Saturday, June 14, 2008

Chase Log 06/12/08






Apologies to my writer's group. You know that you are my kindred, but as Gary said "The storm is my mistress".
















I walked out on the porch looking to the north towards Newton and saw the beautiful cumulus cloud cannibalizing everything in site. In other words, it was exploding.




After watching the storm, we decided to chase towards Newton vs. Matfield Green which already had a tornado on the ground ( and continued to do so for several hours that night).



























Driving out of Park City, we began to see SCUD's (Scary Looking Clouds) developing to the NE and tried to intercept in Whitewater.





















The storm we were under appeared as if it was going to do something, until a large storm developed over Wichita and they began fighting. They both lost out quickly and turned into downpours.

We gave up on the storms and headed back into Wichita through the rain. I made it home in time to watch KAKE warn about the tornado forming near Derby. We went back out and ran South. The sky was very black as the sun set with almost an apocalyptical beauty.


The further we made it into the storm the scarier the sun looked.

We made it into Derby about the time it got dark. I had a pretty good feeling about where we were at due to the amount of KFDI, KAKE, KWCH chasers we found.

The storm kicked up speed and headed out east at a good clip. Being in the dark, with the streets flooding all around us and electricity being questionable over town we decided to call it a night.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Salina storm that turned tornadic and killed 2 people







These pictures are not mine, but I have a friend (Nichole Conard) that has the ability to get into the thick of it and call me for radar information. She has a website and I'll give a plug :








She called around 9:30 running like hell down I-35 from I-70. This is the point that baseball size hail hit the airport.






They made it out okay and sent pictures.








Unfortunately, this is the storm that went on into Chapman, Soldier, Manhattan, and had a body count associated with it.

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN WICHITA HAS ISSUED A* SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING FOR...SALINE COUNTY IN CENTRAL KANSAS.* UNTIL 1015 PM CDT.* AT 914 PM CDT...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE METEOROLOGISTS WERE TRACKING SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS CAPABLE OF PRODUCING DESTRUCTIVE HAIL UP TO BASEBALL SIZE...AND DAMAGING WINDS UP TO 60 MPH. THESE STORMS WERE LOCATED ALONG A LINE EXTENDING FROM GLENDALE TO 14MILES SOUTHWEST OF BROOKVILLE...AND MOVING EAST AT 54 MPH.
















Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Something to think about


Date that Tornado Watch 500 was issued:

2008 - June 10

2007 - July 9

2006 - June 16

2005 - June 19

2004 - June 20

2003 - June 9

2002 - July 8

2001 - July 2

2000 - June 25

Thursday, June 5, 2008

All for not


Well the rather rotund female has sighed the last notes of "Parsifal".

The storm of the decade turned into a moderate squall line and unleashed a herd of elephants.

On this bright side, with all the doom and gloom, no one was injured.

Taken in Newton looking out toward the Southwest around 5ish.





I think NOAA issued the warning for Wichita due to some slight rotations in the storm and a flurry of calls saying funnels were falling. I think It was SCUDS.

Taken as the storm entered Wichita's east side. There were a few moments I wondered if I was staring at a wall cloud, then it fell apart.

No harm nor foul, I've snagged my tornado for this year.

Storm Damage?


This rocks!!!

The circus is in town in Wakeenee, Kansas.

The tornado sirens and thunder spooked the elephants and they stampeded out of the fairgrounds.

There are stampeding elephants loose in Wakeenee.


"Heeh-Heeh" Like Beevis


I've never seen a high area this large. The weathermen are freaking out. I'm starting to sweat a little while chomping at the bit.
And here I go waxing poetic at the doom to follow.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Harbinger of Doom?


Last time it looked like this, 22 died
BY STAN FINGER
The Wichita Eagle


Thursday could bring a tornado outbreak to the Great Plains, according to local meteorologists who are warning residents to pay attention to the weather.
Computer forecasting models for the day bear striking similarities to the conditions present on June 8, 1974, when 39 tornadoes touched down in the southern Plains and killed 22 people -- including six in Emporia.
"I think this event warrants more advance warning," said Robb Lawson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Wichita.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Storm Prediction Center has been warning for days of an outbreak on Thursday.
Forecasters disagree on where the highest risk for tornadoes will be. Many say Iowa and Minnesota, said Mike Smith, chief executive officer of WeatherData Inc., a subsidiary of AccuWeather.
But Smith has his eyes on a corridor stretching from northern Oklahoma to central Iowa -- Enid to Des Moines. That includes Wichita and the surrounding area.
"Certainly Wichita, Topeka, Emporia, Salina, Chanute... essentially the eastern half of Kansas should really be paying attention on Thursday," Smith said.
Temperature and humidity patterns for Thursday are similar to the 1974 outbreak, he said, and a wave of energy in the upper atmosphere is projected to be in exactly the same position as on June 8, 1974.
The 1974 Emporia tornado touched down at about 6 p.m., grew to about a half-mile wide, and struck the city's northwest side, according to weather service archives.
It injured 200 people and caused an estimated $25 million in damage in Lyon County alone, striking a shopping center, mobile home park, nursing home, an apartment complex and residential neighborhoods in Emporia and about 10 farmsteads in the surrounding countryside.
The tornado was rated an F-4 and had a 38-mile track through Lyon, Osage and Shawnee counties.
With so much humidity in place, storms this Thursday could form and quickly become strong, forecasters say.
And with wind speeds in the upper atmosphere resembling early spring patterns, any tornadoes that touch down could move at more than 50 mph.
"If you take April dynamics and June thermodynamics," Smith said, "you have a potentially disastrous combination."


The National Weather Service has a 45% change for "significant weather" occuring over our heads tomorrow, and said this . . . --SEVERE WEATHER OUTBREAK EXPECTED THURSDAY INTO THURSDAY NIGHT OVER PORTIONS OF KS/NEB/SD/MN/IA...INCLUDING THE POTENTIAL FOR STRONG...LONG-TRACKED TORNADOES --

Photo: heavy rain from a 05/27/08 storm shot from Kechi, KS.