4/24/08 REPORTS: KS/NE/IA

[fplowman]

Shot for the southern target. Set up in ST. John, Ks. waiting for the CAP to break. Arrived there around 5pm. Guess what? It never happened. Went back to KC.

Looks like there was a late show on the northern target. The Threatnet radar showed a healthy storm N. of Oakley. It is still going, moving east at the time of this post.

4 busts this year so far. Right around 3k miles. Todays chase was about 500 miles. Oh well maybe next time. Hey, gas is cheap!

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

Drat -- admins, this thread poppsed up right as I posed mine. I'll post my report here if you could kill the other thread. Thanks!

Pics later.

Chased today with Darren Addy in Kansas. Started out in Kearney, dropped down to Arapahoe, then down to Norton. Saw the initiation atop Goodland and slid over a county to Atwood to try to get in place for it to come over top of us. Didn't look too impressive from Atwood Then the thing split and took a right turn; we backtracked to Oberlin and then south to the Seldon intersection to try to get underneath it. About that time it started to go crazy-go-nuts, and took on the appearence of a bit of a mothership -- we couldn't see much of it, because we were right under it. It put down a few very organized wall clouds before we had to jet east and then south to Hoxie to avoid getting run over by the thing. Lots and lots of outflow on it; continued looking like a mothership. We stopped a few times, snapped a few more photos, and followed it east. We stopped briefly somewhere west of Hill City to snap a few shows of the DOW armada; the key to the DOW armada, though, is to leave BEFORE they do, otherwise you get stuck behind their redonkulous convoy, as we did. Not cool when the softballs are on their way and you need to drive fast. We got to Hill City, went atop a hill south of the town, and snapped a few photos of the city while we wondered if they were going to take a hit. Luckily, they didn't. After that we called it a night and drove home. That super is still tearing across Kansas as I type this -- that one HECK of a long lived cell, originally intercepted at around 6:30 or 7, STILL chasing it at 10:30PM, and it's still chugging along at midnight.

No tubes, but a GREAT chase.

It was nice to see a good, LONG lived storm.

 

[Tony Laubach]

No amount of wishcasting in the world was going to save the southern target, and the clearing skies along with the newly warned Goodland storm made us bolt back to the west where I intercepted the cell just to the southeast of Colby as the first tornado warning was issued.

I stayed with the cell through Hill City and finally abandoned it on KS-18 and stopped in Hays for the night.

Near Rexford, I observed a wall cloud and a pair of dust columns that looked suspicious. I ended up in strong RFD and followed Roger Hill back to US Hwy 24 on a series of dirt roads that were being taken out by the very strong RFD winds.

Continued east on Hwy 24 stopping a few times to snap some structure shots before blasting into Hill City for the sole purpose of beating someone to the car washes. Was hearing reports of softball hail and thought it would be better to observe that UNDER a shelter. The storm, which was moving southeast at the time, turned more easterly and stayed primarily north of town. Meanwhile, sirens were blasting and emergency crews driving through the neighborhoods on their loud speakers instructing residents to take cover.

Continued east on Hwy 24 where I did battle with a helacious core. Hail up to golfball size and winds easily approaching the 70mph mark hammered me near Bogue, Kansas. I got just east of there and stopped to turn around when the wind driven rain and hail were becoming too much. I let the hell pass and went back to Hwy 18 where I followed along with the storm through Palco and Plainville before electing to call it a night and head to Hays.

I was hearing reports of possible tornadoes, and as I write this, the thing is still warned for tornadoes, but the after dark experience and insanity it brought was good enough for me. I also elected to save me the five hours of drive time back home and crash out for the night here.

All-in-all, an exciting chaseto be had. The move to stay further west and split the north/south difference paid off dividends. After we left Ness City and got to Wakeeney, I was a bit frustrated that the southern target wasn't going to go. The storms that fired were in pretty weak SE flow, so I wasn't overly impressed with the tornado chances. In the end, it turned out very well as it was certainly the storm of the day.

Pics and vid caps to come soon.

 

[Van DeWald]

Intercepted the second warned cell west of Atwood, KS by early evening where I was treated to a 1" hail core, and then hail-covered hills and a beautiful rainbow on the west side.

