5/25/10 Reports: KS/CO

[Ericka B. Gray]

Targeted SW KS and observed the two cells merge while we were east of Towner, CO on the KS/CO border. We observed a large tornado and a good sized tube at the same time. Shortly after that, the storm put down two more tornadoes at the same time. It was a very slow moving storm. We had time to watch this beauty for hours and counted at least 11 tornadoes, including 3 times that 2 tornadoes were on the ground simultaneously. Saw Vortex 2 and other chasers later in the day. We were in ideal position as sometimes happens for a fantastic show from mother nature. One of those amazing days that chasers dream about!

 

[Erik Perozo]

Started the day off in Rapid City,SD with chase partner Doug Berry. Target area was around SE CO,SW KS. Made it to Sharon Springs and watched a storm approach from the south, where we witnessed our first wall cloud. Then we decided to head a little further south after the storm got taken over by the flank storm and after seeing a report of a landspout we decided to hurry south and stay with this storm as it was also getting rooted on the boundary. Ended up seeing 2 landspouts and 3 tornadoes today, with one being a nice cone.

Today was suppose to be an off day, We almost stayed in Rapid City to site see. Good thing we decided to chase.

Landspout barely visible under updraft

Massive tail cloud hugging the ground

Close up of the massive low hanging Tail Cloud, I've never seen a tail cloud on the ground.

Nice Cone,Needle!!

Keep them coming

 

[cdcollura]

Good day all,

Fantastic chase day from Sheridan Lake County, Colorado (including Towner) through Tribune, Kansas and eastward. I targeted SW Kansas / E Colorado due to a triple point (dryline / boundary) as well as better shear than farther south.

Today was SUPPOSED to be an off-day, and I saw at least SEVEN tornadoes ;-)

Above: Developing supercell near Sheridan Lake County, Colorado. Look closely at the land-spout tornado to the lower left under the updraft.

Above: Here is a shot of ONE of the land-spout(s) with a large dust swirl at its base in Sheridan Lake County, CO.

Above: Two land-spout tornadoes at the same time near Towner, CO.

Above: Ground-scraping wall-cloud near Towner, CO.

Above: Hail fall and ground fog north of Towner, CO.

Above: Tornado #6 I observed with this supercell, north of Tribune, Kansas.

Above: Yet another tornado, #7, farther east ... Keep 'em coming!

 

[Paul Sherman]

Started in Colby - Targeted Springfield and followed the Supercell until she finally dropped a Huge Cone just NE Of Walsh in Baca County at 8pm MDT!

A fitting end to a Hard Fought Chase punching Hail cores and slip sliding along Colorado Farm Tracks

Paul S

 

[Scott Hammel]

Had little hope for the day and of course that's when all the good stuff happens! Caught 5 tornadoes today including the land spouts and wedge near Sheridan Lake, CO and then a few near Highway 27 in between Sharon Springs and Tribune, KS. I also filmed a tornado on Highway 27 from pretty close. Closest I've ever been at least. A few pics below!

 

[Mike Kruze]

Today was the third chase of our 2-week chase vacation this year, and the first actually successful one of the trip. I chased with Geoff Fink and Joe Nield, and we started the day in Goodland, KS with an initial target of Syracuse, KS. By the time we got to Tribune, several cells had already initiated to the W and SW. We elected to play the northern cell, which produced a nice wall cloud before merging with the southern cell (the one that produced several tornadoes near Towner, CO). We missed those initial tornadoes, but were able to observe a brief tornado north of Towner, and a second one north of Tribune.

After an encounter with golf ball hail that caught up to us faster than we were expecting, we booked it east to K-4 and were treated to a spectacular show of storm structure at sunset. Pics below.

 

[Marcus Diaz]

Had a surprise yesterday. With an environment with just a little shear, we had a pretty long lived supercell in the sw tx panhandle. Got 2 tornadoes with this supercell near Dimmitt, TX; a nice elephant trunk tornado and a very brief spinup of dirt under a rapidly rotating wall cloud. Not a bad way to end 3 straight days of chasing.


Here's the Dimmitt tornado, unfortunately we were somewhat far away, but got plenty of confirmation of it on the ground.

