6/12/08 REPORTS: KS/MO/IA/WI/IL/OK

[Mike Peregrine]

Keeping it brief because I'm beat. I never made it out of Lawrence and Topeka tonight. Intercepted two amazing wall clouds, both quite close to Lawrence. The first, just to the north of I-70 was rotating rapidly. The second was later on just west of Lawrence, being covered by local news at the time. I went up on the hill in the middle of KU campus and was treated to a gorgeous view of a long gust front leading into a wall cloud on the leading edge of quite a bright green hail core. Once the gust front passed overhead, Lawrence (or Lake Lawrence, as it can now be referred to), was nailed with a deluge of rain. Storms are training over the same spots, flooding streets and roads very quickly. Some really beautiful colors in several of the storms this evening. Got in on the tail end of the Bonner Springs storm that evidently produced up north of I-70 for a bit. Pretty interesting chase. Got a lot of cool photos out of it that I'm anxious to go through sometime in the distant future at this point. Right now I'm tired and glad to be home.

 

[Jim Zandonai]

Took off for Rockton IL area at 1225pm.. An area of Strong storms was moving NE into the area from Western Winnebago Co..
Caught the storm in on 251 around Rockton and experienced very heavy rainfall and some winds to about 40mph..

Storm moved on by and headed back then saw it growing stronger and made the mistake of trying to go back after it in as it was already around Clinton WI. when I decided to go back...I never chase after storms moving away at high speeds because you cant catch them.. I ended up in East Troy.. Not only a stupid thing to do but just when I need Gas and was on E their power was knocked out..but made it back south to another city for gas barely.

Saw another storm on way back...nice structure but saw more headed for our area in Rockford...
So powered up the rocket and headed back.. Well we had some severe warned cells in Stephenson co and W-Winnebago county heading NE..
Just as it entered the area the laptop battery died..but I really didn't need it anymore since I could see it anyway.
Storms move on NE and got deluged in Machesney Park..Came back home and charged up the equipment for possibly later..

At 527 PM.. Tornado warnings were out for areas SW of Madison but they were racing NE at 45-55mph ? What is it with these Storm speeds ?
No sense even trying that..It'll be gone b4 I even get out of Rockford at this time of day !
So I head out for Freeport on 20...laptop and all and stop in Winnebago ..storm is in NW Ogle county.So sit n wait to see where it was going...well it was heading right for my location and with a 50kft top vil in the 60s, I figured I couldn't lose...BZZZZZZZ. Wrong. The storm literally fizzled into Rain shower west of RFD..However I did get to view some great lightning strikes..Where was the stronger storms ? Freeport area. Oh well you never know whats going to happen and when they are going to strengthen or weaken..

Fun day though..great to be out n about around here again

 

[Joel Wright]

Talk about a backyard chase! I drove maybe 15 miles all total. Didn't see anything too exciting, but snapped some shots of a very picturesque wall cloud just north of my little town of Erie. Lightning was sure vicious with this storm. CGs were hitting all around the damn thing. They were even shooting down out of the lower clouds streaming into the storm from the southeast. I've never seen that before. Kind of scary.

After a short while the storm became outflow dominant so I let it go. New supercells were approaching the Quad Cities from the southwest. Jeremy Ludin met me back at my house and then we took off south of town and watched the tornado warned sup approach. It looked mildly interesting for a short bit, but soon it was apparent it too was becoming outflow dominant.

Guess I can't complain since we didn't have to drive anywhere really. Makes it a bit more interesting when something happens close to home too.

 

[Andy Rice]

Wisconsin 6/12

Kind of a surprise chase, as I was flying back from a business trip and happened to land in Madison, WI right as a couple active Tornado Warnings were occuring in Dane and Rock counties.

Emily Varner and I went about 20 mintues south of the airport and were in the updraft area just to the SE of Stoughton, WI. We followed the base from there all the way to the Cambridge-Lake Mills, WI area. Lots of flooding on the smaller roads in Dane county.