Then I shot south of Atwood, but by this time, was on the west side of the hook. Met up with UNL students and hauled east on dirt roads to intercept the wall cloud. Never did see a tornado, but we heard this very weird sound, as if a sound engineer were adding those wind-type howling/growling effects that you heard in Twister. I've never heard it before, and it just kept getting louder and louder. This was just northwest of Rexford immediately as the storm went tornado warned (the same storm that continues even at this hour over eastern Kansas). Immediately after that eery howling sound, we got blasted with 50 to 60 mph RFD winds and a horrendous dust storm and got back in the car.

We jetted east to about 1 mile north of Rexford and grabbed this shot.

Again, getting blasted by RFD dust just after this. Ahead about 1/2 mile, we did see inflow dust being sucked up into the storm (contrast enhanced image below to make out the inflow dust), but then that was it.

After this, we couldn't find a good route east that wouldn't send us through the softball size core. By then, it was dusk, and my LASIK eyes just current see the dirt roads well enough, whether they were passable or not so I bagged. I did follow the storm further east on paved roads, following just behind on US24 as it moved through Hoxie, Moreland, Hill City, Bogue, and Stockton, eventually just 1 or 2 miles behind the meso past Hill City to Stockton. Let it continue east past Stockton as I headed north for Kearney and eventually home.

Summary: A great chase, will be about 900 miles round trip when I get home tomorrow. Was also my first chase with Alltel Data. Had a connection about 95% of the time, so can't really complain about that at all.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Was on the nw KS storm most of its life. The best part of the chase I guess is just the evolution of the thing. I wasn't liking what I saw when it was moving north on radar, but the updraft base looked like it was forming se of the old one(all rather high based yet). I flip around and watch it form/move se after all that. Also watched the cell just sw of it merge. Really cool stuff. As it merged, after turning hard se, it had a long inflow band going se, and strange fanning formations east of it going west into it...lowest beavertail there was convective for a bit. Inflow winds began raging nw of Hoxie. And so began the dust in teh contacts fest. It then had scooping dust plumes, and a big wall cloud, but the wall cloud was on the wrong side of the cut.

Beat it through Hill City as the radio made it sound like the city was going to vanish. Poor Hill City police department, as they had a pretty good group of chasers again tonight. I agree with Ryan...gotta beat the dow gang. I never saw them the whole chase till Hill City. Never saw that many chasers really. But boy they had a line behind them.

I had a decent view twice from the east of it, west of Hill City and east of Hill City, and if there was any tornado, it was extremely rain wrapped. Had a pretty good looking curl in there.

I decide to just stay ahead and get going home. Then while getting gas in Osborne KS I hear the 80mph softballs warning/report for Stockton and east. I was like, sweet. I decided to stay in Osborne and let it get me there. It was tornado warned again as it moved over, but it was a big shelf. Thing was it had really strong inflow winds up to the moment the shelf was on you. It was also peppering me with small hail well ahead of it. Then a giant stone smacks my car somewhere and scares the crap out of me. I don't know how big they got, but looked like sporadic baseballs bouncing in teh mix, and the occasional very loud thud somewhere on the car. Winds picked up with them, but probably only to the 60mph range.

I then try to get that room I saw, but of course no one is working any longer. Sigh! Head to Smith Center, and get slammed by high winds on the way from taht other storm. Then see power flashes near the city. Then get hit by what must have been pushing 80mph winds. Ain't looked at my car yet, but there's likely tumbleweed damage, lol. That or something else big hit it hard. The car took a fair beating today between those and teh hail. Anyway, get to Smith Center, late, and sure enough, no one workign at the small motels. I get a second wind on the way to Hastings, but it doesn't last long. Once you lose that second wind, as far as staying awake driving, you are toast. 2:30 now and just got a room in Hastings. Screw driving 3 more hours. Probably would have tried if it weren't for all that freaking blowing dirt residing on my contacts now.

