4/15 Chase Report - NE KS
Congrats to all of my compadres for bagging some great naders today! Props to Bob Hall for a nice tornado I believe near the KS border...not the Beatrice tornado. Check out his video which I saw a couple of times on TWC. Also, Justin Teague and Matt Patterson (and anybody I left out...it's early...no coffee yet) bagged the Beatrice tornado with their video being shown on TWC this morning along with a couple of other folks. Shane Adams and Micky Ptak also bagged this tornado. I can't wait to see their video. Congrats to all!
For me, I couldn't make it that far today from North Texas. But, I had a pretty good chase overall. I stayed just south of Junction City waitinng for a persistent updraft generation point along the dryline to finally pop. I didn't like the looks of the linear looking storms closer to the KS border eruptinng "shoulder-to-shoulder". It looked like the precip areas were dumping right into the inflow regions. This not only fights against tornado generation, but makes it very difficult to observe a tornado if it forms....especially with initial storm motions indicated at 60mph. From the video I've seen this morning, I was wrong :-) However, I hoped for a more southern tail-end charlie down around the I-70 corridor. I would soon be rewarded.
My little cell that kept trying to pop finally did and quickly expoded into a severe-warned storm right over my head as I moved east of it in I-70. It was moving at a pretty good clip...more like 40mph instead of the reported 50-60mph. Near Wabaunsee, it quickly developed a nice wall cloud with some rotation in it. The inflow was screaming into this thing picking up tons of dirt and along with the various range fires in the area made it quite challenging to view. It never did get quite wrapped up though and I continued following it to west of Holton where it got it's first TOR.
At this point, I thought a tornado was occuring as a HUGE dust cloud was being ingested into the entire meso and what appeared to be a cylindrical appearence. It didn't last long enough for me to stop and photo it. I did get a shot of the updraft structure and remaining dust cloud getting ingested into the meso. I kept playing leap frog with it to north of Holton where I gave up on it. It was a tough decision, but another couple of strong cells were developing further south along the line and quickly overtaking this one. The precip in the entire viewing region was getting heavy. I'm not sure, but this might have been the cell that Bob Hall caught the nice tornado on. I'll have to talk with him in more detail to see.
I tried in vain to get south of Topeka but got stopped by a hail core near Holt. I let it pass while waiting under a bank awning. This wasn't a bad thing because I got to look up at the back of the updraft structures and bases thus visually plotting my next strategy of heading east on I-70 while after visually determining which cell might be the preferred tail-ender. I don't have the nickname "tailchaser" for nothing. ;-)
Soon, my opportunity would present itself as the true tail-end cell erupted south of Topeka and sprinted NE. I was hot on it's heels while I watched radar to avoid the hail core until it passed I-70. It did and what a treat it was. I saw all sorts of wall clouds forming and the entire meso area churning. I-70 started making a nice ENE jog towards Kansas City which kept me in perfect position all the way. However, the traffic was pretty bad with many people pulled over under bridges and on the side of the road abruptly pulling back out on the interstate. Some construction didn't help. And Chuck Doswell rants about irresponsible chasers. ROFL! Anyway, this caused me to fall behind abit.
I stayed up with it though and captured a couple of ominous wall clouds until this cell was TOR warned. The TVS was just to my north near Tonganoxie (I love that name almost as much as Bug Tussle, OK) by about 5 miles. Nice! I watched several attempts for it to wrap up and as it got dark and out just ahead of me again (traffic and panicked locals slowing me down). I'm not sure, but I think my video might have caught a brief tornado illuminated by lightning. Some brief funnel clouds were definitely observed.
After getting though all of the big hills on I-70 on the NW parts of KC, I made it around and headed north of I-635 to the north side of KC and got a good viewing point of the bears cage. Lo and behold, a large, pronounced funnel cloud was hovering over the towns of Barry/Acme. Fortunately, it never touched down. I haven't watched the video yet to see how the quality is on it though.
