Synopsis:
I left for this storm chase during the mid afternoon hours for a Dighton, KS target. The first storm of intercept was near the Ness City area, and I continued to drop south to catch the southernmost cell of the cluster of storms. The southernmost storm was drifting slowly southwest, so I decided to navigate a dirt road west of Highway 283 in northwestern Hodgeman County. I photographed storm structure including a few lightning flashes. I then photographed what appeared to be a distant landspout type tornado at around 7:15pm CDT, but upon further review, I am not so sure, as it could have been a concentrated pllume of smoke being lifted upward near the supercell updraft. I observed no less than 5 separate grass/wheat stubble fires from the insane amount of anvil lightning that was occurring well away from the primary storm. The supercell became involved in an advancing squall line, and I followed this east back to Highway 283 near Jetmore. South of Jetmore, I photographed the largest of the grass fires I would observe, which was just east of the highway at around 8:15pm. |
