5/19/2011 - South-central Kansas storms

Thursday appeared to have a lot of potential; alas, it was another instance of Ma' Nature under-performing in the 2011 Plains chase season. Targeted the warm front area of south-central Kansas -- storms did fire, but were far from impressive. Storms along the dryline to the immediate west appeared multicellular, whereas storms off to the east in the warm sector were splitters dominated by left splits. The most impressive split formed north of Anthony, KS -- unfortunately, the storm failed to to turn and hug the warm front. Overall, the convection lacked good organization. Turned my attention to the west with convective resolving models suggesting the retreating dryline would fire before sunset. Moved west and intercepted a storm northeast of Dodge City. Enjoyed this rural Kansas storm in the evening light as it migrated northeast. After sunset, storms rapidly developed across southwest Kansas, producing an impressive miniature bow structure as it traversed Dodge. Below you'll see the shelf as the storm approached the northwest side of Dodge. As it moved atop my location, the poleward edge wrapped up and produced a cinnamon swirl feature complete with what appeared to be a brief funnel.  Stuff was moving fast so there was no way I could keep up -- not to mention it was likely a very transient feature.  Be sure to check out the two animated gifs available in the captions.

I'll add time lapse video when I return home ... check back in a few days.

Storm northeast of Dodge bathed in evening light. Animated gif of this setting.

 Scud producing a wannabe.

Shelf nearing Dodge City. Animated gif of this setting.

Cinnamon swirl -- aka mesovortex -- as it traverses northwest Dodge City.