After a
very hyped day yesterday and a disappointing chase, we
were left with a 2% risk of tornadic cells in the
chase area we were confined for the day. We
needed to chase within in a 3 hour window of KC due to
Brian's and Ryan's work schedule and saving enough
time for the night ride back to St. Louis for Ryan's
6:00am work shift Tuesday morning. That
eliminated the best area in Oklahoma, so our secondary
target was to play the Northeast Kansas
corridor.
We had
lunch in Junction City, KS. As the afternoon
progressed, the warm front which we originally thought
would set up in Northeast Kansas as one of our main
focus points, shot way up to the north into
Nebraska. We opted to do a bit of snake hunting
north of Junction City as we waited to see where the
storms would end up firing.
We
eventually made the decision to work our way westward
to the dryline and to the potential storms that had
fired to the far southwest as they had become
severe. The hope was that storms would fire
further north on the line. We were pretty much
in "no storm" land as the main event in Oklahoma was
started and we were hearing of the warm front in
Nebraska now producing tornadoes.
We played a bit of a waiting game as
we watched on radar the storms coming at us from the
southwest. As the time went on, the storms
became less and less impressive and began to line
out losing all of its severe characteristics.
Wasn't long as between the three of us, decided
to call the day a loss and head toward home and
salvage a few of the extra hours for drive time and
sleep time before work.
Ryan
continues to occasionally look at the radar and as
we drive east on I-70. As we approach
Junction City, KS again, Ryan tells us there is a
storm by itself to the north of us and it was gaining
strength. It was only moving 15mph and was
easily within range of us catching it. After a
brief discussion, we all decided to head north and
intercept this storm. Ironically, we passed the
same spot again where we had spent an hour or so snake
hunting several hours earlier. With the
storm now in clear sight, we could see a rotating wall
cloud.
Unfortunately,
the road structure was not our best friend as there
were few paved roads. We continued to get
closer, but we needed to find a road north, but
everything was either gravel or mud. It was a
complete guess whether they would go all the way
through to another paved road or not. Our first
road north went from gravel to mud and put an
immediate stop to our northward progress.
After
backtracking, taking a gravel road west, we found
another gravel road north. As we reached
the top of a hill, Ryan yells out "tornado". Out
in dark area to the northwest occluded from the area
with the primary circulation was indeed a large cone
dipping down. Contrast was very poor in that
area, but all cameras and camcorders zeroed in on the
area.
After
the tornado lifted, we once again worked our way
northward, westward, then eastward to keep up with the
storm. We crossed the hail path and drove
through the area that received enough rain to issue
flash flood warnings.
As we
reached the paved road again, we knew the storm was
now just a rain and hail maker and the tornado
potential dropped to about zero. We worked our
way back to I-70 for the ride back to KC to drop Brian
off and then the night time drive back to St. Louis
for work in the morning.
Two
Day Total - 1851 Miles
|
Click
on the link below to see video of some
of these storms.
|
May 09, 2016
