High Plains Drifter

I targetted the area from Salina to Concordia, KS for the development of supercell thunderstorms by early afternoon April 6th. I left Dodge City around 10:30am and set out for the Ellsworth, KS area. When I approached Kinsley, however, I decided to continue heading due east towards Stafford instead of northeast towards Great Bend. The short-fuse composite was suggesting first initiation would occur just a bit farther south than I had thought. I loafed around Quivira NWR for a little while when towering Cu were developing to my south around noon. I then decided to go to Lyons to top off the tank and await development. Well, things were happening fairly fast, and I never did make it to Lyons. I filled up in Nickerson and at this time a fresh storm was already underway southwest of Hutchinson. This was my target storm.

I headed south to South Central Reno County with this view looking south. The anvil edge was crisp and I thought I was in business. Storm motion was northeast at around 45 mph and I was driving south around 65 mph so I was vectoring in at a solid 110mph! This is a problem though. It is very tricky with such fast storm motion because you can easily overshoot your storm, believe it or not, especially when it’s in the organization stages like this storm was. I reached the updraft portion of the storm in no time, somewhere southeast of Arlington. The updraft base was rather pathetic looking with little organization. I think this initial updraft croaked and the storm was reorganizing when I finally got down there. After farting around with some technical difficulties with power to my laptop, I was rapidly falling behind. I had to get back north in a hurry. I did recover… but a new well-developed Cumulonimbus (Cb) was visible to my north-northwest about 25 miles away. Not that far away, but even at this distance, it would be nearly impossible to intercept. Never fear though, new hard towers were developing to my immediate west. I followed these towers north to ~7 W McPherson.

This elongated area of towers eventually evolved into a storm just west of McPherson, but it took awhile for this area to congeal into one big storm. I reached I-135 at McPherson and continued to follow this storm north. The storm was now beginning to look a bit better with a rain-free base area with a hint of a lowering to my west. At Exit #78 I got off the interstate (Hwy 104) with this view shortly after getting off the interstate looking west-northwest from a location about 2 miles north of Assaria (~7 S Salina). The updraft area of the storm was taking on a much better organized structure and I figured I was in business. Problem: a fairly large city to deal with in Salina. I was off the interstate by this point and I was banking on enough of an eastward component in the storm motion to warrant being a bit farther east. Another view looking west from just south of Salina.

The storm was rapidly evolving into what was looking like a high-precip supercell (view looking southwest). Looking west towards Salina. I navigated through Salina on the far southeast part of town so as to limit stop & go as much as possible. I went east on Magnolia road to finally get far enough ahead of the storm to get some better structure. A critical decision making point was coming up: do I stick with this storm and blast north or do I try and catch the next storm developing to my south. I was not liking the “wet” look to the Salina storm. At the same time, though, the best observable updraft structure was rapidly departing my view and it was more difficult for me to interpret what was really going on with the Salina storm. The best views were to the northeast of the storm. I was now rapidly becoming southeast of the storm. More shots of the structure looking northeast (1, 2, 3) from ~6 E Salina. Here’s a look to the northeast… my last look at the storm now rapidly moving away from me. This is the last good look I had at this storm as it was now approaching Manchester. When I took this photo, I realized I was probably making a mistake letting this storm go. This little bit of hesitation is extremely costly on fast-moving days. The storm produced its first tornado not too long after this shot apparently… and went on to produce tornadoes for the next couple hours near Clay Center to near the Nebraska state line around Hanover.

My focus was now on new development upstream. A formidable looking storm with a beautiful anvil was off to my southwest rapidly approaching. I sat at a location ~5 S Solomon watching this for about 15 to 20 minutes. Meanwhile, another more significant storm was taking shape to my southeast moving up in my general direction to the east. I drove to Abilene where I topped off the tank and continued got on I-70 where I blasted east to Junction City where radar indicated the storm would cross the intestate. On the east side of Junction City, I got off I-70 at exit #298 with the storm to my immediate SSW. It was another wet looking storm with a quiescent looking wall cloud on the northeast side heading for me fast. This would be the last time I would be ahead of this storm. I decided I wanted to get some “backside structure” so I went back into town in Junction City. Got off on exit #296 in town with this view just a few short moments later. This portion of the storm had a decent amount of low level circulation as noted by the edge of the rain curtains rotating around in a cyclonically fashion. This circulation crossed I-70 just a couple miles to the east… right where I was previously located. Good thing I left! I snuck up on this area of the storm by following it on I-70 back east again. It looked insanely dark just up the road and I was getting some quarter to almost golfball size hail on the interstate as I approached Fort Riley.

At the Fort Riley exit #301, I pulled off and watched the backside of the storm. Sometimes the backside of these storms are more picturesque than the front! I photographed the back of this storm for about 20 minutes or so, including some of the hail that remained on the ground at the Fort Riley base. Backside of the storm looking east-northeast from Fort Riley: 1 | 2 | 3

It was around 5:30 or 5:45 by this time and I had to head back home, as I was due in to work at 11pm for my next shift. On my way home, I photographed a few picturesque virga showers around the Great Bend area: 1 | 2 | 3

All in all, it was a fun chase, my first supercells of 2006. I’m a little bummed I missed out on the Clay Center to Hanover tornadoes with the storm I was initially on, but that’s the way it goes with storm chasing sometimes. Another setup very similar to this one, with maybe one or two other subtle things different in the atmosphere, and the storm could have produced tornadoes from McPherson to Salina and I would have been there to document them. Onward.

Photo Gallery >>
http://www.underthemeso.com/gallery2/stormchase/chase06/2006apr06/