6/20/2011 – Almena, KS and Ravenna, NE area tornadoes

As in 2009, the last Plains chase of the year helped save a lackluster season.  Victor and I woke in a Priceline'd Ramada in Kearney with beleaguered hope that Monday might prove to be the day we'd been waiting for. Indeed, it was a heck of a day, with a number of tornadoes viewed between 2 and 5 pm ... essentially a dozen or so tornadoes and the chase more or less over by 5 pm! That doesn't happen often!

It was a tough target choice initially -- 1) stay along/north of the I-80 corridor and wait for the latter storm development (which did commence as expected and produce the picturesque Bradshaw, NE tornadoes) that the SPC had highlighted or 2) play the apex of surface low/vort lobe as it lugged its way through northwest Kansas.  Intuitively, we went for play (2) as it seemed to have "that" appearance, not to mention it was away from all the green ants (i.e., chasers) on the radar screen. We headed south out of Kearney late in the morning and kept an eye on elevated storms in western Kansas. An early severe storm across the Oakley area had crapped out; however, another elevated storm traversed the Quinter area, which we kept a radar eye on. We had lunch at a local hamburger joint in Franklin, NE while keeping an eye on the radar. While finishing our burgers, it had become quite clear that the storm southwest of Hill City had transformed (quickly!) from a elevated hailer to a surface based supercell with attendant strong mid-level rotation.  We took off after the storm, traversing Alma, NE and then Almena, KS, stopping to let the very intense storm head our way about 7-10 miles south of the sr-60/US-36 junction, between Almena and Edmond.

Here we are trying to race south to get ahead of the Hill City beast and ... sure 'nuff ... we got to play chicken with a cow!

View toward Edmond from the north-northeast -- at this point, the Hill City wedge was wrapped in rain and not visible.

At approximately 2:11 pm, a barrel cone became viewable in the tremendous rain/hail core near Edmond. This tornado wrapped in rain (again) and we lost visibility at about 2:13 pm. I suspect this is the tail-end of the Hill City, KS tornado that Mike Umcheid caught [see his nice map here; we essentially pick up where he left off].  

Tornado becomes visible ... great view of what a rain-wrapped beast looks like.

A bit closer view -- sorry, best I can do on zoom is 40 mm. One day I'll actually purchase something with a bit more zoom -- just such a sucker for wide-angle stuff. I'd click on image so you can view it in more "detail". Victor has a  better view here.

As we were trying to find a tornado in the rain to the south, a multitude of intense areas of rotation would move from south-to-north along the FFD to our immediate west.  These circulations -- see this very cool animated gif -- would continually be ingested into the main core. Each one would seem to wrap up and produce a dusty tornado -- some more vigorous than others, with a couple of them having dust from the ground all the way up to the cloud base.  One of the more fascinating and exhilarating features I've ever witnessed chasing. 

The second tornado -- dusty and weak -- formed at 2:15 pm, with dust becoming attached to the low-level meso at 2:16 pm, and suspected dissipation at 2:17 pm. At this time, we are racing north along dusty roads trying to stay ahead of these circulations, which had the appearance of forming a few hundred yards down the road -- there are spinups all over the place seemingly at this point -- some ahead of us on the road!
 

Tornado #2 viewed to our southwest as we are racing north.

The third tornado (I honestly have no clue if this may be the remant of tornado #1 b/c of the chaotic nature of the chase at this point, plus the fact that we lost visibility on tornado #1 due to rain), with full condensation, became visible at 2:20 pm.

Tornado #3 off to southwest ... again, as we are racing north.

The fourth tornado -- an intense surface dust whirl, weak tornado with attendant strong low-level meso -- was evident at 2:23 pm.

Tornado #4.

A fifth needle-cone tornado became viewable at 2:25 pm. This becomes a dusty stove pipe, and the most photogenic of the day. It moves from south to north, very close to the sr-60/US-36 junction south of Almena, KS. It turns into a big dust bowl, with rope at 2:32 pm. Dust bowl continues till at least 2:33 pm, when we have to break north due to big hail coming in the RFD. Victor has posted a Youtube video of this event here.

