5/30/2008 - Central Illinois Supercells and Tornado

Began the day in St. Joseph, MO not feeling too good about the chasing prospects in Illinois later that day. An MCS traversing the northern half of Illinois appeared as though it would zap instability and a surface low tracking through the Great Lakes was acting like a vacuum, veering low-level winds throughout the Midwest. Nevertheless, we had pulled the plug early on the previous night’s chase (causing us to miss a picturesque supercell in north central Kansas) for the opportunity to get east for this day’s chase prospects. So, no matter what, we were going to chase Friday. After all, it put us closer to home and Sharon has to be back to work on Monday.

After unsuccessfully trying to find a Chick-fil-a on the east side of KC, we headed east on the worst interstate segment in all of the U.S. – Missouri’s I-70. Ugh, I despise this road. Anyway, as Sharon slept and read, I perused data along the drive trying to pick a target in what was shaping up to be a lackluster chase day. I decided to head toward Louisiana, MO (where Sharon’s brother used to live) to cross the Ol’ Miss into Illinois since the area near Pittsfield had the appearance of some moisture pooling and a bit of backing in the surface winds (they were more southerly than all the other stations in MO/IL). We headed east out of Pittsfield on I-72 and finally pulled off the interstate just east of Jacksonville. Convection started to fire north of us and appeared very “showery.” There was an intense multicell that briefly transitioned to a tor-warned supercell as it traversed the areas north of Springfield, but it was moving way too fast to try to chase from our location. Thus, we sat and waited. After about 30 minutes, I noticed on radar that a couple supercells were getting their act together in north-central MO. Hmmm, that looked promising. Then, sure enough, one of the showers to our west near Pittsfield was beginning to show some rotation on radar. I waited just a bit to confirm that this storm was going to organize before we took off after it.

It finally looked good on radar and we blasted back west on I-72. The storm was headed due east along the interstate toward the Illinois River. I had to get off at Oxville exit since the next exit west would’ve put us in the bear’s cage. We routed around the eastern flank of the river valley floor and finally headed up a bluff just east of the “town” of Oxville where we waited for the wall cloud to appear. Slowly, but surely, the wall appeared and it was a heck of a sight. I was really surprised that this storm was looking this good on such a crappy shear day. Heck, whatever … I’ll take it. We continued east on the road that paralleled the interstate, continually stopping to take in the rapid vertical motion on the side of the wall immediately to our northwest. This storm had some of the most vivid vertical motion in the low-levels that I’ve witnessed – a true spectacle by Illinois standards. If we had just a bit more backing in the low-levels I think this thing would’ve “hosed” for quite a while. We jogged east toward Jacksonville, where we decided to head south on the interstate spur in order to stay out of the city. We then allowed the hook to trail us along I-72 for nearly 15 miles until I noticed another supercell had formed immediately behind the one we were on. The second storm was looking a bit better on radar, so I pulled the plug on the first supercell. We headed south of Alexander where we awaited the next hook to come at us. We drove back north and then east out of Alexander when the second supercell’s wall cloud appeared.

View of first supercell near Riggston, IL

One of the many road hazards you will come across while chasing.

Objects in mirror are closer than they appear. Looking north toward wall cloud as it enters Jacksonville.

Wall cloud, looking NW across I-72.

Wall cloud and I-72.

I included this image to show how electrical this storm was. I was able to catch this bolt driving down the interstate during the day time! Not an easy feat.

Wall cloud now behind us on I-72.

Supercell 2 "sparks" an interest near Alexander, IL.

Something happened to me as we were driving through a curvy road in “downtown” Alexander. I was getting something out of the back seat as Sharon was driving around a curve, when I suddenly had that … how do you say … “throw up” feeling. For the rest of the night my “equilibrium” was all off and I felt dizzy. I’ve never been car sick and this was a real oddity. My assumption is that it is some sort of inner ear thing that is out of wack … and I’m still a bit dizzy as a type this! A student at NIU, Victor Gensini, said his cousin has had this before after a bad ride at a theme park … apparently it is called “Benign Positional Vertigo”. Well, isn’t that just great … I got BPV instead of SDS!