 

[Eugene Thieszen]

Texas Panhandle Chase

Mods: Please add Texas to this thread

The WXtreme Chase Team decided to play in the Texas Panhandle along the dryline and a remnant outflow boundary even though the tornado risk was very low. We weren't disappointed. After all its May and its the TX panhandle! We initially intercepted the cell W of Plainview but could easily see the tornado-warned cell coming from S of Clovis, NM so we headed for it and intercepted it near Farwell, tracking it up to near Bovina. At that point it made a hard right turn and began to move E along SR 86 transitioning rather rapidly through a variety of moods. After threatening several times it finally produced just W of Dimmitt. A second brief touchdown was reported by spotters NE of Dimmitt, but from our vantage point along SR 86 we observed a RFD gustnado. Here are a few pictures from a day that turned out much better than anticipated.

Rain-wrapped meso about 5 W of Dimmitt. We suspected a tornado buried in there, but weren't sure enough to call it. Will have to review video closely:

Meso with deeply cut RFD slot and low wall cloud. A number of times both the cyclonic and anticyclonic rotation of the couplet was easily visible:

Tornado 2 W of Dimmitt in occluded meso:

Cell phone camera shot showing a bit more of the structure above the tor:

Sun-splashed meso E of Dimmitt near the time of the second reported touchdown. We saw only this bowl-shaped lowering and RFD:

Gene
For the WXtreme Chase Team

 

[Paul Stofer]

Today Dave Fick, Jessica and myself targeted Southeast Colorado. We left Cheyenne, WY around 9AM and headed for Pueblo Colorado. When we arrived in Pueblo we stopped at the local Weather Forecast Office to discuss with the meteorologists there. Shortly after we left Pueblo storms began to fire in far Western Kansas. We shot east on US 50 through La Junta, and on to Lamar. Storms quickly went tornado warned to our North. The structure was very impressive, but the storm tops were incredibly low. We watched the storms from about 15 miles away, and observed a large tornado for about 5 minutes before it became obscured by rain. We went North out of Granada on US 385 through Sheridan Lake and Northeast onto Cheyenne Wells where another storm had just gone tornadic. While on 385 we passed the Vortex 2 armada gathering data on the current storm. We also passed what I believe was the Smart-R DOW. While on 385 just north of Sheridan Lake we observed 2 small rope tornadoes. We continued North to race around the storm for better position. We went East on 40 through Oakley and onto 70. To our immediate south was a very large tornadic storm with a large VIL return and massive hook echo on radar. We continued East and were able to wrap our way around the NE quadrant of the storm. Here for about 7 minutes we observe another large tornado from about 10-15 miles away. We continued South on 283 to get on the Southeast side of the storm. We had a perfect view of the storm base and observed a large bell lowering obscured heavily by rain. The tornado had lifted and the storm quickly formed a massive shelf cloud. The storm remained tornado warned. We continued South and let the rotation and hail core pass to our North. We had lost daylight and the storm wasn't as impressive as earlier so we called the chase off and headed towards Dodge City for the night. 8 tornadoes in 3 days ended a successful week of chasing for the 3 of us. I will create an edit later with photos. Currently going through hundreds of stills.

 

[Jason Boggs]

Started off the chase near Hereford, TX and made it north to Channing where a storm showed promise. Some other storms from the south merged with the isolated storm and basically killed it. Zoomed the radar out and noticed a tornadic storm west of Dimmitt, TX. Blasted south and got a brief tornado, and a couple of hours later the cell morphed into a spectacular LP north of Nazareth.

Storm just west of Channing, TX

Tornado west of Dimmitt, TX

LP supercell northwest of Nazareth, TX

 

[Brad Nelson]

Actually ended up having an unbelievable chase this day! Tornado life cycle right in front of us. Here's the log if you're interested: http://eyeonthetwister.com/index.php/2010/06/0525/

 

[William Reid]

I have uploaded images from this day to my web site, including some video stills of the brief tornado north of Tribune, KS.

This was a big chase day with a handful of tornadic supercells along the dry line from Towner to Dimmitt, but forgotten is the very impressive tornadic supercell which (apparently) ravaged only open countryside from Monument Rocks in Gove County and into Trego and Ellis counties. I had the chance to intercept it, but chose poorly!

Bill Reid
stormbruiser.com