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

[Brian Stertz]

2 tornadoes

Rich & Ryan thies, Eric Flescher, and I got 2 tornadoes Saturday. Chased the supercell through the backroads from just north of Pratt. Wondered when this stupid thing would finally drop one, and then squeaked out a small tornado between Raymond and Chase. Then headed west and got to the Great Bend meso too late...the first of many to move in from Pawnee County. It was extremely dark in Great Bend with that particular supercell. Then got a hotel room in Great Bend lined up in between the action and then headed down to get the tornado(es) coming out of the Dillwyn-Macksville area. Got positioned on US-281 near Seward KS, but grew a bit leary of the tornado path marked on XM for the intersection we sat at. We backed off about 2 miles east and watched what appeared to be a large truncated cone tornado move n-ne along US-281 near the Stafford-Barton Countyline. Had the powerful meso pass in front of us south of Ellinwood. But rain was very heavily involved so could not see if there was a tornado embedded in the rain or not. Unless your positioning was good, you either got blasted by the RFD or put into the extreme "car wash" or both. Very oddly, biggest hail we ever encountered was quarter sized. It was a bit frustrating at times, but saw many wall clouds, funnels, and 2 verifiable tornadoes. Quick movement of the supercells and the heavy rain issues made the video and photo ops of this chase pretty poor.

 

[Ben Prusia]

I intercepted the cell that went through Great Bend at the town of Wilson. I did not manage to see any tornado from this storm, most likely due to being rain wrapped.

But, I was treated to a better experience on the drive home (not expecting it, either). I managed to spot a funnel cloud illuminated by lightning just off of I-70 to the north in western Waubansee County after driving through some quarter sized hail. I followed the storm on K-99 SE of Saint George and could not tell whether the funnel touched the ground, though the storm was reported to have a tornado that touched down near Saint George.

 

[Darin Brunin]

Here are some video captures west of St. John, KS. We just starting to really go through stuff so more is coming.

 

[Jay Cazel]

Tyler Costantini, Joey Ketcham, Chris Wilburn, Bart Comstock and myself where on the storms from just north of Pratt to just south of Radium Ks.

http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa149/jaycazel/05-05-2007-N-Pratt-5.jpg
http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa149/jaycazel/05-05-2007-N-Pratt-7.jpg
http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa149/jaycazel/05-05-2007-N-Pratt-6.jpg
http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa149/jaycazel/05-05-2007-N-Pratt-2.jpg

I have some video of the Radium Ks tornado finally got it into my computer last night, I will try to get it posted when time permits. Was a long weekend, the only stills I got of that tornado at Radium did not turn out very well. That is what I get for not having enough time to get the camera set. Of course all the OTHER pictuers turned out good.
http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa149/jaycazel/05-05-2007-Radium-Ks-2.jpg

 

[Gerard Jebaily]

I cant say much more than what the following map has to say. But I will add that I was stuck for 4.5 hours in that spot from about 5-9:30 pm. I was stuck in a ditch in the middle of nowhere between Macksville and Belprewith with water rising into the vehicle. I hailed a Mayday numerous times, nobody heard me. I called 911, they wouldnt come get us claiming it was "too dangerous". I originally wanted a tow truck to pull me out, but after 3-4 storms were bearing down right on top of me and i had no cover what so ever, i just wanted out of my car. The nearly constant hail storms forced me to stay in my vehicle. The nearest farmstead (from what i calculated) was over 2 miles away. I will edit later with pictures of my vehicle, radar imagery, and video of the spin out into the ditch. But here is a google earth map of my position and the tornado reports during the time frame..

 

[Mike Mezeul II]

Started off in Woodward then headed towards the storm to the west of Buffalo. Observed a brief wall cloud. Followed the storm northeast for a few counties as it produced wall cloud after wall cloud and funnel after funnel. Observed two very brief, weak tornadoes. One to the southwest of Stafford and the other just to the east of Great Bend. It was great to get out today and chase for the first real time all season. Although, it was quite a shock to see some of the actions taken by chasers on the road. Most were courteous and chased quite ethical, but I did get stuck behind a vehicle running a million strobes and a lightbar, driving at 25 mph, with no tornado on the ground or immediate danger, and everytime I would try to pass they would speed up. Quite shocked also to be behind another vehicle with two of its occupants hanging outside the window video taping. All in all a great chase though.

