After five days back home in Los Angeles, I flew back to DFW on June 5th. The 6th was spent driving from Arlington to Oklahoma City. I left my vehicle there, hopped into Brian’s SUV, and continued to Dodge City. I had to be in Denver by the 8th to meet a private chase tour, and in the back of my mind I was thinking about a chase on the 7th in Kansas. I didn’t want to wind up too far from Denver late on the 7th, though.
There was a slight risk for severe weather in NW and NC Kansas on the 7th. I dilly-dallied north out of Dodge City midday, and killed time at a park in Wakeeney. Here I am waiting around for storms in the bright sunshine. I guess I’m chasing today, whether I like it or not. Towering cumulus developed just to my southeast, south and southwest. Eventually, a strong, slow-moving storm materialized north of Hays, and I got east of it. This chase was an old-fashioned type of chase, as I had no radar information and was relying on visual clues and NOAA wx-radio. I had quickly checked the SPC outlook late in the morning, but nothing else online this day. It was somewhat reminiscent of June 9, 2005, when I chased solo and without radar, Internet, GPS, etc., in the same area of NW and NC KS, north of I-70. I saw several tornadoes three years ago on that day.
The storm I was on turned supercellular and moved to the northeast, through a region called the Blue Hills. Or is it singular (see the old schoolhouse photos)? The scenery was nice, with rolling green hills and river valleys. There were also zero favorable paved roads available which would keep me close to the storm, so I took advantage of the SUV and remained on the gravel road network between Hays and Alton for a couple of hours. The storm had a great look with a persistent wall cloud for an hour or so as it approached Alton. The tornado-warned cell seemed to sit over Alton for an extended period. I was several miles south of Alton and observing a tight, wrapped-up area a mile or two to my northeast. The cell was trying hard to tornado, but could not. Meanwhile, I was trying to get in front of the action area, but could not. I was in hook-echo precip behind the wall cloud, and nervous about continuing north into Alton (and my east option), as heavier precip and probably hail lurked between me and Alton. I was in Brian’s new SUV, and didn’t want to present it back to him in less-than-pristine condition. The cell finally drifted northeast enough to allow me to get into Alton and east towards Osborne unscathed. A beautiful laminar-sided spaceship updraft with a large wall cloud continued a few miles north of U.S. 24, and I was seeing some other chasers for the first time all day! I went north out of Osborne on 281, a mile or so north of where 24 continues east to Downs. The cell still looked great, and suddenly a huge blob of precip began to descend from the updraft base. “Great, it’s turning HP,” I muttered to myself. The heavy precip was closing in on me, and I was forced back south and east on 24 towards Downs.
As I continued east, I was thinking “Let’s get well east of this thing for some great structure shots!” That line of thinking was cut short. Another significant lowering quickly developed a couple of miles to my north-northwest, and a narrow funnel cloud spun downward. I stopped after another mile in time to get some tripodded video of a nice slender black tornado against a gray background. It didn’t last more than another minute, and that was the tornado show for the day for this storm, as far as I know! I’ll post video stills of the tornado sometime!
I tried for nearly an hour to capture some of the sporadic lightning with the cell at dusk, and failed miserably. I tried to get north to my west option, U.S. 36 at Lebanon, but a tornado-warned cell was in my path. I sat and waited a bit, with a nice view of the RFD notch in the fading light. Finally, the cell moved on and I reached U.S. 36 and blasted west towards Denver. I tried to find motels in several towns along U.S. 36, but there was no vacancy (or the owners weren’t interested in answering the door bell after 11 p.m.). I got to my sister’s house in Littleton at 3:30 a.m. The long drives are a bit easier after you’ve seen a tornado.
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