Name that target

[Mike Peregrine]

Thanks for doing it, Kurt - that is definitely a fun idea. If the setup was a little less familiar to me, I doubt if I could've figured it out quite as fast. Seeing the maps apart from the context we normally place them in as a chase day gets closer makes it much tougher to stop and think it through - plus, we're all used to using parameters a lot in forecasting these days ... and as chasers, we probably rely on them more than we realize. The biggest question was when you had obtained the model charts in relation to the event - once that was a better established, things started to get clearer.

Here's what I focused on initially - - there's an obvious boundary running across the KS/OK border area. The placement of the lows made me pretty suspicious from memory, along with those winds, which were etched in my head. I actually remembered the surface map more because of our discussion on the morning before the event here in Stormtrack. We had a pretty good discussion here: http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6586 (coolest thing about that discussion for me was that I had specified Seneca on the night before - and Seneca is only a few miles - practically within sight - from where the tornado verified) ... Once you posted the obs there was no question left because I had used those identical obs when working on the video project. I only needed to check a couple of maps that you posted to be 100% sure. Our initial target for the day was actually anywhere in the vicinity of Emporia to Manhattan, but then this switched as we ran into the towering cumulus building in Jackson and Brown counties.

I've got a good day to do this with one of these days. I need to gather some more mappage and other data, but definitely want to try this again.

 

[Shane Adams]

My real target this day was Emporia. We adjusted that slightly as convection fired a bit south and closer to where we were (still in route to target). The intial storms we chased all fizzled out into crap and left us smack dab in the middle of a huge, rainy ouflow mess that was gonna screw anything that formed near it. So I went to plan B, and decided to just drive south towards the most isolated-looking areas. We weaved our way back down to Emporia, where we dove south on KS99. Along the way I called my great friend and perennial nowcaster Dwain Warner, who told us of a storm southwest of us that had been tornado-warned. We kept going until we were in front of it, a few miles south of KS99/US400 just southwest of Severy. It was a rainy mess and we couldn't see anything, and, with nearing darkness, decided to head back north to the intersection, where we found a gas station parking lot to stop in and regroup. It didn't take long to decide we should just call it a bust and head home. However moments later, the base of the storm started coming into view. Within minutes, a tornado formed. I scoffed at it (but kept taping it), calling it the best tornado-look-a-like I'd ever seen, simply because I couldn't believe a tornado could form in such cold, rainy inflow (rates were constant at .5-1 inch per hour throughout the tornado lifespan). There was no warning in effect at the time.

Later when corresponding with Chance Hayes (WCM-ICT) he said he was "baffled" there had been a tornado there at that time, as they had no indications from their radar. The never-ending possibilities of mesoscale magic.