5/14/07 REPORTS: KS / CO / NE / IA /WI

[Michael Carlson]

Chased with Tony Laubach and Dann Cainca today out in Eastern Colo. We intercepted the tornado warned cell that passed through Hudson Colo. I didn't see any touch downs but some good hail and strong straight line winds. After core punching the Hudson cell I headed south down to Last Chance Colo. where I met Eric Treese. Headed home after the storms went MCS. Thanks goes out to Mike O'Keeffe and my Dad for nowcasting for me!

 

[David Wolfson]

Started in Pierre, SD, a bit late due to needing to have a tire repaired. The target was down US183 (Elm Creek - Holdrege - Alma, NE), to be fine tuned as we approached where we thought the front would be by late afternoon. Indeed, the first cells started up south of Holdrege in mid-afternoon while we were still about 1 1/2 hours out. Over the period as we approached cells developed along a WSW-ENE line, some tops spiking to 50k, to east and west of the initial cell. The individual cells merged and gradually back-built down the front.

No meso circulations were observed by radar on the line until it had back-built to south of Oakley, KS, in the early evening. The shear profile was somewhat remarkable with the building towers tending to back-shear, due to the rather odd situation of upper winds lagging mid-and low-levels. The individual cells would move ENE at 15 or so until they matured, then they would stall.

As we approached the line south of Holdrege about 17:30 CDT what might be considered the great grandmother cell was still mumbling and bumbling in our path, spiking a new tower to about 55k with radar estimated 2" hail. Risk/reward sent us west to US283, the next opportunity southward through the line, and the general direction of the back-build. The log shows we were approximately at the NE/KS state line approaching Norton, KS, when a brief tornado (landspout?) was later reported just east of Lenore -- directly to our south blocked from our view by precip.

As the whole situation looked a bit discouraging with the line back-building out of reach into even slacker winds, we easily punched east to Phillipsburg, KS, bagging "monster" hail of some peas with a few soft marbles thrown in. Ate at Subway in Phillipsburg around 19:30 CDT. Wailed at the Chasing Gods' treatment of May now and prognostically to come, and went home....

The moral of the account is that precisely targeting a crappy setup is quite likely to be successful in reaching one, and another donation to Big Oil.

 

[Steve Burrows]

We had a long drive down from Miles City, Montana. Reached Grand Island on Dusk. Witnessed a nice lightning display and hopefully are in a better position for tomorow.

 

[Kevin Myatt]

Our Virginia Tech-UNCA-et al team of 12 made a hard run out of Virginia on Sunday to catch some modest severe storms on Monday in central Iowa. We orginally targeted the Minnesota-Iowa border region near Mason City but had to recover southward as things developed farther southeast than expected. Ended up catching a severe storm near Webster City, Iowa, narrowly avoiding the hail core at one point. Saw some decent structure and gave the students a good run-through of a chase day when (if?) more significant severe weather fires next week. We'll follow the frontal convection into Illinois today. It's about all we've got for a few days.

More on our 2-week chase trip at Roanoke.com.

 

[Jeff Lawson]

I didn't chase the Ft. Lupton/Hudson/Prospect Valley storm. However, the core passed directly over my house in Firestone, so I got a good taste of it nonetheless.

Initially, I was expecting to miss out on the action, as the original storm which had been hugging the Boulder/Larimer County as it drifted east looked to pass just north of my location. However, the second storm literally exploded two or three miles west of me. It went from nothing to 55 dBZ core in something like two volume scans. I remember looking at the storm's radar presentation and then looking out the window to see the core literally hanging above me and thinking, "We're about to get hammered."

And that's exactly what happened. The rain and hail began at pretty much the same time. Massive amounts of marble size hail, driven by winds in the 45-55 mph range (with higher gusts), were being "machine gunned" against the side of the house and the window out which I was watching. The roar was so loud I couldn't even hold a conversation with someone. From my second floor perch, I had a view of a section of first floor rooftop, and the hail was accumulating so rapidly that giant sheets of ice were sliding down the incline and jamming the gutters. The street out front (when I could actually see it) was a flowing river of water and ice all the way up to the curb.

I've found myself in some pretty intense cores in the past when out chasing, but never have I seen this much hail falling at such an incredible rate in such a short window of time. It probably only lasted for 3-4 minutes, but when I stepped outside afterward to take a look, the hail had accumulated and drifted to 6" deep in spots. It looked as if it had snowed.

(And, on an interesting note, here it is the next morning, 16 hours later, and the deepest drifts have yet to completely melt.)

Anyway, after shooting some photos and playing in the hail, I decided to take another look at the storm... only to see something interesting. My initial thought was, "That looks like the back side of a tornadic supercell." It just had "the look". There was an obvious rain and hail shaft wrapping around the back side of the updraft, the edge of a rain free base peeking out from the trees to the south, and a lot of curious motion. I asked myself, "Is this thing going to tornado?", and before I could even complete my thought, the tone alert went off on the NWR with the first of the many tornado warnings, mentioning the apparent tornado near Ft. Lupton - exactly where I was looking.

Of course, being on the back side of the storm, I couldn't see anything, but I continued to watch. The storm maintained "the look" for as long as I was watching, in fact. For all I knew, there could have been a rain-wrapped tornado somewhere in there. However, the storm was accelerating somewhat by this point, and it wasn't long before my view was blocked by trees and houses. I never gave any serious consideration to jumping in the car and giving chase... it would have taken too long to reach Hwy. 52, and I didn't have much interest in punching the core in a desperate attempt to get out ahead of the storm. By that point, the core was just looking more intense on radar, and Tony's report of golf balls would seem to verify that.