It really was a nice supercell. It just lost a lot of its good visual looks by Hill City. At Osborne it seemed to get it's act together again just east of town. After the big hail, there was a really nice view of the vigorous updraft....thought a little sprinkly. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Edit: I was wondering how long lived that supercell was, and it appears to have had supercell characteristics from 23:30z to 6:30z.....7 hours. I'm a little amazed it was able to tornado near Beloit, after letting it pass over me in Osborne. I can see the structure of the thing from the west side as it lead into that happening...in some stills I shot looking east. The structure I can make out makes me believe it likely was indeed a tornado...or at least very well could have been. Radar representation was strong at that time too. Evidently this is the year I let storms go, so the can immediately tornado(back to back now).

Early 3 hours radar from Goodland
3 hour loop starting at the end time of the Goodland one, but from Hastings.

 

[Bob Schafer]

I targeted around McCook NE, and a nice storm (according to radar) went up WSW of there, but the roads simply would not cooperate. So, as everything evolved, I made 62 U-turns as I kept changing my mind about what to do.

Then the stuff that came out of CO went nuts, so I went after it, only to have it on my @$$ for the next 3 hours. Shades of May 27, 2001, as I did U-turn 63, drove 80 mph trying to escape the muther, and still I couldn't get away from it. I NEVER crunched as much tumbleweed before as today, by a factor of a lot. Every freaking 30 minutes, just when I thought I had escaped, I look at the radar and there's another "hook" 5 miles to my SW.

So, long after sunset, I decide I haven't endured enough for the day, and decide to go chase the "Hill City" (or whatever) storm, which I did for another few hours. I got as far as Minneapolis (KS), now with my gas gauge almost on "E", and could not find a gas pump that was "pay at the pump 24/7". I had been looking for an hour.

Now I have no clue where I am. Somewhere S of Salina.

I probably won't know where I am tomorrow night, either.

 

[Dick McGowan]

Started out the day trying to target south and ended up being as disappointed as everyone else who was down there. Moved back north and intercepted the storm near Hill City and ended up seeing one probable tornado around Stockton. Then seemed to never be able to get ahead of the storm again. Saw a powerflash when the big tornado near Beloit was happening but we couldn't make it out from behind and ended the chase east of Concordia about 2.

It was pretty interesting driving by deployed DOW probes thinking...'oh *****!'. Hopefully they got some good data as a funnel cloud moved over the road about 30 seconds after that.

 

[Doug Mitchell]

Best screencap I could get of the report 4 S of Stockton, looking north from somewhere a few miles north of Plainville, KS. 2 grungy funnels, the one on the right persisted for about 20-30 seconds per my film, the one of the left lasted about 45 seconds. The one on the right may have briefly touched down before the screen shot as it was about 3/4ths of the way to the ground. The second one maybe have been on the ground for as long as 30 seconds, was much better defined after this screenshot and showed some signs of multiple suctions. I'm not sure if the whole thing was part of one circulation but it was definitely rotating hard. The DOWs must've gotten incredible data of this seeing that they were practically right under this feature as it passed over 183.

 

[J.B. Dixon]

Similar experiences to everyone else it sounds like. I intercepted the cell south of Oberlin just as it was beginning to evolve into something substantial. It just seemed like it was in a spot early on where low-level shear just wasn't all there. When I got to the cell, SPC meso showed a pocket of 250+ 01 KM shear in the North Platte area (zip in this cell's area....kinda what we were afraid of all day), and from the way this cell looked at the time, I could believe it. It just looked like it was mising something. I sat east of Seldon for a while and got some good video as the meso really began to crank. What a beautiful vault that thing had.

About this time I made what could've been a very bad decision. Playing the time & travel game, I decided since the cell was taking a right turn, I would head E instead of S towards Hoxie. I just didn't want to make my return trip any longer than it already would be, and I was already satisfied with what I had seen. Inflow winds were raging, as I plowed through tumbleweeds like I was playing a video game, and losing. I knew I had to get out in front of the core, but I wasn't sure I would make it. Panic set in when I see Mike Umscheid turn around in front of me. No turning back now, I was eastbound and down.

After a few plunks of quarter-sized hail, I feared the worst. Fortunately, I made it out. 15 minutes later, reports of baseball-sized hail came in at about that very same location. I should've probably just sucked it up and headed south to Hoxie then towards Hill City, but like Mike H. elluded to, I knew the drive home would be a lot more dangerous than the actual chase, just from fatigue (and deer....they were everywhere!).

