Though Friday featured only
marginal severe storm ingredients across the central Plains, it ended up being a very enjoyable and peaceful chase. I left Dodge City late in the morning and slowly migrated eastward with the
front. It was a lot of fun to slowly drive, stop, observe, drive, stop, observe, etc., as the boundary slid east. With a bit of surface heating near the front, instability slowly increased. Storms eventually
fired near Greensburg and wasted no time heading north. I followed them for a bit, but eventually let them go and slid back down to Greensburg to intercept a
new, more intense storm. This storm had some brief wall-cloud structures, but was hardly impressive. Eventually, a
new cell formed near Pratt, which formed one of the two distinct right-turning supercells of the day. I leisurely kept ahead of these supercells, simply enjoying the stormscapes within the Kansas wheatbelt. I hope that the animated gifs, as well as photos, illustrate some of the beauty. The evening was capped off by a "cute" little mid-level funnel that formed over my head -- check out animated gif 5 below.
Time-lapse movie to be posted later, so check back.
Cloudscape of rural Kansas.
Pany of the pacific front as it passes just west of Greensburg.
Greensburg in foreground.
Panoramic somewhere near Pratt, I believe.
Wall cloud would wrap sometimes, but nothing was screaming tornado potential.
Fitting end to the chase ...
No comments:
Post a Comment