Well... This was a travel day, but I suggested to my chaser newbie friend Steve that we might drive back from Woodward toward I-25 by way of Liberal, KS, and up to US160 at Ulysses. The morning progs suggested a nice dryline along the CO-KS border plus pretty good instability, shear and moisture in that area and down into the OK panhandle.
A story of rather poor execution (with limited on-board information).... Cells started going up fast in mid-afternoon as we turned west on US160 on the CO border, particularly down south of Springfield and up near Sharon Springs, KS or something like that. But it was early, I thought, and the impulse from the west wasn't supposedly due for a few hours. So lo-and-behold we zip west under a tiny shower with some small soft hail at the border -- east of Walsh, CO. Dean calls to tell of the severe about 100 miles north, while cells in between seemed to be struggling. Meanwhile the cell south of Springfield is tail-end Charlie but only just about holding its own.
I decided to continue into Springfield, engage in some personal outflow, and decide what to do. Just as we're pulling in, Dean calls with the Elkhart obs -- something like kinda cool/54dp with a full gale from the SSE. He says, "That's gotta be some impulse coming!" I thinks, holy crap! That's what we zoomed through 25 miles back.
Getting back east and trying to get in front of and past the struggling tail-end storm to the south was the (wrong) decison. Unfortunately as we pulled into Elkhart the former struggling storm was getting frisky almost overhead, and I wimped out on blasting south, instead retreating up toward Rolla for another end-around attempt. She was moving just a bit too fast for the time left and I gave up in Hooker about the time just west of Guymon was getting pummeled by golf balls. Dean called to report the Garden City area tor warnings. As I was filling the tank in Hooker a little shear funnel snaked down a bit from the flanking updraft shelf just to my southwest as if to say, "Sukka! Should'a gone north!"
