5/22/2008 - Kansas Tornadoes!

We began the day at the Holiday Inn Express in Goodland, KS with extreme anticipation for the day’s activities – I equate it to that Christmas morning feeling one used to get as a kid. A strong surface low was banked up against the CO Rockies, which, combined with the moderate instability and surface boundaries, was setting up the perfect supercell tornado situation. We waited in Goodland till early afternoon and thereafter drove east on I-70 toward our initial target of Scott City. By the time we arrived to Oakley, our south option toward Scott City was filling in with “stringy” supercells. We decided to head east toward Grainfield, and then south toward Grove. We hung out for about 5 miles north of Shields, KS on 23 as several supercells traveled northbound. They all had “interesting” wall clouds with lowerings, but contrast was horrible. The most “eventful” moment of this portion of the chase was Grady’s rapid-onset bowel movement on a dirt road in the middle of “Nowhere, KS”. I’ll leave it up to Grady to provide details on that experience in his own blog.

Initial Supercell

We finally latched onto the 2nd supercell and followed it northbound back to I-70. As we arrived in Grainfield, we let the “speedy” 2nd supercell go to the north as we took off east on I-70. Just east of Grainfield (I believe near Park or Quinter) we pulled off the interstate to take a look at an interesting lowering in a newly forming supercell to our south. This lowering quickly wrapped up into a nice bow-shaped wall cloud. A clear-slot formed and a horizontal vortex tube tilted slowly into the vertical and produced a dust whirl on the ground. This was the first tornado. The same circulation moved northward and produced a long-lived (~18-20 mins) needle/rope tornado that traversed the area north of Grainfield. We rushed northward and west – on a dirt road that turned into a very treacherous muddy road. Grady did an excellent job navigating this difficult road for about 3 miles. As we neared sr-23, Grady tried to apply the brakes, but the car refused to stop as it slid along the muddy surface. Scary situation as we had vans heading south toward the intersection we were getting ready to slide into from the east! Grady turned left as we hit the gravel near the asphalt road and was somehow able to stop the van in the left lane, facing south as the vans neared. This shows you how difficult these roads can be when muddy. Heck, we weren’t even going that fast due to the muddy conditions.

Horizontal tube (right center) tilts toward the vertical.

Tornado 1: Tube is now vertical, producing a dust whirl on the ground. (contrast enhanced)

Tornado 2 was a long rope. By far and away the longest rope tornado I've ever seen. Ropes are common at the end of tornadoes, but usually dissipate quickly. Not this guy.

Anyway, we righted the vehicle and headed north on 23 where the rope finally dissipated between Grainfield and Hoxie. As we approached Hoxie, a new lowering formed just west of town and appeared to be dropping a tornado to our west (it was difficult to see due to the trees in the town limits). As we headed north (out of the tree-lined town), we were able to see a multi-vortex tornado raging along the countryside west of 23 northwest of Hoxie. This tornado traversed the entire tornado spectrum – from multi vortex with attendant horizontal vortex, or “sidewinder”, swinging around it, to elephant trunk, cone, to finally a rope. As it went from trunk to rope, a new meso off to the northeast was ready for the handoff. Sure enough, tornado 3 roped out and the new meso traversing 23 to our north started a merry-go-round tornado situation – dropping a couple (maybe more!) tornadoes that circled around the butt draggin’ meso. These all coalesced as the rain curtains wrapped around the meso into a rather large “wedgy” type tornado that we eventually lost in the rain curtains as it headed toward Dresden.

Pics of Tornado 3

Multivortex!

Look closely to the right of the tornado and you will see a horizontal vortex tube -- or sidewinder as I call them.

Tornado 3 ropes out.

Pics of tornadoes 4, 5, and ...?

Tornado 4

Tornado 5 dust whirl in front of us.

Another view of tornado 5's dust whirl.

Tornado 4 left (cone) and 5 right (see dust whirl to right) just before the meso wrapped completely to the ground in a large rain-wrapped wedge.

The speed and rain-wrapped nature of this storm ended our chase of this beastly meso. We headed (well) east to Glade and then south to Stockton, trying to get ahead of an extremely large supercell near Hill City. We eventually got back toward this storm as it continued to unzip the cap near WaKeeney on I-70. Unfortunately, the sun set and ended a rather exciting day. We headed toward Hays to overnight. Tough to find a room in Hays, but we finally found an overpriced one at the Fairfield Inn.

I would say we witnessed at least 5 tornadoes that we could confirm, but it is entirely possible that this storm produced a few more as it was in its merry-go-round phase at the end there. Fun day! Off to play a similar setup this Friday.

Thanks to Gil (NIU) and Dave Brommer (Univ. of Alabama) for nowcasting support when AT&T couldn’t hold up their end of the bargain.