We targeted Chanute, KS in anticipation of a meslow/DL buldge pushing east throughout the afternoon in SC Kansas. Chad Lawson, Jo Radel, and myself met up with J.R. Hehnly in Norman, then headed to the target. We blew a right rear tire west of Stroud, and quickly threw on the doughnut and limped the 12 miles east into town. "Bill" at Stroud Tire & Auto Supply was very courteous, and had us fixed up in short order.Later in the trip we stopped at Nowata, OK for a fill-up. There we ran into Steve Bluford and friend, who were checking data. They said they were staying in the area to see what would develop. We said our goodbyes once the tanks were full and were off again.
We found a nice spot off of US169 just north of Chanute, and sat there to watch how things developed. Within 15 minutes, a storm fired 20 miles south of us, west of Parsons. We left immediately back south on US169 to KS47, where we turned east. As we drove east, the storm was severe-warned. We drove to US59, and turned south. A few miles later, the base came into view. It was a classic RFB and had some interesting scud activity, so we were hopeful. However trees were becoming a huge problem, so we opted to take a county road west. For the next 5-10 minutes, we stair-stepped the county roads WSW to get in closer to the updraft. After some more visibility isues (again involving trees), we finally made it out in front of this thing with a clear view.
By the time we had found a place to stop, the striations in the updraft were evident; this storm was spinning like a top. The base was still high, but within minutes began to lower rapidly. Scud developed quickly and was pulled into the updraft as a wallcloud formed almost instantly. Rotation was still increasing and we knew it was just a matter of a few moments. A large cone funnel developed, and by this time it was just west of us by maybe a half-mile. Rotation increased even further, and was now violent. JR was just north of us facing north, while we were facing south. We stayed until we lost our nerve and then raced south about 50-100 yards, while JR stood his ground. We turned the car around to point north, and I half worridly/half angerly shouted into the radio to JR to "get the hell outta there!!!" "His lone reply during my repeated pleas was "I'm ok." LOL
The funnel moved over the road, just north of us, when the first condensation finger formed in the air above JR, then touched the ground just to the right of him, starting a whirl of grass and tree debris. I still don't think JR realized how close he was to this thing. The tornado then became a multiple vortex with the large truncated cone above, as it writhed in the field about 300 yards to the northeast. It began to intensify, and a glance upwards showed the tornado was coming from just the east side of the circulation; the entire violent circulation was much wider, and a large and strengthening tornado seemed imminent from this small multi-vortex. As the tornado began to move off to the ENE, RFD crashed us hard and we began to lose visibility as the rain/hail wrap overtook us. After a brief break in the winds, they hit even harder, filled with rain. Just as the top winds hit us (60-70mph from the NW), JR got stuck doing a six-point turn. We had been bailing out to the south in reverse as this happened, but stopped once we saw he was stuck (what we could've done for him I don't know, but we weren't going to leave him there to the storm all alone). Fortunately, his 4-wheel drive did its job and he was able to free himself within 30 seconds, and both vehicles bailed out and continued south. Driving, we'd lost the tornado in the wrap around...but as we came to our next east option and turned, we looked back NE to discover a large stovepipe tornado. (We aren't sure if this was the same tornado or not, but at the time I assumed it was the same one.)
We moved east as the tornado grew larger, to the biggest size of its lifecycle. At its largest/strongest point, it looked very similar to the May 24, 1973 Union City tornado. WE flanked it from the SW over the raminder of its life, as it slowly, gracegully, almost stubbornly roped out. We turned north and were surprised to see the tornado had made a bit of a "comeback" and once again had a snakey funnel 3/4 to the ground. As this phase finally began to ropeout for good, it looked a lot like the crazy farmer video from Nebraska.
