and rain, this time it was easily 70kts and jack-knifed a horse trailer behind me. I then did a big loop at about 6:30 after a half-hour of an entirely linear and outflowish appearance and headed home.

Not a bad chase and certainly a lot of fun, as the storms took on a more ENE motion they became difficult to keep in front of and required nearly constant driving. I observed a lot of damage on my way home, including two overturned semi's, four power crews (Omaha) and a car wreck with ambulance and wish the best for those who have suffered injuries.

 

[Jim Cross]

Chased in southern kanasas along hwy 166 most of the day.Started out between Ark.city and Cedar Vale and moved east along 166 as the day progressed.Near Cedar Vale watched a storm come up from the south that intensified as it was crossing 166 and with out a good road option to the north i watched as it blasted north and became tornado warned.Father east near Niotaze another storm intensified as it crossed 166.I headed east along 166 then north on 75.As i was heading north on 75 towards Independence i saw a cone tornado near Elk City Lake.After getting through Independence i never could catch back up with the storm.There was alot of emergency vehicles north of Independence near hwy 400 but i never seen any damage.Called it a day and headed back towards St.Louis.

 

[Mikey Gribble]

Well, yesterday's chase was slightly better than getting kicked in the junk, but not by much. We started off in Wellington, KS and got on the storm that went tornado warned in Butler county. We managed to stay somewhat on the storm all the way up to West of Emporia, but we fell behind several times during that period. The storm had tornado warnings continously throughout this period. It got a few lowerings that looked like they could possibly produce, but it never quite got it done. We finally broke off the storm and moved back to the West to intercept a cell that was slightly ahead of a line segment coming off the dryline in central Kansas. The storm had a confirmed tornado about 5-10 minutes before we got to it. When we stopped ahead of the storm it had a decent looking horseshoe updraft base. As soon as we got out of the car to take pictures though, you could feel rain cooled outflow from earlier storms being drawn into this storms inflow. Shortly after that the updraft took on a shelf cloud appearance and we called it a day. On the way home Jay got a flat tire and it was timed perfectly so that we had to get out to change it right as the squall line moved through. It wasn't too bad though, just a little bit of rain. I met Ryan Shirk and his brother in law who caravaned with us. They made for good company and it was a pretty fun day even though we didn't get a tornado and the storms were moving >55mph (I was being sarcastic when I said it was comparable to being kicked in the junk). Hopefully tomorrow will bring better slow moving storms. Congratulations to everyone who bagged a tornado yesterday. It was a tough setup to forecast and chase and you should be proud if you managed to get a tornado.

 

[Brian Emfinger]

Chased with Scott Bell today. We targeted the area southwest of McAlester and by the time we got there (we left about 230 from fort smith, ar) the storms that had been in s central OK came right to us. We got in good position near Gerty and saw nice rotation.

click here for video time lapse of storm - http://www.realclearwx.com/gertystorms.htm

we got a little too far behind after it crossed the n-s hwy 75 and we got a little lost trying to follow a dirt road e to hwy 31...we came out at Stuart and by that time a new storm had formed NW of McAlester so it all worked out. We saw very little rotation in the updraft and by the time we got caught up again after McAlester it was dark. We got on hwy 31 and now the trying to find a decent vantage point in the mountains game began....it was sooooooooooo fun. We followed the storm all the way into Fort Smith and nearly the whole way the wall cloud was pretty sustained albeit changing forms. This is from Quinton, OK looking ENE.

and about a hour later s of Spiro looking N

 

[Simon Brewer]

Well, my chase experience mirrors Mike Hollingshead almost perfectly, just without the good XM data.

I almost never have radar, I didn't have a weather radio nor a scanner, and Jim Bishop could only nowcast for me sporadically, so it was pretty much like an old fashioned chase from the 80's by going off my meteorological knowledge, intuition, and experience.

Mark McGowan was with me and we got 4 separate tornado warned supercells: first one was northeast of Salina, second was southwest of Topeka somewhere, and the other two were in Southeastern Kansas near the Iola area.

We didn't get to the storm near Iola in time for the Buffalo tornado (big thanks to Rocky Rascovich for telling me about the storm near Buffalo in the first place), but the rain-wrapped meso crossed SR 54 directly west of us by about half a mile near La Harpe; now we had, what I considered at the time, the best possible position to view a tornado when the storm passed by La Harpe, KS. All I could see was a well defined low-hanging, rapidly-rotating, rain-wrapped wall cloud with dark condensation fragments hanging near the ground, but I never saw a tornado. Maybe we were way too close and it was more obvious further away, but I didn't see a tornado near La Harpe.

Overall it was a nice day and it was incredible getting slammed by rotating rain-bands while the meso passed very near to our location

Big Rant About Lack of Radio Storm Coverage
And I don't know what the problem is, but all day long I was searching AM and FM radio stations feverishly (thanks to my lack of data during the chase) in eastern and southeastern KS and only a few stations that acknoledged the presence of tornadic storms let alone had decent coverage. I bet most locals just driving around in their cars were clueless to any apparent danger from tornadoes yesterday from the lack of radio coverage. I couldn't even find a station that regularly stated the warnings! One station from Kansas City acknoledged the fact that torndoes were occuring in southeast KS, but didn't go into any further detail, because they were not apparently in their main listening area even though I had incredible reception in Southeastern Kansas.

 

[Tony Laubach]

Verne and Michael Carlson, along with yours truely, intercepted a number of squall-line embedded storms from Smith Center, KS south and east into the Herington area. We jumped on two tornado warned storms; 1 near Miltonvale at the intersection of Us Highways 24 and 81 as well as another in the third squall line near Herington. We witnessed a disorganinzed wall cloud from our perch west of Miltonvale, but that's really about it for rotating stuff. We got bombarded with some quarter-sized hail a couple times and both of our vehicles fell victim to wind damage (Verne's magnets, my antenna).

Full report can be found here!

 

[Heath Schroeder]

Just wanted to add to what Samuel Stone mentioned. I work at Target as well as the radio station listed in my signature. Anyways, listening to the station I work for talking about dust devils and such I went to my receiving door looking towards the 11th and K61 intersection where the report of the tornado was and I personally didn't see a funnel but like Samuel said, maybe a landspout like the Newton KS one back in January. Saw dust/dirt swirl up from the ground as it was coming towards the store and then it blew like there was no tomorrow then it knocked power out for about 30 minutes. No damage to the store but most of the cart corrals in the parking lot were blown across the parking lot. One cart slamming into my supervisors car. There were two people working on the roof of the store when the "tornado" went by. They both are ok. One said the wind blew him across the roof on his rear. That is all I saw of it. The tornado sirens went off about 3 or 4 minutes after the tornado went by. The tornado ocurred right on the dryline that was moving through the area. No rain or hail. Just came out of nowhere. We were battling 25-40mph winds all day. Of all things, when the storm moved through, it apparently knocked some power lines down east of Hutchinson which sparked several grassfires. The area bounded by 20 square miles (4th Street to the south, 30th Street to the North, Applelane to the west and the Buhler/Haven Road to the east.) Some homes were destroyed by the fires, last I heard was 5 and 5,000 acres of land burned. I know that is a little off subject as far as tornadoes but the fires were sparked by powerline down due to the storm that rolled through.