5/24/08 REPORTS: SD/NE/IA/KS/OK

[JR Hehnly]

Was planning on going north of Oklahoma. Never made it that far. Saw tornadoes, slid in a ditch and was stuck for almost an hour, got pulled out, then saw more tornadoes and some flooding. Nice day.

More images at http://www.okstorms.com/images/chases/2008-05-24/index.html

 

[Joey Ketcham]

Many reports of tornadoes, I see several pictures posted of tornadoes but yet I didn't see a single tornado... go figure. Nah, all in all it was a nice backyard chase, I left Pittsburg about 1:00 and headed towards north central Oklahoma where I eventually met up with Tyler Costantini, Genaro Estrada and Jay Cazel near Perry.

We saw a several wall clouds and some funnels but didn't see anything touch down. Talked with Mike Scantlin and Chris Hayes for a few while out, good seeing you guys.

 

[Rich Thompson]

Ah, serendipity, and a well-defined target. I started the day in Great Bend, still bummed about the Friday disaster of a chase. I looked at a little weather data before leaving around 10:30 am, and noticed that KS/NE were in trouble with a sharp outflow boundary way down in nrn OK. It was on the way back home, so I figured I'd keep an eye on it if it held together during the day. As I approached ICT, I traversed a few rain showers and temps dropped to 66 F with thick stratus overcast as of 12:30 pm. I relayed these lame observations to a few other chasers up toward SLN, and then called home for a quick weather update on the boundary location and some mesoanalysis graphics descriptions. My wife described an interesting situation, so I dug out all the chase gear after a quick lunch and took a look for myself. The outflow-dryline intersection was well-defined about a county or so W of I-35, roughly between END and OKC. The low-level shear was still hanging tough in the ely flow N of the boundary, which I now figured would persist the rest of the afternoon given the thick clouds still to the N of the outflow. I called my wife and told her to round up the little ones and get N quick to meet me somewhere N of OKC along I-35, where we would consolidate into one vehicle and move W for intercept. The chase was on!

She arrived with the kids at Perry around 2:50 pm and we moved quickly W and SW to reach the now tornadic storm (that was an excruciating 10 min waiting for them to arrive in Perry, listening to the blow-by-blow simulcast of the events just out of view to my WSW). We missed the first couple of tornadoes, but then observed at least 6-8 tornadoes, with two simultaneous tornadoes twice. There was a pretty big tornado buried in the rain somewhere in there, but I can't recall where because we were playing the dirt/mud section roads W of hwy 74. Once the storm became really wrapped in rain, we realized that our minivan was in some danger sitting in Perry. So, we "raced" S along hwy 74 within the circus sideshow that had grown to hundreds of vehicles, then E on hwy 51 and N on I-35 just ahead of the forward flank core. The LTGCG was a pretty vicious near Perry, such that we waited between strikes within 1/4 mile so she could run the 5 ft. to the van! The rest of the chase was a tandem of our two vehicles, and we held back a little greater distance. We couldn't quite see the tornado that crossed hwy 86 to our N, but that was okay.

It was the most tornadoes my wife has seen has seen in one day, and my kids got a kick out of one that passed 1/4-1/2 mile to our NW while we were blasted by a thin hook and blowing gravel. All in all, a very "convenient" turn of events for me, given the that the outflow wrecked the northern targets and gave me little chance to miss the whole show. I feel the pain of those that were stuck too far north. This was one of those rare times where luck seemed to work in my favor.

Rich T.

 

[Eric Whitehill]

Note to Mods: if you can, please add in ND to the list of states.

Went out to near Lisbon, ND.

Saw some cool stuff.

Came home.

There were reports of tornadoes on this storm, however I never saw any.

My apologies for the graininess of the photos. It's the first chase of the season for me and the camera has been collecting dust in it's charger.

 

[Adam Lucio]

Started our day in Russel, KS as well. Saw the OK storms but we didnt think they would still be going by the time we got down there so we stuck with our original target of southeast Nebraska.

Saw storm after storm go up, try as hard as they could to do it but just couldnt...best visibility Ive had all year and managed to get a few dozen amazing strucure shots. Got cored briefly by non severe hail and actually saw the bottom of a rainbow just to our right which was kind of neat...no pot of gold tho.

Currently staying in Omaha and not sure if we want to play Iowa or eastern KS tomorrow.