Anyway, back to the storm. We followed this supercell through the south side of Springfield via the Interstate, but eventually gave up on it due to its storm motion and the lack of good roads east out of the capital city.

After we quit the second supercell, we proceeded to head toward a third supercell that had crossed the Ol’ Miss near Louisiana, MO and was heading toward us. We routed west toward Waverly where we waited for the beast just west of town. Radar indicated that the supercell was in the process of being overtaken by a bow echo. Eventually the hazy evening visibility removed its cover – we saw a large shelf with embedded wall cloud type features to our north, west, and southwest. This thing was moving fast! We were headed back toward Waverly to take cover when I asked Sharon to pull over one last time so I could get a pic as the line neared us. As soon as I looked to my southwest, I noticed a big ball of dust being kicked up. Must be a gustnado along the outflow was my first thought. Nope! This thing was going to town, sucking up lots of Illinois mud and tossing it. I’m convinced that this was a leading-line type tornado that was created by the bottom-up process; not the usual top-down process. In fact, this was likely the most unique tornadogenesis I’ve ever witnessed. What a cool phenomenon to see! Anyway, this thing was a bit too close for comfort and we blasted east into town where we took shelter in a car wash bay (I was more concerned about the hail and winds in the core than the tornado that was headed south of town). The tornado was still apparent as we got to town. We waited out the core of the storm in the bay and finally, as things calmed a bit (and I do mean a small bit), we headed south out of town to look for damage. Sure enough, we found sheet metal thrown across a farm field just south of Waverly. East of the farmfield we found tree damage. The tornado was rated EF-1 and had a path length of 5.6 miles. The NWS's damage survey is provided at this link.

Shelf cloud with embedded wall clouds. "Kink" to the left-center contains the incipient tornado rotation.

Same as previous, just a slightly closer view of the uniqueness of this "wall cloud - shelf cloud" thing. Incipient tornado just to the left of farm.

Tornado! Click for animation. Also, take a look at Travis Carlson's shots south of our location.

Tornado off to our south (no full condensation funnel apparent) as we take shelter in town.

Tornado continues to our south ... destroying a shed and barn. At this point, we are in the car wash bay. We lost visibility in about 10 seconds as the core of the storm moved over.

After quickly surveying the damage, we then traversed the rural areas northeast of Waverly in a blinding rain, small hail, and lots and lots and lots of concentrated atmospheric electricity. Many of the fields were covered in water, while, in some cases, the roads were completely covered as well. We finally busted out of the storm just south of Springfield where called it a night, booked a hotel room, and ate dinner at Longhorn’s. That was a mighty good dinner after the crap we’ve been eating the last couple weeks.

What a day! A lot more than I was expecting. This day has given me a new appreciation for veered wind setups. I hope to update this entry later when I can examine archived level 2 radar data of the event … this one should be an interesting case to study! I have included a couple images below to illustrate our position in relation to the storm/circulation.

Base reflectivity at time of tornadogenesis. We are the "circle-dot".

Storm-relative velocity at time of tornadogenesis. Nothing like sampling the circulation, eh?

5/29/2008 - Kearney Tornado

After a restful night at the Ogallala Holiday Inn Express, we targeted the area between McCook, Gothenburg, and Holdrege, NE for initiation on this high-risk day. While our target was pretty good, convective initiation for the main supercell of the day was a bit further south and west toward Goodland. This initial convection progressed toward our target area, where the main show began in earnest by mid afternoon.

After grabbing a late lunch in Lexington, we scooted southwest toward the now well-developed supercell nearing McCook. We intercepted the storm on a gravel road (Nebraska 18) about 15 miles southwest of Elwood. This storm exhibited extreme vertical motion and a large, beefy wall cloud that appeared as though it could tornado at any time. We let the storm trail us all the way back to 283 where we had to reroute south to Arapahoe and over to Holdrege. Perhaps I should’ve played this a bit better and hit 283 earlier so I could’ve gone to Elwood and then east on 23. Oh well, I was late on the decision and couldn’t go north into the core. So, off we went, rerouting around the storm in some of the most god-awful rural traffic I’ve seen in all my years chasing Nebraska.