 

[Brian Thalken]

Intercepted this meso in Rice County, KS just to the west of Alden, KS and to the south of Chase, KS (what a name). Nice rain free base off to the west and then we moved in closer to have a great clear slot open up with some action beneath. Witnessed a brief tornado touch down on the otherside of some trees close by our location, I was too slow to get a still photo, I still need to review the video and post some clips. I love the contrast with the nice green wheat fields. I couldn't believe the number of chasers that were on that road between Chase, KS and Alden, KS.

Chase Account:
http://www.nebraskastorms.com/May_5_2007.htm

Clear slot with action underneath the lowering.

Video coming soon...

 

[Dick McGowan]

I didn't get a chance to take many stills, but these first two are of that first tornado-warned storm near Pratt that produced the brief spinup shortly after. The next is of a funnel somewhere in Stafford county. I'll edit this post with more video soon.

I thought it was going to do it right here.

Funnel started to wrap back around and would spinup a few minutes later

One of many times this storm tried to produce.

 

[Jesse Risley]

John Thurston and I arrived in McPherson, KS about midnight on Friday. We intercepted the Claflin storm as it was dying off and observed what appeared to be a brief funnel (albeit between lightning strikes) beneath a lowering just south of Ellsworth. That was the best we did on Friday.

We chased several cells in North Central KS on Saturday, with the best chase on a cell that moved from near Belleville, KS to Lincoln, NE. This cell was tor warned for about 30 minutes and produced a nice lowering and inflow tails. If it did produce a tornado, everything was rain wrapped on this cell from our vantage point. Like several others, I'm not happy enough with any photos to post them on the board and waste bandwidth, but it was a nice first chase on the plains!

 

[Rocky Rascovich]

Day 2 of my travels with RJ Evans, Mike Ratliff and Bobby Prentice. We left Woodward as a screaming 850mb. jet was racing toward our target somewhere up toward Great Bend. We started by making our way toward Greensburg to try to find out where the damage path commenced with that whirling dervish. Aproximately 10mi. SSW of Greensburg, we noticed damage that was all too fresh, a newly built farmstead occupied by a Mennonite family, we stayed there a little more than half an hour surveying damage and tactfully but gracefully asked questions about the moments that changed their lives. Both RJ and Bobby shot many pictures and some video of what I think was high end EF-2/maybe low end EF-3 damage. This Mennonite family displayed a true strength and a peace that passes all understanding as they faced this disaster... they are truly remarkable people and I have great respect for them. Be watching for Bobby's homepage for pictures sometime soon. http://members.cox.net/rprentice/

We continued on as convection was getting an early start, already I was concerned because not only was this happening earlier than I liked, but convection had linear sements that were showing signs at least at that time (1230-1300cdt) of turning into a squall ine... we figured that as the upper level forcing along with the broad area of 300-350 m/s helicity values would gradually separate these cells thus increasing tornadic potential.

We eventually concentrated on cells around the Seward/Stafford, KS. area where we did witness one tornado with very brief surface contact... looking at my video today, I noticed several swirls in an open field, I thought initially this was a multi vortex tornado but now I'm not sure, however Bobby Prentice and RJ were in a much better position to videotape as I was strapped in the rear seat with more of a compromised view, still it was something as I was zoomed all the way in and noticed a grove of trees very close to those suction spots were swaying wildly in the bursts of wind.

What happened moments later was jaw dropping, the meso quickly firmed up, started rotating intensely and exhibited rapidly cascading cloud tags in the front while rising just as fast to its sides and back... very surreal, I can't quite remember seeing cloud movement like this. we all thought that tornadogenesis was imminent... we raced north with this literally a mile to our west... and me having a prayer storm wondering if we would beat this... not too mention, Seward (or Stafford?).