By this time, I was tired and the storm was definitely gettinng away from me into Missouri. It was time to head back towards Wichita. On the way, another strong line of storms was moving across E/SE KS and I stopped to get some great lightning photos. My eyelids were dropping heavily though and the safety factor dictated I stop in Emporia for the night after 14 ours on the road. Headed home today after a shower. Pics/clips later when I have time to load them.
(disclaimer: no spell check)
For me, I couldn't make it that far today from North Texas. But, I had a pretty good chase overall. I stayed just south of Junction City waitinng for a persistent updraft generation point along the dryline to finally pop. I didn't like the looks of the linear looking storms closer to the KS border eruptinng "shoulder-to-shoulder". It looked like the precip areas were dumping right into the inflow regions. This not only fights against tornado generation, but makes it very difficult to observe a tornado if it forms....especially with initial storm motions indicated at 60mph. From the video I've seen this morning, I was wrong :-) However, I hoped for a more southern tail-end charlie down around the I-70 corridor. I would soon be rewarded.
My little cell that kept trying to pop finally did and quickly expoded into a severe-warned storm right over my head as I moved east of it in I-70. It was moving at a pretty good clip...more like 40mph instead of the reported 50-60mph. Near Wabaunsee, it quickly developed a nice wall cloud with some rotation in it. The inflow was screaming into this thing picking up tons of dirt and along with the various range fires in the area made it quite challenging to view. It never did get quite wrapped up though and I continued following it to west of Holton where it got it's first TOR.
At this point, I thought a tornado was occuring as a HUGE dust cloud was being ingested into the entire meso and what appeared to be a cylindrical appearence. It didn't last long enough for me to stop and photo it. I did get a shot of the updraft structure and remaining dust cloud getting ingested into the meso. I kept playing leap frog with it to north of Holton where I gave up on it. It was a tough decision, but another couple of strong cells were developing further south along the line and quickly overtaking this one. The precip in the entire viewing region was getting heavy. I'm not sure, but this might have been the cell that Bob Hall caught the nice tornado on. I'll have to talk with him in more detail to see.
I tried in vain to get south of Topeka but got stopped by a hail core near Holt. I let it pass while waiting under a bank awning. This wasn't a bad thing because I got to look up at the back of the updraft structures and bases thus visually plotting my next strategy of heading east on I-70 while after visually determining which cell might be the preferred tail-ender. I don't have the nickname "tailchaser" for nothing. ;-)
Soon, my opportunity would present itself as the true tail-end cell erupted south of Topeka and sprinted NE. I was hot on it's heels while I watched radar to avoid the hail core until it passed I-70. It did and what a treat it was. I saw all sorts of wall clouds forming and the entire meso area churning. I-70 started making a nice ENE jog towards Kansas City which kept me in perfect position all the way. However, the traffic was pretty bad with many people pulled over under bridges and on the side of the road abruptly pulling back out on the interstate. Some construction didn't help. And Chuck Doswell rants about irresponsible chasers. ROFL! Anyway, this caused me to fall behind abit.
I stayed up with it though and captured a couple of ominous wall clouds until this cell was TOR warned. The TVS was just to my north near Tonganoxie (I love that name almost as much as Bug Tussle, OK) by about 5 miles. Nice! I watched several attempts for it to wrap up and as it got dark and out just ahead of me again (traffic and panicked locals slowing me down). I'm not sure, but I think my video might have caught a brief tornado illuminated by lightning. Some brief funnel clouds were definitely observed.
After getting though all of the big hills on I-70 on the NW parts of KC, I made it around and headed north of I-635 to the north side of KC and got a good viewing point of the bears cage. Lo and behold, a large, pronounced funnel cloud was hovering over the towns of Barry/Acme. Fortunately, it never touched down. I haven't watched the video yet to see how the quality is on it though.
By this time, I was tired and the storm was definitely gettinng away from me into Missouri. It was time to head back towards Wichita. On the way, another strong line of storms was moving across E/SE KS and I stopped to get some great lightning photos. My eyelids were dropping heavily though and the safety factor dictated I stop in Emporia for the night after 14 ours on the road. Headed home today after a shower. Pics/clips later when I have time to load them.
(disclaimer: no spell check)
posted by Steve Miller TX at 4/16/2006 07:13:00 AM
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