Looking west toward wall cloud on Nebraska 18 -- about 10 miles southwest of Elwood.

Wall cloud with all sorts of crazy vertical motion apparent at this time. This thing was moving east ... quick!

NE-18 and US 283. Wall cloud now moving over Elwood. Can't head north as you can see. Ugh.

We finally made it to Holdrege with the supercell’s wall cloud barely visible in the hazy sky to our north. We continued on US 6/34 until NE-44, where we headed north toward Kearney. As we approached Kearney from the south we could tell something menacing was going on to our northwest. Soon, power flashes were evident and it was clear that a rain-wrapped tornado was about to enter Kearney. We hurried east on L50A south of I-80 in order to stay ahead of this quick-moving beast (see map here for our route on NE-44>L50A>I-80 at Gibbon in relation to the tornado path). All the while, I was looking to the northwest watching power flashes and what appeared to be a rather large tornado rolling along US-30. We entered the interstate at Exit 279 and headed east bound. The storm at this point had some of the most amazing structure – complete with a huge vault and smooth, but sculpted updraft. [NWS damage survey indicated the tornado was a high-end EF-2 that tracked for 30 miles, from Kearney to near Wood River. See full description of “third tornado” on this page]

Tornado in Kearney. We are on Nebraska 44 at this time (5:25 pm), looking northwest toward Kearney. Power flashes evident in the tornado on the other side of the farmstead at this point.

Rain-wrapped tornado just east of Kearney -- EF-2 status at this point based on damage survey.

Tornado continues -- becoming engulfed in precip.

Exit 279 on I-80, looking northwest toward tornado. Heck of a storm structure display at this point. I only wish I had positioned for a better photo op at this point. Fast storm motion and cars all over the place limited my opportunities.

Tornado continues north of I-80 near Gibbon. Note the wall cloud and tornado to the rear of the clear slot and kink.

As we neared Grand Island, it was evident that the storm was becoming more and more HPish. We proceeded toward the York area as we tried to stay ahead of the warm air advection storms that were developing on the right flank of this intense HP supercell. Eventually radar indicated that this storm was simply too HPish to chase so I told Sharon to head south out of York toward Concordia, KS since radar indicated a beautiful supercell would apparently intersect that area in an hour or so. Unfortunately, we lost data as we headed southward on US-81 and by the time we got new radar data in Kansas it was clear that the supercell that I was hoping to intercept was slowing its forward speed and weakening. There was another supercell to the southwest, but I decided we should probably call the chase and head east toward St. Joe, MO in order to get in better position for Friday’s action in Illinois. This was probably a bad decision since the supercell to the west went on to produce a variety of tubes at sunset. Ugh!

We finally arrived in St. Joe near 11:30 pm and checked into our Priceline’d hotel on the Missouri River.

5/28/2008 - Small Chance with Small Reward

We drove from Hutchinson, KS to Scottsbluff, NE on the 27th in anticipation of a slight chance for a low-precip supercell in Wyoming on Wednesday. On the 28th, things didn’t look all that good for chase prospects – moisture was meager and surface temps left a lot to be desired. Yet, I was reluctant to sit in a hotel room all day – especially on my birthday! Instead, we visited the Scottsbluff National Monument and then headed west toward Cheyenne where we awaited a tiny chance of something interesting to fire. Sure enough, a small LP supercell formed just north of our location east of Cheyenne. This storm had a nice tilt, corkscrew updraft, and even a horseshoe updraft. Unfortunately, it formed in meager CAPE and quickly met its demise. Still, it was cool for a period. We then followed new convection eastward to the Wyoming-Nebraska border where we eventually called it an evening and headed toward our hotel reservation in Ogallala. Thursday brings much better prospects – let’s just hope I don’t find a way to screw it up.

