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.