Fun chase. Wasn't sure if I had it in me to go that far west after leaving Lincoln at 3:00 PM. I'm glad I did. I'll chalk it up to a successful first chase of the season. Great structure and evolution when that jet kicked in. Timed it just right.

 

[Mike Umscheid]

I was able to leave work right at 4pm for yesterday's chase. As I posted in the FCST thread, the area I was most interested in was along and north of US-24 to Nebraska. I met up with Tony Laubach and Verne Carlson for a short time east of Ness City as some cumulus were somewhat intriguing at the nose of a small scale mixed-out warm plume where convergence was locally maximized. I told myself that if the Cu didn't look any better in 45 minutes, I would bolt northwest where I was extremely confident there would be a sustained surface based severe storm where the deep tropospheric forcing was much better across Northwest KS. The first storms were developing with some decent echoes aloft around Goodland, and at that point, I continued north to Wakeeney, then northwest to Hoxie, to my first stopping point south of Rexford. The southern storm had some nice shape to it and appeared to be supercellular, but it was small. Of interest at the time was a larger mass of convective updraft due north. These two storms merged northwest of Rexford, and the storm really took off. Of course, it was getting well into the evening by this point, but the supercell structure was quite fine...although high based. The westernmost portion of the storm revealed an interesting lowered feature, which I guess you could call a wall cloud, but there was a lot of outflow dust beneath it looking roughly west from near Hwy 23-83 junction at Seldon. It was too dark for handheld photography, so I tried my best to get the tripod setup for some 1-3 second wide angle exposures amidst strong east inflow winds and blowing dust.

Now, idiot me, I continued east on Hwy 9, instead of joining the masses heading south on 23 to Hoxie. I guess I was expecting the storm to move more due east...and from my perspective due east of the storm, the structure was pretty good from a photography standpoint. After somehow successfully dodging all the giant tumbleweeds in the howling northeast winds, I stopped briefly about 6 W New Almelo for more long-exposure photography on the tripod before I began to get pelted by quarter-size hail. Looking to the west-southwest, the supercell structure looked pretty darn good from this vantage point on Highway 9, so the decision to head east instead of south I guess wasn't so bad after all. Of course, by the time I got far enough east to reach a south option again at Hwy 283, it was dark, and there was little if any decent lightning illuminated structure. I reached Hill City amidst blaring tornado sirens, continuing south hopefully far enough south to get out of the cloud canopy so I can get a nice distant view of supercell structure. It really wasn't to be. I did stop at a high spot south of Hill City where other spotters and chasers also stopped, but by this time, the supercell circulation was east of Hill City. There were a lot of lightning illuminated "hangy downies" just west of where the radar had strongest rotation near Hill City. There was nothing more to shoot of interest photography wise, so I headed south towards Wakeeney in hopes that maybe a very distant view of the storm could be interesting, but even that wasn't all that was cracked up to be, so I continued to Wakeeney, ate dinner, and headed home. A fun little chase. Below are a few images (all 12mm wide angle):

looking west from near Seldon as the supercell updraft was fairly close.

looking due west from junction of Hwy 23 & 123 about 2 miles south of Leoville.

looking west-southwest from Hwy 9 about 6 miles west of New Almelo.

Mike U

 

[afischer]

Departed KC at 11am and after a couple data stops reached Norton KS at 5pm. Headed southwest shortly after to a point south of Oberlin to watch convection evolve coming out of the Goodland vicinity. The nondescript lead cell did a fujiwara N then NW of the trailing stuff. Dropped south farther still to keep track of the tail end of the convection. Surface winds were responding and decent... easterly at 10-15kts. It looked like the tail end wanted to develop some fairly stout structure with cellular characteristics, and a couple of neat inflow bands. At ~810pm someone "flipped the switch", and inflow began absolutely howling westward into this thing. Watched a high contrast wall cloud form (like Van's, but from the other side) from an intersection northeast of Seldon KS... the storm was looking impressive considering 75/48 at the surface. Outflow began to undercut the updraft via large sheets of dirt lofted ahead of it. I was too busy trying to beat the storm to Hill City to look at it much, but when I did it looked like a typical HP with a huge precip dump. From south of Hill City I watched some cloud base lowerings, but looked like mostly scud south of a rain-wrapped meso. With the storm seemingly weakening and heading east into a wretched road network, I let it go. A little disappointed to have missed the crazy tornado 2.5 hours later, but the idea I could have reacquired a decent view and then stuck with it through the wastelands of Rooks, Osborne, and Mitchell counties is doubtful at best. Good first chase of the year. Too bad richer moisture didn't back up a little farther west per the morning models... could have been very interesting.