LP with horseshoe updraft east of Cheyenne, WY.

5/26/2008 - When your "target" tornadoes -- and you're not there

Yes, that is a complicated title and may make more sense after you read this.

On Memorial Day, Sharon and I targeted the area near Pratt, KS – due west from Wichita on US 54. On our way to Pratt, we stopped by the tornado path on US 54 near Cairo. This is where a couple had died on Friday night as a nighttime tornado crossed the road, picked up their car, and hurled it 150 yards north of the road. Sadly, the vehicle was still lying in the wheat field. Witnessing this smashed vehicle was very sad – I can’t imagine what the couple thought as wrapping rain curtains engulfed their vehicle late that stormy night. Pure fear! Witnessing this tragedy illustrates just how important it is for me to continue my work into tornado casualties.

Thrown (squashed) vehicle in the center of the pic. I'm standing on the side of the road and using a zoom, which illustrates just how far this car was thrown.

After visiting the tornado path, we headed westbound on US 54. About 10 minutes west of where we had stopped, I looked in my rear-view mirror to see flashing lights. What was the reason for this? I was going 5 UNDER the speed limit! Wow! Turns out the cop pulled me over for “disregarding traffic sign/signal” – apparently I had failed to get over into the right lane when a passing lane appeared. Yes, there were two lanes (the left being a passing lane) and I had failed to get over into the right lane to allow “traffic” to speed by me on the left. But, wait; there were NO cars on the road behind me! Unbelievable! Again, I think this was an excuse to pull over an out of state car. Despite the rather “weak” reason to pull me over, the officer was nice and very inquisitive about the storm prospects later that day. After we gave him a forecast, and he gave me a formal warning, we headed off to Pratt.

We ended up spending many hours in Pratt awaiting convective initiation. Finally, convection fired to our southwest in rural Comanche County. We drove (via gravel roads) to Sun City where we watched a pair of supercells develop, slowly intensify, and coalesce. We slowly worked our way up toward US 54 west of Pratt. Visibility with this storm was tough – a layer of strato-cu continued to form in the massive inflow, making it nearly impossible to see the storm’s structure. The storm continued to backbuild and spit out mesos southwest of Pratt. Due to its right turning nature, we headed south out of Pratt toward Sawyer so we could stay ahead of the storm. West of Sawyer we watched the base finally become apparent in the rural area of southwest Pratt County. I was a bit disappointed in the structure of this high-precipitation supercell. In fact, I had decided to just let the storm migrate to the northeast and not chase it. Bad decision. As it headed through Pratt, it briefly tornadoed. Argh! After we heard the tornado report, my decision quickly reversed. We chased after the meso and eventually got ahead of the storm between Cairo and Cunningham, KS. We followed the storm as it headed toward Hutchinson, where we called it a night.

This is about as good as it got this day. Pretty bad day for photography. Even the tornado pics I've seen are bad.

5/25/2008 - Shelf Clouds and a Plane

On Sunday, we woke in Lincoln tired and a bit groggy. Nevertheless, the group jumped out of bed ready to chase for two reasons: 1) we had royally busted the day before and 2) this was the last day of chasing for Grady, Kelsey, Scott, and Benton. We targeted the area around central Kansas. As we made it to the LaCrosse area, a supercell formed and tracked toward northwest Ness County. Another cell developed to our south across Pawnee County, but we decided to quickly go after the storm in northern Ness County since, at the time, it had a better radar representation. By the time we got to that storm, it appeared to be gusting out and, of course, the storm back to our southeast near LaCrosse was looking better on radar and was supposedly producing some small, dusty tornadoes. We jumped back south and east toward that storm, but had to tail the meso a while to stay away from the hail core. We ran into quarter to golf ball sized hail just west of La Crosse. In La Crosse, a new storm with attendant meso formed to our southwest. We followed this storm east out of La Crosse where it produced a rapidly rotating wall cloud that looked like it was about to tornado, but never did. It quickly became undercut, producing a picturesque shelf cloud. We stayed ahead of the storm for a while, eventually breaking off the chase in order for the group to head to Wichita. They dropped me off in Wichita (where I met up with Sharon).