We then followed the supercell up by the Quivera NWR where we saw two more well developed funnels, both of which doubtfully touched the ground. These actually were both in view at one time... again a pretty cool sight.

Later on, we backtracked down around Great Bend then on south as another supercell was moving NE, we tried intercepting that as we passed by tornado damage probably from the night before. We hung out in St. John for a short bit.... not short enough... because we may have been able to go a little west of town and see the large tornado that Reed Timmer and others captured...instead we were treated to the birth of that beast as a wet and fairly intense RFD slammed us... RJ's mesonet equipment peaked at 60mph, maybe more... we were actually on the side of the road when that hit... Mike Ratliff who continued with us in his vehicle voiced the same concern as me... how bad was this going to get? You could barely make out the passing lines on the road and winds were howling from the east then SE, then veered south, swirling in front of us. I nearly made brown on that one..I think RJ was more entertained by my reactions then from the storm... what a guy!

We finished off the night in Pratt with Pizza and a well deserved beer, Reed Timmer was there and proudly showed off his up close and personal video of the St. John tornado... I'm quite content I was not with him and his crew, I probably would have given up the ghost!

We spent the night in Alva as there was no room in Pratt.. (and probably won't be for awhile).

 

[John Farley]

Well, my tornado count for 2007 stays at zero, as I managed to pick the one relatively tornadoless area of the plains to chase. Like others, I chased the late afternoon storms from northwest of Woodward up into the Protection and Coldwater, Kansas areas. Definitely not a bust, as I saw two very pretty supercells. I followed the first one from around Laverne up to north of Protection, where the north option turned to mud and ended my persuit of that storm along with a half dozen or so other chase vehicles. Around that time a tornado was reported by a chaser 4 or 5 miles to my ENE, west of Coldwater, but I did not see it. The storm did have a quite persistent lowering on the southeast side of its core, however.

I then dropped down to intercept the next storm moving up from the Buffalo area - very pretty supercell, with a couple brief wall clouds, but it never got close to producing.

Perhaps the best treat of the chase came after I checked into a motel in Liberal, KS, as I was able to videotape a spectacular display of anvil crawlers in the line of storms southeast of there around 10:30 p.m.

I will post a full report with pics and video as time permits. Congrats to all who caught tornadoes today. I might have if I had been able to get to Harper Co. in time to get good position on the first batch of storms that formed around Buffalo and moved up into Kansas - maybe I could have stayed with them and caught some of the KS tornadoes. However, by the time I got near the tail-end storm around 2:00 p.m. it was too far north of me to have much hope of catching and I expected discrete storms to form to the south, so opted to get data and wait for new convection in Woodward.

My full report with photos, lightning video, and radar images is now available at:

http://www.johnefarley.com/chase50507.htm

 

[Bill Hark]

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

 

[Sam Barricklow]

Northwest Oklahoma, Southern Kansas Chase

see:

http://www.k5kj.net/20070505.htm

 

[Jeremy Ludin]

Joel Wright and I were somewhere near Bushton, KS and witnessed numerous rotating wall clouds and even a brief funnel cloud. No tornadoes, but man what an impressive storm. Numerous updrafts exploded one after another as they rolled through. Thought we saw one tube and possibly even a power flash wrapped up back in the rain, but video or stills can't confirm.

 

[Jody Radzik]

In the early afternoon on Saturday, Bob Schaefer had me in Laverne, Oklahoma. There were two cells that went up. I decided to follow the southernmost of these. Unfortunately, it was a mostly unproductive storm. But after waiting east of Buffalo I was able to get on the late afternoon initiation.

This storm was productive, producing numerous wall clouds and funnels:

It was north of Coldwater that the storm produced this tornado:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7316043935405200713

I kept on this storm for a while and then fell back on the one behind it. There were more wall clouds and funnels, but no tornadoes that I could see. But my route brought me to the corner of the Greensberg tornado's path, where I took this picture of a single knocked-down phone pole: