6/14/09 REPORTS: KS OK TX

[Bill Tabor]

Short (on the road): Managed to quickly get on the Paducah, Tx cell right as it was entering Paducah. As I approached I saw very impressive stacked plate supercell structure and a carousel looking large funnel cloud. High humidity in the area and intermixed precip near the funnel and my distance made it difficult to ascertain if it was a tornado. But it looked very large and intense as well as close to the ground. This thing was incredibly beautiful! I only wished I had more time to watch, but right as I got there the RFD developed a large plume of red dust/dirt in the field to my nnw which headed my way and passed in between me and the funnel/potential tornado. Then came the wind and rain and the area of rotation moved off. Arrgghh! Curses!! GR3 was showing some really nice fairly intense couplet signature since just west of Matador which had continued to intensify as I watched from Stamford. I would have been there much sooner, but I was torn having to go back to Austin for a party and my brother playing in his new band, versus giving it a go near Childress (my target area). Out of position after watching the increasingly nervous intensification I could no longer take it and turned around racing (literally) to Paducah. Unbelievably I still managed to catch the storm and reflecting I would have had more time if I hadn't had to stop in Walmart for a Dv tape and then stop at the Alsups for gas!!! Ahhhh!!!!! Talk about frustration. Well that's my story. What a beautiful storm. I hope someone else was on it to share a pick and verify if that torn was planted between Matador and Paducah. I have a strong feeling it was. Pics when I get time...along with all my other days I still haven't updated.

 

[Dave Lewison]

Played the target area north of Liberal KS. Despite morning cloudiness, I liked the mesolow forming in SE CO during the day, and once the western OK panhandle area started clearing out, we wandered up towards Johnson City where winds were backing nicely into the triple point. Noticed the first cell go up with a deviant left motion. We let that one go, but shortly thereafter, another cell developed just to its SE, and had a more normal trajectory. This became the dominant cell that tracked across Rt 160.

The cell had a big problem fighting its outflow the whole time. Large plumes of dust raced away from the base, forming a shelf appearance several times. However, about 20 miles east of Ulysses, a powerful RFD cut into the updraft, pretty much cleaving it in half. This spun up a long elephant trunk tornado that lasted about 3 minutes before getting wrapped in the rain. The cell continued marching ESE, with a monster HP appearance and beautiful striations. The cell tried several more times but never could tighten the rotation enough to plant another one (that we could see). We gave it up near Ashland, as it appeared to be completely gusting out and going linear. An hour later as we were headed into DDC, I watched with horror as the cell somehow managed to pull itself together again and attain TOR warning and a nice hook on radar. But it seems there were no other long-lasting tornadoes with this storm that I've heard of...

 

[Skip Talbot]

Well, Adam Lucio and I managed to snag the the same tornado Dave posted above. We were just east of Ulysses, KS at the time trying to stay ahead of the HP beast. Our position ahead of the storm had quite a bit of rain from the hook wrapping around in front of us that drastically restricted our view. Once the tornado was down we ran north up 83 trying to get more contrast through the clear slot, but that tornado just up and vanished about as quickly as it appeared. Here's a contrast enhanced shot of the beginning of its lifespan before we moved trying to get better contrast:

Here's a frame grab from the robotic camera dome I have on the roof of the van:

The storm went outflow dominant after that. We followed it from eastern Colorado all the way to Medicine Lodge where it appeared to organize itself again after shedding its gust front, but we never saw the second tornado that was reported on spotter network.

Its quite frustrating trying to maneuver around an HP with limited road options. Hopefully the shear is a little better tomorrow and we can get a more classic looking RFB to work around.

More pics and video of the tornado from the robotic camera dome to come...

 

[Adam Lucio]

Well Skip already posted our account of the tornado, we probably should have stayed put but it started raining so we wanted to get a better view.

A couple other interesting elements, I watched the storm ingest this brain looking scud tag which then became attached and started rotating rapdily...this was before the tornado dropped.

Scud tag being drawn into the storm:

Then becoming attached and rotating...easily visible:

After the tornado we booked it south through a very intense RFD, then went back east through Sublette where we experienced a rapid intense wind shift...winds were howling at severe levels out of the north....suddenly stopped...then rapdily shifted out of the south....then back from the north, it was pretty intense going through there and some wind damage was reported shortly after, we passed a mesonet so Im hoping they got a measurement.

