April 23rd tornados and storms

 Life can be busy.  I'm writing this almost two weeks after the event due to other things I'm doing in my writing life and school.

April 23rd was an interesting day. 

I had a Professional Development day in Clearwater and the talk of the day was the storm chances we had.  I knew Oklahoma was under more threat, but had chasers all along I-35 waiting on the cap.

We actually got out early due to some people being a couple hours away and starting to panic that they would be driving in severe weather.  The late morning convective outlook moved us up to a moderate risk.

And the tornado threat increased for South Central Kansas on an advancing cold front/dryline triple point. 

There was a cap in Oklahoma limiting a lot of action down there, but the cap was beginning to erode.  There was a large number of chasers heading down south.  Storms were beginning to fire up on the cold front up North and I didn't want to go into Oklahoma more than a couple hours away.  I ended up heading into Canton, Kansas.

Inhave family that once maintained this graveyard and stopped by.

Storms were firing along the line and looking strong.

inwondered over to Marion then decided to head to Newton. The day reminded me a lot of the Andover tornado which dropped several tornadoes along the dry line and anchored with a powerful storm on the southern part.

I made it to Newton to a lot of cloud to ground lightning with what I thought was smoking. After hanging out for about 30 min I was about to call it quits when a certain area started smoking heavily near me. 

video

The tornado lasted about 8 minutes and only went through farm fields. I've been wanting to go back to the spot and do a drone survey but having time to do it hasn't worked out as much.

A nice little hailbow after.

I went back toward home and ended in one of my purches in Kechi doing lightning video.

Check out my YouTube channel for those.

Then it went cold. 40-50 degree mornings and light rain. Need more rain.

This has been the only tornado warning for the area this month and almost a week into May not seeing much else coming. 

September 3rd Hailstorm

A good cold front came down Wednesday night promising cool fall weather and a lot of hail.

I started watching the storms form near Salina and move to the south. By the time it hit McPherson it was going to be a not nice storm.

We were seeing prominent mamatus clouds from meaning the atmosphere was turbulent.

and the storm was coming our way.

there was an interesting feature with some SLCs.

other than that, a lot of gray.

I followed a lowering north of the city.

then the hail came. Lots of hail.

Then a nasty round 2 but that was all rain.

Some light damage around the house.

But a tree did fall in the neighborhood. Maybe struck by lightning.

We'll see what second season brings.

April 30th, 2024 Storms

I have to applaud the HRRR system for nailing this storm. There was a couple brief tornado warnings near Wichita due to radar indicated rotation. Lots of lightning and around 1 inch hail.

Possibility of storms later today.

Thunderstorm initiation around 3pm.     

Brief wall clouds and lightning

Mammatus clouds show turbulence in the atmosphere.

Crepuscular rays as the sunset shines through the clouds.