5/25/07 REPORTS: KS/TX/NE/ND

[Stuart Robinson]

Wow. What a great and surprising chase to Goodland, KS today. First, got on an LP storm west of St. Francis then dropped southeast to watch a striated barber-pole HP drift slowly southeast toward Oakley. Some of the best structure I have seen in years -on such a marginal chase day. TM

 

[Warren Faidley]

5/25/07 Reports: W/Texas

Had a surprise tornado warned cell near Vega. Nice funnel and storm structures at sunset. TCU profiler shows you never know.

 

[Andrew Pritchard]

Did the same thing as Tim. FIrst got on the LP near St. Francis which attempted to get some nice structure going but never really got the job done. Then blasted south to get on the Winona HP supercell. Was kind of nice being on a supercell without having to parallel park along side the roads. Only passed one or two chasers the entire day. Don't really feel like going through and doing video caps or stills not, but the beaver tail was one of the best I've seen in a long time so I'll throw a shot with part of it up. Were too close to fit it all in one shot, and when we dropped south for structure contrast got a little lower.

 

[Steve Burrows]

Was on the Winona HP supercell. Wasnt many chasers about, a change from the last Kansas storm down the road. Booked accomdation first at Colby becasue of the long weekend. Headed south to Winona and watched the storm.

 

[Jason Boggs]

I was one the same tornado warned cell as Warren. I was headed south on 385 and when I got about 5 miles north of Vega, TX I spotted a brief funnel and called it in to the Amarillo NWS. I then headed east on I-40 and saw Warren and stopped to chat. Stuck around about 5 miles east of Vega and saw the updraft get a cinnamon roll appearance to it. The storm did produce some very nice wall clouds but they dissipated rather quickly. Here are some photos looking towards Vega. Just like Warren said, you never know!

 

[Chris Hovanic]

We followed the path of several posters above...intercepted the LP Supercell west of St. Francis, then left as the storm began to weaken. Blasted SE-ward to intercept the gorgeous HP SE of Goodland...as others have noted, amazing inflow tail with this storm, extended ~5 miles SE of main updraft base. 5 supercells now in first 3 days of our two-week chase vacation. Will also add pictures when my buddies get them properly uploaded.

At the Oak Tree Inn in Sharon Springs, KS for the night...playing along the retreating warm front across NW KS tomorrow and hoping for an isolated supercell as a few very weak perturbations in the upper flow swing through during the afternoon and evening.

 

[Josh Boustead]

What a find in the Goodland, KS area today. Came up from Texas this afternoon and arrived in the Burlington, CO just about the time TCU began developing in the area. Followed this activity into northwest Kansas before it went severe just southeast of Goodland. Got into some 1.25 inch hail before we were able to get on the south side of the updraft and once we did, it was pretty amazing. Just some great structure today! Well worth the long drive.

 

[Michael Carlson]

My Dad and I chased Eastern Colorado today and followed a small cell into Kansas. Got some nice dime size hail and some good structure. We jumped on the severe warned cell that was Southeast of Goodland, KS.

 

[Ericka B. Gray]

We watched the cu develop in our target area and watched our storm develop from nothing to a large HP supercell that had an inflow band that went all the way to the horizon. We kept getting on and off I70 after entering KS to watch this develop and then headed S to see some beautiful structure. This storm became dominent near Brewster, KS as it gobbled up everything else in the area and became the only storm around. We kept heading E to stay in front of it and as it was a slow mover, we were able to stay with it for quite a while. We called it quits and headed to Colby for the night as it got too dark for any more good viewing. What a great day.

 

[Ryan Pfannkuch]

up north in NE Sandhills

Mods please add NE to the list if you get a chance...

Ben McMillan and I stayed with the original target of western NE and also scored some visual treats in the heart of the Sandhills. I didn't have a lot of confidence in areas farther south toward Goodland being able to pop ...so I banked on the "surer thing" along the cold front/dryline intersection building south out of SD. Storms were very linear at first in Cherry County south of Merriman but as we slowly meandered south along the back-building line a little bit of separation started taking place around Hyannis. Got into some 1.25 inch hail 4-5 miles north of Hyannis and just kept slowly dropping south...ending the chase with a very nice lightning show from the then-southern storm near Arthur just after dark.

Congrats to all of you who bagged the KS/TX/CO storms...as it looks like all of us had a good day structure-wise...as I feel that this day really made the most of the moisture that was able to make it back up north. We only saw ONE vehicle with chasers the whole day up here.

 

[Andrew McDonald]

Hi all,

We targeted Goodland, KS yesterday and were treated to a very impressive high plains supercell. We were able to watch this grow from TCu into the near-stationary HP supercell that it became as it moved to the SE of Goodland.

The structure on this cell was awesome.

Pics are here...

http://macca.bsch.au.com/gallery/20070525

Cheers,

Andrew McDonald

 

[Paul Knightley]

Also targetted Goodland today, and saw the same as others have posted. Very nice, and only saw a couple of other chasers about. Stu - I think I saw the SLT vans go past at one point!

 

[Tony Laubach]

COMPLETE MAY 25, 2007 STORM CHASE LOG CAN BE FOUND HERE!!!

