7/3/09 REPORTS: KS

[Chad Cowan]

My brother and I saw a dusty tornado just south of I-70 near Abliene, KS this evening. The meso's structure was pretty darn good, I just wish I had a wide-angle lens for my HD. As the tornado was still on the ground, I couldn't help but look up at the merry-go-round above my head. I'm exhausted and have to get some rest for tomorrow so the video won't be up until Sunday but I wanted to share a few vid-caps before I hit the hay. The first is right about when the ground circulation began under that cone shape. The second image is as we were approaching the storm from the east on I-70 and the third is the storm that caught us by surprise near Concordia earlier in the day.

Hope everyone has a good 4th!

 

[Daniel Christianson]

Chased the cell that was svr warned near Clyde KS, then jogged north to Hwy 36 and ran east towards Haddam and Cuba KS. Missed the tornado warned storm to the south for Ottawa County KS and Saline i belive, was trying to catch up but never did. I did hear of a confirmed report of a touchdown about 6 1/2 Miles Northeast of Solomon or 2 1/2? I assume that this was the one Chad witnessed? Either way im glad to get home, im sick with bronchidous and this dog needs to get to sleep.

 

[William Reid]

Rob Petitt and I targeted the KS/NE border from about Alma to Fairbury, along the warm front. As we motored east along 136 in SC NE, numerous storms were to our south in NC KS. These had formed in the hot air south of the front, and were moving ENE. I elected to try to get ahead of the mess near Fairbury in the hopes that something decent could become established near the front. We dropped down to Clay Center in time to get in front of a decently organized supercell. It sported plenty of rain and CGs, and it died quickly after wrapping up near Clay Center. On the way south to the cell, we passed a grassy spot along the highway that was smoldering from a very recent CG strike --- very cool --- and I wish I had stopped to take a photo.

It was rather murky and dark, but still only 8 p.m. with an hour to go until sunset. Radar showed a storm exploding NW of Salina, about 50 miles to our WSW. (Topeka radar indicated a storm top of 66k ft, and a VIL value of 80!) We quickly made our way in that direction, and it became t-warned. We stopped directly east of the cell, about three miles north of Solomon. This was quite the huge HP beast, with a nice laminar banding at low levels. Numerous scuddy lowerings protruded in front of the precip area, but it seemed disinclined to produce a tornado. An increase in rain forced us to move south, to a point about three miles south of Solomon. The look on radar was not that great --- it had a N-S linear look to it, as it had for much of its life. As we watched in the waning light south of Solomon, an area of rotation lowered from the leading edge not far to our NNW, and a wispy, dusty plume quickly rose up towards the base (somewhat to the right of the area with rotation, from our perspective). This might have been a weak tornado, and a chaser that was closer to I-70 reported it as a tornado. It didn't persist, though. The lightning and storm structure were more entertaining than the brief spin-up.

The strong storm continued to the east as part of a line of activity. Apparently the great number of wet storms on this afternoon and evening produced a lot of merging cold pools at the surface and made it very difficult to establish and maintain a discrete supercell...and greatly limited the tornado threat.

Bill R.

 

[Steve Worthington]

7-03-09
7 miles South of Beloit Ks on Hwy 14
We had 2 of this pop up one on the west side of the road and one on the east side. I only videoed one as they didnt last long.

Knocked down a few power lines per SN and a few trees limbs we saw.

7/03/09 8 miles East of Abilene Ks
Shot with night vision on
I was trying out the live streaming with my Night Vision and it worked great

450 chase miles

 

[Chad Cowan]

Video up here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dJYAn-G8b0&fmt=22

 

[Dustin Wilcox]

Couldn’t keep myself home and as always, I decided to keep things honest and Targeted the Concordia area. I intercepted the High Based crap in the 100 degree air West of there (what a temp gradient that was). As one would suspect in 100/63 and SW winds the storms sucked, they tried to organize as they hit the boundary near hwy 81, with one updraft that went nuts right in front of me just a few miles NW of Concordia, shot up in a hurry with a huge striated meso and nice base underneath, though as that was happening it was already apparent the day was going to be doomed, not only by the large number and proximity of updrafts, but more by the unfavorable directional shear that wanted to carry rain E and SE of the updrafts, I stayed ahead of the junk all day and it was constantly sprinkling, that gets more annoying than anything. That “issue” choked off that updraft about as fast as it organized. After that a big layered shelf developed, but even out ahead of that thing it wouldn’t stop raining. That storm too tried to organize for awhile back in the apex region; just NE of Concordia it started spinning like mad where the east winds wrapped back in there. Given how pathetic everything looked all day I didn’t much feel like wasting my time dropping back South for the new convection, instead made my way back home and was to the bar to kick off the holiday by 10, appears I may have missed a weak spin up or two (from talking to a couple of other chasers) but doesn't sound like those would have been worth delaying the weekend for. While the day yielded some quality pictures (not uploaded yet given holiday festivities, maybe Monday) it will be one I quickly forget, as about 99% of mid-summer chases are.


You have me beat Mike, I was just under 525 and that was chasing from Arlington. Much like you Scott, I never crossed paths with anyone excluding a black mustang a couple of times.

Early on when it had a few moments of what you could call hope...

Quickly dieing by this point...

This would have been Mileage worthiness of 0 were it not for this ok shelf (if there is such a thing) it *might* have made for mileage worthiness of 200, though given I went over that, I guess I busted, bummer....

 

[Scott Bennett]

Like everyene had targeted the Belleville to Salina area and it was nice to have a chase not running into tons of cars everywhere. About the only run in I seemed to have was with Hollingshead over and over.

I did get a nice shot off on the front of the storm north of Concordia however when I grabbed my camera I realized I had pulled the memory card and left in my other laptop at home...oops!

Got this with my phone, would have been nice to have the real camera.

I decided to camp out around Ft. Riley and see what was going on down south, I made the decision to get back to Omaha a little too soon when I guess using the loose term "Storm of the day" produced.

Nice little chase close to home on a Friday I did not have to burn a vacation day for.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Now I know what you drive Scott. I'd seen you on SN before but usually so many others around. Not sure I've driven in circles that much before. South, north...south, north.....south, then north finally to go home.

Dustin, man, your limited miles chasing cost you big time this day. lol

670 chase miles

Not worth the miles report here:
http://www.extremeinstability.com/09-7-3.htm

Probably more of a 200-300 mile worthy chase...imo. lol that is what reports need, mileage worthiness.