June 01, 2003 Eastern Colorado/Western Kansas Squall Line

We wound up viewing a fairly photogenic shelf cloud as we got chased across Kansas by a severe squall line that, at times, became haboob-like in its ferocity.

Meteorology:

For now, I'll just leave it at this: the models lied to me. The ETA model promised that a mid-tropospheric wind maximum would translate southeastward into the high plains of Colorado/Kansas in phase with the diurnal peak in insolation. In reality, mid-level winds were really lame, resulting in shear profiles that were too weak to support supercells. Weak convective inhibition and a fairly well-mixed boundary layer resulted in too many storms that (after briefly producing weak landspouts near Arapahoe, CO) generated a big cold pool that subsequently forced a fast-moving squall line. We were able to punch eastward and get ahead of the line at Syracuse, letting it chase us all the way to Dodge City, KS.

No sooner had we busted east of the convective line than did we begin observing numerous gustnadoes.	Southern edge of the shelf cloud is awesome.	Northern side.	Leading edge.
A lowering becomes evident beneath an updraft turret (not shown) rocketing upwards above the leading edge of the shelf cloud.	Zoomed in shot of the lowering (just in case ;)	SLT participants take it all in.	A view of the approaching storm from the parking lot of the Dodge City, KS NWS office. The shelf cloud exhibits multiple layers (tiers). Just like a cake!
A view of the shelf cloud looming over the WSR-88D radar dome at DDC NWS.