April 11th, 2020 severe storms

It's been a slow strange year.  We had early storms form in March with tornado outbreaks in Tennessee, the emergence of the Covid 19 pandemic, and just all the weirdness of the world we are in.  I figured we would have an earlyorm season emerging and I could go chase to my heart's content.  Then the state shut down, we entered the world of online working, teaching, and learning.
I started a project documenting how the shutdown is affecting Wichita, shooting some of the businesses that have succumbed to closing due to the stay at home orders.

Storm chasing has been a little questionable with local sheriffs requesting people from heavily affected areas not coming to the area for fear that someone could spread the virus.  The two main population centers in Kansas, Wichita, and Kansas City have around 1000 cases.  The fear is that many cases are not being tested or being known.

In this time of shutdown, I am teaching, some days a lot.  I'm also trying to keep busy and get creative with my drone, photography, videography, and I recently started my third novel.  I will be starting a section called #Covidcoverage where I document what's going on.

As of what happened yesterday, simple term, cold front.  Yesterday we made it to 83 degrees, today its 36 degrees with winds gusting to 60mph.  As I write this, there is a tornado outbreak in Dixie Alley.  We are under a high wind warning and freeze warning for April 12th, but at least there are no tornado emergencies.

Yesterday, we had a slight chance of severe weather with some pop-ups along the cold front/dry line mix that came down from the north.  I didn't have much hope that we would have much but the HRRR was looking promising to the north and east of Wichita.  Around 5pm a pop up grew and I wanted a chase.  We went north out to Newton, Kansas and recorded a supercell while it was producing  above quarter-sized hail in Walton.

This storm was gorgeous, bright white, and rotating like a skater.  I didn't have all my gear with me but attempted to do a time-lapse.  Needless to say, heavy wind made it difficult.  This is something I've seen done before, most notibly by Stephen Locke when he chased.  The wind was to heavy for drone or tri-pod so I did what I could with handheld and this was the outcome:

Here were some of the photos

This was an odd storm that fell apart to the east. I love the ribbon of cloud left of center.

Radar Loop from storm from the National Weather Service

Satellite loop from the storm from the National Weather Service

3D image of storm showing core extending above 40,000 feet