June 21st Tornado, outside of Sedgwick, Kansas

 Around 1:20am a bolt of lightning hit violently near the house that it made me sit up and say something unmentionable. Slightly remarkable since I sleep in the basement.

I had watched storms coming in to the area and went to sleep.

The next morning, news reported on a tornado eight miles from my house.

From NWS Wichita

A tornado had formed and dissipated in two radar sweeps. Quick enough that no warning was issued.

From NWS Wichita

This is velocity data on the left. Green is wind moving at the radar located in southwest Wichita, Red is moving away. Any time two colors meet in a small area, it shows spin. On the right is Correlation Coefficient. This gives the ability to tell if a tornado lifts debris in the atmosphere.

From NWS Wichita

A tornado touched down, hit a manufactured home, then lifted. Unfortunately, there was a fatality of one resident who lived there. A utility worker reported that the house had been blown off its foundation and destroyed.

Drone shot from Chris Evan's KAKE TV

We hear too often stories of a tornado hitting without warning, then finding out there were warnings in place before it hit. This is one of the odd and tragic stories of a tornado hitting and destroying so quickly that a warning couldn't be placed.

This is also one of the few posts I'm made where my photography wasn't used. It's just been something on my mind how the weather could change in an instant and come to you.

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. 

Severe storms June 17th

 It's been a wet June.  All the spring rains seem to have come this month with a 5.5 inch day on June 3rd and 4th which caused significant flooding in my area.

Then this group of storms that hit, not once, not twice, but with three severe storms on June 17th. We were without power for 36 hours and have possibly lost two of our large trees.

This was the beginning of the wind.  Eisenhower Airport recorded a 102 mph wind gust 

The moment power went out in the area.

This was the main storm that caused damage in the area.  

Interesting enough, this was not the storm heavily warned about.  This was a derecho that came down from Nebraska.  There was another storm system that could cause more damage.

A little weather trough pushed by the previous storm's outflow gave a moderate area for storms.

I was on tree cleanup most of the day but around 5pm decided to run up to Newton to see an area that was developing.  An area near Wichita was coming in but a storm down south looked like it strengthened.

Harper, Kansas had a breif tornado 1 mile SSW of the city but I was a little late getting into the area.

This was on the back end of the storm.  Not sure if it was a microburst (strong winds were in the area) or a hail foot.

It dissipated quickly, and formed some fog from the area.  

An odd starship looking storm to the west looked interesting.

The air had cooled but it had a good groundscrubber with it.

Lots of positive stroke lightning out of both storms.  They seemed to pulse and look like they were getting their act together but neither produced.

One of the local guys stopped to see if I needed help, but recommended The Red Rooster Cafe in Harper for a good bite to eat.

The storm started to fall apart but found a great spot with birds chirping, but the cows were not having this storm nonsense. I would like to introduce the storm cows.

May 6th, 2024 High Risk Day

May 6th, 2024 had teased a moderate risk until that morning when it went to high risk.  This happens maybe once or twice a year and usually is the harbinger of bad things.

Wichita was on the northern end, OKC on the southern. HRRR was showing lines of storms forming, but not going linear. I also was looking at Pratt, not wanting to go into Oklahoma because I had just returned the day before from the great OWFI Conference.  

We had the ingredients in place for a very severe weather day, but just like having a taco bar and opting for a burrito or taco salad. It just didn't come together.

There were tornado warnings just over the border in Oklahoma but the northern storms produced brief and EFO to EF1 tornadoes. 

A storm we followed did go to Manhattan, Kansas and produced a brief tornado SW of town but luckily didn't hit anything.

Didn't see any storms producing wall clouds but would see these odd funnels dip just below, spin for a moment, and disappear.

Nice clouds

The odd shaft of sunlight

Hey, got a rainbow.

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.

Severe Weather 06/26/2018

Summer had set on Wichita or at least we seemed to be in for a long, hot, dry days.  Little patches of rain happened occasionally, but not enough to knock off the severe drought that had lingered.

There had been some storms in the morning that provided a couple of quick thunderstorm warnings, but nothing too strong.  Most of the storms dissipated just before hitting Wichita to reform after and produce stronger storms. I had gone out in the morning just to try to shoot more photography.

Storms looked to be focused mainly on the Kansas/Missouri border and I thought the less than spectacular morning storms may be the end of it.  The five o'clock News mentioned that there was a stationary front just to our west that may form storms in the next few hours.  By six, a number of storms formed NE of Wichita and slowly moved to the SE.  Within 30 minutes from that, the storms had become tornado warned.  

After the initial warnings and not seeing tornadoes I moved to near Rose Hill but unfortunately went though Andover which really slowed me down after they had some initial wind damage.