A big day was in store for Kansas. Supercells with tornadoes were possible as a combination of wind shear, moisture and instability were present with an approaching trough. By mid afternoon the dryline sharpened and soon cumulus towers formed. A cluster of storms had formed northeast of McPherson and the tail end storm started spinning. One small tornado formed as the cell moved north towards the warm front. As it approached it, other storms started forming on an advancing cold front and also became severe. We decided to leave the first storm as storm mergers made things too messy. As we blasted south towards Wichita, a landspout tornado formed underneath an updraft in the line and stayed on the ground for 12 minutes. When is dissipated, when then turned our attention to a supercell near Wichita. It had just spawned the Andover tornado and continued to cycle and become tornadic again near El Dorado. We blasted down to town, now in the dark and headed east towards the supercell’s updraft base. Quickly a tapered cone tornado formed and became visible through power flashes and lighting. It crossed the road in front of us and dissipated. Another one formed within a couple minutes and stabbed down to the ground and lifted. We continued to drift east with the storm and turned north at Rosalia. As we did a massive bowl formed and dropped to the ground! A wedge type tornado formed with multiple vortices. We got blasted with RFD winds wrapping around the tornado and had to vacate the area. As we continued east the tornado lifted as a line of storms merged with it ending the tornado threat. A crazy day with 5 tornadoes! Enjoy the pics!
April 28th North Central Kansas Supercells
April 28th looked good in terms of shear and a boundary for storms to form on. However, moisture was quite marginal. A supercell would form near Alma, Nebraska by mid afternoon and intensify while drifting southward along the residual boundary. It had decent structure and was also very electrified. The tornado threat was very small due to higher cloud bases, but by evening the bases would lower as low level moisture would increase. It never did produce a tornado, but certainly had everything else going for it. Late evening it was still active as it dropped up to a foot of rain and hail 6 inches deep. A fun day for Tour 2! Enjoy the pics!
April 27th Southwest Kansas Surprise Beautiful Supercell
Certainly not expecting much this day as moisture was greatly lacking with dewpoints only near 50F. Shear was good and there was a boundary present as a weak cold front was drifting southeast through the area. Numerous high based storms formed and didn’t do a whole lot, but finally one formed southwest of Dodge City, Kansas and started getting organized. A severe thunderstorm warning was issued and soon the storm developed a nice circular rotating base and vault region with copious amounts of hail falling out of it to the size of tennisballs! The storm persisted for a few hours and was eventually overtaken by a line of storms that formed along the advancing front. The structure of this high based supercell was quite impressive and it was also a lightning machine! We hope you enjoy the pics!
April 23rd Mustang, OK Tornadic Supercell
April 23rd was a day that had decent potential with a lingering boundary in central Oklahoma, decent moisture and moderate deep layer shear. Storms formed along the boundary by mid afternoon and struggled to intensify initially. Finally a couple supercells emerged from the cluster of storms and tracked east. One supercell near Mustang, OK became tornado warned due to strong rotation. We could see the wet rear flank downdraft wrap around the base where a tail cloud was feeding into it. You could see the strong rotation easily as it approached our location. An EF0 and EF1 tornado occurred but was completely rain wrapped and not visible. As the storm moved east across the Oklahoma City metro, it maintained its intensity. If there had been a little better moisture and shear, those weak tornadoes would have been much stronger. They dodged a bullet fortunately! We stayed with the storm through sunset when things weakened due to the cap increased and weakened the storms. A good day and fortunately no significant damage in town! Enjoy the pics!!!
April 21st Southwest Kansas Tornado Warned Supercell
Tour 1, Close Encounters started off the tour season with a bang! On arrival day, we blasted to southwest Kansas near Coldwater and caught a pretty LP supercell spinning like crazy! It became tornado warned early evening and tried to produce a funnel. It did not produce any tornadoes. The prettiest thing about this storm were the sunset colors lightning up the underside of the anvil and mammatus clouds. A great start to the official 2022 tour season! Enjoy the pics!
April 12th, 2022 Gilmore City, Iowa Strong Tornado
April 12th had a lot going for it. The problem was there were two clear targets. Play the better moisture, but less shear in central Texas, or play the warm front with a bit less moisture but better shear in Iowa. We started the morning in Oklahoma City and made the decision at 6am to head to Iowa, while looking over our shoulder at Texas. At the end of the day, both targets produced strong tornadoes! As we headed north it became pretty clear that the warm front was going to be our target with a strong theta-e axis slamming into it, instead of playing the triple point back northwest of Omaha. That decision was a good one as by mid afternoon, the warm front lit up with intense storms, some of which were supercells.
We had over a 500 mile trip to get into position and we made it by minutes! We stopped in Dakota City for fuel quickly and then headed west, to just east of Gilmore City. The supercell became tornado warned as we left Dakota City. So, with storm motion showing 50 mph plus, we positioned ourselves about 6-10 miles down wind of the storm, figuring it would take a few minutes for it to become tornadic. It sure didn’t wait long! I wish we would have gone a couple more miles south to get closer, but as the tornado formed, we decided to stay put so as not to miss any of it and thought it would come very close to us. The models showed the potential of long tracked tornadoes, however this one dissipated as it came about a mile to our west. We stayed with the supercell for awhile as it became very messy and hp in nature. Eventually we blew it off, as we knew we had to be in Arkansas the next day, and stopped to watch an electrified storm on the way to our hotel.
Great day, beautiful storms and fortunately there were no injuries or fatalities from the tornadoes! Enjoy the pics!
April 11th, 2022 Talihina, Oklahoma Tornado
We couldn’t resist running an on call tour during the week of April 11th. We gathered the guests early in the morning and departed Denver, headed for southeastern Oklahoma. Tough countryside to chase in with the Ouachita and Kiamichi mountains providing plenty of obstacles. However the set up would too good on paper to resist making the 850 miles trek there! High dewpoints, high CAPE, strong shear and a lingering boundary would provide all the ingredients needed for supercells. As we blasted there, about 120 miles out a supercell formed, earlier than models showed, and moved slowly eastward through Ft Smith, Arkansas. Knowing there was no way to catch it, we set our sights on another storm southwest of there. As we approached , it became better organized and soon became severe. We dropped south at Sallisaw, OK toward Poteau and it was evident we needed to get even further southwest to cut in front of this now tornado warned supercell. Coming over the mountains near Talimena State Park, we got a glimpse of a huge block shaped wall cloud. As we approached Talihina, we stopped to watch it wrap up. Within a few minutes it dropped a tapered cone tornado.
Not wanting to let is go through the mountains, we followed it eastward as radar continued to show a massive hook echo, often indicative of a potential tornado. We ended up the Talimena Scenic Drive, which is a stunning high road with views of the mountains at many places. We were on top at 2000 ft with a view of a massive wall cloud to our north and several cg lightning strikes. We stayed with the storm for another hour as sunset came and darkness ensued. We let the storm go as it was steadily weakening and heading into Arkansas. A fantastic chase, caught our first tornado of the year, and was reminded just how difficult it is chasing in the mountains of eastern OK/western AR! Enjoy the pics!