Hmmm ... I guess more flies are in the offing.

Some of the hail we came across.

Rotating wall cloud east of La Crosse.

Wall cloud being undercut.

Kansas wheat and shelf cloud.

Stormy Kansas road.

Sharon and I stayed at the Candlewood Suites (pricelined for $35). After we checked in, we went to grab a late dinner. After a sandwich at McAlister’s, we glanced at the radar and noticed that a nice squall line had formed to our west and was tracking toward our area. In fact, the squall line prompted a tornado warning for northwest Sedgwick County due to its ingestion of an orthogonally oriented outflow boundary produced by convection to the north. We drove just north of our hotel to an open space for a bit of nighttime photography. The shelf cloud was impressive as the storm neared, with city lights illuminating the underside of the cloud.

Illuminated shelf cloud as it nears west Wichita (looking west).

Shelf cloud now to our south ... moving over the airport.

As I was snapping some long-exposure pics, Sharon noticed behind us that a plane was headed southbound for a landing approach at Mid-America Airport. To our complete disbelief, the pilot was trying to land the plane as the shelf cloud rolled over the airport. I was certain that we were about to witness a plane crash! In fact, I was wondering how to photograph this impending nighttime disaster. As the pilot continued to approach, the plane rocked violently to the left and right. Our hearts sank into our stomachs. About 100-200 yards above the runway, the pilot abandoned the landing and gunned the engines heading east bound. In my opinion, this flight crew should be reprimanded for trying to push that plane in under those conditions. This has got to be one of the dumbest decisions I’ve ever witnessed; in fact, it reminded me of the plane crash at Little Rock a number of years ago where a pilot landed in a bow echo/squall line.

Shelf cloud now atop the airport (looking southeast). Plane is the white stripe (due to long exposure) ... at this point, violently rocking.

Flight tracker indicating approach, abandonment, and reroute.

We headed back to the hotel and looked up the flight on flight tracker. Sure enough, they were eventually rerouted (to KC?). I would love to hear from the passengers on that plane. Sharon absolutely hates flying and this was not a good thing for her to witness.

5/24/2008 - No, we were not in Oklahoma!

Tough day for forecasting as an overnight MCS had turned over the atmosphere across large parts of Kansas and Nebraska. Still, it appeared as though moisture and instability would stream northward into Nebraska in time for a few severe evening storms. We targeted this area, as did a number of others. Unfortunately, a “mesoscale accident” happened down in Oklahoma that ended up producing over a dozen tornadoes. This was one of those days that hits you in the gut like a ton of bricks. I can’t recall anyone forecasting – including the SPC – a huge threat for tornadoes in north-central Oklahoma the morning of the 24th. That quickly changed by early afternoon as a storm formed along an old outflow boundary in a high CAPE, low shear environment. It appears as though a number of chasers “happened upon” on the storm to watch the tube fest. We were stuck in Nebraska, where our storms struggled due to weak CAPE. It hurts a lot since we started the morning in Wichita, roughly 2 hours north of the tubefest that afternoon. We did a good job of driving away from one of the most prolific tornado producing supercells since the Manchester, SD tubefest a handful of years back.

We ended the day at The Cornhusker Hotel (pricelined for cheap) in Lincoln, NE. After we checked in, we met up with friend and colleague Brian Fuches for some beers on “O” Street.

A few pics of our struggling convection (too much shear, not enough CAPE).

5/23/2008 - A Cop, a Flat, a Farmer, and Nothing to Show

Well, this day had all the makings for a great tornado outbreak … and it fulfilled that promise. Unfortunately, the non-atmospheric ingredients came together today to prevent us from participating in this outbreak.

