High Plains Drifter

Jay Antle, Jim Leonard and I started the day in Amarillo and intercepted an LP supercell that formed west of Amarillo on June 11th that almost produced a tornado several times as it approached Amarillo. We had to get on the northeast side of the city to view the storm from a distance, but it ultimately became undercut by outflow… saving the city from a potential disaster scenario… as the wall cloud was hovering over the west part of Amarillo. After some indecisiveness…whether to chase our original supercell or the southern Happy-Wayside, TX supercell…Matt Crowther broke off and chased the southern storm. The southern storm produced a few tornadoes, but nothing really photogenic. We ended our chase south of Canyon after we made a futile effort to chase the backside of the southern storm. We came back to Amarillo after the chase for the night. Pictures will be uploaded later.

Mike

This was to be "the big day" that ultimately became "the big dud". SPC forecast a Day 2 Moderate Risk for the 11th, and from this and other forecasters… the hype for this day was very high. The lack of a cap and the presence of strong "forcing" coming out of New Mexico allowed storms to go up everywhere by high-noon. A bunch of crap storms developed from Amarillo south to Lubbock. Jay and I, along with Matt C and Jim L targetted the Clovis, NM area for renewed development on the backside of this early complex, as some moisture was sneaking around the backside to the west along the TX/NM border. Ultimately, the new storms that did develop, quickly became undercut but the outflow from the previous big complex. We were, however, able to squeeze out a brief supercell thunderstorm on the southern end of the new northwestern TX Panhandle complex as it approached Amarillo. The storm had that green look to it signifying large hail, and even had a very impressive, ominous looking wall cloud. I’m glad we were at least able to salvage something out of this day.

This morning, June 11th, we are in Amarillo, with a target probably not too far from here in mind. We are also toying with the idea of Baca County, CO as well for a potential chase target.

Mike

June 9th… Wow… okay, this was the most frustrating chase I think Jay and I have ever had in which we did see a tornado… a fairly decent one, too. We, along with Matt Crowther and Jim Leonard, intercepted the Trego County tornadic supercell as it approached I-70 between Wakeeney and Ellis. The tornado developed southwest of our location on the Interstate (our location was just east of interchange 140, the Riga Interchange). From our vantage point, the tornado was a slender cone at times, with "okay" contrast. Jim, on the other hand, drove west further and got incredible video of the tornado approaching the interstate with multiple suction spots.

Our group missed out completely on the Hill City to Stockton significant tornadic supercell that produced a myriad of tornadoes. This was more or less a mis-forecast target on our part, even though we had supercells developing in our target area around McCook. We were distracted by these less-than-significant storms, which delayed our arrival to the real show farther south and southeast. Ahh well, such is chasing… at least we saw a great tornadic supercell, though! The tornado that we saw that crossed the interstate was not too far at all from the Ogallah, KS event back on April 10th that I was on. My 2nd Trego County, KS tornado day of 2005!

After the chase, we all stayed in Dodge City… and departed the next morning for June 10th chase in the TX Panhandle. I left my compact flash card reader at home in Dodge, so I’m sorry I don’t have any photos uploaded at this time of the Trego County storm. I got some great images of the very menacing wall cloud bearing down on west-bound traffic on I-70.

Mike

Oh my gosh what a day in South Dakota. Jay, Matt, and I watched a gorgeous supercell thunderstorm develop in the southeastern part of Badlands Nat’l Park. The storm moved slowly northeast and revealed some of the most amazing barrell updraft structure I’ve ever seen. To top it off, the storm produced a 5-6 minute tornado near Potato Creek south of the Badlands. Amazing day with lots of chasers around. Not much time for more detail, but a few photos are posted below. Jay and I are in Chamberlain, SD this morning and plan to head southwest into northeastern Colorado to setup for tomorrow; the beginning of another possible incredible stretch of supercells and tornadoes.

Mike

Matt C, Jay A, and I observed the Ekalaka supercell/tornadoes from inception from the south. Our chase route was the state route #323 from Alzada, which was a beautiful drive watching the atmospheric convection unfold. Ultimately, the storm we had monitored to our due west for the longest time during our drive north… took its vitamins and became an incredibly sculpted supercell updraft with large, menacing wall cloud to the southwest of Ekalaka. We approached Ekalaka and upon arrival noticed the first tornado, a slender trunk with full condensation to the ground for like 15-25 seconds or so. This tornado dissipated, and we continued to the north side of town on hwy #7.

We watched the next two tornadoes from this vantage point. The 2nd was a slender truncated cone about 1/2 to the ground… then as the tornado cyclone continued to stretch, the next tornado was more or less a large truncated cone. We could not discern any debris cloud, but our observations certainly indicated that this was a tornado. Roger Hill saw some brief debris clouds, apparently, as his group observed from farther north on #7. We had no good options east so we blasted north to Baker where we ran into Roger and his tour group and also Adam Houston. It was good to see you guys! The complex became linear with a few embedded mesos/notches until the whole thing became more or less a big bow thing on approach to Bowman, ND. Great structure day with our first Montana tornadoes!

Supercell thunderstorm southwest of Ekalaka, MT

Tornado looking west-northwest from the northside of Ekalaka, MT

Beautiful supercell updraft with truncated cone tornado in the background

Photos at http://www.underthemeso.com/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=2005jun06

This morning Jay, Matt, and I are in Spearfish, SD at the same motel and the same room as we were at last night. Looks like we will be heading east and slightly south of here today for more fun in southern SD/far northern NEB?

Well, Jay and I have our seemingly annual high-risk bust out of the way. We left Lawrence around noon for a target near Wichita. Things looked great for supercell thunderstorms, the shear profiles looked good and the instability was very good. Storms formed quickly after 3pm or so and I think there were too many storms oriented along the shear vector such that competition for discrete long-lived supercells was fierce… there was just too much storm interaction and anvil seeding. We caught a storm that went up fast near Augusta, but it was moving into the water-logged Flint Hills so we had to abandon the storm. Other storms went up near Winfield and Ark City but they had the same problems. There were a couple of tornadoes reported out of all this activity in eastern KS on the 4th, but the most impressive event, by far, was way up north in Brown County, KS. Jay and I didn’t even really consider that far northeast in our morning forecast. This event was only an hour and a half drive from Lawrence! Storm chaser Mike Peregrine documented a long-lived, beautiful tornado out of this storm which was very classic and high-contrast. Congrats Mike!

Here is a shot of a shear funnel near Arkansas City, KS:

Jay and I are in Salina this morning, the 5th, and will be making the long drive along with Matt Crowther (who we will meet up in Grand Island or so) to the western Dakotas for what looks to be a decent several days of chasing coming up beginning Monday.

Mike U