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6-7-09
June 7th does it again! Last year it was northern Iowa, this year is was northern Kansas and Missouri. I'll be looking forward to this date every year it appears. What a chase this was. We don't always have to see tornadoes to be successful. The twister is what we are ultimately after, but storm structure is neck and neck with seeing one. This storm definitely had it!
Joel met up with me at my house around 6:30, got my things together, and we set out for Kansas. For being two states away, the drive really didn't seem that bad. Anyway, we met up with a handful of chasers at the Taco Bell in Holton, KS and watched some storms develop on radar back to our north (KS/NE border). There were two seperate cells, the northernmost one quickly going TOR warned with a healthy looking appendage. So, off we go, up north, back to where we had JUST come from.
A new tail end charlie had developed on our way north. This was it. At this point, it really, honestly did not look like it was going to do anything.
Still wasn't very impressive looking on radar at this point. After biting our nails for a little bit, we decided to try and catch up with that northern cell that was still tornado warned. After driving through the forward flank of this storm, it started to gain a bit of questionable features. After a quick look at the velocity scans, we saw a very small couplet accompanying the south side of the storm. We busted a U-turn and shot back for our cell. The forward flank now had some heavy rains and apparently golf ball size hail now. As we were stopped here (to shoot timelapse video) an older couple stopped and said they just came from town and were hit with the hail.
Same storm showing anti-cyclonic rotation. Still not too impressive looking. By this point our hopes were starting to squander a little bit.
Looking back east.
This shot is sort of funny. This should be the theme picture for the storm. Incredible features/structure, but no tornado. I like how it's saying "STOP" to that litlte bowl shaped lowering. I found it amusing anyway.
We could see it building very quickly. Little did we know it was about to go absolutely crazy. Here is the timelapsed video we took of the developing monster. It's pretty cool to see a storm materialize like it did. I just realized I forgot to mute a large chunk of the video. Whoops.
The above pic was taken after we left our spot where we sat and watched it for a while. About this time, it was taking an EXTREMELY hard right. After looking at radar data later in the night, it was taking the hardest right turn I have literally ever seen in my life. It was almost like it hit a brick wall and shot ESE at a 90 degree turn. Amazing. By doing this, however, it put us in a rather precarious position. We lost radar data for quite a while leading up to this, so we didn't see the hard right as it was happening. We were staying with the storm a while at this point, traveling along side of it as it was moving NE. All of a sudden, it shifted and started rotating like crazy, with us being directly under it. We were now in the "bear's cage". It was a rather nerve racking experience, but we would eventually find our way out of it.
Land locked by the Missouri river. It was REALLY cranking at this point and we were certain it was going to drop a tornado here. It was the tighest, fastest rotation I have seen to date. We were watching helplessly though as it was drifting off to the east and the nearest bridge to cross into MO was 25 miles to the southeast. This was in White Cloud, Kansas. It had to drop a tornado now, or we would lose it.
Wall cloud spinning like a top. Very impressive structure. Mike Hollingshead got a SWEET pic of this storm from a bit further away, showing striations and all.
Shortly before this was taken we had a one of a kind experience. We were both standing outside of the truck when we heard a big "THUD". Joel's line "that wasn't hail, was it?" will be "laughed" upon for years to come I'd imagine. I honestly didn't think anything of it, until I turned around just as a baseball size stone came crashing to the ground about 10 feet away. We busted back to the truck where I was almost sure it was going to be impaled by the large stones. INCREDIBLY, my truck was not touched by a single stone. I remember saying "my truck is DONE!", but just as I was saying that, the heavy rains came, making me feel WAY better. Shortly after this we drove further south to watch it drift away, stinging our hopes.
The RFD cut making it's way east. At times there were some decent winds embeded in there along with a dust swirl too. Hard to say if it was just RFD or something else. It was pretty apparent though that we weren't going to see a fully condensated tube of any sort from our vantage point. We actually thought our chase was over here.
Here is a "clean", muted version of the hail we encountered. The uncensored version has quite a few not-so-family-friendly words in it. When you are under a barrage of Nolan Ryan fastballs, adrenaline seems to take over.
As we started off on our 25 mile drive to the southeast, we were sort of flirting with the idea of trying to catch back up to it, but we honestly thought we didn't have another chance at it. That and even if we DID get back to it, what were the chances it would still be anything special. Well, we did catch back up to it, and it was even more impressive than before.
The picture above is blown to hell (still trying to figure out that XSi) but there are a bunch of lowerings tucked back in there. At this point, the entire sky was literally spinning above our heads. This extremely large meso and no tornado. Unbelievable.
Inflow tail. It would have been awesome to have 5 video cameras all pointing in different directions to timelapse this one. It would have been incredible.
