6/19/10 Reports NE/KS

[Rick Schmidt]

Mira Lee and I went to N Central Ks. today and caught up with the tornadic cell NW of Jamestown. We did not get to see the initial touchdown, due to getting stuck on a muddy road for a few minutes, but my video does show 2 rope funnels/tornadoes west of the Yuma area. This was one of the most beautiful storms of the year for me. Here are 2 images of the meso.---Rick

 

[Chad Cowan]

I inadvertently saw the tornadic supercell in n'cntrl KS while on my way out to Denver to drive for Tempest Tours. The captain mentioned that the storm top was twice as high as we were, at 32kft.

 

[Daniel Christianson]

Caught up with the same cell that was tor warned near Jamestown, but i was catching the end of it, i flew down from NE on Hwy 81 to South of Concordia. I played with it before it lined out and congealed with other storms. Yes first supercell of the year, sadly but great photogenic stuff and the c2g's were nuts as well.

 

[Dustin Wilcox]

Structure really got impressive shortly after producing a brief tornado near Randall...For about a half hour period the storm actually started moving East and really cranked up with some unbelievable structure...

 

[Olivier Staiger]

still driving for Extreme Tornado Tours ( since mid-April.... ;-) , we got on same storm in Kansas, we were on 148 northeast of Randall, tried to get south to 28 on a dirt road but soon realized it was slick as soap on ice, tried to back up but the inflow winds pushed us sidewise, from northeast to southwest ... and off the road ...and we were stuck in mud... tried to drive out for about 20 minutes or so, and got kinda really nervous as we saw the last radar update

yikes !!!!

saw increasing rotation and several quick vortices spinning in that monster-to-be... with inflow getting stronger and stronger... we could have to stay in van and hope for the best, but what if the tornado moved closer ?

luckily a truck drove by on the nearby paved road, I waved and he stopped but he could not get to us, it was too slicky and weather getting too intense... so we decided quickly to abandon our van for now, jumped in the truck and he drove us to safety. Returned two hours later, luckily the van was untouched. Hallelujah !
another good fella pulled us out on a tractor at sunset with a rainbow in the background...

video here :
http://www.kyte.tv/ch/klipsi/stuck-in-mud-abandon-car/p=lpw&c=9038&s=935331&l=2507

 

[Steve Miller TX]

Stayed on the westernmost cells hoping to get one riding along the OFB of the storms east. It tried and several tornado warnings were issued. However, it was dominated by strong outflow and cold pool. A couple of times towards sunset, storms would regenerate around Stockton, hook, start acting all fancy like they wanted to tornado, but it was all for naught.

However, one storm did dominate and munch SE along the aforementioned outflow boundaries. I got in the middle of one of the most intense CG barrages I've ever been in. Here are some pics.



Notice in this pic how everything is lit up like daylight. This was from a CG tha went right over my head and behind me. A complete change of underwear was almost needed. It definitely opened up my sinuses! ;-)






More images: http://www.caprockphotography.com/Tailchaser/20100619/12627069_SGpYG#907315483_TJFAF

 

[ScottKoenig]

Late posting this because of Father's day.

My first chase on a Tornado producing supercell near Jamestown, KS

Short video here of the rotation of the wall cloud south of Jamestown.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/z-s-k/4721055258/

All and all great chase day for me! The structure on this storm was amazing and I only had to drive 2 hours to see it. I missed most of the large hail but did get my car sandblasted from high winds kicking up rocks and gravel on the backside of the storms.

 

[Chris Foltz]

Jeremy Martin and I left Goodland around 12:30pm MDT with an initial target of Norton, KS. First real tower went up to our east near Phillipsburg as we were sitting just north of the Norton airport. Headed east on Highway 36 but by that time, the storm was approaching Smith Center which was some 60 miles to our east. Feeling we would not have a chance to catch up with that storm, we dropped south at Phillipsburg to Stockton while eying a new updraft which was quickly developing south of Stockton near Plainville. Went east on Highway 24 to Osborne and then dropped south of town on Highway 281 finding a hill which allowed a decent view of the updraft just to our west. Realized that storm wasn't going to do much but saw new development back to the west near Stockton so we headed back west on 24. Just west of Woodston, a blocky wall cloud came into view to the northwest of our position...

RFD wrapped around it pretty quickly essentially obscuring it from view as it occluded...

Almost immediately, a new wall cloud formed directly to our west...

Had to high tail it back east toward Osborne both to avoid getting caught under the circulation and to attempt to grab a bit of fuel. Stopped at the gas station just south of the intersection of 24 & 281 in Osborne and as I was fueling, the power went out. At the same time, two shear funnels developed immediately to our south over the town of Osborne. Was able to video these but have yet to get it edited and uploaded. The storm quickly became outflow dominant so we broke off the chase and headed back west toward Stockton then south to Hays for a quick bite before heading back to Goodland. About 9:45pm CDT, we were westbound on I-70 between Hays and Ellis when we noticed what appeared to be a very large, blocky wall cloud back to our north on the southern flank of the MCS. Exited I-70 at Ellis and headed north for a few miles until we could get a clear view. Managed to get a few blurry pics from 20-25 miles away.

Watched the wall cloud for a good 15 minutes but saw no evidence it would produce to bagged it and headed back to Goodland. Overall, a pretty successful day despite missing out on the Randall-Jamestown tor.

 

[Dick McGowan]

Here's our video of the multi-vortex tornado which was about 3-4 miles east of Randall, KS on Highway 148, and about 1/4 - 1/2 mile to the south: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAlorljI7AY The tornado actually moved to the west/northwest at first.

There was also another brief cone tornado on the next occlusion, (not shown) about 6-8 miles north of Concordia, KS and about 5 miles west (almost the exact same spot).