June 1, 2001 Southern Kansas/Northern Oklahoma Supercells
Tour 3, 2001 concluded with a nice little display of supercells over southern Kansas and northern Oklahoma. We intercepted two non-tornadic supercells (most supercells are non-tornadic) this day: one northeast of Newton, Kansas early in the day and another pretty LP supercell near Manchester, Oklahoma at dusk. We began the day in Oklahoma City and determined that the best chance for significant severe thunderstorms would occur to our north. We headed immediately for Wichita, Kansas and had to choose from several storms developing and in progress. We chose a storm developing rather strongly to the north of Wichita.
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| Our first view of the storm north of Wichita. We are stopped at the intersection of CR560 and Hwy 15 north of Newton looking northwest. The Wichita National Weather Service Office has just issued a tornado warning for this storm. | A fairly pronounced wall cloud develops beneath the eastern edge of the updraft base. Cool, dry air continuously pushed underneath the storm and this was probably responsible for preventing this storm from producing a tornado. | Another shot of the wall cloud. | A wide-angle perspective of the entire supercell storm. Note the semi-circular appearance, suggestive of the rotation that is present within the storm. |
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| Here we are driving east on CR 560 through Walton, KS, the wall cloud hidden behind the grain elevator. At this time, a voice could be clearly heard booming over the town's civil defense loudspeakers saying: "A tornado warning is in effect - get into your shelters now" | Eventually, the Newton storm died but we still had several hours of daylight left. We went west to Hutchinson where new storms were developing. Nothing really got its act together, though, and we gave up, stopping in Wichita for dinner. No sooner had we stopped when a radar download indicated that a supercell was rapidly forming northeast of Medicine Lodge. After a hard push southwest on Hwy 42 and then south to Anthony we finally caught up with the storm over the Oklahoma/Kansas state line: it was a pretty, corkscrewing LP updraft! | Another view of the tilted, twisting cauliflower updraft in the waning daylight. |