Gave up the chase when it looked like the storm gusted out and headed for Medicine Lodge, then it seemed the storm reained some life and prompted another tornado warning so we got suckered back west on 160 in the hilly terrain, from a distance we could see a wall cloud and good lightning but that was it.

Did get into some random hail at times with the largest being nicke just to the west of Johnson City. We were on that storm since the 1st echo showed up in southeast Colorado. It looks like it is still severe warned on I-35 as i type this. Impressive.

At least the trip isnt tornado-less....but hopefully tomorrow we can get a nice, good picture and better video in a non HP mess.

 

[Dave Lewison]

Adam, I saw this "detached feature" too. It was out ahead of the advancing gust front, and it looked like a secondary, albeit very small, cumulus updraft. Not sure that's what it was, but it looked like it. It was rotating vigorously for a while and had rotating dust beneath it, which we filmed for several minutes. I thought it might be the beginnings of a forward flank tornado, which is more common on HP storms (kinda like the South Plains tornado from May 12 2005). But the gust front caught it and ingested it, and that was that.

 

[Dave Chapman]

Similar chase to Dave and Skip.

Loved that final structure shot before the storm weakened.

This was my wife's second tornado and fifth great supercell in only her seventh day of chasing (this is her first time joining me on a chase trip). She's getting the wrong idea about the effort/reward ratio of storm chasing!

Here's my full report:
http://www.kickbully.com/2009Storm/storms96.html

 

[Olivier Staiger]

close, but no banana

same storm from SE CO to SW KS
stopped to help fellow chasers in trouble (mud) ,
couldn't get in front of the beast.
video from cellphone >
part one
http://www.kyte.tv/ch/9038-klipsi/473680-june-14-part-one
part two
http://www.kyte.tv/ch/9038-klipsi/474023-part-2

hail in x20 slowmotion at 600fps
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdCWa3-PWr8&feature=channel_page

image of the day.... car shadow at sunset

 

[edward oneal]

SW Kansas Supercell

I missed the tornado by 15 minutes, got to the storm about the time it became outflow dominate tried to stay ahead of it but could not. Every time I would stop to watch its next attempt at spinning up outflow would cut it off and me. Stayed with it south of Bucklin were the storm lost most of its push. And a new updraft started to build, had to let it go there because of commitments at home. here are a few pictures.

 

[Matt Chatelain]

Thomas Spence, Curtis McDonald and Myself chased the storm from from the beginning in SE Colorado to when it produced the tornado. We really would like to thank Gene Moore, and Olivier Staiger for pulling us out of the mud in earlier in the day. There was nobody on that road and there was no telling how long we could have been stuck there if they hadn't been kind enough to help us out... we GREATLY appreciate it! We cleaned ourselves up from the muddy mess and got ahead of the storm. Saw the Sublette, KS tornado and below are the pics and video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWm2jxN4FEs&feature=channel_pageView attachment 2756

 

[Steve Worthington]

6-14-09 was really intense for us. Just as we get to the western Kansas cell we pop out from a dirt road and look west and this is our View.

We went south from Hwy144 and found a good place to set-up shop.
Found out what to close means

Got stuck in the Hail Core amoung other things. Had a great time and cant wait for todays chase


I`ll be posting the pictures from this storm on our web site when I get time in a few day`s.

 

[Jason Boggs]

Myself and Chris Martin met up with Steve Miller(TX) east of Happy, TX. We sat a few minutes and then proceeded to go south towards the storms that formed in the SW panhandle. Steve went SE and myself and Chris went to investigate storms near the Dimmitt-Arney area. They never got going, so we ditched them and made our way to Silverton where better storms were ongoing. We went south of town near South Plains and played in some rain, wind and small hail for a while. We then called it a day. Not much else to see.

Steve Miller (in blue vehicle) and Chris Martin look over data.

Looking east toward billowing updrafts

Closer view of updrafts

Storm near South Plains

 

[Will Wilkens]

I was on the same storm east of Ulysses, KS. Came up from Liberal and turned west on the road just north of Sublette. After hanging a bit too long and watching intense circulation above me, I headed east following Sean Casey and crew until I looked in my right side mirror and saw the tor on the ground. Pulled over to get this shot:

After trying to outrun the nasty HP mess that was overtaking everyone, I managed to pull over before the town of Montezuma and snap this pic of excellent structure:

.....
.....

 

[Adam Lucio]

Full log is up:

http://www.aerostorms.com/061409.php

If anything, you can laugh at how Skip and I managed to blow getting a good shot of the tornado!