6/20/09 REPORTS: KS

[Michael O'Keeffe]

Intercepted the brief tornado near Princeton, KS but viewed it from 15-20 miles away. Luckily this storm was LP so I had decent visibility. I would've gotten closer had I left earlier or there had been better terrain I just stopped at the first good open spot which was hard to find considering we are in Kansas! Anyway here are a few pics of the tornado starting to rope out and the INSANE structure. It was the best of the year by far!

Here is the video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C1Wdvbfy9M

 

[Rick Schmidt]

Here are a few images from my wild and surprising chase today, near Princeton. I was on this storm before it became severe near Emporia. The wall cloud was spectacular. It was my best chase of the year! BTW, I never encountered any hail.

 

[Jim Saueressig]

Thanks Micheal, That shows me what I shot on the move opposite of you playing catch up.

Cropped Shot on the move of the Princeton storm at 7:12:

I was on this storm before it became severe near Emporia. The wall cloud was spectacular. I never encountered any hail.

Start of my day near Olpe Ks (South of Emporia)(No hail for me either):


South West of Waverly:


This was just West of Waverly: (High Contrast) Suspicious...


Playing catch up (wide angle of cell with funnel underneath):



As the cell was starting to die off:


More shots available on my Flickr

 

[Olivier Staiger]

same storm for me and Gene,
reached it south of Emporia and followed it near sunset

slideshow here

http://www.kyte.tv/ch/9038-klipsi/479781-june-20-ks-chase

brief tornado, and nice structures

 

[D. Hayes]

here's a photo of a small short lived funnel moving over Augusta KS. It's the same storm that headed into Princeton KS later that day. Otherwise for us the storm was uneventful with just a good down pour and minor winds. Photo was taken around 2pm with the storm moving quickly NE at ~35mph with no touch downs in SW Butler Co.

 

[Chad Cowan]

Saw the beauty in Franklin County, KS yesterday and probably a tornado or two under the incredible meso. I was enjoying the structure too far away to see if any of the rotation reached the ground but it looks like it did a couple times on video. I'm packing the car for Iowa right now and won't get any video up until tomorrow but I wanted to share some of these video captures. There are a few more up on my site: chasethestorms.com

 

[Dick McGowan]

Impromptu chase that Darin Brunin alerted me to as he was on near Waverly early on. I was on the phone with the TOP NWS most of the time reporting the brief touchdown near Princeton (which had a condensation funnel 7/8th of the way down which Rick Schmidt's photo shows), but did manage to shoot video of it roping out. Here is a photo shortly after that.

Ran into Chad Cowan towards sunset (above) as just a tiny green speck remained on radar west of Hillsdale, yet still had great structure on it. Surface winds were virtually non existant and rainshowers overworking the air just a few hours prior probably contributed to keeping this unique supercell from producing more tornadoes. I've never seen a supercell cycle this quickly, it would completely occlude a meso within 5-10 minutes and have the next one ready to go by then before choking it off as well.

 

[Darin Brunin]

I was amazed at how fast the warm front had lifted northward yesterday so I decided to go out and see if the storms moving NE from Wichita would interact with it as they moved northeast. Sure enough...the tail end split off and became a little right turner and put on quite a show. I observed two brief tornadoes near Waverly and Princeton, KS.

Still shocked at the structure the storm produced as well. I wish I had quit playing around under the meso sooner and got out for more structure. There was also a great rainbow behind the storm so I was hoping for a tornado/rainbow combo shot but it never happened. All in all...this will go down as one of my favorite chases for a lot of reasons.

The one downfall is that I left my camera at ISO 1600 from a few nights before so I screwed up a lot of photos until the very end of the chase.

Brief tornado near Waverly.

Tail end of tornado near Princeton. Wish I would have taken more photos of the actual tornado but was trying to call the NWS at the time over and over. Thanks Dick and others for making the line busy

And some structure as the storm was winding down.

 

[James Wilson]

These are probably taken about the same time as Michael's.

I drove to a point southwest of Wellsville and saw the most amazing LP cell structure ever. What a great cell, plus my son got to film his first storm.

 

[Chad Cowan]

Video up here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjEfVq5Cwak&fmt=22

For some reason YouTube is squeezing the 16:9 HD upload into a 4:3 letterbox. Anyone know how to fix this?