A couple more from 03/29/2012

Storm forming

Multiline forming

Closer to dusk

Lightning at Dusk

I thought the Sun looked haunted.

Lightning taken from front porch

Storms 03282012 and 03292012

There was a lot of low level shear (winds heading in different directions with height) and a small chance of tornadoes.  Storms that developed were primarily thought to be hail makers and windstorms.  The shear gave a tiny chance to funnels and tornadoes. . . which came after dark.  

The storms formed near a stationary front and essentially dropped all their rain on the same area for about three hours.  I took this near sunset facing east.  Notice the slightly puffed top on the left anvil.  The storms inflow was strong enough that it broke through the anvil (top flat part of the storm) three times in an hour.  Both of these storms created tornadoes.  At this time, I don't believe any damage was reported.

March 29, 2012 had a slight chance of storms, but once I got off work and realized the storms were beginning to fire, and fire quickly.  This photo was taken near the town of Bentley, Kansas.

The storms slowly moved and turned severe.  Then decided to stall and hail.

Spring Training 02/20/2012

Rumors of storms, cold core funnels, and a heart shaped convective outlook a week after Valentine's Day promised a fun start to preseason.  It's too early to start thinking we're going to have an active season based on a warm winter.  Accuweather's stated that the El Nino cycle is gearing up and the drought areas could (operative word) have a fairly active season this year after a strong El Nina pattern shifted storms east last year.  We will see what the season brings in March, and hopefully a new camera to capture it.

06/20/11 Squall

The dry line lazily rolled closer to Wichita with a whimper of threat.  Storms were firing in Salina, but down here, wind.  Nothing seemed to be happening so I went a little north to watch the storms. 

 To the south, a single cumulus tower began to rise and soon all hell broke loose.  Before the storm even seemed to mature the National Weather Service issued a Severe Thunderstorm Warning for the area.

Clouds began stacking up on the dryline and  we had a squall line.

Hail, high wind, and lots of rain.

The line took over an hour to move thorough town.  There was wind related damage (trees, a couple roofs, and power lines), but no significant hail.

 












Afterwards mammatus clouds were very visible on the tail end of the front showing lots of turbulence up above.  The temp dropped about 25 degrees and we finally lost the blast furnace wind that hit most of the day.

06/09/11 chase

Although there was a thunderstorm watch for the area, this storm surprised me with it's fierceness.  I watched the small blob grow on radar screen and decided to go take a look before I had a get together later in the evening.  I have a  great vantage point to watch storms about two miles from my house.  It's a local farm field that the hedge rows were removed and I can see way out west.

When I arrived, I noticed a definite lowering of the clouds.







The wall cloud was forming and feeding off of the huge amount of moisture to the north of it and building although rotating very slowly.

There was some radio chatter about a rear flank downdraft opening up but I never saw it.  Quickly the wall cloud slimmed down and continued feeding on warm moisture.

I was in a good position with inflow directly overhead.  It kept the rain from cloaking the area.  The cloud slowly rotated and radar finally indicated a cause for a tornado warning.  If there was a rear flank downdraft, I think it choked out the tornadogenesis as the wall cloud became smaller.  As it became smaller it began to rotate.




It was rumored that the storm was moving SE instead of straight E.  Unfortunately, that's where my house is.


Part II coming soon.

The last few days . . .

Wichita had a severe chance of storms on Thursday from a system that went and spawned several monster storms that at this time has claimed 27 lives.  Chilling to think that many have died when we have the warnings that we do this day and age.  I know the previous days losses were due to trees falling on houses.

http://dryline19.blogspot.com/2011/04/mid-april-madness.html posted a map of the storm reports:

Needless to say the backside of this system wasn't pleasant.  Wichita had wind gusts a few MPH below Hurricane strength.  Some damage was reported across the state.

Thursday didn't quite pan out as I hoped and I found myself on the backside of a multi-cell cluster that finally became a squall line and moved quickly to the east.  There were a couple reports of funnels and tornados in Kansas, but a couple small towns east of Tulsa took a direct hit.

At the Soccer Stadium on Greenwich as the storms began to initiate.

In the town of Furley realizing we were to late and going to miss the dance.

04/08/11 Hail

Burning fields.  More Hail.  I know, I know, it's not coincidence.

Semi monster hail (baseball size) in Rose Hill did a number on cars including the police department's.
I'm just saying give some particulate matter for the moisture to hold on to, let it do it merry little up-and-down dance, then fall solid.  Once again, I know, it's been proven it doesn't happen like that.

 The sky did get that odd orange look to it last night.  Tornado Warnings stayed south of the Oklahoma border except for a brief one after dark north of Emporia.

 

Like I said, a lot of field burning is going on at the moment, which always makes the sky a little murky.  We were mainly running around Butler CO. looking at one of the storms.  We headed to Augusta and decided to bail in midtrip due to some of the hail reports.  We turned around, made it to K-254 and ended up between Towanda and Benton when the hail hit us after dark.  Huge rain shaft on the storm.  Started seeing hail and decided to pull off on a side road when it began to hail.  Just a reminder, if you get caught in a hail storm on the highway and you decide to pull over, don't just stop in the middle of the road.  It makes you a target.  I mentioned this on my call to the radio station.  If you stop on the highway, pull over.  Someone behind you will arrive shortly freaking out that the hail is destroying their car and rear end you at a high rate of speed.  Also stay out from under bridges.  If you're not a troll, you don't belong.

I don't know if I'm happy with my Sony DSC-W350.  The tech is awesome on the camera but low light photos (Hello, storm chasers) come out noisy.  I'm going to play with it a little longer.  I think it's an awesome day to day great point and shoot, but maybe not for my hobby.  I do like the grittiness of the photos below.  I just don't want it in more of my important shots.  I use a Sony DSC-V3 in the field and am very happy with it.  I just want to increase my MP size.  I know, I'm comparing a $135 point and shoot to a $700 semi-pro model.  Hey Sony?  Want me to try some new equipment?

1300 Severe Weather reports

Over the last 24 hours there were 1300 Severe Weather reports.  Unfortunately, eight people also died.  Deaths were caused by falling debris, mainly trees snapped off in the winds.

More storms possible Thursday.

Green dots: Hail reports
Blue dots: wind reports
Red dots: Tornados

Storms from the night of April 3rd, 2011

Storms April 4th, 2011

Source: http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/online/

Second Season 091510 Tornado warnings

I've been hoping for weather, really of any type.  I noticed earlier in the week that maybe there might be some sort of storms going through the area today.  When I went out this afternoon, I was pleasently suprised.  A cold front touched several strong storms in the area.

The ones pictured here had funnels associated with it in Reno County and over Cheney Lake,  I watched this wall cloud collapse and reform three times before the rumors of hail associated with the storm made me decide to go home, that and a dead battery on the camera.    

The area had strong updraft (note the rain curtains on both sides) and gobbled the small clouds that were forming below it in the humidity getting absorbed by the storm.  Even though I really didn't see any of the funnels, it was nice to go on an early fall, second season run.

070809 Wichita Large Hail Storm

It all started off with my wife saying "Wow, those clouds are pretty." Then I heard the thunder.

I was out for about an hour and a half taking lightning pics not knowing it was hailing like mad downtown. I got home as the first drops of rain hit out here in the "Sticks".

Sat. April 18th

Good chance for hail today late afternoon into early evening.