Looking at the SPC there were a number of tornados reported in Dane county on these cells...... but I didn't see them. One really natsy wall cloud and a couple of lowerings that if seen from a couple miles away might have been called in as a tornado... but I would doubt the NWS finds any damage out there if they check.

Since I didn't have my cameras since I was just getting back from the airport, I only managed to get a few pics from my crappy camera phone. As you can see this wall cloud might be misconstrued to be a tornado but as soon as I got past the trees it was obvious that it was not.

Gotta love when the TVS is right on top of you

 

[Brandon Sullivan]

Overall not a bad day... Started off looking toward NC IL. Where strong heating and destabilization took place.. Headed N toward Galesburg, IL.. I filled up and waited for the new outlook. It still looked ok so I continued north.. Their was some sort of a residual boundary that storms seemed to flare up on when they hit that was east of Davenport, IA.. After getting there, and feeling bust, I was looking into the discrete supercells that were moving into Northeast MO..

These looked promising so I headed into Mt.Pleasant IA.. Couldnt catch the first sup. which put down tornadoes, got hit by a cell that flared up between burlington and Mt. Pleasant.. Got a nice shelf with it, and some incredible lightning.. And the usual penny size hail..

Then headed for the other tor warned sup. near mt.pleasant, which wasnt very impressive like it was in MO.. Another nice shelf.. Although radar had quite a nice couplet on the cell, couldnt find any lowering/rotation..

Also, at this time I met Colin Davis, Apritchard, and Scott Kampas... Was good to see others out..

Hope Everyone Did Well!

Pics Tommorow.

 

[Ben Prusia]

I did a brief chase today:

I left Gardner targetting the tornado warned storm in Shawnee County, Kansas. I headed northwest of Lawrence as this cell moved out of Shawnee County. This cell showed a tiny bit of visible rotation but nothing too much of a concern. I then broke off of this storm and headed south wanting to target the tornado warned storm that was moving into Osage County but was then sidetracked to a storm that was showing some rotation to the west of Lawrence. This storm had a very ominous looking wall cloud with evident rotation to the NW of Lawrence (right around where the notch was located in the radar scans). Seen a news helicopter fly overhead following this particular storm (most likely SkyFOX from FOX 4).

Did I see the Linwood tornado? No, I went to the east on a more southerly path...made me wish I was storm chasing in a helicopter sometime. On the drive up to intercept the storm in metro Kansas City, the sun came out providing a very surreal high contrast scene that I haven't seen in quite a long time. Overall a good local (only went 95 miles today) chase I wasn't expecting.

 

[Jordan Hartley]

Tagged along with Mike Gribble today chased SC/EC KS today. Got on the first tornado warned storm in Ks near cottonwood falls. Observed 2 decent wall clouds at once west of Emporia. One ended up as a funnel on the flanking side of the updraft. Very nice fat cone shaped funnel that lasted at least 5 minuetes before it roped out. I did not see any debris or condensation that touched the ground. Actually got the whole life cycle of the circulation on video from very close range. We were within 1/2-1 mile of the circulation the entire time. Ended up stair stepping south and jumping on storms to the SW until we got to Eureka where we called the chase off then listened to KFDI on the way back as a tornadic supercell came within 6 miles of my house while im 80 miles away lol. Mike did a great job on the forecast though today props to him and we were on the right storm the entire day so all in all it was a success!!!