We began the day in Hays, KS and decided to target the area along the dryline in west-central to southwest KS. The other possible target was near the outflow/warm front lying across I-70. In hindsight, maybe we should have stayed with that target, but we were reluctant to pick the northern target due to a few reasons: 1) chase hoards were going to be there (i.e., makes for very crowded rural roads with lots of erratic driving), 2) muddy, muddy, muddy roads due to the heavy rain in that area overnight, and 3) the fact that the southern target looked good, with perhaps a bit more isolated convection and slower storm motions. We waited for initiation just southeast of Garden City. Sure enough -- as on cue -- the storms developed over the top of us. They screamed northward. We chased an initial storm east and then north out of Cimarron. However, that portion of the chase quickly came to a conclusion when Deputy Bower of the Gray County Sheriff’s Department (if you can, picture a young, cute, but way intense woman cop with a tattoo on her neck) pulled us over just north of Cimarron. Grady was stopped for “illegal passing” – he had passed a car that was turning left. There was more than adequate room for passing, but I have a feeling the primary reason she pulled us over was because we were in minivan with temporary plates. She questioned Grady outside, and then came back and questioned us. As any well-trained officer would do, she was trying to see if our stories jived. She eventually let us go – sans ticket.

Pics of Initial Convection

After this brief delay, we finally latched onto a storm that had its origins near Liberal, KS. We chased this storm from Montezuma, to Cimarron (where we were certain it was going to tor, but it didn’t … argh!), to northwest of Jetmore … this is where things really go haywire.

Pics of rapidly rotating wall cloud north and west of Cimarron.

Unfortunately, we had a flat tire (due to puncture in sidewall) about 15 miles northwest of Jetmore in the middle of nowhere on a gravel road. That put a quick stop to our chase. We limped to a farmer's house before a left split supercell rolled over us. We picked the right farm! This guy (I'll call him the Chuck Norris of farmers) had all the equipment necessary to break down a tire. As we waited for the farmer to work his magic with a patch, we watched two smaller supercells scream north just west of the farm. They had nice rain-free bases with lots of scud-sucking going on. Anyway, it looks like we missed a confirmed tornado just to the north of where we got a flat … argh! The storm we were on, but had to let go, continued to produce tornadoes as it headed toward I-70. Frustrating, but what can you do?

Tire changing operation.

RFB to the west of the farm we stopped at.

Supercell with wall cloud northwest of our stranded location.

We finally got back on the road and re-routed around a massive supercell that progressed towards the previously devastated Greensburg (see May 4, 2007). Luckily, the community was spared this year. We arrived on this monster at Byers (northwest of Pratt) after the sun had set. Lightning illuminated lots of "hang-me-downs", but we could never confirm anything. Supposedly a multitude of homes were heavily damaged and a few injuries were reported with the tornadoes hidden in the dark just to our northwest. Finally gave up on this storm near Stafford even though it was supposedly producing a tor near St. John.

Then the real fun began about 11 pm – i.e., trying to find a hotel in Kansas. Hutchinson, McPherson, and Wichita were all sold out -- we called the major hotel chains, stopped at probably 10 different motels, hotels, and dumps. I then had the "brilliant" idea that we would just camp in the terminal at Mid-America Airport in Wichita. We asked a cop and he said no problem. We noticed the airport had a Hilton and thought we would try there as a last straw before we bedded in an airport of all places. Luckily for us (or perhaps it was Kelsey’s charm?), they had a room that we were able to grab for way too much. Finally got to bed at 2 am.

Frustrating day, and one we will not forget.

5/22/2008 - Kansas Tornadoes!

We began the day at the Holiday Inn Express in Goodland, KS with extreme anticipation for the day’s activities – I equate it to that Christmas morning feeling one used to get as a kid. A strong surface low was banked up against the CO Rockies, which, combined with the moderate instability and surface boundaries, was setting up the perfect supercell tornado situation. We waited in Goodland till early afternoon and thereafter drove east on I-70 toward our initial target of Scott City. By the time we arrived to Oakley, our south option toward Scott City was filling in with “stringy” supercells. We decided to head east toward Grainfield, and then south toward Grove. We hung out for about 5 miles north of Shields, KS on 23 as several supercells traveled northbound. They all had “interesting” wall clouds with lowerings, but contrast was horrible. The most “eventful” moment of this portion of the chase was Grady’s rapid-onset bowel movement on a dirt road in the middle of “Nowhere, KS”. I’ll leave it up to Grady to provide details on that experience in his own blog.