 

[Shane Adams]

Had McDonald's in Blackwell, OK. Sat in Anthony, KS for about three hours, watching the spotter network page and laughing at everybody else who hadn't moved in over three hours, waiting in vain. Figured there might be something after dark north, but said "screw it" as we've had enough night chases where we're in danger with zero payoff of actually getting to see what's gonna kill us. Was back home in time to see a few radar loops of the NC Kansas storm, and could truthfully say "I'm glad we left early". I knew we were in trouble when MikeU mentioned subsidence waaay early on yesterday's forecast thread, and all day long as I sat baking I kept hearing his words..."I will be humbled if there's a supercell in that area today/tonight." Well U, worry you not...there was none.

I figured this was worthy of a post, because in this day and age where chasing is so ridiculously-easy, it's a bigger deal when chasers bust than when they see tornadoes LOL. A clear sky bust once in a while is good for the soul.

 

[Darren Addy]

Terrific chase day on a very long-lived supercell. I had feared that the biggest problem would be choosing the right target from among many, but it wasn't a real issue since it was (in effect) the Tail End Charlie that started the initiation west of Goodland and went on to become the Show of the Day.

It was strange to me that it appeared to be on a North-Northeast vector while everything else was moving to due NE, but it soon split and the majority of the storm took a hard right while it was overrun by the storm from behind. We weren't sure how that would affect it, but it just appeared to bulk up and then start to reel in the moisture feeding into it from the E-SE.

We wanted to get E/SE of it without getting cored and it looked like we were going to make it when the wall cloud formed (in a matter of a minute or two, it seemed).

Coulda sworn it was gonna produce. This was just north of Seldon/Rexford, looking west from the highway.

I wish I could have gotten some shots of this, (and should have told Ryan to take it with his superwide) but where this shot was taken we have driven under the inflow beavertail which is feeding into the storm from almost due east. We are just a bit south of it in the pics and shooting west. But you could actually see inflow condensation at different levels on this storm. There was another from the E-SE and another (higher) from the SE. The moisture was apparently deep and this storm, from the east side looked like a giant pinwheel with (what appeared to be) three separate inflow bands at different heights. You could literally see where the helicity was coming from. That was amazingly cool, in itself.

We (along with others) feared for Hill City, as it appeared to be on a direct path but the storm changed directions (yet again) and Hill City lives to see another day as it passed just north of town.

Since home was almost due north of us and we were more than satisfied with the day, we headed for home. By the time we reached Norton the storm was due east of us again. Apparently, the cell wanted to see SE Nebraska before it gave up the ghost. Haven't yet figured out if this was the cell associated with the apparent Nebraska tornado in Johnson.

Looking forward to seeing chase partner Ryan O'Ginniss' pics when they show up at his blog. (Mine were taken with a crappy little Canon point & shoot, as if you couldn't tell).

Darren Addy
Kearney, NE

 

[Michael O'Keeffe]

Drove down I35 with a target west of Wichita, got to El Dorado saw things weren't happening turned around and went home. What a waste of gas and money. This season for us personally has taken a toll with numerous bust. I'm praying we have an active May and June when we could actually see one or two widespread tornado outbreaks. Which seems likely as most La Nina years do tend to be late bloomers across the Plains.

 

[Tim Marshall]

SHORT: Target was Pratt, KS. Saw a few towers and nice antique stores in Wichita.

LONG: Kay and I headed up I-35 from Dallas and stopped short of the target in Wichita. It was cool and cloudy there with towers ALQDS. I saw those mid-90 temps in W OK behind the dryline and the MCD issued for OK, so we stayed put. My wife decided to shop antique stores and then we had an early dinner. I saw the cap would prevail and headed back to Dallas. A long way to go for scrap metal and dinner. TM