Still spinning like a top. There were numerous ragged lowerings, but nothing. The structure alone was unreal though.
About ready to give up and head back. That guy in the red truck was freaking out. I want to say he belonged to the fire department in Maysville (where these were taken) and he was saying how much he hates these things and was really wide eyed and chatty when he was talking to us.
I REALLY should have pointed the camera the other way. This was to get an idea of how many people were out chasing this storm. This is NOTHING, trust me. All of those cars coming down the road were also chasers, but I'm sure there were quite a few of them still further back and even more to have already split off. I would pull off the side of the road, get some pics, then wait 5 minutes to pull back on the road. Talk about convergence! You would have thought there was a fireworks show or something.
Alright, now we are in Cameron, MO, where we booked a room at the Best Western for the night. We got ourselves an 18 pack since we were both "thirsty" and were just going to chill for the night. I knew I had some lightning coming, so I set up the tripod just outside of the hotel room door. I was happy to FINALLY nab my first ones of the year. I think I even remember jumping up and down after I got this one. But, this cell would eventually turn very, very interesting. It went tornado warned, showing a very strong couplet....about to pass almost directly overhead of Cameron. What are the odds of this happening TWICE?!?! This happened to us back in '07 too when we were in Salina, KS, only that time we are almost positive the tornado passed right overhead (winds sounded very eerie). That one went on to kill someone.
After reviewing pics, I found this very, very interesting feature. The time stamp on this pic correlates with when the couplet was passing overhead. I went on to get a few more lightning shots before the RFD blasted through. I should note this was looking east, storm motion right to left.
A few minutes later with some more ragged features.
Then this one right out in the field to our east. Then BAM! RFD hit us. That went on for about 10 minutes. Things subsided as the storm drifted off (eventually putting down a large tornado in Gallatin, MO). Then, from the NORTH, we were hit with an estimated 60 mph dry blast. We couldn't figure that one out. Very strange.
So, June 7th magic continues!! Below is a VERY well put together timeline that Joel came up with. He explains what was going on with each radar image in the storm's life cycle.
21:01
(4:01pmCDT)- First sign of "tail-end charlie" storm just
north of Wheaton Kansas. This storm would go on to drop gigantic hail
in northwest Missouri.
21:10 (4:10pmCDT)-
Southern storm is continuing to develop. Still
struggling against the cap, but surface CAPE near 5,000j/kg is helping
it's cause.
21:38 (4:38pmCDT)-
Southern storm has become fully established at
this point. Not severe, but showing signs of possibly becoming
supercellular. Dominant storm at this point is the storm to the
northeast over southeast Nebraska.
21:56 (4:56pmCDT)-
Southern storm is continuing to organize.
Looking even more supercellular on radar. Probably dropping marginally
severe hail at this point. Northern cell is beginning to crap out as
the southern cell rightfully becomes dominant. It has full access to
the high theta-E air to the southeast.
23:05 (6:05pmCDT)-
Southernmost cell has clearly become the
dominant cell at this point. Northern cell still impressive, but being
"choked" off from the southern cell as it intercepts the deep moisture
feed from the southeast. Right around this time the southernmost cell
decides to go absolutely crazy.
23:37 (6:37pmCDT)-
Southern cell is now a beast. This is about the
time we were getting slammed with baseball to softball sized hail
spitting out the backside of the updraft on the Missouri River in
extreme northeast Kansas. This is shortly after the storm dug in like
an Alabama tick and kicked east-southeast in it's movement.
01:06
(8:06pmCDT)- Probably the peak of this INCREDIBLE supercell.
Just look at that radar signature. At this point the storm had an
incredibly large mesocyclone. From our vanatage point near Maysville
Missouri the whole western sky was rotating. Very large hail was still
falling in it's core. Not too far from Maysville a report of baseball
to softball sized hail falling for 10 minutes was received.
03:42 (10:42pmCDT)-
Tornado warned supercell over Cameron Missouri
where we had decided to stop for the night. Little did we know when we
acquired our hotel that evening that a tornado would develop nearly
overhead as the storm gathered strength and pushed northeast. A large
tornado was reported just northeast of us shortly after this radar
image. We experienced interesting shifting winds and strong wind gusts
as the couplet passed overhead.
Bill Doms caught an interesting feature on his account from the day. Looks like he may have himself a weak tornado. http://www.mnwxchaser.com/09june07.html
Bill Doms caught an interesting feature on his account from the day. Looks like he may have himself a weak tornado. http://www.mnwxchaser.com/09june07.html
Other chase reports from the day:
Bob Hartig
Dustin Wilcox
Adam Lucio (incredible A-bomb updraft shots!!)
Ben Holcomb
Simon Brewer
Chris Collura
Dean Baron
Danny Neal
Brian Thalken