4/24/08 DISC: KS/NE

[afischer]

WFO Hastings rated the damaging tornado that passed north/northeast of Beloit last night an EF-2, with a path length of 15 miles and maximum width of at least one-half mile.

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/crnews/display_story.php?wfo=gid&storyid=14349&source=0

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Radar sure looked interesting right then, with a big ball on the end of the newest hook. It's hard to believe it in a way, based off how long and linear it was and had been. But, one thing I noticed at Osborne where I let it pound me, was that it didn't have near the cold looking crap ahead of it like at Hill City. It wasn't embedded in that anymore, and it started pulling in intense inflow winds towards the north side of Osborne where an inflow notch was trying to get going.

After it passed Osborne this was the view east.

A very intense plume could be seen rocketing upward, and leaning over pretty good. This plume would fatten up, become more vertical, then have a bit of a curling RFD slot south/southwest of it.

I'll have to get more of these online and looked at, but it looked like right of the updraft, on the far right side there was a curling gust front. Then just above the ground, on the right edge, it looked like an inflow notch with an area of lower cloud base stretching se. All I know is at the time of these images, it's not far from Beloit. Whatever happened there, happened with that massive plume fattening up and cutting in and organizing. I never thought much of it at the time, just noting it was quite the impressive plume.

 

[Dustin Wilcox]

I was just east of Osborne trying to continue East towards Beliot, I took W 90th Dr out of Osborne and was trying to get to Rd 380, unfortunately there is a 2 mile area where the two are only linked by Mud roads, I went for it and got temporarily stuck, and got too far behind. Here are my pics of the storm East of Osborne about 8-10 Miles, just a few miles before the Tornado...

 

[afischer]

New page out from WFO Hastings with damage path map and damage photos. http://www.crh.noaa.gov/crnews/display_story.php?wfo=gid&storyid=14371&source=0

 

[Darrin Rasberry]

These pictures were taken near Jefferson, Iowa, at around 8:00 PM.

In #1 and #2, you can see the "lowering" we saw. Loud claps of thunder were nereby, and the precip core (which you can see in the third shot) was close. I established that this was not "deceptive scud" but was indeed attached to the cloud base.

In shot #3, on the right hand side of the lowering, I witnessed a small bottom-of-a-ceramic-bowl shape, that cannot be shown clearly here because the rain and descending darkness interfered with the picture.

I could not visibly detect any rotation ... but then again, I wasn' THAT close. I figured in any case the thing was too elevated, and a couple of minutes after the third shot, the lowering dissipated.

Any thoughts as to what this could be?

 

[rdale]

Looks like a wall cloud, non-rotating if you didn't see any spin...

 

[Shawna Davies]

Nighttime tornado environment & cap on 4/24-4/25/08

Jon Davies has started a weather blog. He made a couple posts about the overnight tornado environment in north central KS last Thursday 4/24/08, and another about the capping issues that day.

[FONT=&quot]Check out: http://davieswx.blogspot.com/[/FONT]

Jon has applied for membership to Storm Track, and will add his blog to the list. Just wanted to post this now for anyone interested in more weather info about 4/24/08.


Shawna Helt

 

[Darren Addy]

Ummm. Could I suggest that Jon Davies be approved for Stormtrack membership, post haste?

I had a question about the Kansas supercell we're discussing here. Ordinarily, a cell grows and sometimes takes on the (radar signature) shape of the "flying eagle" as a mature supercell. The storm that appeared SW of Atwood (and was initially moving N/NE) had a "flying eagle" signature from birth (and almost immediately split, sending the left side on the northward vector, while the remainder turned E/SE and was overrun by the storm behind it).

I'm wondering what that "flying eagle" shape, so early in the storm's development, tells us (if anything) about the localized moisture/wind field environment that the storm developed in?

 

[Mike Peregrine]

Yes - I second getting Jon in here ASAP.

Mike H's leaning tower of Cu shots above remind me of April 15, 2006 in NW Missouri ... seems like I've been on several storms with those stretched out towers that have produced tornadoes (that one near Lake Crystal, MN also comes to mind). The one near Maysville also had a tornado (multi vortex) that had a 15 mile track. I think it was F3 at the time.

Maysville MO 1
Maysville MO 2
Maysville MO 3

 

[Shawna Davies]

Ummm. Could I suggest that Jon Davies be approved for Stormtrack membership, post haste?

He applied for membership a couple of days ago. He's waiting for approval so he can start posting.

Shawna

 

[Darren Addy]

Gee, I hope his entrance essay passes muster.