Tornado #5 becomes visible.

 

A needle funnel forms over the top of those bushes/trees left of the road ... in that smallish meso there. It was a vorticity free-for-all!

 

 

 

Dusty bowl left over as it traverses the US 36 - sr-36 junction.

As we traverse north on dirt between US-36 and sr-383, south of Long Island, we find a sixth tornado -- another intense dust whirl, weak tornado -- at 2:33 pm.

Tornado #6.

At 2:36 pm, we view a fully condensed elephant trunk tornado (#7) to our northwest, which puts the tornado very near Almena.

 Horribly contrast enhanced view of #7 -- we are racing north at this time.

At  2:38, tornado #8 -- another dusty tornado, which has dust from ground to cloud-level, obscuring condensation funnel -- was viewed to our northwest, likely somewhere between Long Island and Almena.

Tornado #8.

At 2:40 pm, another dust whirl tornado (#9) -- not as impressive as the last -- is viewed to our northwest. Essentially, for the next 30 minutes we lose good visibility of the notch at this time as we route northward into Nebraska.

Tornado #9.

At 3:10 pm, we find ourselves north of Stamford area, trying to view a rain-wrapped tornado somewhere to our south-southwest (the Doppler velocity couplet at this point was very intense). Sure enough, tornado #10  -- a cone -- becomes visible from the rain at 3:14 pm -- this tornado is in the area south of Stamford. Becomes rain-wrapped, but appears to possibly take on a wedge appearance visually due to curved nature of "rain shaft" to the right of the circulation at 3:17 pm. I have several animated gifs of the setting to our immediate west here ... these don't show the tornado per se since they are employing a 10mm lens, but they are cool at illustrating the vorticity alined north-to-south in this environment ahead of the main meso/core. Animated gif 1, 2, 3, and 4.

Enhanced ... can hardly see it, but it is in there.

 

Wedge at this point?

A new dust whirl -- weak tornado (#11) -- is viewed at the edge of the notch at 3:25 pm. Lose it in rain at 3:26 pm. This tornado is just south of Stamford.

Tornado #11.

Another needle tornado (#12) forms at 3:30 pm to our west (now north of Stamford). This tornado is still visible as of its last picture at 3:34 pm.

Tornado #12.

Thereafter, this storm quickly decays. We blast north as another storm to our immediate northwest has rapidly intensified, producing tornadoes in the Elm Creek area. We catch up to this storm as well as other storms along a west-to-east flank, between the Gibbon and Ravenna, NE areas. We are amazed at the truly remarkable look to our north -- from west to east, the entire horizon is convecting.

Driving north toward Ravenna.

 

At 4:41 pm, a cone-shaped tornado (#13) is viewed to our west, well southwest of Ravenna.

Tornado #13.

At 4:46 pm, a rope (#14; possible, though I'm almost certain it isn't, the same tornado as #13) is observed southwest of Ravenna.

Tornado #14 ... a nice rope!

Gets all squirly!

View to east from same spot as above pic, which was looking due west.

At 4:48 pm, Victor spots a tornado (#15) to the immediate northwest of Ravenna as we are driving through town. We stop and observe this cone, which becomes visible again from the rain at 4:50 pm just north of Ravenna. Becomes fully wrapped in rain at 4:58 pm.

Tornado #15. Lose it in rain about a minute later ...

We gas up in Ravenna, and take off after the "York" cell, which is producing the Bradshaw tornado. By the time we finally wrap around this storm south of Columbus, it was clear that it had done its thing.  We are spent at this point and increasingly frustrated at the local yahoos [if you don't understand what these are, please move along, this blog is not for you], as well as plethora of chasers, making the rounds near Columbus, so we break off from the storm. We slowly traverse the countryside to Lincoln, where we called it a relatively early evening (by chasing standards).

Our path for the day -- will update in a day or two with more annotation.