Initial Supercell

We finally latched onto the 2nd supercell and followed it northbound back to I-70. As we arrived in Grainfield, we let the “speedy” 2nd supercell go to the north as we took off east on I-70. Just east of Grainfield (I believe near Park or Quinter) we pulled off the interstate to take a look at an interesting lowering in a newly forming supercell to our south. This lowering quickly wrapped up into a nice bow-shaped wall cloud. A clear-slot formed and a horizontal vortex tube tilted slowly into the vertical and produced a dust whirl on the ground. This was the first tornado. The same circulation moved northward and produced a long-lived (~18-20 mins) needle/rope tornado that traversed the area north of Grainfield. We rushed northward and west – on a dirt road that turned into a very treacherous muddy road. Grady did an excellent job navigating this difficult road for about 3 miles. As we neared sr-23, Grady tried to apply the brakes, but the car refused to stop as it slid along the muddy surface. Scary situation as we had vans heading south toward the intersection we were getting ready to slide into from the east! Grady turned left as we hit the gravel near the asphalt road and was somehow able to stop the van in the left lane, facing south as the vans neared. This shows you how difficult these roads can be when muddy. Heck, we weren’t even going that fast due to the muddy conditions.

Horizontal tube (right center) tilts toward the vertical.

Tornado 1: Tube is now vertical, producing a dust whirl on the ground. (contrast enhanced)

Tornado 2 was a long rope. By far and away the longest rope tornado I've ever seen. Ropes are common at the end of tornadoes, but usually dissipate quickly. Not this guy.

Anyway, we righted the vehicle and headed north on 23 where the rope finally dissipated between Grainfield and Hoxie. As we approached Hoxie, a new lowering formed just west of town and appeared to be dropping a tornado to our west (it was difficult to see due to the trees in the town limits). As we headed north (out of the tree-lined town), we were able to see a multi-vortex tornado raging along the countryside west of 23 northwest of Hoxie. This tornado traversed the entire tornado spectrum – from multi vortex with attendant horizontal vortex, or “sidewinder”, swinging around it, to elephant trunk, cone, to finally a rope. As it went from trunk to rope, a new meso off to the northeast was ready for the handoff. Sure enough, tornado 3 roped out and the new meso traversing 23 to our north started a merry-go-round tornado situation – dropping a couple (maybe more!) tornadoes that circled around the butt draggin’ meso. These all coalesced as the rain curtains wrapped around the meso into a rather large “wedgy” type tornado that we eventually lost in the rain curtains as it headed toward Dresden.

Pics of Tornado 3

Multivortex!

Look closely to the right of the tornado and you will see a horizontal vortex tube -- or sidewinder as I call them.

Tornado 3 ropes out.

Pics of tornadoes 4, 5, and ...?

Tornado 4

Tornado 5 dust whirl in front of us.

Another view of tornado 5's dust whirl.

Tornado 4 left (cone) and 5 right (see dust whirl to right) just before the meso wrapped completely to the ground in a large rain-wrapped wedge.

The speed and rain-wrapped nature of this storm ended our chase of this beastly meso. We headed (well) east to Glade and then south to Stockton, trying to get ahead of an extremely large supercell near Hill City. We eventually got back toward this storm as it continued to unzip the cap near WaKeeney on I-70. Unfortunately, the sun set and ended a rather exciting day. We headed toward Hays to overnight. Tough to find a room in Hays, but we finally found an overpriced one at the Fairfield Inn.

I would say we witnessed at least 5 tornadoes that we could confirm, but it is entirely possible that this storm produced a few more as it was in its merry-go-round phase at the end there. Fun day! Off to play a similar setup this Friday.

Thanks to Gil (NIU) and Dave Brommer (Univ. of Alabama) for nowcasting support when AT&T couldn’t hold up their end of the bargain.