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. 

April 29th Storms

I hate starting all of my chasing posts off with it's been a while. Unfortunately, we're a little droughty in this part of the country. We've seen some moisture but usually storms have been brief. Convective outlooks have been based on fairly strong caps. Storm Prediction Center had a wide swatch of Kansas in the danger zone with a specific area up near the Kansas/Nebraska border

The tornado Outlook was rather ominous.

with a large area of Kansas hatched fornlong destructive tornadoes. The HRRR was showing more activity up north then occuring around sundown in the Wichita area. We started out as soon as I got home and headed toward Hillsboro, Kansas.

Pileus clouds were forming showing quick updrafts.

We watch dust getting pulled up by the updrafts while windmills we're churning in the strong wind. 

Mammatus clouds were visable showing the turbulence in the atmosphere.

We started seeming them shut down with high winds moving in the area.

We were late to the first funnels coming down and started watching several area start to fire up around us. The dryline started expanding and looking quite evil.

I did a quick panoramic of the area with the funnel on the right.

The cold front started clashing with the dryline and the cold front started building near Wichita.

The storm we were on started to back build and we were getting hail. I escaped to the south and found myself watching a funnel descend on the road in front of me.

Then it defined and touched down.

I was between the storm and the tornado which isn't a great place to be, but it moved off to the field left of me and cleared off the road.

This did hit a small structure and was listed as an EF1.

Then the storm got very scary. It rapidly unzipped between us and Wichita. During this time the Andover tornado began and we had essentially three different tornado warned areas between us and home. We made it. We're okay. And I'm a little late in posting this because I wanted some time for the news from Andover to settle down and luckily no one died with four minor injuries reported. This became a scary storm with me calling home and saying l, I don't know what's happening but get into shelter. We had high wind warnings in the area and some areas of blowing dust, but it was over quickly and we headed back home. 

It's been about 11 years since the Wichita area got hit and Reed Timer has some amazing footage from the Andover area if you want to look it up.

It was a mess of a storm and I decided to stop in Newton for some needed late supper and listened to an employee argue about wanting to go storm chasing in the dark.

 

I avoided the argument but should of said nope and explained why. The boss wasn't letting them go any way.

The storm continued east of Wichita with tornados near Eureka/Rosella area but I wanted to get home and listen about the damage in Andover. My phone and cameras were out of power anyway. So I write this and ponder on Monday. Another big setup for afternoon storms and will wait to see what it brings.

Stay safe. May could get ugly.

Storms 10/7/16

It was a chaotic week. First the storms coming through on Tuesday then a sudden increase of storms Thursday with tornado potential increasing on every Storm Prediction Center update.

With a cold front add dry line descending quickly into Wichita by that afternoon, there was an increasing chance for severe weather. Tornadoes were reported north of Wichita near Salina and SE of Wichita near Ark City.  For information on this check out the National Weather Service link:  http://www.weather.gov/ict/oct6th_tornadoes.

from http://www.weather.gov/ict/oct6th_tornadoes

Slowly storms began to fill in and had some severe potential before giving in and forming a squall line with below severe level winds.

At Woodlawn and K-254

Not sure what it was trying to organize.

360 degree panoramic

Sunday, April 19th Sedgwick Co. Tornado Warning

Last Sunday, April 19th Sedgwick Co. was hit by a tornado warned storm.  The storm produced a brief tornado only 2 miles from the National Weather Service office in Wichita near the airport.

The storm produced a hook echo that my brother and I chased, but there was a series of unfortunate events that put us in the middle of the storm vs. where we wanted to be.  The tornado only stayed on the ground briefly but the area of rotation continued through the city.
As we chased near downtown, the rain and hail became heavy enough that visibility went to almost nil.  With the rotation being less than 2 miles to the east of our location, we ended up ditching the chase at my brother's company near old town and waited out the storm.  There was no tornado damage in Wichita, but some very strong straight lined winds and hail, broke windows, blew down fences, and beat up a lot of property in Bel Aire and NW Wichita.

Taken by Ruminator Heather Larson in Downtown Wichita.
To the right of center appears to be a rainwrapped funnel.

Several storm cells popped up around the original tornado warned storms producing interesting clouds but no more tornadoes.

Hail from Northeast Wichita

I like how you can see the different layers in the hail stone.

Power line over at Woodlawn and 45th in Bel Aire (Looking South down Oliver).

 I probably would have posted these sooner but with the apocalyptical damage coming out of Moore, Oklahoma, decided to wait.

06/09/11 chase Part II The Real Deal

I ran home.

Wall cloud heading to the house, circulation tightening, rain starting to come down and not allow me to see what's happening clearly.

I made it, everyone was hanging out in the basement.

I ran outside to lash myself to the deck like Lt. Dan screaming at the hurricane.

The storm passed through Kechi quickly running into Bel Aire.  I know I saw a very brief funnel, but it did not touch down and dissipated after trying to form.


Kechi was hit by heavy rains, light hail (pea to dime sized), and 50-60 mph wind.  Luckily, in the city we had minimal damage.




I waited for the main storm to pass, but a cell near Goddard (west of Wichita) strengthened up while this one started east again.  There was some very chaotic movement in the storm and I believe it was due to the storms feeding off one another.

I waited for about thirty minutes for the deluge to stop.  Wichita was experiencing some flooding.  I grabbed the cameras and headed back out.  The sunset was awesome showing some mammatus clouds, the pic below didn't do it justice.

I shot some lightning in the field but the occasional rain and horizontal lightning bursts overhead made me decide to head back home.  I shot lightning out of the garage until the memory card was full.  I did a time lapse video of the lightning last night.  All in all, exciting evening, no tornado injuries or fatalities in the city of Wichita, and an amazing light show afterwards.

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.