 

[Mikey Gribble]

As Jordan mentioned we were chasing together today along with my dad. The only thing I was going to add to what Jordan already said is that there were two times that there may have been brief tornadoes, but we can't confirm anything. There was one that was approximately 4 miles north of Plymouth. The wall cloud was extremely low to the ground and the RFD was a little wet so visibility wasn't good, but you could see a rope funnel that made it all the way or very close to the ground. I got the camera on just before it dissipated so I will have to watch video and check storm reports to see if anybody else reported it. The other one was a possible tornado about 5 miles west of the where the county line intersects the turnpike just SW of Emporia (god's country, there is absolutely nothing out there). I am a lot less sure on this one though. We were driving through hills so it may have just been a misleading lowering that looked like it made it to the ground.
All in all it wasn't a bad chase since it was so close to home. I am really hoping for one more good tornado day before the end of season though and today obviously didn't deliver in that regard, so I guess it's time to start looking ahead to the end of next week.

 

[Brandon Ivey]

Matt Hughes and I caught a rain wrapped tornado crossing highway 177 about 4-5 miles south of Cottonwood Falls, KS. This thing was totally wrapped in rain, but after observing cloud motions from the scenic turnout on 177, we were almost certain something was on the ground back in there. We got south of it and were able to capture a low contrast stovepipe within the rain bands that roped out over the highway only a hundred yards in front of the car. The video of this tornado was taken around 7PM. A link is posted below.

http://thestormreport.com/blog/2008/06/june-12th-2008-kansas-tornado/

 

[afischer]

Nice catch Brandon. I was on Chase co. storm #1 early on west of Bazaar. When it first took off it rapidly developed a beautifully exposed, LP/barberpole style updraft and a long inflow band. By the time I found a place to pull over (there's a good 10 mile stretch between Bazaar and Cottonwood Falls with no clear view of the horizon) the classic structure had unfortunately already gone downhill. Anyway, the highlight with this storm was east of Strong City a ways, with condensing inflow and a focused area of cylonic rotation... followed by a pretty RFD clear slotting. Let that one go and ducked in front of Chase co. storm #2 near that scenic turnout. It looked a bit messy at that time (~25 min. before the tornado) and I was annoyed by the horrible terrain so I headed southwest for new storms. Caught up with the tor-warned Sedgwick county storm a couple hours later west of Douglass. I must say, the forested nature of this part of Kansas (just southeast of Wichita) certainly surprised me... rows upon rows of trees over a 15+ mile stretch, with poor visibility. The storm had a long forward flank gust front and looked to be having problems containing its outflow. Watched a trailing storm move by as well in the darkness, and called it a day.

 

[Matthew Crowther]

Caught the storm south of Wichita near sunset after giving up in the messy storms further north- may have missed a tornado up there but I am sick of rain-wrapped hard to see tubes. In any event, I am glad I did because the beast that went from near Clearwater to north of Mulvane was my best structure show of the year by far.

 

[Bill Doms]

MN bow echo

Small severe bow echo survived from eastern SD into central MN before dying. The approach and the gust front was not very impressive (37 mph at Clearwater, MN) but the low topped cells did provide some nice photo ops as they moved off to the east/northeast.

A few more PICS HERE

 

[Chris Hayes]

Because of a work related issue this year, I'm able to have an extended chasecation. We started our chase with the tornado warned storm west of Strong City. Observed the storm for a while, following it along US 50. It appeared to be going linear, and the storm to the SW began to get a more classic supercell appearance to it, so we dashed west and then south to view the storm. This is where the trouble began to occur. Wanting to stay off 50, because of the rain/hail core on the highway, I decided to take a side road south then west. We got into position and was able to view some awesome HP structure. The storm began to accelerate eastward so we had to turn around and try and get back to 177 south of Cottonwood Falls. We got on a BAD side road just west of 50. Getting back on 177 south, we began hearing the tire make a weird sound. We thought it might have been caked in mud. WRONG! We ended up having a flat. Very bad position too. We watched as a tornado warned storm tracked just to our south near Bazaar. We waited for the storm rain to calm down, changed the tire, then an hour after the flat, got back on the chase for a brief period of time. Watched the tornado warned storm near Cassoday, then headed back towards ICT to view the tornado warned storm. I couldnt find an easy way to get to the south side of the storm without core punching, so we called off the chase. An interesting, but highly frustrating day.