 

[Jason A.C. Brock]

BUSHED

Finally back in Wichita Falls after leaving Thursday morning for what was an initial target of far NW OK and have had an amazing 3 days. Scored tornadoes on all 3 days. West central OK Thursday (altho maybe should have went to Kansas), Central Kansas Friday, & Finally yesterday in NC OK. I stayed in Weathorford OK the first night & Dodge City the second night. I left Dodge City this AM about 11am and decided to head to Enid area and saw the towers from nearly Dodge City. I am amazed I was able to catch that thing and it put down tornado after tornado. Got a little too close today but it an happen to the best of us. Other tornadoes I wish I had maybe been a tad closer but was afraid to miss the action.
1,500 miles and dont know the exact tornado count but I got 9 i know for sure and have the video to prove it. Altho I dont count touchdown after touchdown from the same big meso within 15 minutes as a new tornado....but thats just me....to each his own. I doubt ill have any video or pics up till next weekend. I should have stayed in Stillwater tonight and hased Southern Kansas tomorrow and maybe made it 4 4 4 but The fam is in town and didnt want to tick too many of them off ;-). I may chase Monday however out west.

 

[Sam Sagnella]

~Five tornadoes for Tommy Winning and me -- just an absolutely amazing day. About all the speech center of my brain is capable of putting together at this point is "....wow." I'll post a few thumbnails until we watermark the big versions; we also shot our best video ever - by far. Considering we were unable to chase the past two days, Tommy and I are probably the happiest guys in Norman right now.

 

[Brandon Ivey]

I got to enjoy the amazing supercell in Oklahoma today. By far, the best chase of the season for me to date! We documented over six tornadoes. Matt and I lost count in all the fun. You can view a few of the tornadoes that we documented through the link below. I did not even waste time editing some of the tornadoes due to lower contrast. What a storm!

http://thestormreport.com/blog/2008/05/may-24th-northern-oklahoma-tornadoes/

 

[Jason A.C. Brock]

Finally back in Wichita Falls after leaving Thursday morning for what was an initial target of far NW OK and have had an amazing 3 days. Scored tornadoes on all 3 days. West central OK Thursday (altho maybe should have went to Kansas), Central Kansas Friday, & Finally yesterday in NC OK. I stayed in Weathorford OK the first night & Dodge City the second night. I left Dodge City this AM about 11am and decided to head to Enid area and saw the towers from nearly Dodge City. I am amazed I was able to catch that thing and it put down tornado after tornado. Got a little too close today but it an happen to the best of us. Other tornadoes I wish I had maybe been a tad closer but was afraid to miss the action.
1,500 miles and dont know the exact tornado count but I got 9 i know for sure and have the video to prove it. Altho I dont count touchdown after touchdown from the same big meso within 15 minutes as a new tornado....but thats just me....to each his own. I doubt ill have any video or pics up till next weekend. I should have stayed in Stillwater tonight and hased Southern Kansas tomorrow and maybe made it 4 4 4 but The fam is in town and didnt want to tick too many of them off ;-). I may chase Monday however out west.
THX to Jeff Papak Jeremy Wilson & Michelle White for nowcasting.
PIGS ALMOST FLEW TODAY! :-0
__________________
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KE5HZA
T.A.S.C.: Texhoma Amateur Storm Chasers

 

[Tim Marshall]

Wow. What an incredible chase day. We tracked down and photographed 10 to 12 -----Wilsons Phalaropes at Cheyenne Bottoms National Wildlife Refuge near Great Bend, KS. The birds were in all shapes, sizes, and plumages! Even saw multiple Avocets too. This was great news for my birding wife Kay, but as for me, I was in agony all afternoon watching overshooting tops to the southeast. Still, I figured storms would fire at Great Bend especially while dewpoints rose to 68 F and seeing building Cu on the dryline just to the west. So, we didn't partake in tornadofest 3 but are in Salina, KS to try again Sunday. TM

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

I have a bunch of different shots of this, but not nearly as many as I wish I could have. Thought of things too late. When I first woke I saw that rainbow circle on the wall of my McCook motel room, but it wasn't that bright yet. I was like, eh? After about 3 hours each night the two nights before, and maybe 5 hours this night, lots of miles driving, I sort of wondered if I was losing it, looking at that thing. It just looked like a rainbow circle of faint light on the wall where it didn't seem to fit quite right. Then I saw what was happening. Rising sun was just right, shining through the peephole in the door, across the room, bouncing off the mirror and landing back next to it. Picture taking became a little interesting when you consider there was one on the mirror as well. So you look at the mirror and see the peephole light, and both rainbow circles...so long as you didn't get in the light obviously. If you used the mirror one, it looked like a ring floating around the room behind you. Anyway.

Wound up chasing NE, mostly because it was on the way home. I did not like the cu behavior on satellite I80 south after a while so I hedged my bets north, just staying east of everything as I did so. Wound up ahead of a very nice low topped, sheared over to hell, supercell. I was amazed just how bad these looked on radar and how good in person. It ramped up as I went north of Lindsay, on "highway 121"...which was NOT a highway there in reality(note to GPS). So it was ramping up as I did about 75mph on a gravel road, trying to reach a real highway as rain from a storm going up south of this one got me. I'm just amazed how often your perfectly good gravel will turn to crap, especially after seeing all the local areas flooded on this one.

