Tag Archives | june 18

June 18th Kalvesta, Kansas Tornadoes

June 18th featured a stationary boundary draped across southwest Kansas. Dewpoints in the 60s and temps in the 90s, as well as the wind shift along the boundary would set the stage for not only landspout tornadoes, but also supercells forming and anchoring along the boundary. We intercepted one such storm that produced a landspout in its formation stage, followed by a legitimate supercell with a strong velocity couplet that lead to a 10 minute long tornado. The structure became quite nice and the storm was incredibly electrified! At one point a lightning strike produced a fire on wheat fields that were ready to be harvested. A very unfortunate incident for the local farmers. We then dropped south to just north of Cimarron where we encountered another strongly developing mesocyclone that produced a tapered cone funnel with a brief circulation. Many thanks to our guest, Leann Yamanaka for the pics of that funnel/circulation from beside the van! Finally, south of Liberal, Kansas a very photogenic supercell emerged from a cluster of cells at sunset and produced absolutely gorgeous mammatus clouds. Enjoy the pics!

Check out this cool video from that day!

https://youtu.be/mef65EQuBMs