April 15th brought us to southern Kansas for what appeared on paper to be a respectable set up. A strong capping inversion would prevent storms for sustaining themselves until stronger forcing would arrive from the west. Finally by early evening a storm formed and intensified west of Protection. It had decent structure, huge hail and was tornado warned for an hour.
Check out this time lapse from this supercell:
July 15th had big potential. An outflow boundary lay across the Kansas/Colorado border area by early afternoon. A cold front intersected that boundary near Cheyenne Wells, CO. Deep moisture, strong shear and high instability formed along and east of the boundary. By 2pm a severe storm formed and quickly became supercellular. It tracked due south right along the outflow boundary. We encountered huge hail the size of baseballs to softballs near Arapahoe, Colorado. Fortunately we did not lose any windows. We dropped south and had to stay on the western side of the storm where very hot and dry air was being entrained in the supercell creating a violent downdraft with intense blowing dirt and 90 mph winds. Finally at Granada, CO we were able to go east and get into the better moisture. As our storm gusted out, another storm formed on the boundary and ingested 84/70 air! A lowering quickly formed and within 20 minutes started rotating. A truncated cone funnel formed and dissipated 5 minutes later. We were right in the path of the mesocyclone. We moved a mile east and stopped. Rotation dramatically increased and soon a tapered white funnel formed. Another one formed and wrapped around the larger one. The larger funnel touched down and became a stout stovepipe tornado. It widened into a large cone. I couldn’t believe my eyes! Was this May or July? This was the largest July tornado I had ever witnessed in Kansas. The tornado moved south with a large debris cloud and after 19 minutes, roped out. It was quite the sight to see! An absolutely amazing day for the Great North Tornado Hunt tour again!
July 13th was the second great day for the Great North Tornado Hunt tour. We started the day in Wichita. Extreme heat and instability would form that afternoon with temperatures near 100F and dewpoints in the upper 70s. Cells tried to form for a couple hours along a dryline/outflow boundary composite, and finally by around 5pm a significant supercell formed just west of Arkansas City, KS. This storm quickly became severe for large hail to tennisball size. As it continued to intensify, it moved due south towards northern Oklahoma near Peckham. This storm was a striated beast. It had continuous lightning, huge hail to baseball sized, and a wall cloud that spun like crazy. By mid evening, the storm weakened as it merged with other cells to its west, and eventually lined out moving into central Oklahoma. One of my favorite nontornadic chases of 2016!
May 24th had the best of both worlds. As Photo Tour #1 went to Colorado for its rewards, Tour #4 had a special day along an outflow boundary south of Dodge City. As Tour #4 moved north out of Oklahoma, hard cumulus towers formed along the boundary near Minneola. Soon, a storm emerged from these towers and would become an intense tornadic supercell as it drifted north towards Dodge city and spun like crazy. It took it awhile to really get going good, but when it did, a huge wall cloud formed, and started spinning wildly. The first of a dozen tornadoes would form of every shape, size and intensity, and at some point as many as 3 tornadoes were on the ground at the same time. Dodge city eventually came under a tornado emergency as a large multivortex tornado hit the west side of town. As the supercell moved north of town, many other storms formed and eventually turned into a huge cluster of severe storms that moved across Kansas. As that happened, we left the storm and went to Garden City for the night. An amazing day, with a dozen tornadoes from this storm and the fact both of our tours capitalized on the days potential was even more special!
May 21st was the first day in a period that would be the best of 2016. This day featured a triple point over western Kansas, as well as good shear, strong instability and decent moisture. Storms appeared they would form on the HP side of thing and they sure did. The triple point and warm front lit up like crazy mid afternoon, and the tail end storm would become the storm of the day. Anchored at the triple point, this supercell would cycle many times and each time get prettier and prettier. It produced a couple weak, short lived tornadoes in its lifetime, but the story of the day was the storm’s structure. It was a sculpted twisting, turning supercell, easily the prettiest of the year. Each updraft that formed at the triple point would be ingested into the main storm’s updraft, proving a fresh poof of warm moist air for the cell to feed on. Helicity was quite strong in this beast and I was actually surprised it did not produce a significant tornado.
By mid evening, the storm was running out of available instability, and it started to weaken. Right at sunset it was quite pretty, with a liberty bell appearance and tons of lightning. Finally just after dark it died off, and the skies calmed for the night. This would be short lived as the next day proved to be quite volatile a bit further south in Texas.
July 19th took us to southeast Colorado and southwestern Kansas. Although the set up wasn’t stellar by any means, there was enough shear, instability and moisture to support severe storms, including supercells. Mid afternoon south of Seibert, CO a supercell formed and tracked southeast. It eventually merged into a line of storms with embedded supercell structures as they marched all the way to Garden City, Kansas. Near the town of Tribune, Kansas on cell in the line spun pretty strongly and produced 80 mph winds, baseball hail and even a funnel cloud. This was a nice way to wrap up the Great North Tornado Hunt tour as the guests got to see a little bit of everything on this tour!
June 11th had issues, but still produced some nice storms. Marginal moisture, but decent shear overlaid eastern Colorado. By mid afternoon storms formed along a boundary that stretched across east central and southeast Colorado. One particular supercell tracked along the boundary from north of LaJunta to far southeast Colorado. It struggled to stay on the moist side of the boundary occasionally, but managed to be quite a prolific hail producer. Never a real threat to produce a tornado, it did however manage to produce several short lived funnels. By early evening a cluster of storms formed south of Lamar. A tail end storm became a powerful supercell and was tornado warned for a couple hours. Visually it was stunning with constant rotation under the updraft. Two tornado reports came in, however they were not validated. As the supercell tracked into southwest Kansas, it became an outflow dominant storm and produced significant winds.
June 4th had high potential. When Tour 5 and Photo Tour #2 awoke in the morning we felt we had to get into northern Kansas. A very volatile environment was present with 70 dew points, 5000 CAPE, strong shear and lift along an outflow boundary. There ended up being a few very beautiful supercell storms form in northwest and north central Kansas by early evening. Their structure was top notch, lightning superb and hail huge. Both tours enjoyed the long opportunity to photograph, video and just watch the storms as they spun across northern and central Kansas.
A complicated scenario was unfolding this day. Chase well north along the warm front or play south on the nose of the dry punch. We chose the latter. By mid afternoon storms exploded freely in the warm sector and produced a few tornadoes. We intercepted one tornadic storm near Goddard, Kansas, followed by a beautiful supercell near Renfrow, Oklahoma. Fun and exciting day for everyone!
Day Three of Close Encounters had good potential in Texas and Kansas. We chose to chase the triple point near Hays. The first tornado warned storm formed right near Hays and failed to produce. A second storm formed just northeast and became the storm off the day. We witnessed a couple brief tornadoes (although one we couldn’t get a visual on actually was fairly significant!) and watched the superb structure of this supercell as it traversed the warm front of hours!