This certainly wasn't a day we were expecting to see much! In fact, our main goals of the day were simply to spend the after someplace other than Denver. SPC had a 'See Text' over the area with a chance for severe, but certainly not enough to warrent a big trip. But seeing as it was eastern Colorado in May, we thought we'd go out and play anyway. Our efforts were rewarded on the longest spotter-dubbed trip of my career which sent us all the way to Oakley, Kansas by day's end. I returned home shortly after 3:30am as a result, but managed some incredible images of one of the best structure storms for me so far this season.

After shooting fown east of Pueblo to try and get on severe-warned cells, we elected to move east towards towers going up near the CO/KS border. Most of those western storms fizzled, but our attention had already been grabbed by a monster storm south of Goodland, KS which sent us flying through Eads and into Sharon Springs where we caught up with this very slow moving storm. Severe warnings were up for this storm when we arrived, and while we were surprised to see no tornado warning on it (based on GRLevel3 data), I would imagine it was due to the southwesterly surface flow.

We jumped north of Winona on CR-230 to the county line and hung around with only a half-dozen other vehicles shooting this incredible looking storm. Once we realized the tornado threat was nearly zero, we decided it was time to see what this baby had in the core. So we waited... and waited... and waited some more til the core finally got within range. By this point, we had micro-moved east on US Highway 40 to Page City where we encountered heavy hitting quarter sized hail. We stayed with the core through Monument until the hail let up to rain. We then tracked the storm into Oakley and began our return trip home.

But it's not over yet... we wanted lightning (greedy bastards we are - LOL). Storms firing near Ft. Morgan slid east/southeast and we watched anvils lighting up from I-70 as we drove into Seibert. We then dove north to get into position to shoot. Unfortunately, the storms knew of our presence and did little to give us a show. We stopped a couple of times between Seibert and Yuma before giving up, heading to I-76 in Brush, and finally pulling into Denver where I walked in the door shortly after 3:30am.
Certainly a wonderful chase considering how little we were expecting. We were very thrilled with the shots we got and only wished we could've been cored before dark fell. The storm's slow movement allowed us to get on it easily, but in turn, prevented us from having core fun before darkness fell. The lightning show could've been great, but as I'm finding out this year, its almost as hard to get a good lightning storm than it is a tornado! LOL

Thanks to Jon Van de Grift and Dann Cianca for splitting $3.40/gallon gas with me and enjoying this Friday surprise! Was certainly nice to be out on a more casual basis, not to mention the lack of crowds surrounding this very beautiful and worth-while storm!​

COMPLETE MAY 25, 2007 STORM CHASE LOG CAN BE FOUND HERE!!!

COMPLETE MAY 25, 2007 STORM CHASE LOG CAN BE FOUND HERE!!!

 

[Paul Knightley]

Tony - was it you guys who stopped close to some railroad tracks and spoke to one of our team?

Our pics are here: http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~paulkn/usa 2007/may25.htm

 

[Scott Olson]

Tornado In North Dakota

I paced the room wondering whether I should partake in such a risky chase with gas breaking record highs and dewpoints not expected over 50. I had been watching the forecast models since May 21st and was impressed by the backed low level flow along the warm front, the good wind shear (40-45kts bulk) and the energetic shortwave and surface heating that indicated a very good possibility that intiation would take place. All of this indicated that a small favorable area existed for possible tornado development just along the SD/ND border. With the idea that cold front intiated storms would have some time to mature before impacting the warm front. There was no denying that the moisture was luckluster and the resultaunt instability axis was fairly weak and small. It was a challenge and it was my most satisfying chase of the year.

As I headed into Mobridge storms started intiating in western SD. I quickly headed west through Isabel, Timber Lake and than intercepted several storms near Glad Valley. During this time a storm had formed on the warm front, I decided against going for it. The instability axis didn’t extend very far north of the warm front, so a storm intiating on it wouldn’t have much time to mature and develop a RFD gust front that could assist in stretching of the vorticity. In my experience a developed storm has a better chance impacting on an enhancement boundary. Exceptions if there is strong/extreme instability on the boundary. I ended up heading east and than north with these cells. It was entirely visual as my cell connection was unavaliable the entire chase. Over the radio I heard that a tornado warning was issued for the storm that formed on the warm front in south central Sioux County in North Dakota. I reaffirmed my commitment to the storm heading towards the warm front and continued.. As I traveled north of McLaughlin I heard of a tornado warning for the cell I was on. It was a slightly high based cell with a short shelf cloud and a nice teal color. Some of the clouds around it had an almost lenticular look, like they were being influenced by a mountain range. I headed east and then north on highway 24 to near Fort Yates and setup. Soon the storm appeared to lose some structure and rain had begin to move closer to the updraft.

At around 2215z I noticed what appeared to be rapid condensation near the surface. I was quickly dismissive as scud but I quickly reliazed that it was filled with dirt and had differential motion. About the second I reliazed that it was a tornado the whole vortex condensed. For the next minute and a half the condensation was fully on the ground. After that the bottom portion disappeared and weak little vortices could be seen scurrying around the bottom for around another minute. During this time a weak skimpy rope came down the side of it and touched down briefly. After three minutes it was over.

More pictures here.