We came back to US59 and crossed over, continuing east. Within a mile, the next tornado was down, a graceful, slender white snake. We came in right behind it, as it seemed to stall and sort of meandor around the meso in a circle. As this happened, we came into a clear area right behind it, as it writhed just beyond a distant treeline less than a mile east of us. We got out and shot video, as the rotation became violent. The skinny white snake suddenly anchored into the ground and began spewing a huge red dirt debris whirl, and as this was happening the tornado's raor could be heard. We shot video until we started getting pounded by heavy hail again, as the tornado became completely wrapped up and vanished into a thick core of rain/hail. We moved east again, and either the same tornado re-emerged from the core or a new one developed, as suddenly we had a strong/violent tornado directly across the road from us. We drove east until we feared driving into it, then held up and watched it move north of the road. Shortly after this, it wrapped up and vanished, and we carefully crept east behind it.
About a mile later our chase was stopped by downed trees completely blocking the road. A few chasers ahead of us in the small convoy that had been stopped were outside trying to move the heavy tree limbs. We jumped out and asisted them, to no avail. This was an entire tree, and it wasn't going anywhere. A short time later some men showed up with a chain-saw and made quikc work of the blocking tree. As this was happening, we discovered that our right FRONT tire was flat - that's two flats in the same day now. JR and I did a NASCAR tire change to get the doughnut back on, then all the 4-wheel drive guys plowed around what was left of the tree through the thick mud path other vehicles before us had made. Last to come through was Chad and Jo in Chad's Ford Taurus, as I ran behind them and pushed to keep the momentum up. I nearly fell and busted my a** just as they brokw free of the mud, but at least our chase was back on.
We never recovered in time to see the other tornado reported near Cherokee, but what we had seen was more than enough. In Pittsburg, we desperately sought out anyone who could repair the full-sized tire but had no luck. We were facing a 275-mile drive back home with a doughnut at 60mph. We pulled into a Good Year shop where a semi truck loaded with tires was sitting with its lights on. No employees were there to help us, but we met a nice woman who just happened to be getting dropped off to pick up her car. She offered us to stay at her place for the night, but we kindly declined, as we all had work the next day. We decided to just limp the car home, but first a stop for pizza and a beer to celebrate. The nice lady told us Pizza Hut was our only option.
As we were finishing our meal, the manager came to out table and asked "are you guys stormtrackers?" We replied that yes we were, and he said "you've got a phone call from someone at WAL-MART." We were flabergasted. As it turned out, the kind woman at Good Year had gone to Wally World, told them of our delima, and gotten someone to agree to fix our tire. It had to have been her; no one else knew we were at Pizza Hut.
We went to WAL-MART, got the tire fixed for FREE, and headed home. This chase was the most amazing tornado experience of my life, it topped Mulvane.
Time for the full report and a few shots. We had targeted NE Kansas/NW Missouri today and decided to head west toward what became the Atchison cell as it was forming to the southwest of Hiawatha, Kansas. We got under the anvil ... saw some nice crisp mammatus, and headed south on 75 to intercept the rotation, meeting a couple fellow chasers from the board here (Ryan Pfannuch I think?). Interestingly, near Horton there was what appeared to be a house on fire JUST EAST of the primary rotation on the storm, with firetrucks and police surrounding the place. I was hoping the storm would spare them while they were trying to do their job and it narrowily did. I was not anticipating such a right turn in this storm, moving it to the southeast. We followed directly east, then south, then east, then south again. Each time getting lost in horrible wrapping downdraft and then re-emerging into the cage to see the meso again. To the west of Atchison the storm produced ground circulation in the middle of some light wrapping rain, and then again south of Atchison it produced again, this time with a condensation funnel ... Ben, you describe your position really close to the location where we observed this ... we were just north of you. It's difficult to make out in the photos/video, simply because we were surrounded by rain and hail (YUCK!) ... but then the real fun begins. The hail core caught up with us in a BIG way. There was nowhere to go but to take shelter to the side of a large oak that offered minimal protection. My car still has a million new dents thanks to today's storm. The hail piled up like snow around us, mixed with limbs, leaves, etc. The storm continued a southerly turn over the river and we decided that the meso was appearing too disheveled at this point and wanted to get home and work on the vid. Were glad to catch what we did, but these super HP storms wear me out big time ... 
