4/24/07 REPORTS: TX / OK / KS / CO

[Skip Talbot]

Chased the Rice County KS supercell with Andrew Pritchard, and Chad Cowan, observed a rope/dusty multiple vortex tornado near Nickerson, KS. It was down and up several times, but spawned from a single meso. The storm had a beautiful, updraft base, and very pretty sunset colors later on. Here are a couple of Chad's shots, I posted for him as he is not yet a member:

Full log, pictures, and video

Video of the Nickerson supercell and weak, mulitple vortex tornado

 

[Michael O'Keeffe]

4/24/07 REPORTS: KS/OK/TX/CO

My best chase ever! It was crazy!!! I was on the storm near Hutchinson, KS that produced multiple tornadoes. I was on the storm from its first updraft and the structure of the best was gorgeous, the most incredible strucuture I have EVER seen!!! Rapid rotation was quickly obtained and a persistant funnel/tornado? occured. Soon after multiple photogenic tornadoes dropped one right after another from the best mesocyclone you could get. We followed the storm to McPherson where I am now.

Will post pics and a chase repot ASAP.

 

[Jason Bolt]

I too was on the Reno/Rice Co. storm from its initiation near the Reno/Stafford Co. line. Initially it was very rain obscured and seemed to fall apart then it cycled and put down several funnels. From my vantage point I could not see ground contact, but it seems many others got a better view than I did. Still it was great to watch that storm all the way through its lifecycle! Congrats to Mike and others that were in good position on that storm.

 

[John Farley]

Kansas bust

We seem to have 2 REPORTS threads for today. Perhaps the mods can combine them. Anyway, congratulations to Skip, Michael, and all of you who were on the Nickerson storm and caught the tornadoes. For me, it was pretty much a bust day. I got suckered way too far northeast following storms from south of Manhattan up to Holton, KS and beyond. I was hoping some magic might occur when these storms approached the warm front, but it was not to be. Moreover, I got overrun by the storm I was attempting to chase on route 99 north of I-70, and was caught in blinding rain and gusty wind (40-50 mph, I'd guess) for 10 or 15 white-knuckle minutes (no hail though). I then meandered around looking at various storms in the area around Blaine before futilely blasting east to try to catch the storm that produced marginally severe hail around Maple Hill and Holton. Had I left these storms earlier rather than following them so long, I might have been able to get back west in time to catch the Nickerson storm. As it was, I was drooling at it from about 100 miles away, west of Topeka, knowing I had zero chance of catching it before dark. Also didn't help that I was slowed by detours in both Holton and Topeka, the latter of which I could have easily avoided with better road choices. A truly humbling day! Well, maybe tomorrow will bring something better in Missouri or environs, but it does not look all that promising.

 

[Wesley Luginbyhl]

I chased with Ryan Jarratt and David Haas on the Reno County storm. We flew north out of Norman after most of OK's potential was being wiped out by that early mess. We drove to Blackwell, OK for some lunch and decide to head west to see some sunny skies and to check out Wakita, OK. As the dryline intensified to our NW, we drifted gradually NW till we got about 10 miles from the end of the line. I was not expecting much from any of this as it looked like it was going into a line as well. We advanced closer to core punch it a few times so the day was not a complete waste. As we approached the storm from the south, a clear slot had begun to form and a ragged looking funnel came out. After seeing some potential in this storm we decided to stay as close as possible. I wanted to be able to see the rotation, did we ever.

Saw atleast 3 funnels before confirming a touchdown, we were about a mile out so they could have touched down too. We moved into and stayed in the clear slot for the next 20 minutes. First touchdown was about a quatermile down the road. Went through some trees and powerlines and did no obvious damage to anything. It moved east into a field so we drove in behind and got video from a couple hundred yards at most as it stirred up the field. It took a couple more miles and good driving to keep from hitting people who like to park in the middle of a paved road (a picture will come later of this news media vehicle, he just about got rammed by the car in front of me). We repositioned down another dirt road and watch a new debris cloud go through another grove of trees and a maybe a house.

The main area of circulation had moved well to our east we believed as we drove down the road that had just been hit. We were driving behind a small pickup as we apprached an intersection, when an area of circulation began to bounced down the road maybe 50-100 yards in front of us right through a pickup and a car. After it passed we made it to the intersection and went east. As we went east we saw the debris get kick back up off the field less than 50 yards to the north of us as we moved east and entered another area of trees.

At every house we seemed to pass, the residents were outside with cameras, even the ones it just went directly overhead. We stopped and talk to some of them as we watch the numerous funnels. Stopped and talked to one guy who was taking pictures as the funnel had just passed directly over his house. He said he use to chase back in the day and would have had his camcorder out if had not just got home.

Didnt have to many issues even with the large number of chasers who showed up after this thing got going. Biggest problems came from news media and some locals who liked to stop in the road, but i dont hold anything against locals who might be a little freaked out with this going over their home. I couldnt have imagined how bad this would have been if this wasnt KS with its large number of road options that kinda kept every one spread out.

Not the most impressive storm, but it definitely tops some other days on my list.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSVJcfeiJJU

Here are a couple pics (look at the area to the right of the truck, objects in the air):

You can not park like this unless you are law enforcement or EOC, this vehicle is neither.

