5/15/2009 - South Kansas Storms

Friday was yet another day featuring less than optimal conditions for tornado-producing storms. Nevertheless, with the Plains chase season shutting down for an extended period beginning Saturday; we took advantage of the marginal severe storm ingredients in the south-central Kansas region. We targeted the area near Medicine Lodge, spending most of the mid afternoon at a town park in Attica. After milkshakes at the "Dary" Cone, we took off after convection that was initiating along the cold front in the Pratt area. We intercepted the first storm near Kingman. Typical of this high CAPE-marginal shear cold front environment, the storm would show brief signs of rotation in the low levels before being undercut by chilly outflow. After a brief severe pulse on this storm, it tended to wane and we set our sights on a storm south of Hutchinson that was appearing to wrap up a little better on radar. We intercepted this tornado-warned storm between Murdock and Goddard – it featured a wall cloud, but again, was quickly undercut. We then dove south toward Wellington, KS, where we intercepted another tornado-warned storm that was clearly outflow dominant. This storm did produce some rather picturesque cloud settings, including the telltale sign of outflow – a whale’s mouth. We stayed ahead of the storm as we progressed eastward to Winfield, where we called off the chase and punched through the convection on our way up to Wichita for the night

Initial storm near Kingman as it wrapped up quickly before being undercut.

Storm shows signs of becoming outflow dominant.

Shot looking straight-up at the mammatus and new convective torrents.

Shelf cloud featuring a kink and inflow notch on its poleward end.

Whale's mouth over the extremely rural Slate Valley Baptist Church.

Another shot of the bubbling clouds atop the church.

South-facing view out the whale's mouth near Geuda Springs, KS.

North-facing view out the whale's mouth near Geuda Springs, KS.

A few time-lapse clips from the day. We didn't stay in any one place long, so I didn't get a chance to shoot much video. A higher res video is available here.