May 7, 2002 Southwest Kansas Tornado Outbreak

A classic setup led to a classic tornadic storm this day. A broad upper-level low-pressure trough in the southwestern U.S. kept the plains under southwesterly flow aloft. The associated surface southerly flow regime, deep rich low-level moisture and highly unstable atmosphere all combined to produce an environment favorable for tornadic supercells. By 5:30 pm a full-fledged tornadic supercell developed east of Dodge City, Kansas and moved generally east-southeastward to due east, producing tornadoes all the way to Cunningham, KS. We stayed with the storm to Greensburg where it became a very wet, high-precipitation storm with little perceived hope for producing additional visible, photogenic tornadoes. Getting a report of a highly visible tornado with a storm southwest of our original supercell, we went back west and then south of Greensburg. Although we could see the column of condensation and dirt associated with the tornado to our distant west, we couldn't get close enough to clearly make out the structure. At any rate, this was a great day with at least a couple of fairly photogenic tornadoes, two of which were strong.

On rural farm roads east of the Arkansas River, we stop and look west at the pregnant base of a new updraft and developing mesocyclone on the front side of the mature supercell. Note the large, barrel-shaped mesocyclone on the west side of the complex (background).	The forward flank mesocyclone is sucking copious amounts of dirt from plowed fields as a participant tries to photograph the storm. We stopped downwind of one of the few planted fields we could find as a dust shield.	A funnel cloud, backlit by a lightning flash, forms within the wall cloud to our west.	A dust swirl  is faintly seen beneath the funnel, which condenses earthward. Note again the ominous tiered barrel cloud associated with a monster mesocyclone to the distant west. Our path to this was blocked by the river.
Narrow tapered rope tornado in progress.	The storm takes a hard right turn, moving southeasterly whereas it had been moving due east. A new tornado develops rapidly to our southwest.	The same truncated cone tornado.	A wide-angle perspective shows a smaller "satellite" funnel cloud to the upper left of the primary tornado. Time lapse video clearly shows this subsidiary vortex revolving around the primary tornado, resulting in a merger and larger subsequent tornado.
The larger tornado is strong, lofting tons of dirt in a "geyser plume".	Wider perspective of this strenghtening tornado.	Moving as far south and west as terrible dirt roads will permit us, we stop to film this large tornado.	A closer view.
The large tornado occludes, becoming wrapped in rain. We move east towards Hwy 183, intending to get much-needed fuel in Greensburg before resuming our chase. As we head east, we turn back to our southwest and film an elephant trunk tornado that has emerged from the parent storm.	Another view to our southwest of the elephant trunk tornado. This tornado emerged from the rear-flank core of the storm.	After re-fueling in Greensburg we get a report of a large tornado occurring with a new updraft southwest of town. Noting that our original storm had morphed strongly to the HP side of the spectrum we decided to give "tail end charlie" a try.	By the time we arrived, the tail end storm had a sharp anvil edge but a long shelf cloud instead of a compact, circular base. This was a dead giveaway that the storm was being undercut by cold outflow.
The storm makes an attempt to recycle northeast of the previous picture. Note the lowering and wet rear-flank downdraft (RFD) cutting into the center of the updraft base.	Heading northbound on 183 back towards Greensburg, we can see dirt surging eastward at the leading edge of the RFD. Once we entered the core of this storm, we got pelted with hail ranging between 1/2 and 1.5 inches in diameter all the way to west of Pratt!	Near Cunningham, KS our video camera captures a funnel cloud to our southwest.	The same funnel cloud.