5/5/07 REPORTS: KS / NE / OK

[Jimmy Deguara]

Chased with Tim and Kay Marshall, The Eades couple and a few others in the crew. Intercepted a supercell organising and quickly developing a wall cloud in the rural areas SE of Greensburg and SW of Pratt. Tim will have a better description here. There was a brief touch down up close and personal here. We then headed generally northeast and we noted at least 3 more brief touchdowns along the marathon trip north.

We then let this go and dropped south to the east of Greensburg. We filmed an area of rotation and had lost contact with the crew. It was at this time we decided to to head back to Dallas - drop-off and pick-up. Luckily so, as we arrived well into the early hours of the morning. We off course hear the large tornado threat once more on the NOAA radio as we dropped south. Tim Marshall got a multi-vortex of one of the tornadoes.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

 

[Brian Swiatowy]

Sweetwater, OK Tornado

Here are a few video caps from the Sweetwater, Oklahoma tornado...a very impressive storm. Me and my storm chase partner/photographer Doug Black caught up with the storm shortly after it crossed I-40 south-southwest of Sweetwater. Nice multi-vortex cycle before going into a full cone. Very picturesque storm...too bad it hit Sweetwater.

 

[Jody Radzik]

A video grab of my first tornado, which touched down approximately 15 miles northeast of Coldwater, KS. I was on the west side of the storm, hence the poor lighting and noisy image. However, it's nice to have a 1920 x 1080 pixel image to work with out of the camera.

 

[Scott Olson]

Woke up in Pratt, KS to the continued sound of ambulance sirens. My short trip to Pratt the night before had been filled with ambulances passing by and the notion that something really bad had happend to Greensburg. When the 12z Dodge City ballon sounding came out it looked like convection would form fairly early and the environment was once again ripe for tornadoes. I headed to Larned and spent time at a small park doing some analysis. By early afternoon the first convective cells begun to form near Dodge City and I intercepted them quickly. Just south of Dodge City I watched a weak supercell, I then went southeast to intercept another supercell. As the storms formed they obtained supercell characteristics but became more linear as other cells formed and merged with them. I continued to go southeast and intercepted several cells that appeared decent. I went south near Protection and watched another weak supercell. As I neared Coldwater I saw a well-dressed Tim Marshall watching the sky with nearly 20 chase cars parked behind him. Into Coldwater I started pondering the possibility of returning to the dryline for further development. The cell had failed to do much and there was some indication that the dryline would in fact reignite. This decision was made for me when I saw the caravan of vehicles flying down the road in continued pursuit of this cell. I turned around and headed back towards Mullinville. As I approached from the south a cell had formed nearly on top of me and begun to intensify. To my dismay, I watched on radar as the cell I had left obtained a hook echo and was tornado warned. This dismay was quickly shunted when the cell I was on quickly organized and started to develop rotation. Just north of Mullinville it became tornado warned.

It took about five minutes before the wall cloud formed. Within minutes a funnel cloud begun to condense downwards. About halfway down it went horizontal and than begin to fall apart. My road options were limited now and the hook was beginning to curl back and would soon obsecure my view. The RFD came crashing down on the back side and I watched as the the clouds in front of me tore open and came pushed quickly down.I took east on the wet dirt roads and made it only two miles before getting into an area I dare not even try to attempt. I knew there was no way to catch up with the cell anymore. I decided to make a long-term decision and head north on the highway, than head east. The hope was to eventually catch one of the southern cells. As I headed east near Macksville I could see the damage from the previous tornado. Entire rows of trees were uprooted and power lines were either down or snapped for miles. As I neared St. John a cell further SW saw a marked increase in rotation. I jammed south and after a while turned west on a paved road. The rotation had become very intense on the radar but the visibility was bad. I continued east for around 7 miles and than turn north. I still could not see the tornado but I knew a large tornado was looming somewhere behind the haze. After about five more minutes I got my first glimpse of a wedge located about 3 miles to my NW. The large, low contrast was very eerie since it was so well hidden. It quickly disappeared and I continued north until I could once again see it.It wasn’t long before I hit the end of the line. The road had been closed from damage due to the Greensburg supercell. As I pulled in a second rope formed several miles to the east and quickly beginned tearing at the earth.

On two seperate occasions the main tornado had sattelites.

More at: The Axis of Nature

 

[Joel Wright]

Well, a frustrating day for us as we were plagued with car trouble earlier in the day, which put us a bit behind.

Jeremy Ludin and I still made it in time though for the better cells moving north through central Kansas. We were a bit unlucky though, and didn't witness any tornadoes. We did see several rotating wallclouds, along with two rather weak funnels. We thought we may have seen a powerflash way down by the horizon northeast of Great Bend KS, but it was probably just lightning.

So anyway, here's a few pics...

 

[Dan Robinson]

I finished my chase log for May 5, with photos and video, located here:

http://stormhighway.com/may52007.shtml

 

[Adam Lucio]

I flew out to Wichita, KS to chase for a single day. I intercepted two tornadoes on a storm that passed Pratt, KS. Below is a link to the full chase account, two short video clips and numerous stills.

http://www.harkphoto.com/05052007.html

Here is a link to the short video clip of a tornado near Raymond, KS.

http://www.harkphoto.com/May52007RaymondKStornado3.wmv

Bill Hark

Thank You for posting that, this was our view of what I think is the same tornado. [I know i need to get a youtube setup, its coming soon!]

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=2028064952

 

[Jody Radzik]

Here's a 15-minute film I made with footage shot during the May 4-6 weekend outbreak. :

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9090860336123150408&hl=en

It's a lot more wall cloud than tornado, with some damage shots in the southeast corner of the Greensberg path.

 

[Brian Stertz]

Late addition to this chase event post...

Just received a video still shot (lightning illuminated) from my chase partner Rich Thies from the night time portion of the May 5th chase. The large tornado was in Stafford Co. KS and was moving northward along US Highway 281 very near the town of Seward. Note the developing small funnel in the foreground. This was likely the same circulation that we encountered later as a rain-wrapped blast of 80mph RFD winds with rain and quarter sized hail south of the town of Ellinwood.