Right around here I met the train of chasers, not huge, but not small....the dow and discovery crew, and others. Flew north into the core then east into Norfolk. I actually thought it had a fair chance of dropping a tornado near town back in the occluded area.

East of Norfolk catching the one behind it now. The wall of rain in the notch was pretty cool looking as it raced ne.

I waited in the rain for a short bit to see if anything was burried back in the wrape. This lowering emerged with a brief tail cloud with it. Hoped again for an occluded tube, especially with the setting sun, but no go.

Congrats to all those targeting OK who bagged more tubes.

 

[Chris McBee]

Intercepted the prolific tornado producer in southern Garfield County, OK. Saw a total of six tornadoes. Link to video below; the contrast isn't that great, of course.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVaw1qfj18I

 

[Rocky Rascovich]

After great weeping and gnashing of teeth over my missed chases Thurs.&Fri. due to work committments, I was looking forward in seeing some atmospheric mayhem for this day. Thankfully, I did'nt get suckered on heading up into Kansas.. which I could have easily done but with this new job I have driving over 500 miles a day as a courier, I was not about to go any further than I needed to.

Unfortunately, the show started a little early without me, hearing about the torpedoed storm near Hennessey and Lacey. I raced into OKC to pick up Dustin Aldridge, a new chaser on the scene and actually, this was his first chase since living here in Okla. We raced up Hwy 74 toward Crescent and Mulhall. We reached the Marshall area where we monitored the storm as it slowly made it's way eastward. We missed the first couple of tornadoes but saw some suspicious areas imbedded in the rain. Poor contrast made it difficult to really make out much until we repositioned between Marshall and Douglas on Hwy 74. We got a good look at a very low ragged, swirling wall cloud that would occasionally spew out suction vortices and brief tornadoes, one of which we witnessed grow rapidly to near wedge status, only to virtually disappear within a minute. CG activity was intense at times but wasn't to the degree that I read on other posts.

We repositioned again just north of Orlando where I believe this is where I met up with the LaDue family, I was about to get out and socialize a short bit but a close CG brought that to a hasty end. Also met up with Shane Adams and his girlfriend and sat in awe over the structure of the updraft as the storm slowly trudged it's way eastward. I thought we were about to get munched trying to get back through Orlando as the hordes all seem to converge in that town, and they seemed to be not much in a hurry as we inched our way back toward Hwy 51. I guess the 3.85/gal gas hasn't kept too many folks from this beloved hobby yet.

We then set up again just east of the Hwy 51/I-35 intersection; at a cemetery of all places, where Dustin and I along with Vince Miller and JR Henley and his Mrs. watched a couple of tornadoes several miles to our west and northwest simultaneously, second year in a row I saw that. (May 5th '07 Stafford KS I saw two at once while chasing with RJ and Bobby P.) I believe these tornadoes were somewhere close to Orlando. Afterwards, I met up with Michael Ratliff and Jim Leonard as they pursued with total abandon the cell up toward Perry. By that time, it was definitely on the decrease as it was starting to gust out.. We did manage to miss the final tornadoes it produced south of Perry.

Afterwards, Dustin and I headed back west as other cells were firing close to the dryline. We came close to the storms that were closing in on the Enid area but these did'nt look that great visually and it was getting dark... so we opted to head back to OKC.

All in all, one of my more noteworthy chases, despite being in an area of poor contrast and missing the first few tornadoes. AND.. it just seems I have better luck bringing along someone who has never seen a tornado before. Dustin had been on two tour groups and never saw one tornado.. until yesterday, so it was worth every mile to me to see his dream come true.

One other thought I wanted to pass along. I still see some of the craziest stuff some chasers pull while on the road. Whoever was in a yellow VW around the Marshall/Douglas area on Hwy 74, your lucky you weren't rear ended. Right in the middle of the highway, this guy was completely stopped videotaping.. I mean, just how dumb can one get? It's truly a miracle no one in the chase community has been in a bad accident because of these folks.

I know when stuff is happening fast, even a seasoned chaser can forget the importance of road safety for a moment, sometimes, that's all it takes.
So, stay safe.

Rocky&family

 

[Kevin Crawmer]

Jesse Risley, Brandon Sullivan, Mike Brady, and myself were south of York, NE watching cells fire and get sheared to pieces for the better part of an hour or so. We decided to head north on 81 to try and play catch up to the only cell that had its act together. We eventually caught it and saw some beautiful structure. It really "tried" several times, but never put anything down. We too saw the TIV, Discovery crew, etc, but decided to follow it a bit further. I believe we called off our chase in the vicinity of Wayne, NE.

 

[Kevin Myatt]

Busted in southern Nebraska. Above is the little LP-wannabe we followed southeast of Grand Island, showed up with some decent reflectivity on radar for a while, but didn't have the juice. Because of budget considerations, the Virginia Tech storm chase team has returned home after two weeks in the Plains, highlighted by two intense days in Kansas.