July 19th Western Kansas Severe Storm

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 Southeast Colorado Supercell

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 Kansas Tornado Warned Supercells

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.

May 6th Southern Kansas/Oklahoma Tornadic Supercells

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!

April 24th Northern Kansas Tornadic Supercell

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!

April 11th Southwest Kansas Tornado Warned Supercell

We got to chase close to home on April 11th, with storms developing in southeast Colorado off the Raton Mesa. As they moved east into southwest Kansas, deeper moisture and increasing instability resulted in an intense supercell forming which produced baseball sized hail and had incredible inflow winds. It came close to producing a tornado as well before diminishing after dark.

July 18, 2014 – Western Kansas Tornadic Supercell

An amazing supercell with a landspout tornado was witnessed this day. We started the day in Denver and didn’t have far to go as storms exploded along a dryline/outflow boundary intersection in northwest Kansas. Good shear, moisture and instability allowed a rare mid July supercell to develop. We were on this storm from the time it was a towering cumulus cloud. The structure was fantastic. It also became quite electrified as it right turned due south towards Goodland, Kansas. By dark it was sparking away and still going. This storm also produced baseball sized hail along its path!

June 27, 2014 – Southwest Kansas Supercell and Landspout Tornado

June 27th had decent potential with a dryline extending along the Kansas/Colorado border, with moisture pooling east of it. Moisture however never did get very deep and the result was large temperature and dewpoint spreads resulting in high cloud bases. However with steep lapse rates in place and developing storms along the boundary, a decent supercell formed with a weak landspout in its initial stages. We got what we figured we would with this set up and everyone was excited with the results!

May 11, 2014 – Southern Nebraska Tornadofest

What can be said of this day! Caryn ran a private tour and this was one of the final days, and an amazing event it was! A warm front lay across southern Nebraska, while a dryline extended south from the surface low. By late afternoon several storms formed north of the warm front in the cold air where there was not a capping inversion in place. Finally the triple point storm formed, and rapidly became severe. It didn’t take long for the supercell to nearly anchor and become violently tornadic. It produced several tornadoes, including a huge wedge near the town of Sutton, Nebraska. It also produced numerous tornadoes Caryn and the tour were able to witness, of about every shape and size imaginable! Roger was in Oklahoma City with a new tour arriving this day and managed to run north into Kansas and capture a couple very pretty supercells, one of which likely produced a brief tornado.

June 27th Central Kansas Supercell

June 27th was an interesting day. Although dewpoints were in the low to mid 70s, temperatures were around 105F! Tons of instability was present, and storms exploded once the cap was breached northwest of Salina. Extremely high winds occurred, as well as hail to golfball sized, but storms congealed into a bowing line as they raced south towards Wichita. Nonetheless, one particular supercell gave us a pretty nice show and had decent structure as well as great lightning.

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