5/15/09

Chased lots of rain but got some interesting pics.

This is the "wall cloud" over Goddard.

Coming soon . . .

051309 storms

Watched the cold front pass over Wichita on Radar right before I headed home from work. Thought I might get a little chase in.

Storms started to initiate in Emporia and I thought they might slide on down the front to east of Wichita. Took care of a couple of things, looked out to the East and figured, I better get out there.

Clouds were looking promising. NOAA (National Weather Service) said that if the storms could break the strong cap (Cap or Capping Inversion) - A layer of relatively warm air aloft (usually several thousand feet above the ground) which suppresses or delays the development of thunderstorms. Air parcels rising into this layer become cooler than the surrounding air, which inhibits their ability to rise further. As such, the cap often prevents or delays thunderstorm development even in the presence of extreme instability. However if the cap is removed or weakened, then explosive thunderstorm development can occur.) that we would have some explosive results.

Take a look at the middle column. Notice how everything looks like it's topped out, but yet you have a powder puff pushing through?

This is what happened:

I guess it couldn't break through. It tried, but then the entire band collapsed.

I gave up on the storm and went home. Only to find out later further down south that the storm produced tornadoes in Cowley County.

I hate chasing squall lines anyway.

Last Friday 5/8/09

My daughter woke up crying. Not a strange thing in this household for a teething one y/o to be yelling at 4am. Between her howls, I heard thunder. The National Weather service warned of big storms very early morning.

I hit the weather radio and started listening to the warnings. So far just hail, but the talk the day before said up to baseball size. I got up.

The lightning outside strobed. It was flashing so quick there seemed to be no wait for the thunder. Then it hit. The winds didn't seem too bad. I could hear hail on the roof but it sounded small. KAKE said that the hail was approaching 1 & 1/2 inches near Kechi. I was thinking, inch and a half hail doesn't tink, it thuds.

Then it got ugly. The storm created a large gust front that spread out and hit Burton, Towanda, and El Dorado with very high winds.

Damage reports started coming in. House on Webb and I-254 lost it's garage. Storage shed in Benton blown over. The Towanda Grain Silo . . . gone.

I have a friend who lives in El Dorado that had a tree fall on his house. One of the limbs went through the laundry room. They are ok. My friend, I'll refer to as Brian Prime said one of the trees fell and landed 40 ft away from it's snapped trunk.

Remember, tornados aren't the only weather that kills people. They are predicting more bad weather tomorrow (Wednesday the 13th) and Friday, May 15th. Stay aware.

I was in El Dorado this evening looking at Frontier Refinery. The sides of the storage tanks are puckered. I bet that wasn't the only thing puckered during this storm.

042609 chase

There is a cold comfort setting inside your house listening to the rain and thunder outside. Then a cold comfort when you realize the area they just placed the warning on is less than 2 miles away.

We ran out of Kechi to Benton through blinding rain and wind. Then it slowed down and so did we. Never a good sign. Lots of reports were coming in but we were facing an irregular phenomena. Hook echos are to produce to the SW sides of Supercells. Not smack dab on the western side. We pulled over to get some bearings and decided to run into the town of Benton. Just before we got there I took this.

Not really sure if it was a wall cloud, a scary looking cloud, microburst, or maybe one of the horsemen of the Apocalypse, we decided to get a little closer.

We drove through Benton. One of the problems is due to the houses, tree, etc. there was a lot in the way of seeing what we needed to see.

We thought we saw something at the end of the street.

By the time we got to a clear place, the cloud had really broken up. As stated before, we didn't know if it was a wall cloud or just something scaring the locals.

We thought about going to Kingman since it seemed to be where the more serious storms were going to play out. I ended up heading home for a little while and never made it to Kingman. I missed the Lake Afton tornado as well.

Then the squall line decided to move in.

I ran to my usual photo spot on the highest peak of Sedgwick Co.

There is something about the sight of a good strong squall about to hit and realizing that you won't make it home in time.

It been a while since I stood out in a strong storm.

It's an interesting feeling as the wind starts off slow, then increases, and keep increases until it's whistling past the light poles like a reed and hitting an F flat. Then the rain and light hail hit, and I had enough.

I was disappointed that Sunday didn't quite turn out as spectacular as I had hoped. On the other hand, with the horror show they predicted, we could have had a lot worse.

PDS Watch

Weee,

Check this out

AT THIS TIME...THE AREA AT GREATEST RISK OF LONG-TRACKED TORNADIC SUPERCELLS WILL BE OVER WESTERN OKLAHOMA AND SOUTH-CENTRAL KANSAS. STATE AND LOCAL EMERGENCY MANAGERS ARE MONITORING THIS POTENTIALLY VERY DANGEROUS SITUATION. THOSE IN THE THREATENED AREA ARE URGED TO REVIEW SEVERE WEATHER SAFETY RULES AND TO LISTEN TO RADIO...TELEVISION...AND NOAA WEATHER RADIO FOR POSSIBLE WATCHES...WARNINGS...AND STATEMENTS LATER TODAY.

Now with updated graphics!

WWTD part 3

They had tornados NW of Salina this morning when I got up. Language that NOAA is using is a little scary. Strong supercells capable of producing long lived tornados.

Weeee,

Keep aware.

Chase Log 4/25/09

Started seeing Storms initiate about 4:30. Decided to run like hell to Wellington. If we were lucky, we'd make it on the back side of the storm.

It was very overcast and there was a lot of precipitation falling around so once we were under the storm, we had some difficulty deciding where to go.

We hit Wellington and then decided to head East into Winfield. We waiting a while in Winfield hoping the storm would figure out what it wanted to do.

Off to the west I could see a "beaver tail" (an area where warm moist air feeds into a storm and gives it a lot of intensity) build. Another thing that caught my attention was the nice clear slot that had developed next to it.

We had our wall cloud.

Couldn't tell what the cloud in the center was trying to do, I don't believe it was a funnel.
The wall clouds of this storm didn't survive. The storm seemed like it was attempting to organize but fell short. The wall cloud above did cause the warning for Sumner Co.

We kept chasing and I had the driver (Nichole Conard) back up for this:

The wall clouds continued to generate and created a few odd clouds like the "O" cloud.

We followed up to Oxford, where the radio was claiming the wall cloud was overhead.

It didn't last too long either. We watched as the cloud tried to rebuild and hopscotched to the East.

With the sun going down, we decided to call it off. We found Udall road and headed back. This storm went on to cause a brief tornado in or near the town of Douglass. At this time no one was reported hurt and it was limited damage.

Keep your eyes to the sky tomorrow. Round two is less than 16 hours away. They are predicting a major outbreak tomorrow. Be prepared.

More pics of this storm, forthcoming.