6/14/04 NOW: MIDWEST / NORTHEAST

The SPC has upgraded parts of southern MI through the Northeast to a MDT risk, with a 45% chance for damaging winds. Bow echo appears to have lost its "bow" shape, and looks like a squall line at the moment. With good SFC heating, instability, and strong mid level winds overspreading the area, I would expect the line to continue to intensify, and possibly build northward a bit in the next couple hours...

Robert
 
Here in southern Ontario, we had several tornado warnings (doppler indicated). I went on a brief chase early this evening and caught a beautiful rotating wall cloud, with striations in the updraft of the storm. The whole thing just looked rounded, and the rotation was pretty fast. It was also neat how scud was getting sucked right up into the wall cloud. I thought it would tornado, but it did not. We got good video and pictures... once I get them, I will post them online.
 
Drove the rest of the way home today. Kept WxWorx going the whole way, as I was driving across a couple of boundaries that were trying to fire storms in IL/IN/KY. Took a glance back at the Plains on radar and saw a nice supercell near Great Bend, KS, tornado warned with a hefty shear marker/SCIT on it. Shortly thereafter I got a call from a friend (non-chaser) here in Charleston who has family living near La Crosse, they reported a tornado on the ground visible from their house.
 
I chased solo on June 14th in western Central KS, observing two beautiful supercell thunderstorms. The first storm formed between Hoisington and Russell, KS and moved southeast. This storm put down a very picturesque wet microburst:

<img src=http://www.underthemeso.com/chase2004/jun14/Dscn8151.jpg width=300 height=250>
near Susank, KS at ~6:18pm CDT

The storm then took on picturesque rotating structure as it moved towards the Cheyenne Bottoms area:

<img src=http://www.underthemeso.com/chase2004/jun14/Dscn8180.jpg width=250 height=300>
near Cheyenne Bottoms Wildlife Area at ~7:17pm CDT

This storm eventually diminished, and I drove west towards the Rush County area to intercept the supercells there. There were two supercell updrafts in very close proximity to each other. The western one was the one being tornado warned (I observed no tornadoes) and the eastern cell eventually turned into a beautiful stack of plates then "mothership" structure:

<img src=http://www.underthemeso.com/chase2004/jun14/Dscn8202.jpg width=300 height=250>
near Dundee, KS (southwest of Great Bend) at ~8:44pm CDT

I observed not one other storm chasing soul while I was out in this area all evening. What an awesome non-tornadic chase... likely my favorite non-tornadic chase of the year!

Mike U
 
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