 

[Mikey Gribble]

I was on the storm NW of Hutchinson too and got 6-7 tornadoes. I am going to have to review video to get a solid count. This was one of those storms where somebody could claim 10 plus tornadoes with creative counting methods. I am being pretty conservative with 6-7. These weren't tornadoes that went up and touched back down equaling two. There were 6-7 tornadoes seperated in space and time. We were right under the mesocyclone all day and you would have had to be to see the ground circulation with half of the tornadoes. They were all very weak. There were just so many tornadoes that would die out and then a new funnel would form a half mile away and touch down too. I swear we saw more than 25 funnels tonight. There were a few times when there were multiple funnels at the same time.
Anyways, Lindsey Butor, Ryan Shirk, and I watched the storm from start until dark. Jordan Hartley and his wife also caravaned with us. The storm was pathetic for several hours. It took a lot of restraint for us to stay put when a tornado warning was issued for the storm North of us, but obviously it paid off to stay on the southern cell. After 2-3 hours of virtually no structure, the storm quickly began to organize and developed a bowl shaped updraft. Shortly after that it had rapid vertical motion and rotation, then came the funnels. The tornadoes were all very weak. None of them had a condensation funnel all the way to the ground. They were all basically funnels with dust clouds at the ground. We did get very close to almost all of them. It was a very fun chase since we were so close. There were good road networks and the storm wasn't moving all that fast so it just worked out perfectly. We got within a couple hundred yards on several of the tornadoes.
10-11 tornadoes in the last two days has definitely made my season a lot better. The tornadoes weren't impressive by any stretch of the imagination today, so yesterday's chase was way better, but I still had a great time. It was amazing how many chasers there were on that storm by the end of the day. There was hardly anybody on the storm for the first few funnels and tornadoes, but then the population sky rocketed. I think we attracted every chaser in the state. Congrats to everybody else who bagged some tornadoes today.
Here is a pic of one of the tornadoes and two funnels side by side. I am too tired to upload any more tonight and I'm sure there will be plenty of other pics on here.

 

[Glenn Dixon]

I ended up doing a 'lazy man's' chase, precipitated by hearing of storm damage near my house. My neighbor lost part of a tree, but the neighborhood was fine. Things did not go so well for a nearby business, however.

http://thedixons.net/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=153

 

[Martin Kucera]

Was on the Hutchinson storm as well. Got pretty much under the meso, and as soon as the bowl shaped large funnel came to view, I captured a nice video of a debris cloud on the ground. The cell went on to produce several more needle like tubes/funnels and then the RFD came in. The storm gusted out shortly after. What a nice looking supercell just before sunset.

 

[kenny_allen]

Kansas Tornadoes / Funnels

Our chase team observed three tornadoes and several funnels between Ellsworth, KS and Sterling, KS tonight. No major hail. Heavy rain at times.

We lost some of the tornado video because we were right underneath, (and I mean right underneath) a dropping funnel. We had to shut the cameras off and get out of there quick. We have about a 40 second clip of it dropping right down on us at our website. www.SevereStudios.com

 

[Reed Timmer]

We saw the Reno Co. tornadoes as well...

Incredible structure!

I've got the video posted on http://tornadovideos.net

We were initially on the first tornado warned cell, and made it south just in time. Would have been nice to have gotten closer.

 

[Skip Talbot]

Should clarify that this is Andrew Pritchard again one last time on Skip's computer. I wondered how many tornadoes people would claim from this storm. I too, as Skip mentioned chased this storm, but am only claiming to have seen one tornado. Yeah, it dropped several times and often in different forms, but was all in a fairly close time period, and from the same meso and organized area of rotation. I can't justify calling it 10 different tornadoes. A 10 second dust whirl followed by another 20 seconds later is not two seperate tornadoes.

Either way, it was an amazing chase. We had almost lost hope but decided to give the Kansas game a shot when we saw the towers going up and lucked out. I'll upload pics and maybe video of the tornadoes once I get home, but for now here are a couple stills of the structure of the storm.

 

[Caleb Kimbrough]

We were also on the Rice County storm... We observed 6-7 tornadoes/funnels including three separate ones at the same time.

Absolutely a beautiful storm. I'm not at my house right now and won't be until tomorrow, but when I get there I'll post some pictures...

Caleb

 

[cedwards]

I was also on the Rice co, storm. Incredible structure with a nice tornado with at least 4 touchdowns. I was with Matt Crowther, Rocky Rachovich, my wife and dog.
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[Craig Maire II]

Today!

I was on two seperate and nice/awsome storms today, the first was in north west Rice County and it produced a wall cloud/2 brief but very nice looking funnel clouds (a few miles north of the town of chase) and the 2nd storm was in Reno and Rice Counties (seemed like everyone was there!) Saw and shot video of 4 brief tornados and got some spectacular LP storm structure! Was definitely a great chase and am glad no one was hurt by either of these storms! Pics will be on my website tomorrow

 

[Simon Brewer]

Short Story: Got Rice Co., KS tornadoes; nice structure and fun close encounters with weak tornadic circulations.

EDIT: Administrator removed comment about reckless driving by a chase tour -- the chase tour company contacted us constructively and we will make a one-time exception.