 

[Donald Giuliano]

Chased the stuff in southern KS, including the TOR-warned storm near Wichita. Although it had great structure, it looked rather HP and we had difficulty getting a clear view of the notch due to running into a patch of trees, roads, and hills reminiscent of southeast OK. After that, had dinner at Sonic in Winfield much like 4 years ago--though after somewhat less spectacular results this time. When done eating, we decided to take some lightning shots of the next storm to come by, which by then was an elevated beast putting on quite a show. Got some pics before getting hooked (haven't had the chance to look at them yet, but I think a few are keepers), and decided it was worth driving east to get ahead of the hook again for another round of pics.

After blasting east through the south side of the hook on US-160 east of Winfield, we broke out into the clear and much to our surprise were greeted by a large wall cloud about 4-5 miles to our north near Burden that subsequently produced several funnels and even a brief tornado. Called NWS to report this occurrence as apparently the cell was able to briefly tap the warm air south of the cold pool, but it didn't last long as the cold pool rapidly took over again and elevated the meso once more.

The spectacular lightning display continued, and just as we were about to reach an ideal spot to set up shop and take more stills we ran into a creek flowing directly through the road. I guess whoever built the road decided it wasn't necessary to put in a bridge, so we quickly decided not to bother trying to forge ahead through the rapidly moving creek. Since the road was so narrow, it took some time to turn the truck around and drive back west a couple miles to get out of the trees, and by the time we made it out we were back in the precip on the south side of the hook. Although Kansas has generally awesome chase terrain, it seems like everything we've chased this year up there has quickly moved into the worst road network/cell coverage possible.

Anyway, the brief tor and awesome lightning were a nice consolation prize on yet another mediocre chase. I'm still waiting for a chase this year where we're not constantly stressing out and playing catch-up due to awful roads. At this point I don't think I'm going to get it, as for me the season is probably over barring a well-timed weekend chase up north.

 

[Tim Marshall]

SHORT: Gene Rhoden and I had another great chase day in Kansas. We sampled supercells with rotating wall clouds near Elmdale, Strong City, and Haysville, KS. Saw a tapered funnel cloud, and survived an incredible lightning barrage in Haysville.

LONG: Target was El Dorado, KS. We left our hotel in Salina and had lunch in El Dorado. GRLevel 3 showed great detail of the fine line denoting the stationary front and dryline while looping the frames revealed a mesolow near Newton as depicted by circulating cloud bands. Transverse cloud bands moved southwest behind the stationary front while horizontal convective rolls moved northwest in the warm sector. We drifted north to the frontal boundary at Florence noting rock hard towers growing and dissipating along the northeast-southwest oriented boundary. Cloud bases were linear northeast of Florence, but a storm at Florence had more of a rounded base, so we followed this northeast on Rt. 50. Soon, a rotating wall cloud developed to our northeast and passed us on Rt. 50 near Elmdale. Another circulation center was observed northeast of Strong City. However, seeding of the imbedded supercell line concerned us, so we dropped southwest to more isolated convection forming southwest of Wichita. We arrived at Bayneville (west of Haysville) and watched a rain free base with several inflow bands pointing southeast. Soon, a rotating wall cloud formed and we were bombarded by frequent anvil-to-ground discharges east and southeast of the wall cloud. GRLevel 3 showed a pronounced echo overhang. We watched a funnel cloud over Haysville on the northeast side of the descending reflectivity core. The GRLevel 3 detail was stunning and we were able to keep in the notch of the hook echo for more then ten miles as the notch moved east through Haysville, Derby and Rose Hill. A great way to end my chase vacation. It's now back to work Monday in Texas for a week before being shipped to Minnesota for the summer. I agree with Rich T. on a frustrating chase year. Although picturesque tornadoes were few and far between, I saw lots of great storms -mostly in Kansas. TM