For me its the massive hail event on 9/15/10. For the second time I was caught completly off guard as I was camping since monday in Winfield for the Walnut Vally Festival and national picking contest. I had no idea of anything that was going on until 530pm when I had to check on what was going on as I saw the explosive development to my north.
I call my boss who was in Oklahoma City and he was estatic as to what was already happening in Goddard and west Wichita. We both are roofing salesman so you can understand the excitement. I ran 1/4 mile back to my car and made it to Derby by 550pm. Sat on a hill S of Derby and watched the storm come in from the nw. Really awesome getting to see this storm mature and transform from a massive hail producer to fast spinning top with a mean rfd as i drove towards the storm from the se.
Now I can say this storm had surface based rotation for about 15 min before it was tornado warned. The first reported tornado had no visible funnel from my point of view but I did see dust that was kicked up moving in the inflow region of the circulation to the north and fast. In between K-15 and 77 HWY 6 miles northeast of Udal, KS I saw the wierd looking tornado that appeared to came out the back of the rotating meso and out south into the rfd. Also saw what I think was a developing tornado that got rain wrapped before I could visually confirm on my way to Winfield City Lake from US-77 in NW cowley county.
I was able to stay se of the circulation from there all the way to Dexter where i rode out the storm underneath a concrete shelter used to store gravel
( No hail damage, No radar, No gps, lucky day). Thought I saw a tornado shortly after I went south along a paved county road that goes from Winfield City Lake to Burden and confirmed it on the nws report.
Since the storm im swamped with buisness. I have been all over western and southern sedgewick county running roof repairs and signing people up for new roofs. I work for a company my uncle started 40 years ago so everyone knows us and I tell you im up to my eye balls in buisness. Good thing is ill make 6 figures in the next 3 months then take off the rest of the winter... AND I bagged 3 nws confirmed tornadoes on a day that started out with eggs and bacon in the Pecan Grove at the Walnut Bluegrass Festival listening to blue grass all day.
The one and only downer which im still kicking myself for is not grabbing the camera before I left and not putting up everything else as Winfield took some nasty blasts from micro bursts as the rfd went right over the fairgrounds. My camp was a mess but luckily perfect strangers who were my camping neighbors had cleaned it up before I got back. Did get a few photos on my phone and will upload as soon as I can.