Either way, in a year where I'm unable to take a chase vacation (and generally too busy to do much local chasing), it was nice to have the storm of the day pay a visit to me here at home.

 

[Tony Laubach]

COMPLETE MAY 14, 2007 STORM CHASE LOG CAN BE FOUND HERE!

After my battle in southeastern Montana and an overnight stay near Rapid City, SD, I returned to Colorado on a marginal severe day with hope for some hail and lightning after dark. Minus the lightning part, I got more than I bargined for on what was one of the craziest severe weather days in recent memory here in Colorado. By 3pm, I was chowing down double-cheeseburgers on my way into Sterling from Sidney, Nebraska. When my Sprint connection finally returned, I elected to get closer to the front range and positioned in Wiggins. I met with Michael Carlson and Dann Cianca and we waited as storms struggled against the cap. Finally, a group of storms moved in from Lyons and we flew east towards Greeley on Hwy 34 and dropped south to Ft. Lupton where we got hammered by the core of this very intense and soon-to-be tornado warned storm with insane amounts of marble to golfball sized hail. We got separated in Ft. Lupton and I continued east on CO-52 through the hail into Hudson where I elected to stop chasing the storm as road conditions consisting of 6 inches of accumulated hail made for very difficult travel. I met with Jon Van de Grift and returned to Ft. Lupton to shoot aftermath...

COMPLETE MAY 14, 2007 STORM CHASE LOG CAN BE FOUND HERE!

OVER 12 MINUTES OF RAW HAIL FOOTAGE ON THE CHASE LOG!!

COMPLETE MAY 14, 2007 STORM CHASE LOG CAN BE FOUND HERE!

 

[Bryan Putnam]

I happened to stumble upon some action yesterday. I was driving back from Norman to Colorado for some time at home. I knew the slight risk extended all the way back from the Midwest to NE Colorado and NW KS, but i figured this was all going to be cold front squall line. I got to Russel and saw some impressive looking cells off to the NW, so I pulled off the highway to check the computer. Everything seemed to be forming and then joining a line into Nebraska. There was one lone cell on I70 about 100 miles west, but I figured it would be gone once I got there. Within the few radar frames I saw I decided the stuff to the north was not worth chasing and I continued west. It turns out as I drove the line never really moved much and just filled in. I passed through it around Wakeeney and experienced just a brief downpour. I had basically given up on the line and was content on finishing the drive home but i got a call from Brett Roberts back in Norman that there was a TVS in the Gove area. As timing would have it, I was just passing by it to the north on the highway. With the help of Brett's nowcasting I meandered on and off the highway trying to figure out if there was really anything within the downpour mess. Apparently the storm started backing to the southwest, so I went to Oakley and decided to try and come around it from the backside. I had a hard time figuring out what was going on with the storm considering its movement and that it was surrounded by rain, but I finally caught a glimpse of the possible rotation to the SW of Oakley around 8. I don't know exactly how things worked out because I had gotten off the phone by this point, but it appears like the storm finally started moving to the east again. That, or the area of possible rotation at least started to move. I waited on US 40 in Oakley as the raggedy wall cloud headed towards me. It didn't appear that threatening, but the sirens began to go off around 820. Just after the sirens started to go off the storm did get its act together some. The mesocyclone became pretty well defined for about 10 to 15 minutes. There was also a surprisingly strong amount of inflow that kicked up at the same time. I drove back and forth on US 40 trying to get some good pictures but I was hampered a little by the local law enforcement stationing themselves on the highway. I was the only car besides them on the road, so I obviously attracted a little attention. I decided to stay put for awhile just east of the town and watch. At around 835 or so the sirens went off and everything seemed to go down the drain pretty rapidly. The area that had contained the mesocyclone and wall cloud turned into a downpour. The sun also started to quickly head down too. I called it and headed west for home.


Interestingly enough, a few tornado reports came in. I don't know about the two near Gove because I didnt want to risk the big hail to find out what was behind the downpour, but I can shed a little light on the one closer to Oakley.

0118 8 SW OAKLEY LOGAN KS 3904 10096 (GLD)

I took this video capture off my camera for the same time. If you can find something in this mess, tell me, because I can't.

 

[Daniel Christianson]

Well didnt expect as much, but i sat up north of Arlington NE, and watched the cell off to the north increase in intensity, as it neared Craig NE it was producing some heavy rain and some hail i encountered, pea size to a little burst of dime sized hail, the cell then moved Northeast into Tekhema and later into IA. I then headed south on Highway 79 to Toughy NE where i intercepted some more cells, with alot of heavy rain, the roads were so full of water you could only do about 50mph or less so you wouldnt hydroplane. There were a couple of cloud to ground bolts here and there, and some dime sized hail as well, after playing around for a little while i decided to head home. As i got back i saw i should of stayed where i was at, because there was a huge cell producing some golfball sized hail in Saline/Seward/Lancaster county. As im back at home at the apt the remnants of that cell made its way up to the Omaha Area, more so south, i stepped outside and saw some shelf action going on, i found myself at 192nd and Pacific, with my camera fighting me left and right saying dead batteries and dead batteries again, i then took some out of my wx radio and managed to get some shots, the sky was pretty red it was a sight that just made the day...yes i know theres always a stupid pole in the way!

This is the cell before it hits Craig NE, it intensifies later

Now producing heavy rainfall and some hail

The shot that made my trip... looking South from 192nd and Pacific (Omaha NE )